What have you done to your 5th Gen 4Runner today?

Great pic

 

Sweet looking ride

 

Seems to be no shortage of deer

 

You might look into Gaia maps or Avenza maps for you Android or Iphone.
Real handy for using off road. Avenza is free. Both work without using your phones data.

Then look for the Motor Vehicle Use Map (MVUM) this will show you all the legal off road trails in nearby National Forests.

General link to all 50 states - MVUM:
https://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/ohv/ohv_maps.shtml

Lastly there are a lot of facebook groups that off road / overland. Best to follow someone that knows the trail. You can learn a bit from what lines they take.

I see you're a fellow Missourian, join the Show Me State Overland facebook group. Also I co-lead the Mark Twain Mafia group on facebook. Check us out we're off road almost every weekend.

 

I somewhat finished up my diy 3/4 roof rack today. I think it will fit my needs. Very light in weight and I believe I have less than $300 into it

 

Love the wheels and tires! they look good, I am not a fan of the blue but to each his own
Overall nice truck!

 

Ran up to beehive lake/reserrvoir for a couple of hours of fishing with my niece and her family. No fish but didn't get skunked! (Had fun!)

 

Installed Dobinsons lift with JBA UCAs today.

 

Haters gonna hate.

 

Looks great

 

I’ve been thinking about getting one of those

 

If you have the budget for it, you won’t be disappointed. Deff increases Smiles per gallon. Lol.

 

Gotcha. Been waiting on mine forever

 

Finally got some pics!!

 

Pulled out my furamax with the runner. Wife had it so I got bored and drunk and took the dialysis out the trails

 

Yesterday was the first time I took out the 4runner where 4x4 and locker was necessary. It was at a friends property, the back 40 of his farm. We had been warned about bogs that would swallow those farm tractors with the monster truck tires

Well, guess what? My passanger side found the bog!!!



This got buried so quickly past it’s axles! Dangit! I knew the bog was close, but I lost track of where I was. I barely tried to rock it out and it sunk. Turns out, it was basically an 8-12 inch mat of organic crap and mud floating over water.


We tried winching it out with my buddies jeep, but quickly realized we needed to dig out the wheels. I dont have traction boards yet, but we went home to get some 12x6 boards so the tires could get ramped over the mud ledge by the winch. We dug for a while in merciless heat. Shovels could barely penetrate the bog surface mat, so we used the machetes as “sod cutters”, which helped. Eventually we got enough out behind each wheel to put the boards down. Hooked it up to the winch, and with a bit of load alleviating throttle assist, out she came!!!

Well, that was fun! The days adventures yielded only a couple of folded over mud flaps, which I was able to reclip into the holes, and a dented corner on the plastic front bumper, which I suspect will pop out.

Here she is post recovery:




And the big hole we made lol



Lessons learned? Umm,

1. Listen to the nice farmer man when he tells you about the mud bogs. Just because he smiles when he says it, doesnt mean it’s fun. Just because you think you know what a bog is, doesn’t mean it wont be worse than expected.

2. We were pretty much laying down fresh track in tall grass/swampgrass. Perfect situation to lose track of where you are in relation to where you shouldnt be. I was a bit too cavalier about the whole thing, where maybe I should have walked the surface to verify the bog edge.

3. We were close to home, so we were able to get shovels and water. But let me tell you this, without water, those shovels would have been worthless. Digging time was about an hour, and we went through almost two gallons of drinking water. Some we needed to clean mud off hands, but most we drank.

4. Machetes make really good sod cutters in a pinch. The longer the better. We avoided any injury, but it’s good to note that muddy hands and machetes are an extremely bad combination.

5. Glad to have her underside mostly clean again, but be prepared to spend an equal amount of time cleaning to time out on the trail, if not more. I hate mud.

 

Well you went out on the deep end and just jumped right into it.

That is some nasty stuff but glad you got out and no one got hurt. Lessons were learned and that provides you more experience for next time you go out creating a new “trail”.

You have more guts than most people do and that is cool to see you were not afraid to try something that most people won’t. You may or may not have gotten very far but you surely know now.

Keep having fun and don’t let this one bad experience ruin the next chance to do it again.

 

Hope it comes soon. Even the two months was painful for me, but glad I didn’t sacrifice and go another route.

 

Attempted to install my Apex recovery points yesterday for KDSS but realized I don’t know the torque specs for the crush bar when putting back on
(I have to remove to mount them)
Anyone know this info?

 

Looks good

 

Sounds like an adventure

 

Found a shady place to park.

 

First tackled the headlight lowbeam bulb conversion from the stock H11 to Phillips H9.

That went well so after studying a couple videos I installed the CTH convex mirrors with LED's. Huge difference in the driver's side view





And the Sprint Booster installed...

 

Spent some time getting at the nooks and crannies to get the mud off from my bog adventure. Nice and shiny with a bit of fluid film spray. Even the brake calipers needed attention, as mud got into every last crevice.

 

What was supposed to be a day spent finalizing the packing for our trip out west was spent dealing with police and insurance when my wife got rear ended at a red light. Luckily no major damage but the lady that hit her didn’t want to go through insurance and didn’t want the police involved. That didn’t boad too well with me so I spent roughly 3 hours on the phone with her insurance filing the claim for her. Taking my wife’s 4R to Toyota today to get a quote. Her insurance company wants us to use their shop and after a quick “no that it’s a brand new 21”it’s going to to Toyota they must have gotten the picture. Luckily her insurance agent is local and is moving really quick. However we did find out from the lady the reason she didn’t want to go through insurance is she already has 2 other claims pending within the last month.

Very lucky she hit the ladder or it could have made the hatch in operable and no telling what other damage could have been done. Surprisingly the ladder minus chipped powder coat took no other damage.

 

Glad everyone is OK Just as an FYI, going to Toyota is possibly not the best idea. Generally dealerships don’t have body shops, they sub out the work to whoever they use locally. You’re better off finding a local well known and trusted high end body shop and taking it there for repairs.

 

We thought about that but our Toyota dealership actually has a really good body shop that repaired my Tacoma after wrong line up at Windrock off road ended up with me on my side. However that was at least 8 years ago

 

With my experience now I will use my insurance for repairs and let my insurance get the money from party at fault. I'm so done with dealing directly with other party's insurance.
I will provide my insurance the police report (The paper the police officer give you at the incident) + pic of the other party's insurance.

 

Got rear ended coming up to a stop light and surprisingly no damage. I have on video but it says can't upload because of extension ?! Anyway, person was on phone and doing 20 mph or so. If you didn't have ladder, I suspect there would be no damage as well. I wonder if Toyota will just put a whole new hatch on in a case like this ? Glad everyone is ok, keep us informed on fix.

 

Yeah I sent the pics to our dealership and they said with it being creased and bowed down they will most likely order a new hatch. We have our dash cam footage from hers but the file is too big. We sent it over to the woman’s insurance company this morning and luckily on our side she also texted my wife about an hour or so ago asking her to please reconsider filing it with insurance and she knows it’s her fault and a brand new truck but she can pay for all damages and a rental. I decided to look her up and she’s an orthopedic surgeon here in knoxville. So she does have the money to pay for it. But I feel like it still needs to be taken care of by her insurance incase anything else comes up.