In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
We always stenciled ours with regular flat black spray paint. If it can handle being chucked around by a bunch of Marines, your use case should be fine.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
We always stenciled ours with regular flat black spray paint. If it can handle being chucked around by a bunch of Marines, your use case should be fine.
Love what you've done with the ride man! I made an account just to comment she looks great! I've got my own I'm replacing my head gasket on (sadly). It's been my daily driver for a year. The truck stays in the garage as much as possible!
Here is my 1989 Dodge Raider 6g72 152k miles, cheap Maaco paint job and 2" australian lift (torsion bars and springs).
Fully replaced every suspension part and bushing. Power steering gear replaced with a 1996 Montero rebuilt gearset. No more slop + direct bolt on with a tiny bit of jimmy-ing.
Wheels were specifically offset so I could get a dish look plus 1.5-2" stick out. Not too much, not too little. 32.5" tires. Not exactly 33 but close.
In reply to boodaroo :
You may never see this or have sold your Montero already, but you can use 94-96 montero SR rear end which is locking and disc brakes. 1.5" wider or something though. Direct bolt in. Also can use the power sttering gear. I bought a rebuilt one from ebay. Fits with a little jimmy-ing. No more slop in steering. Effectively, the v6 rear end is comparable to the strength of a Ford 8.8 I've heard based on sizing.
CarGuy81 said:Love what you've done with the ride man! I made an account just to comment she looks great! I've got my own I'm replacing my head gasket on (sadly). It's been my daily driver for a year. The truck stays in the garage as much as possible!
Here is my 1989 Dodge Raider 6g72 152k miles, cheap Maaco paint job and 2" australian lift (torsion bars and springs).
Fully replaced every suspension part and bushing. Power steering gear replaced with a 1996 Montero rebuilt gearset. No more slop + direct bolt on with a tiny bit of jimmy-ing.
Wheels were specifically offset so I could get a dish look plus 1.5-2" stick out. Not too much, not too little. 32.5" tires. Not exactly 33 but close.
looks great! That color shows well on the truck for sure, Maaco or otherwise. What tires are those? Got a build thread anywhere?
The Gen2/2.5 steering is still on my project list. I almost got the stuff a while back and then the seller bailed and I got distracted - but yeah, defintely still an upgrade I'm looking to do so thanks for the reminder!
If I ever run across an SR full rear end, it's certainly of interest as well. Not urgent as I have the drums set up/adjusted well and they work fine, and my LSD is still good, but my biggest interest is the beefed up trailing arms.
I have the 7-gallon Yakima Road Shower on the Sequoia, which has been very useful for camping, racing, and cleaning up messy kids. My plan had been to swap it onto the Raider for camping, but after some checking it's just too big to really fit on the rack easily - plus it's overkill in terms of weight and amount of water when it's just me by myself for a night or two (plus I carry 2 gallons in the rotopax). Since I work for a Yakima dealer I looked into getting the 4-gallon road shower, but as it turns out that one is almost as long as the 7-gallon, it's just a lot narrower. I could make it work but really not what I wanted. So dug around a bit on Amazon and found a 4-gallon (well, 3.8 I think) aluminum tank with a similar setup, for about half the price. What the hell, let's see if it's decent.
So after two days it came in, so here's a quick review of what it comes with: The tank, which has a nice metal cap, pressure release valve, and a Shrader valve for pressurizing it. The tank has a bracket on the bottom with twin rails (like the ARB awnings and the Yaki tank as well), with mounting bolts that slide in. It has two handles on it - one on top for carrying and one on the side that holds two brackets for storing the hose/nozzle and for holding the handset in a "shower" setup. Kinda strange, but whatever. It also comes with nice mounting hardware -actually much more than is needed, and it comes with locknuts (8) and also 8 spin-on nuts (in case you want to make it quicker to remove). It also comes with a hitch-receiver with a mount bracket as well, if you want to mount it down there. Plus a box-end wrench for the bolts. Aaaand, it comes with a decent little bike-style pump for pressurizing it, which is a nice addition. All told, $180 with a coupon on Amazon. The tank itself is decent, though the welding isn't beautiful, but whatever. Nothing on this truck is beautiful. Here it is:
Let me jump back for a second. The big Hardigg case in the previous post turned out to be just TOO big for the Raider. I'll use it in my offroad trailer and for race stuff with the Sequoia. Instead, I moved the Pelican Vault off the Sequoia onto the Raider. It's the right size for a couple camp chairs, my cot, and my big tarp. I mounted it up last week, and then I moved it over to fit the water tank.
So here's where I mounted it. The Pelican box opens to the center of the truck , but that's better anyhow since the other way it falls open into the GMRS antenna. The tank goes outside of it.
But, to fit it I cut off the "side handle" thing. FIrst, it's kind of dumb (IMO) plus it's on the wrong side...would be fine for a driver's side mount, but the awning is there. So chop chop:
The black bracket I don't really need. And the silver bracket would be used to hold the handset on the tank when on the road - but I'll just take the hose off the tank when driving and toss it inside. So I turned the bracket 90 degrees at a down angle and bolted it to the rack like so:
Which lets me use it as a shower mount
Oh, the handset is plastic, but has a nice on-off button and 3 spray settings that are decent, so I'll use it until I invariably break it somehow lol
After it was all set up, I put a couple gallons of water in and put about 15psi of air in it. No leaks, no issues, held the pressure fine, and even with that low air still had a nice shower stream
So yeah, not bad for an Amazon cheapie. Works fine, is nice and compact, and looks decent up there. Mounted up easily with the provided brackets.
Mini project. SInce I added the wheel spacers, this thing gets really, really dirty when we're in muddy areas (and it always seems to rain when we go wheeling/camping). Now yeah, it looks cool all muddy and stuff, but I especially dislike having mud flinging into the open windows and on my shoulder and stuff on trail lol. I've been looking at various fender flares, but didn't want fiberglass (to easy to damage on trail) and the only ABS ones I found that looked good were like $400 from Europe. Not worth it. Let's do this the cheap and just as effective way, and try to make it look decent.
If I was a Jeep guy, I could just buy pre-molded fender extensions or whatever, but this is a Raider....so I went back to my cheap source of tough but flexible material: Amazon. Specifically, these big-ass truck mudflaps (24x30") for 21 bucks:
These are pretty easy to cut, but not too floppy so they still hold their form and don't sag or get wavy or whatever. So off to cutting. The idea here is to just add 1-inch extensions at the top of the wheel wells (more as the fenders taper in):
So after some measuring and cutting and sanding (so the edges are rounded, not sharp), I installed them into the fender lip using stainless self-tapping metal screws. Not the most bougie way, but it will work fine and hold well. So here's the finished product (sorry, hard to take good pics of stuff this low-key)
Also in the mail today finally got one of the few kinda fancy and not really necessary things that I occasionally buy. This is a canvas case for my 5lb propane tank made up in Canada by Northbound Expeditions (they have some other cool stuff as well like nice tailgate/trash bags, air compressor bags, and so on...https://www.nbexpeditions.com/ ). Not that I really need to put my tank in a case, but it's convenient to be able to keep my gas line/hose with it and some other associated gear. I looked at the cheapo ones on Amazon and elsewhere but didn't really like any of them. This one has carry handles, cinch straps, and a bunch of mounting straps as well. The upper zipper is nice and has a velcro cover for it, and there's room inside for my 6-foot gas line and some other stuff. All in all, a nice little bag that's really nice quality. Sometimes you just want to buy something nice, you know? lol
Not strapped in, but you get the picture.
Packing up for a couple days camping and wheeling this weekend. Always a bit of Tetris in this little thing, especially when I'm brining the ARB room, chainsaw, kitchen, and full toolkit with me
Since I have a tendency to not be able to find my lighting at night, figured I'd make a little box for it with some picking foam so it doesn't rattle around
Also, since i put the new suspension on I feel like there's more drivetrain vibration at higher speeds. One possibility is the extra angle on the driveshaft U-joints is causing it, so cut out some steel to make a 6-7mm spacer. IDK if it will do anything, but we'll see. Probably should go a bit thicker than this but it's all I had sitting around at the moment.
Will be heading out to PA/Western MD with some of the guys you've seen in this thread already for a couple nights. Hopefully it's not raining this time like it always seems to lol.
Let's have a camping weekend. Friday afternoon I headed up through West Va. into southern PA to meet up with some of the camping/wheeling group for a couple days. The meetup for the first night of camping was in Buchanon State Forest, up on a mountain in a Primitive site that took some driving (thanks Google Maps) via some questionable roads littered with places that looked much like meth labs, or junk-collector old houses with "No Trespassing" signs everywhere. I'll admit that driving solo into this area at dusk made me just a bit nervous lol.....I may or may not have had my 6" hunting knife stuck in the gap next to my seat haha. Anyhow, finally arrived and met a few of the guys who got there early.
Unremarkable evening, just some food and beers and campfire, and set up the Ironman Room for the first time onthe Raider, which proved to be a nice comfortable sleep....until about 2 am when loud, repetitive bird started making a racket, for about 2 hours. It was so loud I swear it was sitting on top of my awning lol. We ID'd it as a Whip-poor-will, and it woke everyone up lol. Extra loud in an area where there was no other noise to speak of.
IN the morning Andy cooked up some breakfast sandwiches and I had plenty of coffee.....
....and we headed to La Vale Maryland about 45 minutes away to meet the rest of the group that came up that morning. While we were fueling up this Earth Roamer rolled in...with a middle-aged couple and seemingly their parents. So that's what a vehicle that costs almost as much as my house looked like lol. IDK if they were going off-road anywhere, this area's trails would be mostly too tight for something that size!
So we then headed further south to Wolf Den Run MD (right on the border with W.Va.) one of our favorite places in this area for it's large trail selection and conditions, great views, cheap entry ($10-12 for the day), and not many people there (kind of a new/secret-ish place) . It's a nice mix of rocky terrain, gravel trail, muddy areas, and can always be counted on to have a lot of water on the trails even if it hasn't been raining....
Anyhow, nice weather all day along with Andy in his lightly-modified Montero Sport, Josh and Yvette in their stock-ish Rubicon, a couple guys in decently-modded Tacomas, Denise in her Sequoia, and some of Andy's friends in a Dodge Ram pickup. Mike joined up later with us XJ as well.
At a deep water hole the Ram guys sliced open the side of their tire and didn't have a sufficient jack (or an all-terrain spare) for some reason, so it took a while to dig out another jack and then find some wood to prop it higher to change their spare. They went and dropped the truck off at the parking lot and proceeded as riders for the rest of the day
I was running caboose to help out the new guys and took an outside line in the puddle and hit probably the same rock, but with my front control arm. It wasn't comfortable, at all.....
I took a few other hard hits over the day - that's the part about flooded areas in a rocky park, a few of which have step-downs unseen, and I also dropped onto the gas tank skid pretty hard at one point. More on that later.
During the day several times we ran into a couple in their brand-new Ranger Raptor, who were trying it out. They joined us for a while and the truck looks plenty capable in stock form, but they were taking it slow and eventually bailed out to do their own thing, after everyone (including them) hit the big vertical hillclimbs on the coal hill at the top, which are somewhat scary, but fun. The Raptor clearly has a ton of power and made nice turbo noises going up lol...
Otherwise, good wheeling and nobody else did any significant damage, though it was pretty overgrown in some areas and everyone got plenty of pinstripes.
One part has a long "canal" that's nice for pics and not rocky. I've done it plenty, and it wasn't as full as usual today, so I went across the field next to it to get ahead and take pics. The field was very, very muddy and I had to carry some speed to not get stuck. Didn't see a drainage canal and did a hard up-and-down (thanks short wheelbase), and the rest of the group informed me I had both rear wheels in the air.....so that was ill-advised. But I got out to take some pics of the rest. Usually it's about a foot deeper....
At the end, I followed andy down a side area that was pretty rutted, and ended up high-centered on my diff...oops.
so had to get a quick pull back so I could climb the banks a bit lol
Here's some other pics from the day
Headed down to the lot and aired up. Look, we all match now...
From there we headed back toward camp, but stopped off at Dan's Rock on the way. Dan's Rock is a big outcropping on top of a mountain, with lots of communciations towers, but it's best known for being totally covered in graffiti and is quite a sight - both the rocks and the 360-degree view of three states!
Then back to camp....with some nice sky
....and set up again in the dark. Since rain was expected (but ended up being minimal) everyone went extra-heavy with the shelters, and I set up my "full camp" just to have more dry space
There was more food, more beer, more campfire, more late-night, and everyone crashed out by 1am......aaand the damn bird piped up once again about an hour later, but this time he must have been a ways away because it was much quieter :)
The rest of the group was going for a cruise up into PA, but I headed south to home. I'll note that the transfer case slight drop seems to have gotten rid of the highway vibration, since I was cruising at 70+ with no vibration (or, no more than any other 80s 4x4 on A/Ts....)
Made it home, and opened up all the gear to dry it out.
Guess I need to wash stuff....
So after all was washed, did a quick damage assessment. The control arm you already saw. Front skid lower section took a few good hits but it's pretty beefy
Gas tank took a heavy hit on the corner, just outside the skidplate area I had previously reinforced (I KNEW I'd regret not going the full width, dammit.....)
Yep, that's mashed, but no leaks or anything at least. oh well...the price of having a shorty truck where the gas tank has to hang out in the back :/
I also had noticed my coolant overflow bottle looked pretty brown so did a drain/flush of the coolant system. It's been a while since I did a coolant change and clearly the old gunk in the engine has freed itself up and it looked like muddy water (I'll note that my operating temps have been excellent, even with plenty of 5+ mile highway uphill pulls at full throttle and a lot of wheeling on a warm day)
ew
So that's about it, until some of the others post up some pics of *me* that I can steal haha...As always, a learning experience and I have a few things on my list to improve, fix, or buy to make things work better (primarily regarding packing, cooking, and sleeping).
Got the welder and some scrap metal out today to beef up the gas tank skid once again, this time on the sides and the mount brackets, the areas that bent on the last trip. Eventually I'll just buy some 1/8" sheet and make an actual nice one, but for the time being patching together with more metal will be sufficient. I have a few dozen metal ski boot display shelves that are 1/16" or slightly more, powdercoated, and a good size for metal projects. So grabbed a couple of those and cut off the slot-wall tabs, and them bent over the front lip to give extra rigidity. Then just prepped and welded them over the wimpy stock plate edges (after banging them flat). Unfortunately I ran out of welding gas about 1/4 of the way through and only have .035 flux core...but I have no patience, and nobody will really see this so just did it with the .35 flux. So it really looks janky lol
cut off some other tabs from shelves to make some reinforcement pieces for the rear mounts, since those also got bent
Then painted it black, because it hides the ugliness better than the beige :)
Anyhow, it's back on there and hopefully will be a bit better protection against rear drops onto the tank.
Also, took a load of junk and old furniture to the dump. Is this overlanding?
I like taking a shower in the morning. A morning without a shower first thing (and a coffee) is a lousy morning, in general. Usually I'll just spray my hair or something, but time to go the whole way and get a shower enclosure. Got this OVS one for a reasonable price (with a coupon) and it came in today. Mounts up just like any awning, with the twin-track captive bolts, but it's a lot lighter than even my 48" awning (actually surprisingly light). This thing is 44" long so mounted up nicely just outiside my water tank. Didn't feel like welding so just bolted it on using the supplied L-brackets. Seems to be good quality, takes about 10 seconds to set up and about 30 seconds to put away entirely so should be pretty convenient. Also has a couple little baggy/pockets inside to put toiletries in, and the inside zips down partway in case you want to reach into your vehicle through the window to get your stuff, I guess. All in all, pretty pleased with it and will update once I've used it. Some pics, as usual:
(side note, I think this is the last thing to go on the roof. This thing is super-light, but less weight is better up top, of course).
Now I totally have three non-matching awning-type things on 3 sides of the truck. Am I doing "overland matching style" wrong? :)
That is very nearby (never seen it on the road though). And the asking price is like 3x what I paid for both of mine combined lol...It's an offroad package model (note headlight sprayers), but a 4-cyl with the leaf spring rear. For that price in that condition, it really needs to be an '89 with the V6 IMO. That said, if it's not rusty, someone will pay that for it probably.
I've been traveling for work so not much doing during June, and now it's hot AF out there so not doing much either haha....but a little project tonight. The original windshield wiper arms have the "tab" style end...just a flat slot that fits into the blade bracket. It's flimsy....I've had one wiper just fly right off on the road. And even when not flying off, the blade is able to twist with each up/down stroke. Maybe the design works if the blade has a metal bracket, but aftermarket blades these days have plastic brackets and exacerbate this lame design.
So, got a couple spare e30 (bmw) wipers, which have the more common (and more functional) J-hook end:
Some cutting and welding and now the Raider has J-hooks
So, it's something small and nobody would ever even notice, but I think it will make a legitimate difference in....er...wiper performance haha
Yessir - I was also surprised at how nice quality it was!
So, since I"ve added all the crap on the back (in addition to the spare tire) the rear visibility on this thing kind of sucks, especially backing out in a parking lot or basically anyplace offroad where reversing is needed. There's pretty much no view of anything lower than 4-5' tall behind me with the teeny factory rearview and this truck being way too old to have a rearview cam. So figured I'd try out one of the camera-based rearview mirrors and see how it is. After reading various reviews, I got one of the low-mid Amazon models from Wolfbox, which also has a dash-cam and memory card (not that I really need those). It came overnight (thanks Prime):
The mirror itself has a reflective screen (so you can just use it as a regular mirror if you need to), but otherwise is full video. It basically straps to the OEM mirror using some well-thought-out rubber ladder straps. It is kind of heavy, so I might worry a bit if an offroad truck has a windshield-mounted mirror. The Raider has an OEM bolt-in mirror arm, so weight isn't an issue. This thing also comes with a GPS receiver (for speed/direction), the rear camera, plenty long wiring, and various other nice little details like stick-on wire holders. Overall a well-thought-out kit for under $150.
So after a bench test to make sure everything worked, got to install. The mirror install itself is easy peasy, just have to run three wires from it (power, GPS, and the wire to the rear cam). On this truck that's pretty easy, just slip it under the plastic front headliner thing and run it behind the janky plastic panels. So, pretty clean - though the plugs could be hidden a bit better on top of the assembly. Then to figure out where to mount the camera. Can't do it easily down low, and I tried out about a dozen spots, from the back of the roof, on top of the gear box, etc. In the end, decided to mount it inside the glass, since this is an outdoors truck and I have a feeling it would constantly be dirty or wet and not have good vision. So I mounted it right at the top of the back door glass, making sure the rear wiper covers this area so I can clean the glass whenever needed. It came with some 3M tape, but I also used some small screws since I'm not confident it would stay in place offroad.
I mounted the GPS receiver on the dash near the A-pillar and ran all the wiring. So this comes with a cigarette-lighter-style power dongle. You can buy a "hardwire" dongle separately for pretty cheap, but I didn't do that and then realized that this is a 5V/3A device so I can't just snip the cig-plug off and wire to 12v. Luckily, I just happened to have a 12v > 5v converter module from some past project (I forget what), so I used that and just wired it to the cig lighter wiring, since it's right there under the dash and I don't use it.
Anyhow, all set up and tested it out. It's supposedly 4k quality, and it looks really good - though my old-ass can't really see the image in 4k without my reading glasses on...smh.
Here's the main view (e.g. "when driving"). It has adjustable brightness, and one-tough on/off in case you just want to use it like a normal mirror (which is a bit darker than an OEM one, but still gives good regular mirror vision). Also has clock, date, direction, and speed on it...which is mildly distracting but I'm sure I"ll get used to it.
Front cam (not aimed right at the time)
or you can split-screen it, though not sure why I'd want to
I neglected to take a photo of the unit itself in detail, which I'll add later.
Went for a drive, seems to work fine. Unfortunately, on my drive two other intermittent (unrelated) issues popped up. Occasionally my headlights just won't turn on with the switch unless I stop, turn the car off, and back on (and then they work fine). Need to figure that out. So of course on the other side of my neighborhood, I stopped to do just that....and then the truck wouldn't start. I actually noticed this weekend it did this once as well (in my driveway) but then fired right up so figured maybe I just didn't turn the key enough. But nope, this is back to the issue I had last year where the starter relay clicks but nothign happens. Then if you wait 30 seconds or a minute, it just starts up normally. If you recall, I added a second relay, which fixed the problem 100% from the moment I did it. Until now. So need to check what's up - maybe my secondary relay is bad or a connection is loose. Something to check out. Always something with 80s vehicles!
It's been a long time, but I believe 'click click...start' is a notorious Mitsubishi isue, but I'm not sure if those are related or if you already did that fix with the secondary relay.
golfduke said:It's been a long time, but I believe 'click click...start' is a notorious Mitsubishi isue, but I'm not sure if those are related or if you already did that fix with the secondary relay.
Yeah, I did the secondary relay mod last year and it totally fixed the issue. I'll have to double-check all my connections and/or swap out the second relay (an amazon cheapie). I also think that battery voltage may have some effect (since my jump-pack would always defeat the issue before I put in the second relay), and my battery is 6-7 years old so may be time to replace that as well.
--
Speaking of electrical, the last two evenings (and this one) I basically ripped apart and troubleshooted the entire headlight system. Basically, everything works as it should EXCEPT low beams, which don't work at all now. Checked the main relay (which just provides power to both so can't actually cause this problem). Tested a bunch of wiring and plugs, suspecting a short or bad connection. Checked grounds. Finally made it up to the column switch itself as the only remaining thing (short of two broken wires somewhere deep in the harness), so took it apart.
Everything looked fine until I noticed the little plastic "rocker" piece way inside the high/low beam switch.....broken and missing a chunk. Welp, that's the cause for sure - when in low beam it wasn't pressing on the contacts to ground out the wire to activate the lows. Unfortunately, this isn't a piece I can buy, and spending a couple hundred on a new (or used) working switch assembly isn't something I really want to do. So in the end, I got out some solder and bridged the two connections for low beam permanantly.
This is the before, basically I bridged the red/white and white wires but didn't take a post-solder pic because at this point I just wanted to be done. Forgot to take a pic of the broken plastic piece too (which is on the opposite side of the board)
So what does this mean? Now my low-beams work fine (important for road driving), but the high beams only work on the pull-back "flash" function. So I can't run with high beam ON constant now. That's really not an issue for me, I really never use them on the road - and on the trail I have a big-ass light bar up top (plus the two big Hella floods) for lighting. So no high beams isn't really much of a loss. At some point if I run across a parting-out Montero/Raider or in a junkyard I'll pick up a replacement assembly if I can for cheap....or I won't bother.
Side note: more successful test-drive this time, lights worked, car started fine. Adjusted the mirror camera a bit and I think it's going to be really useful overall - much better view, especially in the (considerable) blind spots on this truck with all the gear in it.
I just want to say I appreciate the steady progress you are making with this rig. No big projects, just a bunch of small to medium projects that are adding up to an awesome rig.
Well done!!
This is one of my favorite threads and I love to see it come to the first page.
Also your driveway is sick, I like neighbors like you! A range of cool cars and work being done. Do you have old license plates bolted to the bottom of your garage door? It looks cool.
NYN
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
So the rearview camera is an always on kinda deal?
That's pretty neat!
Toyman! said:I just want to say I appreciate the steady progress you are making with this rig. No big projects, just a bunch of small to medium projects that are adding up to an awesome rig.
Well done!!
Thanks, my budget won't allow the big stuff (not sure what big stuff I'd do anyhow), especially with the other car projects - the fun part about an old truck is it's perfectly fine to add stuff, make stuff ugly, and play with storage and little things I learn will make it better on the trail/camp/street. A lot different from the sportscars I'm used to, where you don't really want to do much that isn't straight-up performance or driving comfort :)
Recon1342 said:In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
So the rearview camera is an always on kinda deal?
That's pretty neat!
It turns on with ignition and is always on, though you can one-touch it to turn it off and use it as a regular mirror - it has a reflective screen so it's kind of like a tinted standard rearview. It can also take an SD card to record video loops (front and rear, I think), though not sure I'll ever bother with that. This company makes several different ones with different features. This was the 2nd-lowest model since I don't need anything too fancy.
I've seen these for years, but think that it's only recently where the quality and frame rate is so good that it looks almost like a real mirror (but with better vision). TBD how good it is in really dark night with headlights. I may try that out this weekend.
NY Nick said:This is one of my favorite threads and I love to see it come to the first page.
Also your driveway is sick, I like neighbors like you! A range of cool cars and work being done. Do you have old license plates bolted to the bottom of your garage door? It looks cool.
NYN
hah thx. I try to keep the cars visible to the neighbors looking decent. If I have a parts car or beater I'm just starting I usually keep it in my big shed out back until it looks nice enough to be out front lol. The license plates are actually bolted to the front of a wooden overhead shelf that's about 1 foot below the garage door in the up position. I put stuff up there like lexan sheet, foamboard, and other thin but big materials that doesn't fit well elsewhere. Only a few plates up there - one from my car when I lived in Italy in the 90s, and some other randoms - not all that cool haha....
I'd consider throwing a card in the mirror/camera and record video while on the road. A buddy of mine got hit while driving and the other guy apologized, confessing it was his fault. But when the insurance called they said his story was that it was my friend's fault and, since they couldn't prove anything, it was 50/50 and each would have to repair their own.
"what if I had video?" He then sent them the footage from his dash cam and he was covered 100% by the other guy's insurance.
plus, you might have some fun stuff on the trail that would be cool to share
+1 to toyman's comments. Love the small stuff you've done. It all adds up!
jfryjfry said:I'd consider throwing a card in the mirror/camera and record video while on the road. A buddy of mine got hit while driving and the other guy apologized, confessing it was his fault. But when the insurance called they said his story was that it was my friend's fault and, since they couldn't prove anything, it was 50/50 and each would have to repair their own.
"what if I had video?" He then sent them the footage from his dash cam and he was covered 100% by the other guy's insurance.
plus, you might have some fun stuff on the trail that would be cool to share+1 to toyman's comments. Love the small stuff you've done. It all adds up!
probably a fair point - not like it'll hurt anything anyhow. Probably just something I'll totally forget once I put it in there lol. Thx :)
Ok, time for some more camping and stuff. This trip was down to George Washington National Forest. Just a smallish group, and no particularly difficult terrain - mostly just going to camp, run some scenic fire roads, and such. We've been down here before and it's pretty easy cruising but this one would prove to be a bit more interesting thanks to a few factors: First, Andy our regular trail leader had somehow broken BOTH of his overland rigs - his moderately-built Montero Sport and his also-built GMC pickup. The GMC fuel pump died on the way down, so he towed it home and picked up his last remaining working vehicle - his daily driver Celica (which is lifted 2" and on larger A/T tires, for what it's worth). Because nothing stops Andy from camping. Normally this would be fine, as 80% of the trails we'd be on can be done by a 2WD vehicle with a bit of clearance (and there are bypasses for tougher areas). But last weekend the area had just gotten the remnants of the hurricane that wrecked NC/Tennessee and elsewhere. It pretty much ran out of steam by the time it got to W.Va., but still caused some issues. We met up in the northern area near Harrisonburg and hit the trails.
Almost immediately, the first issue came up - trees down. Lots of them. So out came the chainsaws. A couple of us had smaller 12" electrics (but only 2 batteries each), plus a larger electric, and a compact gas saw. These would prove to be JUST enough to get us through the weekend.
Also used some of the rigs to pull some out of the way
Soon after, we ran into another issue - water. This trail usually has pretty shallow streams, but the runoff from the storm made that a bit sketch. The first couple usually a trickle, were just shallow enough to let Andy ford it
But the next one was around 2 feet deep. WIth the other guys already across, we decided I'd dead-tow Andy (with his engine off) to avoid hydrolock. So the mightly 160hp V6 got to work, no problem
Then more trees. and Jim vamping
so we cleared those out too, with more effort
then the next river. This one I also dragged Any across, it was pretty scenic but a VERY rocky bottom and we partly ripped his bumper off this time
on the other side a couple moto guys/girls were there, turns out they were locals but didn't expect it so deep, and the rocks couldnt' be seen, and they laid both (?) bikes down and were trying to blow water out of the carbs. We tried to help out but they had a pickup coming to get them.
We passed the pickup (a big old lifted Ford) and they looked pretty confused about how Andy's Celica had gotten there lol...
The next crossing was even deeper, close to 3 ft in spots - pretty close to the max depth I'll take the Raider at the moment without a snorkel. So once again we hooked up and I dragged the Celica. This time I got water on the hood, and he had it on the windshield. Amazingly, none into his car and just a bit in the airbox (he checked/dried it after each crossing)
Still a few little stream though :)
So there was more of that all day, and we finally made camp at around 4200ft. up top of one of the mountains (no comment from Rockies guys, lol...). This time I didn't get the Room out, just threw out a tent under my awning, with more rain expected....
Andy always camps light, which is good since the Celica doesn't fit much!
Marwan had his new setup on the Land Cruiser, and it was pretty sweet.
And Jim just got back from a cross-country trip with his wife where he picked up a new setup out in Idaho where they're made - also a very trick setup
So we cooked (well, mostly Andy cooked) and we had some beers by the fire and eventually crashed.
There was some rain overnight, and int he morning we all woke up in a cloud
The road down was smooth, and several of us are competition rally drivers, so we may or may not have had a fairly high-speed "rally raid" going on for a while, once we cleared the cloud...
Andy bailed for a bit while we took on some slightly tougher terrain and took a bypass (or was that the first day?) whatever...
All in all, a good trip with no issues other than Andy's truck and some minor damage to his Celica (and lots of down trees and water). Cleaned up and trucked home Sunday.
With project time coming up, the Porsche came out of the garage and the Raider went in. I had to air down to 15psi and take one of the roof boxes off to clear the garage lol.....the joys of getting taller.
More on the project stuff later!
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