A Guy A Girl and a Trail: Adventures in a 4Runner Limited

Still on lockdown but I thought I'd update the project from the what did you do today thread.

Lumber run with the SSO rack.


First of 4 platforms done


Little man did awesome with keeping the beers flowing lol He looks pretty silly with his batman mask hoodie that cant pull down all the way with his safety glasses on.


He was all about helping








Final product = 81 sq/ft of wasted space turned into storage

 

Thanks, I’m really happy with the end result.
No joke the biggest motivator for finally building it is that we took the snow wheels/tires Off my wife’s cars and I really didn’t want to carry them down into the basement lol

 

Happy to see little man is feeling better!

 

Well it took forever since they got shut down as non essential before my order shipped but I finally got my stove upgrade.

Space taken up - New setup vs old setup

 

I've really been holding onto hope that things would open up enough that out Utah trip would still happen. Backcountry permits to get off the grid and as far as from people as possible seems like a good fit for social distancing. I'm bummed that they will reopen and honor the permits literally a couple of days past the end of our trip. A lot of time, effort, and money has been spent planning and preparing for this 9 day trip, it's heartbreaking to have it cancelled and miss it by days

 

LOTS of BLM land around those parts... and its all open right now. Maybe just go overlanding/camping.

 

We will get out somewhere for sure, but not to Utah. BLM camping is fine, but it’s not the same as this big epic national park backcountry trip we had planned. What really bums me out is this likely won’t happen again for years, my wife is pregnant with our second and this was going to be our big vacation getaway before the baby comes.

 

thanks for the tip on the nemo pad. im gonna check that out.

how do you like that firepit? i keep seeing ads on fb for them but i was skeptical. knowing that you put in the work with the stuff you buy i have to think youre a fan!

 

I did research it a lot and didn’t really find any bad reviews that weren’t Karen complaints. Even so I was still pretty skeptical as well so I bought it through REI because you can use it and return it if you’re not happy. It’s a contained fire so there will be less sideways heat than a traditional open fire pit but that’s not to say all the heat goes up, for example it was in the 20’s Halloween night and we were standing around hanging out giving out candy and shots with the neighbors until about 1am. But, losing some of the heat is a characteristic of enclosed flame, there’s no way around that. In my opinion its one of the only negatives, but at the same time with a 4 year old that likes to roast marshmallows and be around campfires he can get close enough to actually roast marshmallows himself without cooking his face off, he can’t always do that in a fire pit when we go camping. It also allows you to use it more places, with significantly less risk of a fire spreading and it’s not really effected by wind. Either way the positives far outweigh the negative, we love it. It’s such a clean efficient fire, it’s fed oxygen from beneath and then you get the secondary burn at the top. When you start the fire there’s smoke until it really catches and gets going (a few minutes) but once it is going, as long as the wood doesn’t protrude out the top past the ring it really is smokeless, like to the point that it doesn’t seem like it should be possible to burn that clean and smoke free. Plus once the fire burns itself out there is almost nothing left, it’s such a complete burn there’s never partial chunks of charred logs, it’s basically all just powdered white ash and an amazingly small amount of it. The one night we burned 16 pieces of firewood and there was like a handful, maybe 2, of ash in the bottom. The only other potential downside is that because it’s enclosed you want to let it burn out, not douse it with water, so it does require a little bit of baby sittings when you’re ready to be done unless you spring for the expensive spark arrestor to make sure it can’t pop embers out. It is pricey but I would absolutely buy it again. It’s held up well but you need to be reasonable with expectations, it’s stainless steel but it the bottom grate inside is absolutely going to shot in no time and the barrel is going to discolor, most of the. Implants are found were people upset that their fire pit didn’t stay looking like a clean and polished kitchen appliance. We redid the back yard and put in a huge patio, we debated about doing a permanent fire pit but I’m glad we went with this instead ha a permanent structure.

 

With my new garage loft storage done I got cleaned up and organized so I finally got my tool box/work bench space back.









So I worked on installing the durabumps.



It seems like a decent product but it all comes off kind of amateurish. The directions for example say “Tighten the bolt until snug. Do not over tighten bolt”... how about a real torque spec? Also once you remove the old bump stop it says to “Take a scraper and clean any mud/ debris from the frame.” That makes sense, you want a clean dry mating surface... but then the inside seating surface for the head of the bolt is half covered in leftover rubber spatter.





I cleaned all this shit off the surface where the bolt head should sit flush.





Much better.








The rears won’t work out the box. I have the Toytec bump stop spacers for the extended travel custom length rears the bolts don’t thread into the holes into. It’s a simple fix to just get bolts with the correct thread pitch but I’m going to do some research about running them together. The Durobumps are considerably longer than stock bump stocks but they are meant to compress more. I need to figure out if I should stack them or if I should just remove the Toytec spacers.

 

If you have Weathertech floor liners you know they are awful to clean, but I finally found something that works. You can power wash them, scrub them with soap and water, soak them, they always look like shit when they dry. I found something that actually gets them clean without leaving them slick or greasy.

This was freshly cleaned with a power washer and scrubbing them with car wash soap and a brush.


This time I tried Mothers VLR


Spray it on and wipe it off with a microfiber rag


They come out looking brand new again





Another random tidbit - a California Car Duster works so good for wiping down the interior to get all the dust and fine dirt off the hard surfaces, and it's fast.

 

Pretty quickly I started taking it out into the mountains.


[/QUOTE]

WOW nice mods! That list goes on forever haha. Thanks for the posts. Where are these roads? They look incredible

 

WOW nice mods! That list goes on forever haha. Thanks for the posts. Where are these roads? They look incredible[/QUOTE]

Thanks, glad you appreciate the thread.
That was all in Boulder Colorado.

 

I did some research regarding the rear bump stops and decided to ditch the Toytec spacers with the OEM bump stops and run just the Durobumps by themselves. The Durobumps are exactly the same size as the OEM + Toytec spacers.





The spacers put up a bit of a fight, they didn't want to get cast aside and I had to bust out the drill. It's a stupid design that they use countersink the bolts an angular head and a small to drive them in and out, instead of using a real 6 point bolt sunk down below the mounting surface. 1 bolt needed some persuasion to come out. The good thing about hex bolts is that they are really easy to align a drill bit on them.





Durobumps front and rear are on, but I didn't think to grab a pic installed. Super simple mod, I haven't utilized them yet but I don't think I'll be disappointed.

 

Hanging out in the backyard last night

 

The sunsets here have been incredible. I took the dog for a walk over the weekend as the sun was sitting, it was a beautiful vibrant red/pink...I called my wife to let her know, but neither she or my son took the effort to get off the couch and look. Sheesh.

Great shots.

 

I really tried to get that awesome one from Saturday I missed It. The sky was putting on a light show so I grabbed my real camera out of the safe to get some pics of it. I go outside in the back, battery is dead. I went back up stairs, grab a few spare batteries, each one was dead. I put one on a charger and let it charge for 5 minutes hoping to at least get a couple, it was enough juice to snap the shutter once and die before processing lol. It just wasn’t meant to be.

 

I managed to snag a couple phone pics. About halfway into my walk, i wished I had brought my camera, too! Darn bike lane sign.

 

Gavin and I decided to get out and explore in the 4Runner while social distancing yesterday. We cleaned up some remote off-road trails and dispersed campsites, we saw a pretty young moose, we parked up on a ridge and had popsicles from the fridge/freezer in the truck, we found a middle of nowhere treehouse shelter and signed the guest book, we got the 4Runner leaning very VERY sideways (it’s a good thing there’s a button to disable side curtain airbags while offroad because if it leans too far and it feels like a rollover is imminent it will deploy the side bags to try to cushion your landing), and we got it some new custom Colorado Pinstripes.

 

The butt pucker is real!








Colorado Pinstipes


Those bench cut trails were our route. The far mountain left to right, made our way back and looped around the peak on the right, then came up the trail in the foreground on the left before winding back around to here.






Our collection of trash for the day

 

I'm pretty disappointed that the brand new Trasharoo has 2 holes worn in it after the first time being mounted. It was on my 4Runner being used for literally 5 hours.

 

We made of the day (the moose is in here) and uploaded it on little man's youtube page

https://youtu.be/Vjn3WpGEg10

 

Sounds like a great time

 

I got a tool roll from Adventure Tool Company and I've been working on gathering stuff for it. I don't want to take stuff from my actual toolbox so everything for the trail tools is new. This is my baseline to start with.

 

I wanted to test out the new Durobumps on the trail the other day so I drove it petty hard at times. It was the first real trail since before snow season so I used this as a shakedown run. We've had a couple of squeaks start recently so I wanted to exercise the suspension and move everything through its full range of motion before digging into diag and doing an in-depth inspection of everything.

So this was the agenda for the day yesterday:
-The shocks did not bottom out on themselves on the trail so I wanted to verify the bump stops did.
-Make sure every nut and bolt is tight.
-Inspect all the bushings and joints - end link, CVs, ball joints, tie rods, etc
-Insect aftermarket UCAs for an cracks in the welds of signs of wear and damage.
-Document all the tool sizes needed for front and rear suspension to ensure everything I may need is in my tool kit.
-Diagnose and fix the squeaking noise.
-Grease all the fittings on the truck.
-Tire rotation.
-Tire pressures, DON'T FORGET THE SPARE!!!!
-Fluid level and leak checks.
-Clean and inspect the shafts on the dampeners.

The first squeak was the plastic rubbing the King reservoir bracket
Squeak 1


The second was the splash guards on both sides
Squeak 2

On big hits the durobumps are bottoming out, not the dampeners. Perfect.







In general, everything is dirty but in fantastic shape.

In case anyone is interested in the tool list...
FRONT SUSPENSION
UCA bushing to the vehicle -19mm (x2)
JBA ball joint to spindle - 7/8" & 7/16"
JBA ball joint to control arm - 1/2 (x2)

Upper shock mount - 14mm
Lower shock mount - 19mm (x2)
King adjustable collar - 3/16" hex

Sway bar links - 6mm hex & 17mm

LCA bushing - 22mm (x2)
Ball joint nut - 24mm + cotter pin
Bal joint cap to spindle - 19mm

Outer tie rod nut - 19mm + cotter pin
Outer tie rod holding surface - 21mm
Jam nut - 22mm
Toe adjustment - 15mm

Brake caliper - 17 mm
ABS wires - 10mm
ABS and brake line brackets - 12mm
Brake lines and bleeders - 10mm

Durobumps - 14mm

Skid plates - 13mm

REAR SUSPENSION
Lower links - 19mm (x2)
Track bar - 19mm (x2)

King upper shock mount - 19mm
Lower shock mount - 17mm
BPF rock shield - 14mm

Brake calipers - 17mm
Brake caliper bracket - 17mm
Brake line to caliper - 14mm
Brake lines and bleeders - 10mm

Sway bar link - 6mm hex
Sway bar link shaft - 14mm
Sway bar link nut - 12mm

 

Somebody is pretty happy have the tent back on the truck. He took a nap out there today.

 

What brand and setup do you have for the fridge/freezer?

 

The fridge is a Dometic CFX35W. I’m not sure what exactly you’re trying to asking to ask about the “setup” but everything is in this thread. Otherwise if you have some specific questions I’d be happy to try to answer.

 

With Utah canceled we decided to make the best of it disappeared up into the mountains for a few days. This was the first real multi-day trip using quite a few pieces of new gear: Jetboil Genesis Basecamp, the fridge for days on end without starting the vehicle to recharge the secondary battery, the Nemo sleeping pads, Eno hammock and tree straps, Adventure Tool Company camp kitchen, and using the Garmin InReach for sat comms. Overall it went really really way and we've been satisfied with our gear choices. I have a running list on my phone that I continuously modify with ideas or things we need to add or change up. This trip we added hot pads, a second collapsable bucket, dish drying towel, kids book for identifying animal scat and tracks, and reevaluating out silverware after snapping a spoon. Plus we learned a valuable lesson in double checking critical equipment. I have iOS apps for offline maps, navigation, trails, etc, but my phone is also set to offload unused apps. After not using most of them through ski season they needed to be downloaded again while I had reception/internet connection. I didn't think to do that so by the time I wanted to use them I couldn't access them. Lesson learned, and that feature is now turned off.

Anyways, we had a blast - we hiked, explored, made s’mores, played some soccer, collected firewood, practiced some bushcraft skills, and we got to sit watch a bald eagle fish for a while, we brought the camp toilet but I'm happy to say nobody actually used it, in fact I think the highlight of the trip for my son was digging a hole and pooping in it lol.

Onto the pics!








This big deep sloppy uphill pit was awesome, it basically worked as a gatekeeper, you were in the middle of nowhere so you didn't want to get stuck but once we passed that point we don't see another soul. Pictures always make things look less intense they really are, this was deep enough that I smacked the rear bumper off the ground and caused some relatively minor but permanent damage.




This is as installed as the rear bumper gets now lol








InReach Mini worked great