Tag: Tacoma

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Utah Winter Adventure – Part I of III

In the past few years, we’ve taken to planning a small annual trip that lasts approximately a week long during the winter time. Destinations are unknowns (new to us) and planned throughout the year as rough locations and POI’s that we would like to hit. Routes in between are roughly formed and there are times where we improvise and have to call an audible.

Our previous trips: Death Valley Expedition 2015 (DVX15) and California Coastal Expedition 2016 (CCX16), and many other small trips to Anza Borrego, Trona, Thomas Mountain and other sites, have really helped us form a template as to how our trips are planned, what works and what doesn’t. Our plan for the winter of 2017 had us traveling from our home base in Southern California through Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. We wanted to utilize as many dirt roads as we could, while also hitting certain POI’s, so hardball wasn’t entirely out of the question. This is what we came up with for our Utah Winter Expedition 2017 (UWX17):

Day 01- A Late Start with a Late Entrance.

After a late start of last minute packing and getting ready, I hit the road about 4pm on my way to the meeting spot just north of Lake Mead. I linked up with Cris and family at the El Cajon Pass McDonald’s right around dinner time for a quick meal. We hit the pavement hard and arrived in the area just before midnight. It was pitch black dark and all we had to navigate by were maps and the GPS point. It took us a little bit to find the exact camp spot, but we eventually found it. Everyone had already called it a night and had gone to sleep, instead of waiting for us, so Cris and I quietly setup camp and called it a night ourselves.

Day 02- A Dusty Blast to a Wrong Whitmore

We awakened to a very chilly morning, but were instantly rewarded with an awesome view of the lake. We had camped in the dark just above the lake shoreline and it paid off now with a spectacular view of the entire area. We had a comfortable start to our day and enjoyed the area while eating breakfast before we set off. We had a driver’s meeting to go over the day’s route, which would be Whitmore Canyon just on the North side of Grand Canyon.

We set off just before noon and headed up to St George, Utah to restock and make last minute meet ups. We made a nice stop at Walmart and had lunch before we proceeded south and hit the dirt. The dirt road in was a good one, dusty but well maintained. We blazed in towards Mt. Trumbull and hit the school house to reconvene since we became so spread out along the way. The wind was nonexistent so our trail of dust was so thick that visibility was near zero in places.

Continuing south as the sun began to set, we took a wrong turn and started gaining elevation instead of dropping down to 1500-ft or so where the overlook is. We doubled back towards the trail split but opted for a nice, safe, open spot along the way since darkness had already arrived, the first of several unplanned audibles on this trip. We set up camp in the dark and started the campfire. A bright moon rose over the mountain as we had dinner, and it would continue illuminate our night skies for the rest of our trip.

Day 03 – New Years Eve at the Correct Whitmore Canyon

We woke up to another sweet view as we camped just a short stroll to a cliff side, which opened up to a beautiful view of the valley below, and the road we were supposed to be at last night. The sun had not yet crested the ridgeline, so the weather was chilly again. It was a calm morning as we had time to explore the immediate area on foot and view the spectacular valley below us. We gathered just after breakfast for a driver’s meeting to make a call on where to go next. The general consensus was to hit the spot that we totally missed the previous night and spend the rest of the day there. It ended up being a great call.

We hit the road around 11am and began the short drive to Whitmore Canyon. The road in was smooth but turned to slow and rocky. It eventually led us to a breathtaking view of a portion of the Grand Canyon. There was a slow, rocky switchback descent into the campsite. Cris and Jon led the way and setup camp as we all made our way down. The camp site was just terrible (read sarcasm)…  It was right on the cliff’s edge above the Colorado River with a 180-degree view. This was a perfect day. We all got settled in, made lunch and relaxed the rest of the day.

After lunch, a few of us relaxed around the fire ring, while Andy and I made the hike down to the bottom and the Colorado River. It was about 45min, 917ft down, and about 1.2miles one way. It was a great little hike to see the river and experience how the views changed as you make your way down. The water was definitely chilly but refreshing. Oddly enough there was a cactus garden right before the water’s edge, so maneuvering to the water was a bit tricky without getting poked by the many needles.

The hike out is always tougher than the hike in, but we got back into camp just before sunset and joined the others relaxing around the fire ring, just in time for appetizers, cold beverages, and dinner.

As the night went on and we were enjoying the campfire, we saw a set of headlights coming down the hill that we rolled in from. We became very hesitant when they rolled straight up to our campfire in the middle of our camp. Two guys walked out, cups in hands and a decent slur in their talk. As they were introducing themselves, and us keeping our distance, a third guy came out as well.

Luckily they just came down to make themselves known and told us that they were going to setup camp not too far away from us. They thought we were someone they knew as they were meeting someone down there. They left our area and rolled about ¼ mile away and setup camp. Later that night as we were still around the campfire, we saw another pair of headlights coming down. We walked out to meet them in a somewhat defensive position so they wouldn’t roll into our camp. They found their friends and we continued our night a little less relaxed. We called it a day as one by one, we left the fire and went to bed.

Day 04 – Attempting to Beat the Setting Sun and Rising Moon

We awoke to a another splendid view with an epic sunrise, so we decided to take another easy morning. We soaked in the rising sun cresting over the canyon as we had breakfast. After a comfortable start, we decided to get our trip on the road again. But before we headed out, we decided to take a group photo of this epic campsite so we staged up on the cliff’s edge, and snapped a few for the books.

 

Once on the way out, we doubled back from where we drove in. We hit the 4-way intersection at the schoolhouse for a quick break around 11am. We reconvened a quick driver’s meeting to discuss the route and the rough area of where we would be heading to. We decided to head east after talking with a local as they said it is much more scenic than double backing the exact way we came in to get back on the highway.

Mt Trumbull Loop was extremely scenic with a steady incline in elevation. Once we hit the top, we drove along the ridgeline for a bit until it opened up into flatlands and a nice wide-open fire road. Once we hit Antelope Valley Rd, we hit the gas and zoomed our way back to Highway 389, a very smooth and great driving road. Definitely one of the better dirt roads of the trip thus far. We aired up before we hit the pavement and we hit it hard towards Kanab for our late lunch.

Once we entered Kanab, we decided to hit up a burger joint which was VERY good. After filling our bellies, we all split off for different errands to run and decided to rendezvous at the market before we hit the road again.

We hopped onto the road after a long but relaxing pitstop as the sun was beginning to set. Jon had a site set in his mind, so we followed him up Hwy 89 to Hancock Road towards the Pink Coral Sand Dunes. We drove around a bit through a very scenic fire service road with a full moon rising over on the east, and the sun setting in the west. He found a spot, but it was small and along a hillside. Not very spacious for all of us to camp in. I scouted around being tail-gunner on offshoot paths we had passed but couldn’t find a tangible spot for us all to camp in comfortably.

With night falling very quickly, we double backed to the main road and found a campsite along the road from which we came in. It was a large spot and about fifty yards off the road with good cover. We were happy with this spot so we setup camp and enjoyed the night while waiting for Brian to link up with us that night.

To be continued in Part II…

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Project Tundra // Winter (Pre-OXW) Update

RXT Rear Suspension

Late last fall, Project Tundra received a pre-production set of ICON Vehicle Dynamics RXT rear suspension – and the change these RXT parts made to the vehicle’s performance was profound.  The RXT system is made up of a user-configurable, Icon leaf spring pack that replaces the OEM Toyota leaf pack. Also included are Tundra specific shocks with increased travel, and a hydraulic bump stop kit.  Taken as a whole, these parts all work together to make your rear suspension next level.  Project Tundra already has the hydraulic bump stop kit, but adding the RXT leafs and shocks made a huge difference in the way the truck performs.  The best part about the RXT kit is that it can be configured to your specific truck and the amount of additional weight you have in your truck bed, so the end result is a system that will deliver much better performance than a one size fits all solution.  Here’s how it all works.

The RXT leafs for the Toyota Tundra can be configured in three ways all depending on how much additional weight is over your truck’s rear axle, or how much lift you want.  The leaf pack comes configured from ICON to handle an additional 250 pounds of payload while providing about 1.75 inches of additional lift.  If you swap out the third leaf in the RXT leaf pack with the provided additonal leaf, the pack will handle an additional 500 pounds of payload and add 3 inches of lift.  Finally, adding the additional leaf to the pack will provide 750 pounds of carrying capacity and add 4 inches of lift to the rear of an unladen Tundra.

I opted for the + 500 pounds option on Project Tundra, as two dirtbikes or our typical gear loadouts with the truck cap and roof rack come in around this mark.

Installing the leaf packs is easily done in the driveway on an afternoon with basic tools and an extra set of hands.  The first thing you’ll need to do is choose what configuration you want the leaf pack in, and then make any desired changes prior to mounting to the vehicle  A couple of C-Clamps will help you keep the packs from disassembling themselves when you loosen the locating bolt, and otherwise the process is well covered in the instructions.  With the packs configured as desired, lift up the back of the truck SAFELY and swap the packs out.

The other part of the RXT equation are the shocks which provide additional stroke over the 2.5 VS CDCV units that we’ve been using.  ICON offers three levels of shocks, named with their Stage-Number convention.  Stage 1 shocks offer vehicle specific valving, Stage 2 adds the CDC Valve, and Stage 3 adds Omega-level shocks that feature rebound and compression damping.  All RXT kits include the hydraulic bump stop Kit – another system we’ve absolutely loved having on Project Tundra.

As I mentioned in the last article, the performance difference realized by installing the IVD suspension on Project Tundra was huge, so the bar was already set quite high when the RXT parts arrived.  The RXT suspension makes a night and day difference over stock leafs or even an add-a-leaf – especially when you’re carrying any kind of weight.

Speaking of the Icon 2.5 VS CDCV shocks I took off the vehicle, I’m happy to report that after a year of use all over the Southwest the shocks are still in great shape and still fully functional.  Yes, there is pitting on the lower shock mounts and the aluminum bodies aren’t as shiny as new, but this wear has been earned from logging thousands of miles bombing around off-road and on wintry roads.  It turns out flying rocks are an equal opportunity destroyer, so I don’t care whose shock you have – pitting and aluminum oxidation are going to happen.  What counts is that all of the ICON shock shafts look great, and all of the seals are holding tight – so these shocks still have plenty of life left in them before they get rebuilt.

The RXT suspension has handled every type of terrain I’ve pointed it at so far with performance that’s perfectly matched to the front end, which is to say that the back end has now been turned up to match the front end.  The ability to set the leaf pack up for your specific vehicle depending on what you do with your truck and how much weight you carry combined with the damping adjustment from the CDCV and Omega level shocks make the RXT system the choice for Tundra rear suspension.

 

 

LINE-X

Spray-In truck bed liners are hands down the best way to project your truckbed from sharp tools, ski edges, car parts, the occasional steel-fab project, and everything else life throws at your truck bed.  The problem is that the OEM spray in liners leave a lot to be desired, which is why I took a trip to San Diego before SoCal Desert Rendezvous to make an appointment at Line-X of San Diego.

At Line-X of San Diego, Dallas and Chris applied their years of experience in truck bed coatings to come up with in a spray in bedliner application for Project Tundra that was exactly what I was looking for.  In addition to protecting the sheet metal, I wanted to do a few custom things that would make the bed of project Tundra better suited to my needs.  First up, I pulled off the stupid plastic caps that run around the bed rails of the truck.  These pointless pieces of plastic exist only to trap dirt and dust, and when sandwiched with a load (like a truck cap) become plastic backed sandpaper that wears on your paint and in no time at all, starts wearing on bare metal.  Taking the plastic caps off also allowed Dallas and Chris to do a true over the rail bedliner, providing extra protection to the bedsides from the truck cap and from me when I’m loading heavy things over the sides of the truck bed.

With all of the holes in the bed rails covered, we then turned our attention to sealing up all of the drain holes in the truck bed to make the thing as dust proof as possible.

Line-X is also a great thing to spray on your truck’s rocker panels to protect them from rocks and other road debris that are constantly tossed up by your tires.  I sprayed the rocker panels on my Tacoma, and it’s held up great to hundreds of thousands of miles of dirt and rocks.  Again Dallas and Chris applied their expert hands and took the time to remove the plastic wheel well trim so that they could tuck the Line-X under the plastic bits once installed – a detail that will only serve to help lengthen the lifespan of Project Tundra’s sheet metal.

Chris and Dallas devoted an entire day to applying Line-X to Project Tundra, and the results of their attention to detail and skill speak for themselves.  Project Tundra’s bed and rocker panels are now armored-up to handle hundreds of thousands of miles of dirt and rock, and all of the gear hauling I can throw in the truck bed.

ABOUT THOSE HUB CAPS

I’ve had a couple of the hub caps on my ICON Alloys Six Speed wheels break, and when I called Icon to asking about buying new hub caps, I was really happy to hear that they’ve redesigned the caps to fix this very issue.  The new hub caps are screwed together (the old design was a snap-fit) and I do not expect to see any failure or issues from this new design.  I need to give ICON props for revising and continuously improving their products, rather than simply selling more copies of an imperfect design.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

Yes, Project Tundra will be getting fully armored – but as with any good thing, it takes some time.  So in the mean time I’ve been working with Pelfreybilt Offroad to design brackets for the Tundra’s A-Pillars and stock front bumper, so that I can add some light while I’m waiting for my armor to arrive.  With a bit of time spent in Solidworks, I’ve developed A-Pillar brackets for the Tundra that will hold an XL 80, as well as brackets that will allow me to run a Baja Designs 30” S8 light bar in the stock bumper.

Project Tundra will be receiving it’s armor soon, so I’ll leave this update with a photo I took of what’s to come.  Stop by and see us at the American Adventurist booth at Overland Expo West (PS1) and say hi!

Full disclosure:  ICON Vehicle Dynamics provided the RXT suspension for review and testing purposes at no cost to Chad de Alva or American Adventurist.  Line-X of San Diego installed their products free of charge.