Looks to be Weber swapped. I would love to have this as a test mule for my 2.3 ford engines.
Looks to be Weber swapped. I would love to have this as a test mule for my 2.3 ford engines.
akylekoz said:
Looks to be Weber swapped. I would love to have this as a test mule for my 2.3 ford engines.
doesn't look too rusty (especially for Michigan!), but if you're going to look at it, I'd definteily take a look at the rear wheel arches, front valance, and the rockers (which are obviously rusty). If it's not too bad, that's a fairly reasonable price I would think. And where's the rear bumper?
Another cold-ass day, a few other little things until I can put the engine back together.
So I do have a 5lb propane tank to take for longer trips, but sometimes it's just more convenient to have a 1lb if I just want to make some hot water or something small and don't want to hook up the larger tank. I don't like having 1lb cans just stuffed in wherever they fit, and came across this double-can 3D printed "rack" for them (on Amazon, but independent seller). It was pretty inexpensive so figured I'd give it a try, and it came in today. Overall, nice quality, great fit and a nice design
I mounted it up on the little swing-out door (where my Jetboil now lives) for easy access just high enough to get my footlocker out beneath it. So, it's pretty much out of the way, does the job, and uses space that nothing else really uses anyhow.
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On the kitchen end of things, I ordered a Kelty kitchen bag that seemed to be the size, setup I wanted, and it came in today too. There are some cheaper knockoff one on Amazon, but this one seems to be built pretty well and has a lifetime warranty on it I think, and looks pretty nice.
It folds out so it can hang off a rack or whatever when cooking
I think it'll work great, but then I got distracted by my really annoying coffee box, which is totally inconvenient and I have to unload half of it to get to stuff I need.
Hey, let's see how the coffee stuff fits into the Kelty bag....
hmm...that actually works really well and makes all the coffee stuff easily accessible. So yeah, I'm gonna use it for that and order the other (slightly smaller) Kelty kitchen bag as well. I think the coffee stuff will actually fit in the smaller one and I'll use this one for cooking stuff. Or vice versa, TBD.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
It probably won't happen, but I feel like if I showed up with some cash he would let it go cheap. FBMP add is over a year old, he clearly has other priorities and a SWMBO. I however have the same affliction.
So, my stuff from RockAuto came in so time to get the engine back together. Immediate problem.
They sent the wrong gasket kit for the IM. The part number is actually correct for this vehicle, so Fel-Pro is probabaly in the wrong here, not RA. Luckily, the old one was still in good shape so I just put a bit of RTV red on it and re-used it. Anyhow, got everything assembled, including new plugs, new wires, new PCV (while I was in there), all back together, then went to start it up, expecting it to just come to life and.....it didn't. Cranked, and cranked, I could hear it trying to fire. Eventually it fired up and......was misfiring badly. Like, barely staying running. WTF.....
Turned it off, checked the order of the plug wires (correct), checked that they were seated well (yes), triple-checked everything else was hooked back up...no dice. Then I pulled the plugs to check if I was getting ignition/combustion.
Hmm.....three of the six look like nothing is happening......no fuel. They were all sparking when tested. So now I think i got half a batch of bad new injectors, but that seems extremely unlikely. So maybe I broke some of the old wires in the harness while taking stuff apart? Either way, I have to take the IM and everything apart again to do that, grr. First I figure I'll check the plug for the one injector I can actually get to that wasn't firing....... now keep in mind, I cleaned up all the injector plugs/contacts and may have made an error regarding use of dielectric grease. I use that stuff on all the connectors on the 1985 rally car (e30) but those are tight German connectors. So I'm thinking maybe these not-German old mitusbishi connectors aren't as snug, and aren't wiping the grease when plugged. So I clean that one plug out well, and then use a little pick to bend in the contact surfaces for a tighter fit. I plug it back in and try the car. It stumbles to life again, still misfiring, but definitely LESS misfiring (like, 2 cylinders instead of 3). So that seemed like the solution. Took everything apart, pulled all the connectors, and cleaned/re-bent them like the other one. Plug it all back in, put it all back together, and after a few cranks it fires right up again. So that did the trick.
Now, that was last night. This morning I decided to test if it was starting quickly - since all this was due to perceived leaky injector or whatever. The answer is NO. I had to crank it for about 5-10 seconds before it came to life, which seems a lot like what the problem was previously. So I'm at a bit of a loss here now. Everything in the fuel system is new. New coil, plugs, wires. Did a smoke test and no vac leak. The only thing I haven't replaced is the little "ignitor" ....so maybe that's the culprit? THough again, engine runs perfectly once started. So may have to trouble shoot some more.
Oh....and while doing the rear plug on the driver's side, I leaned into the brake master reservoir (36 years old...) and it literally cracked across half of it...
Love that brittle plastic. Guess better to do it here than on the trail, so I have a new one on the way.
- also, my second Kelty kitchen bag came in. This one is the "not Deluxe" one which is only 10 bucks less. It's not as nice, and definitely not as large (which I'm surprised at, a bit), but should be fine for my limited cooking utensils, plates, etc.
It actually fits better in my cooking footlocker anyhow. The coffee one will live outside the box for quicker access :)
....and just a quick follow-up to that last post...., the new brake master/reservoir arrived. It's identical to the old one so that's good, because it meant I didn't change the master itself since no air got into the system, I just changed out the reservoir itself. So, I think the rig should be back in action now.
irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:So, my stuff from RockAuto came in so time to get the engine back together. Immediate problem.
If you flip that end for end and turn it over it looks like it should fit.
Hard to tell over the internet though.
Toyman! said:irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:So, my stuff from RockAuto came in so time to get the engine back together. Immediate problem.
If you flip that end for end and turn it over it looks like it should fit.
Hard to tell over the internet though.
lol- I took the pic this way to be dramatic, but I did try it other ways. It *almost* fit but the bolt holes were off by enough that I didn't want to try it (especialy on a metal gasket). I should have taken a pic overlaid with the old gasket. Trust me, it was driving me crazy because I was like "this looks like it should fit!!!"
Either way, the old one works fine, no leaks, so probably just as well to get my $16 back....
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With it down in the teens-20s today, the Raider was REALLY hard to start. Like, took a good 30 seconds of cranking. Once started, ran fine, and started up instantly after I was in the store for 15 minutes. Clearly it's not about an issue in the fuel/ignition hardware at this point, and the most likely culprit is the system that tells the ECU the coolant temperature when cold so it can change the fuel map. Oddly, this is the same sensor that had the broken wire on it that I fixed a few posts up. Maybe it's been broken for a while but it didn't matter until it started actually getting cold out. But fixing the wire didn't do anything, so there are three things in the system that could be the issue: the ECU, the sensor, or the wiring itself. The wiring is a tough one so not starting there. I have a spare ECU, so plugged that in and it made no difference....so ruled out. I'm searching for the spare sensor I have (or will order one today if I can't find it), and will try that. If not, then will start tracing wires......
so, replaced the coolant temp sensor: no change
swapped out my spare ECU: no change
tested the wiring from the coolant sensor to the ECU: good continuity from what I can tell.
tried with various things unplugged to try to limp mode it (MAF, IACV, temp sensor): nope
removed and cleaned IACV: no change
removed and cleaned MAF: no change
replaced MAF with a new one: no change
checked more plugs, examined more wires: nothing noticeable of concern
at this point the only actual components left that I could possibly replace are the ignitor and the crank position sensor - and I can't see how either of those would work or not work depending on engine temperature or ambient temperature (independent of some other issue).
So it's probably down to a bad wire or something at this point. The next test may be to run a separate pair of wires directly from the sensor to the ECU pinouts and see if that helps. Otherwise, I'm pretty juch out of ideas and may just have to deal with long cranking times when it's cold - since it always starts eventually, and then runs fine until being shutdown overnight again. That's annoying AF but not the end of the world, as I'm pretty much over throwing more money at the problem.
On the upside, have a trip planned for a few days with some friends later in the month so it'll be nice to get back out into the woods and do some camping.
today figured maybe I'd splice in a few extra grounds to various things with the idea that maybe a bad ground is causing stuff. Plan was to start with the coolant temp sensor, but got distracted as I noticed (again) that my thermostat housing was wet around the base. I've noticed this before but wrote it off to water from rain/snow or whatever, and snugged the (loose) bolts down thinking that would take care of it, but still leaking. So I pulled it off and immediately noticed the housing was cracked partly by one of the bolts. I thought about just JB welding it but housings are dirt-cheap (like $12) so just ordered a new one (and gasket/thermostat). A little part of me thinks "well, that leak is right next to the coolant temp sensor so maybe that was affecting something" but that seems highly wishful thinking lol.....
So so far I've not managed to fix the original issue, but had to replace the brake MC and the thermo housing (and alot of other things that didn't need replacing). So yeah, not exactly what I had hoped for lol.
well, not much real news on the hard start. Still doing it and I'm mostly out of ideas for the moment and have other things to do. It always starts eventually so I'm not losing sleep over it. This weekend heading out camping into western MD (which will be chilly) so doing some quick projects to address some minor things. It's been cold and snowy recently so biting into my project time...
Unsure how much snow we'll get this week, but the camping area could be snowy (old or new) and need to bring a snow shovel. This is a small rig and not a ton of room left inside as you well know. so stole some shovel mounts off my Sequoia and put them up top
So that should be fine. I also decided i'll probably sleep IN the rig this time rather than snowy/muddy ground so flipped the front seat around in advance for my platform (since no riders are expected)
Last time I just rested the front end of the platform on the back ledge and put some sweatshrits under it as base, but want to improve that a bit. So on the back end I added a couple pegs to stop it from sliding forward off the lip of the rear section
And built a basic front frame to hold it at the right level. Janky, but it works
So, that should be better...
Then loaded up most of my gear in case the weather sucks later this week (it will...). This little thing is getting a bit snug for sure...
Yesterday was a federal holiday and reasonably not-frigid, and sunny. In the winter with the low sun I get terrible glare off the hood (made worse by a 30+ year old windshield with lots of rock chips) so decided to sand it down and paint the center section with some satin bedliner to reduce reflections, which was pretty easy.
Came out pretty good and hides most of the dents and big scrapes on this beat-up old hood. I only had enough in the can to do the center section but may do the outsides as well at some point since the paint there is pretty awful.
This weekend I headed out with my old college roomie and a couple of his friends to Green Ridge State Forest in MD/PA for some cold-weather camping. He's from Montana, an experienced camper, but is just starting to build his Tacoma to do anything really "offroady" so Green Ridge is good since it's pretty easy trails/roads that any stock truck/SUV can do without issue. Jim and Amanda decided to come along, and then Andy (who leads a lot of our trips) jumped in for Saturday/Sunday since he lives an hour away and loves to be a tour guide.
The weekend forecast was single-digit night temps, so decided I'd sleep inside the truck just to keep things easy. And of course had to bring more stuff (heater, more heavy clothes, etc) so it go pretty snug inside the Raider on the way out (granted, I could pack the sleeping bag in the compression bag, but why bother)
Met up with the group at the site - a large open site right next to 15-mile creek, which was frozen over pretty good. Friday night was super-windy too, so that was quite chilly with the temps already in the 20s...while eeryone set up.
Got to use the new grille (which is awesome), as everyone made some dinner and lots of hot drinks
Yeah, I'm so gourmet...
Got a good fire going and everyone hunkered down with whisky etc....
I'll note that Jeff brought his "hot tent" which would turn out to be very useful for a quick warm-up (and very good for him since I got food poisoning on Friday night and had a rough time - but not as rough as if he were in the single-digit temps!)
Anyhow, eventually everyone hit the sack. I got my warmed nalgene bottle of water (mostly for coffee in the morning), and put the buddy heater on for about 10 minutes to warm things up before getting into the sleeping bag (Marmot Never Summer, in case you care).
So as noted, temps outside got down to about 7 degrees that night. This is the coldest I've ever camped, and a few things made for a crappy night:
1. I slept with my head toward the rear of the truck as I've done before, but I didn't level it as well as I thought, and my head was slightly downhill I think. Plus a slight lean toward the side I like to sleep toward, made me feel like I was going to fall out of bed. Need to do better next time.
2. The Never Summer bag is warm AF, no issue there, other than I wish the zippers went further down to make it easier to get into. In fact, I ended up ditching my thermals by later in the night and was just in shorts and a t-shirt (and socks and a hat), but I was getting a 7-degree breeze on my neck so eventually dug out my hoodie from my bag while freezing, so that sucked. The bag was at the front driver's seat and hard to access inside when sleeping the other way. There's not a ton of space to sit up/turn around.
3. Something else I'm forgetting. Whatever, moving on....
In the morning my thermometer had the car inside temp at 30 degrees (which I find hard to believe, since just sticking my head out of the bag felt like the coldest I'd ever been, even as someone who has skied all over the world....) but eventually rolled out of there, heated up any clothes that weren't in the footwell of my sleeping bag, and got up to make some coffee and eggs (which were cold practically as soon as I put them on the plate lol)
Andy showed up an hour later and eventually we all rolled out so Andy could give the "tour" of Green Ridge to some of the new guys (I've been on the "tour"). Nothing too tough, the roads were largely dry with a few sections of residual snow, but it's nice to cruise around and see some scenery. A few frozen streams, nothing particularly deep. We did laugh as I went right over one without breaking the ice and then Andy's big GMC smashed right through haha..
At one point near the top of the part was a pretty good incline up to the overlook, covered in ice. Most of the bigger rigs had to get a good running start at it to get up - and the Lexus LX570 (driven by an Aussie overlander) actually didn't make it the first time and slid all the way back down with brakes locked (we expected that might happen, so it was a straight shot back to the gravel). The Raider has zero issue going up....almost did it in 2WD actually but needed to go 4WD to make it.
It never looks steep or slippery in pics, but trust me
Then a bit more scenic stuff, the spots everyone stops at....
Plus the old railway tunnel, which is pretty spooky
Headed back to camp on normal semi-maintained roads, I ran over a small tree branch that had fallen...nothing very big, and everyone else had already driven over it. The kind of thing you see 100 times on the trail every time out and never think about......And then...my clutch immediately went to the floor. WTF. Look under the truck and i see brake fluid all dumped on the ground/skidplate. And there's this fking piece of the dead branch sticking out from the (literally) 3" gap between the skidplate and the frame rail.
So now I'm looking up and I think it's somehow snagged/broken the clutch hardline, which would be a major issue, but as it turns out it somehow hooked the clutch soft line to the slave cylinder and pulled it just right so that it yanked the banjo bolt loose half a turn,which apparently was enough to spray out the fluid.
Seriously, I could run over that branch 1000 times and never have it do that again, just an unlucky thing. Luckily, I had brake fluid with me so tightened the bolt up and bled it lying in the dirt and getting brake fluid sprayed on me, and all was fine.
Swung by a brewery for a beer and some food and then back to camp again to hang out.
And I burned that damn stick, which somehow rode all the way back sitting on my rear swing-out where it was in the prior pic lol...
Anyhow, bedtime came earlier that night and this time I leveled the rig better, and slept facing the other direction, and put my hoodie on. And overall slept pretty well and wasn't cold except whenever I stuck my head or arm out of the bag, so that was good. Convincing myself to actually get OUT of the bag in the morning took some motivaton thought, lol...
Anyhow, Andy was already up with his electric coffee maker. He has a 2000W Jackery and was running a heated blanket all night in his rig with it, and uses it for coffee rather than propane.
Except the blanket on for 8 hours got him too low to finish his brew so he had to pour-over anyhow ahha
So yeah, we had some coffee, cooked some breakfast, and all headed home (Andy and I went to check out a couple other out-of-the-way campsites for future reference). All in all a good time, but one of the coldest times I can remember as well. Some more lessons learned on the camping side of things, but pretty pleased with the truck setup overall. Just a few minor tweaks to make this time around.
On the way home at a gas station a guy came up and was like "hey, I follow your build on Overland Bound forum" and he has a very overland-y Titan Diesel that apparently goes all over the place, so that was pretty fun. Small world.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
Flipping the seat around is a smart idea. No need to build an extra platform like you would need to if you yanked the seat altogether. Plus you could still carry a passenger in a pinch.
BTW, your build thread has been the inspo for me to get a gen 1 too. Still 100% stock, but slowly and surely will become a camping and "light" trail rig.
HaddaLayerDown said:In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
Flipping the seat around is a smart idea. No need to build an extra platform like you would need to if you yanked the seat altogether. Plus you could still carry a passenger in a pinch.
BTW, your build thread has been the inspo for me to get a gen 1 too. Still 100% stock, but slowly and surely will become a camping and "light" trail rig.
yesssss..... well, I hope you get a built threat going as well, definitely interested in other ideas!
Forgot to post a few pics from 2 weekends ago. My rallycross got cancelled, so I booked down to George Washington National Forest to meet up with Andy and some of the other regulars, who were already wheeling/camping down that way. Nothing too notable to say, truck worked fine, met them up near Reddish Knob and we camped out a few thousand ft. up on a chilly night (30 degrees or so). There was a lot of cooking, some nice rigs, and I just tent-camped. So just a quick photo dump here no real stories worth telling lol...
Looks like we're doing a 4-day trip through WVA and SW Va. over memorial day, so a few little things to improve the camping situation.
First, tired of going in the woods....
Though this is kind of bulky for a small truck. I may make up some way to just hang it off the back so it doesn't take up interior space.
I'll probably sleep in the rig at least one night and I've found that there's not much overhead room with the hanging roof net inside, so I took it down and relocated it, since I still want to use it to hold stuff...
And got this paper towel holder off Amazon. It' ratchets so it doesn't spin and let all the towels flow out, and it's spring-loaded so it holds the roll on. So that's way better than paper towels just floating around the truck like they usually are...
Of course, I didn't take a pic of the mount itself, which is pretty nifty....will do that later.
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In other unrelated news, I did the timing belt and a bunch of other stuff on my other 80s (street) car and took it out finally after a long winter of it in the garage...
With a longer trip coming up and apparently a lot of river/stream crossings, decided to finally get a snorkel. Not that I"m going to go too deep since I like my interior not soaked, but we do a lot of dusty trips so this should help with that . Anyhow, it was under $100, seems to be good quality, and the template was ALMOST right (two holes slightly off). I only have the snorkel itself bolted on right now, still have to run the hose to the filter/intake assembly.
Sketchy drilling a big hole in the fender. On the upside, I have two spare fenders in my shed so wasn't TOO worried lol.
But overall, it fit fine after I bored out the two holes that were a couple mm off. Seealed all the holes up with good sealant, etc. The hardware is pretty good as well
There's also a bracket on the A-pillar that uses 3 rivets, so a bit more drilling
Gonna have to figure out tubing routing. The snorkel outlet is pretty close to the "wall" of the engine bay (on the left here....you can see the stock U-scoop in the background). It would make sense to just drill a hole straight through and go to the airbox, but the PS reservoir is in the way. Probably because this snorkel is bought by more guys with 4-cylinder or diesel Montero/Pajeros, IDK if they're different. So will ahve to look into how best to route things, but I have a few days left to get that done. I may shorten up the outlet there and find a J-bend pipe and just run it down to the stock "scoop" piece. IDK
Because I really needed MORE crap on the outside of this little rig....
There's a stock height Jeep Renegade on street tires running around town with a snorkel bolted to it. Makes me giggle every time I see it.
Yours looks much better, like it will actually see some use. Have fun with it!!!
Recon1342 said:There's a stock height Jeep Renegade on street tires running around town with a snorkel bolted to it. Makes me giggle every time I see it.
Yours looks much better, like it will actually see some use. Have fun with it!!!
I live in Northern VA outside DC. I see a few dozen fully-kitted 4x4s/Jeeps with RTTs, snorkels, etc. on my daily commute that have the cleanest wheel wells in the world. Either they are obsessive detailers, or they've never been off the paved road. But whatever, I'm down with people doing what makes them happy, maybe they INTEND to do something cool offroad one day, and that's good enough.
I resisted going the snorkel route for a good long time but 1) my air filters suck up an amazing amount of dust and 2) the guys I trek with are mostly in taller rigs and I want to be able to go anyplace they go with regard to water. Looks a bit goofy, but my rig is too beat up to look poserish :)
I run a snorkel on the H3T because I've found evidence of mud and water in the air box. In stock form, the Hummer only has a water crossing depth of 24" @ 5mph, or 16" @ 20mph. That wasn't enough.
For the sake of discussion, I face the snorkel forward on the Hummer most of the time. The performance hit from the longer intake length on the 3.7 in the Hummer was noticeable, and I'd rather have a little bit of ram air effect than create a vacuum in the intake. About the only time I turn it around is when following someone on a dusty road.
Toyman! said:I run a snorkel on the H3T because I've found evidence of mud and water in the air box. In stock form, the Hummer only has a water crossing depth of 24" @ 5mph, or 16" @ 20mph. That wasn't enough.
For the sake of discussion, I face the snorkel forward on the Hummer most of the time. The performance hit from the longer intake length on the 3.7 in the Hummer was noticeable, and I'd rather have a little bit of ram air effect than create a vacuum in the intake. About the only time I turn it around is when following someone on a dusty road.
I've definitely gotten plenty of dust in the airbox, but never any water (and I've had it at the front of the hood a few times, very nervously).
Will see how the scoop orientation goes, it's easy enough to turn around if needed. Not sure the whopping 160hp in this thing cares anyhow haha.
Got it finished up. Had to move the PS reservoir, which was trickier than expected to find good hose clearance (and had to get a longer return hose). But, seems to work fine.
Over Memorial Day, my buddy Andy set up a bit more of an "overland" trip than our usual weekend camping/technical 4x4 trips that are mostly centered on finding challenging terrain. This one was more of a 4x4 cruise and 3 days of camping, to see some nice areas and find some great roads. For the route, we did the southern section of the Mid-Atlantic Backcountry Discovery Route (which was made for dual-sport bikes, primarily) and then did part of the route used in 24 Hours of Appalachia, plus a few side routes to see things or check out cool roads. Not much technical wheeling here, it was mostly fire roads, forest roads, and rural highways. Could have probably done 95% of it in a regular car with good tires, in truth.
Three of us met up in Damascus, Va where the trail starts. This is a 5-6 hour drive for me in the Raider down awful Rt. 81, dodging tractor-trailers with no cruise control (more on that later, by the way). There were 5 or 6 folks planning to show up, but a couple bailed last-second and one was running late. Andy had gone down earlier to find someplace to set up camp, and found a little clearing deep in some woods that was very scenic, but also pretty much only big enough for 2 vehicles (his is big, mine is small).
The spot was apparently a local dump site for trash, so Andy had already filled up a big bag of crap people left there, which sucks. After leveling the truck a bit, set up camp and waited for WIll to show up. He ended up just parking in the entrance trail and sleeping in his cot-tent since there was no space to fit the Tacoma in there.
It was a chilly evening (I slept all weekend on my interior platform since sometimes I'm too lazy to do the tent setup) and some of my minor improvements in the rig made for some better sleeping than previous trips. Woke up and made some coffee
Day 1 for me was 370 miles, almost all of it paved / highway.
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Then we hit the road, criss-crossing the Applalachian trail and finding some great forest roads. I'll mention that Andy and I both do competition stage rally, so going quick on gravel roads through the woods is what we like to do. It's a bit different in big/loaded trucks with tires aired down a bit (for ride quality). The Raider's suspension isn't exactly sporty, but we definitely did some good corner-carving lol
We also saw plenty of the results of the storms last fall, still a ton of wrecked bridges, temporary bridges, and recently-rebuilt roads near rivers and streams
But otherwise, plenty of scenery
A bit later we headed up Whitetop Mountain, which at 5500 ft is the 2nd highest peak in Virginia (and the highest you can get without hours of hiking). Was a great view of the Appalachians from up there, and a few folks were camped right up near the peak as well
Later in the day while crossing over a mountain after 20 minutes of fairly rough road, we came across about 40 people on horses with beers, some of which clearly had downed several already. A few of the ladies in the group were pretty amusing (I won't go into detail, there may be children present) but we eventually got by them with some funny stories for the campfire.
A few other random pics from our way up, as we tried to meet up with the 4th in our party, coming from up North.
As we slogged north, mike was sent to find a campsite. It being Memorial Day, he had some trouble finding anyplace good and ended up just getting a site in a state forest campground (which was oddly empty) near Potts Mountain. So we had a bit more space that night
So on Day 2 we did 238 miles total, probably half paved/half unpaved I'd say.
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The next morning we continued South and then North through Jefferson National Forest, up through Clifton Forge, up on some ridgelines...
Then back down into town for gas
And headed down an offshoot route down a river road. This one was marked as a 3-4 rating for 4x4s due to a bunch of river crossings, the largest of which is apparently usually around 3 ft deep. It was definitely drier this time and we did a lot of rough driving on dry streambeds, and the main crossing was probably no more than 18-24" I'd guess.
There was a little playground area with a nice view near that so we messed a round for a few minutes
Around then, MIke pulled over while we were 20 miles from any town on a little forest road. Turns out his left rear caliper had been dragging for some time and was bare pad backing to the rotor making a racket. So he clamped the line off with some vise grips and we abandoned our last two trails to head into the nearest town to find some pads (harder than expected since he has ZJ brakes). But ghe found some and we changed the pads in the parking lot
Behind schedule now, we just jumped on the highway and hauled for 90 minutes, to Monongehela National Forest. The plan was to camp at the old Mine there, which is a "dark area" with a bunch of cool campsites and views. Also neat because it has about a million Red Spruce trees there, so looks more like the PNW than Virginia. Unfortunately, after going 10 miles around the roads, every campsite was already full (apparently there was a mountain bike race there that day)
But we eventually found a big open spot right as it was getting dark (defintely only 4x4 accessible) and got set up, made some dinner and a good fire, and rode out some light rain through the evening without seeing any of the hoped-for clear stargazing.
On Day 3 we did 273 miles, about half-and-half.
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In the morning we were woken up by damn bear hunters with their dogs on their loud pickups at 6am, so that was annoying. Plus everything was wet at misty, so a sloppy breakfast and pack up.
We cruised up to the high vantage points, but it was pretty foggy so not much to see
And then down into a nearby valley lake area
After another 2 hours of forest roads at high speeds, the guys headed north (they live in Maryland) and I bailed out east to head home via the West Va. Superhighway (Rt 55 IIRC), which has some nice views as well.
So last day was 127 miles (plus another 180 or so on the highway going home).
On the upside, while messing with stuff in the Raider on the way home, I found out the cruise control WORKS. IDK if it didn't work before, or if I just never bothered to check but that's cool. It's 80s cruise-control, so it just holds the pedal at a set throttle (not a set speed), so depending on where you set it, you may end up going 100mph down a mountain or bogging in 5th going up one lol. Really only useful if you're on a fairly flat highway (which I generally wasn't)
Got home and did the clean=out of 4 days of dust and mud....
Overall, the Raider did great, averaged about 15mpg all told (the other guys were more like 10), and some of my recent improvements to my camping setup worked well. I still have some other ideas to do as well, but overall a fun trip and not too difficult, with very little drama and a ton of amazing scenery.
I love this rig. I love that you use it more than I use mine.
After a long camping weekend, one thing that was already clear is even clearer: This truck is small. Yes, I can pack all my gear for a good amount of days (thankfully it's a giant square box also) but I have to put gear in front of other gear, and morning packup in particular is extremely annoying, I'm usually the last one packed up. All told, it's time to get going on a project I've been thinking about for a while: front seat delete.
So I'm almost always solo in my vehicle on trips (wife and kids, not interested, and if they ever are I have the Sequoia), meaning I don't have much need for a passenger seat, which takes up a lot of space and is pretty heavy. I suppose if I need to give someone a ride in a pinch that's one reason to have it, but in a real pinch someone could just sit on the rear floor where I usually put my footlocker with all my kitchen stuff. And that will be going away.
(side note: I'll still keep the seat, it takes like 2 minutes to swap in and out). So that brings up the other point here: to replace it with something that maximizes utility, but is also quick to take out/replace with the seat if needed – so no permanent stuff.
So to get started I got some various plywood (different thicknesses for different parts, though I was mostly winging it). Starting with a base piece that will bolt into the factory seat mounts, to hold it in place securely. Then started adding some walls.
I only have about 15” at the floor level, but it can be wider higher up, which is fine because the lower “box” is intended to hold my camp grill (which is only 12” wide). The upper box will be built to fit my three Kelty kitchen/coffee bags and my food box. I laid all this stuff out on the living room floor to figure out my size needs, and that matched up well with the available space.
So then built the upper box. Still hadn't figured out exactly how I wanted to access the top at that point, but had some ideas. I'll note here this has to double as the forward section of my sleeping platform, since the forward section I've been using sits on the passenger seat (flipped backwards). So the box has to match up in height and slope to the rear section of of the platform.
Didn't take many pics of my janky wood working, but it came together fairly well (learned some lessons from my kitchen box build in the Sequoia). And figured out how I wanted to do the lid.
Anyhow, primed the whole thing:
Then painted it with “chocolate pretzel” which I've used for various projects (and is the same color as my seats in the Raider)
Before doing other features, figured I'd test fit it (ended up building some small spacers underneath to level it better with the rear platform.
note the gap between the dash and the top – that's so I can access the glove box, mostly. But I'll deal with that as well, since I don't want a hole by my pillow.....
looks so big in there lol. But the full platform (rear and new section) is about 7' total, from the rear hatch door to the dashboard. So, not that long...
Ok so that fits pretty good so pulled it back out to continue on the “features”
Oh, and here's the three Kelty bags and my food box, all snugly in there
So for that aforementioned gap, I made a filler panel that can be easily removed for access:
the two “legs” just slot into some bent steel flat and that holds it in place. It doesn't have to be structural, just enough to keep my pillow from falling down there at 3am lol
I don't want the lid making any noise on the trail, and I had a couple neodynium magnets from the swing-out project sitting around, so just made it magnetic (but way better hold than cabinet magnets from kitchen aisle...)
I put some little metal brackets on the box interior but didn't take a pic, sorry. They work like magnets, end of story.
Then dug out some cheap carpet fabric left over from my old Porsche project and wrapped the top. Because painted wood means anything I put on it will slide around too easily.
And you can see it swings open fine even wrapped over the hinges. Also you can kinda see the brackets for the magnets, If you care.
And I started adding some aluminum angle to the corners for protection. I have some more to add, but here's how it stands at the moment.
Will add some other features next week when I have some time.
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