NEW MEMBER INTRODUCTIONS!

Hi. I'm Brian. I live in Phoenix. I discovered this site through all the cool pictures on Instagram and Facebook. It's been a while since I was very active on a forum (haven't had time, running a magazine). Hoping things will be a little different here. I need more adventure in my life. My daughter will be 3 by the end of this year and the SoCal Mountain Rendezvous will be her first-ever camping trip. I hope the first of many, many camping trips.

Cut my teeth playing with turbocharged Mitsubishis, going back to 1998. I put 214k on a 97 Talon I bought in 1996 (at the Jeep-Eagle dealership in Wichita where I had gone to order a TJ, by the way). After "Daisy," the Talon, I moved into the Galant VR4 space, as I'm something of a rally nut. Stripped the GVR4 for a roll cage, bought another GVR4 for a daily. Then I bought my 89 Pajero, "Rocinante." Man. I loved the truck. It's the black/orange one below.

View attachment 16048

Rocinante was the slowest, least powerful, least comfortable vehicle I've ever owned. And currently my favorite. 100hp, carby-4, all he had were a set of BFG 31s and Marks Adapters 4L from Australia. Followed at least one double-locked XJ up a scramble with that setup. But I needed something with more room - and air conditioning - to get my wife and infant daughter out with me.

After a little over three years, I sold Rocinnate and bought "Fezzik," the 98 seen below. The seller in SoCal removed the CEL and SRS lights and didn't disclose it had been in an accident, but about a month after taking delivery (and daily driving), I had a clean, Arizona tag and title in hand. The mods could begin. Currently mostly stock, Fezzik sports Rocinante's 31s (they were less than a year old), fresh OME hardware at the corners, and a test-fitted sleeping platform I just used for the first time last weekend.

Below, literally parked on the PCT while volunteering at High Desert Trails Rally earlier this year.

View attachment 16043

Below, parked on a rock somewhere around Sedona. There's drone footage from this day on YouTube somewhere.

View attachment 16044

Below, at my favorite campsite on the Mogollon Rim NE of Phoenix this past weekend. It rained. I got to test my new sleeping platform. Waiting on drone footage of this spot.

View attachment 16045

Below, the new sleeping platform. Hope to get it semi-optimized before the Rendezvous.

View attachment 16046

Anyway, glad to be here. Will start poking around. Looking forward to meeting everyone.

EDIT: If anyone can tell me how to embed images here without having them duplicated as attachments, I'd love to hear it. Thanks.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
dr1665 said:
Hi. I'm Brian. I live in Phoenix. I discovered this site through all the cool pictures on Instagram and Facebook. It's been a while since I was very active on a forum (haven't had time, running a magazine). Hoping things will be a little different here. I need more adventure in my life. My daughter will be 3 by the end of this year and the SoCal Mountain Rendezvous will be her first-ever camping trip. I hope the first of many, many camping trips.

Cut my teeth playing with turbocharged Mitsubishis, going back to 1998. I put 214k on a 97 Talon I bought in 1996 (at the Jeep-Eagle dealership in Wichita where I had gone to order a TJ, by the way). After "Daisy," the Talon, I moved into the Galant VR4 space, as I'm something of a rally nut. Stripped the GVR4 for a roll cage, bought another GVR4 for a daily. Then I bought my 89 Pajero, "Rocinante." Man. I loved the truck. It's the black/orange one below.

View attachment 16048

Rocinante was the slowest, least powerful, least comfortable vehicle I've ever owned. And currently my favorite. 100hp, carby-4, all he had were a set of BFG 31s and Marks Adapters 4L from Australia. Followed at least one double-locked XJ up a scramble with that setup. But I needed something with more room - and air conditioning - to get my wife and infant daughter out with me.

After a little over three years, I sold Rocinnate and bought "Fezzik," the 98 seen below. The seller in SoCal removed the CEL and SRS lights and didn't disclose it had been in an accident, but about a month after taking delivery (and daily driving), I had a clean, Arizona tag and title in hand. The mods could begin. Currently mostly stock, Fezzik sports Rocinante's 31s (they were less than a year old), fresh OME hardware at the corners, and a test-fitted sleeping platform I just used for the first time last weekend.

Below, literally parked on the PCT while volunteering at High Desert Trails Rally earlier this year.

View attachment 16043

Below, parked on a rock somewhere around Sedona. There's drone footage from this day on YouTube somewhere.

View attachment 16044

Below, at my favorite campsite on the Mogollon Rim NE of Phoenix this past weekend. It rained. I got to test my new sleeping platform. Waiting on drone footage of this spot.

View attachment 16045

Below, the new sleeping platform. Hope to get it semi-optimized before the Rendezvous.

View attachment 16046

Anyway, glad to be here. Will start poking around. Looking forward to meeting everyone.

EDIT: If anyone can tell me how to embed images here without having them duplicated as attachments, I'd love to hear it. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Welcome to American Adventurist Brian! Looks like you have quite a bit of experience and have had some nice rigs. Nice photos too BTW. The photo uploads will be mo betta once we transition to Xenforo.

:home
 
Dave said:
Welcome to American Adventurist Brian! Looks like you have quite a bit of experience and have had some nice rigs. Nice photos too BTW. The photo uploads will be mo betta once we transition to Xenforo.

:home
Click to expand...

Thanks, Dave. I've heard good things. Looking forward to meeting you in a couple weeks.
 
I live in Bristow, Virginia with a wife and two young girls who love to camp. I am a lucky man :) We spend most of our time in the Mid-Atlantic with one of our favorite camp spots being Assateauge National Seashore.

I have a 1990 Toyota Land Cruiser that is currently at Forge Specialties getting the same exact LM7 that went into TangoBlue's Tacoma. The original 3F-E had lived an abused life before I took ownership, and refused to stop pumping coolant into the crankcase. The replacement of that engine quickly evolved from used 3F-E > rebuild current 3F-E > swap in SBC > swap in LS.

As TangoBlue noted throughout his thread, Vince and Nathan at Forge Specialties are just that -- pretty special. True artists. Here are some recent photos from the swap:

Mating the Toyota airbox to the GM intake
View attachment 16090

Checking drive shaft clearances under full flex
View attachment 16091
 
Von Hayek said:
I live in Bristow, Virginia with a wife and two young girls who love to camp. I am a lucky man :) We spend most of our time in the Mid-Atlantic with one of our favorite camp spots being Assateauge National Seashore.

I have a 1990 Toyota Land Cruiser that is currently at Forge Specialties getting the same exact LM7 that went into TangoBlue's Tacoma. The original 3F-E had lived an abused life before I took ownership, and refused to stop pumping coolant into the crankcase. The replacement of that engine quickly evolved from used 3F-E > rebuild current 3F-E > swap in SBC > swap in LS.

As TangoBlue noted throughout his thread, Vince and Nathan at Forge Specialties are just that -- pretty special. True artists. Here are some recent photos from the swap:

Mating the Toyota airbox to the GM intake
View attachment 16090

Checking drive shaft clearances under full flex
View attachment 16091
Click to expand...

Oh - that Bart. Yeah, I got all the good parts off of your engine when it was sitting there - that Bart. ;)
 
Hello all. Just found out about this group after seeing the Appalachian rendezvous advertised in Outdoorx4. Going to sign up for that in a second. I'm from PA but stationed in eastern NC. I drive a Jeep and a Subaru and enjoy off road driving, camping, kayaking, mountain biking, fishing, outdoor photography, and plenty of other hobbies that constantly compete for funding and keep me poor but allow for a quite enjoyable life. Looking forward to getting involved!
 
Hello from Texas. Currently driving a JKU but will upgrade to a 4Runner in a few months. I'm gathering ideas about outfitting the T4R and a trailer for a drive to Alaska in a couple of years when I retire. I'm seeing lots of great vehicles and trailers here.

Regards,
Kevin Williams
 
Howdy from central Texas. My name is Dave and I'm an author and photographer, former law enforcement working part time as a collision reconstruction expert and trying to plan epic family adventures. An avid camping/outdoors enthusiast since my earliest memories, I finally convinced my wife to let me *finally* buy an e-van to start building the ultimate family adventure vehicle (for our needs). The build is different from some typical overland builds in that I'm not looking to make a camper, as we use and love our large canvas wall tent, I'm building a vehicle that allows us to explore our world as best we can.

This summer we spent a week in GSMNP and another 5 days in BBNP, which makes roughly 25 days I've spent in Big Bend, the second trip there with my wife and kids in less than 12 months. I love the park enough that it became a central point in my novel series. My kids are currently 5 and 3 and we're trying to instill a love of the outdoors along with good memories of family adventure.

The planned trip for next June has us driving to Tetons/Yellowstone for 5 nights then Glacier for 5 nights for a 3-week long family adventure with 2 other families in caravan, including 2 built out e-vans...we're all HAMs, we all grew up camping together and so we're all a bit odd, but who isn't?

I found this community via Instagram and I like the smaller size compared to the other large overland focused forums. I like what is going on here and am excited to have read quite a bit before joining to participate.

-Dave
 
kwill said:
Hello from Texas. Currently driving a JKU but will upgrade to a 4Runner in a few months. I'm gathering ideas about outfitting the T4R and a trailer for a drive to Alaska in a couple of years when I retire. I'm seeing lots of great vehicles and trailers here.

Regards,
Kevin Williams
Click to expand...

Upgrading? :swordfight

Welcome!
 
Hello everyone!

my name's Kyle and I live in Haddon Heights, New Jersey but I've been on the road for the last five months or so doing an epic 9,000 mile road trip that included Overland Expo West and a few other places in between.... I've met many of you at both Expo East and West and I'm looking forward to meeting many more of you down the road

i also wrote a little tidbit about Overlanding as a Deaf person last year that I'm sure many of you read

http://www.exploringoverland.com/ov...rland-expo#comments-5502fa94e4b01112cc7f3d0a=

heres a picture of my rig as I camped out in the veritable mud pit that was West

1999 4Runner pulling a 1946/50 Bantam trailer with a bunch of goodies

40346ee17c4fbc8655632db34f38f12d_zpsmgwvoupt.jpg
 
Overlandkyle said:
Hello everyone!

my name's Kyle and I live in Haddon Heights, New Jersey but I've been on the road for the last five months or so doing an epic 9,000 mile road trip that included Overland Expo West and a few other places in between.... I've met many of you at both Expo East and West and I'm looking forward to meeting many more of you down the road

i also wrote a little tidbit about Overlanding as a Deaf person last year that I'm sure many of you read

http://www.exploringoverland.com/ov...rland-expo#comments-5502fa94e4b01112cc7f3d0a=

heres a picture of my rig as I camped out in the veritable mud pit that was West

1999 4Runner pulling a 1946/50 Bantam trailer with a bunch of goodies

40346ee17c4fbc8655632db34f38f12d_zpsmgwvoupt.jpg
Click to expand...

Welcome Kyle! I'm right by you in Runnemede. Well, when you are home...
 
Hi,
I'm Chris. I am in Texas, for now... I drive a 2002 Trooper. I love hiking, fishing, hunting, off-roading, and pretty much anything else that keeps me outside.
 
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