Baja New Years - the prep part
We have family in LA. Winter in Seattle is pretty bleak. Should we head south for Christmas? Yes, yes we should. Hey, since we are already heading in a southerly direction, should we just go a bit further into Baja? Yes, yes we should. Great, let me buy more stuff for the truck! Sounds like a great plan
Being a total newb to Baja, I wanted to make sure I was ready for anything. I read a bunch of books and talked to a bunch of baja regulars and got the low down. Seems pretty chill, but I still wanted to make sure I was covered. I didn't want to be that guy. We were going to make the trip with some friends from Seattle, who have been going to baja for a number of years. We made plans over beers, plotted routes and discussed the highs and lows. We were going to be fine, but what better excuse than a trip to a different country to make some upgrades to your kit?
What do I need? Driving on the beach? Yes. Long stints between fuel stops, yes (?) sure! fuel cans! yes. not much access to ice? yes. Here is my thought process.
1) This one was total fluff, but I always wanted to do the exhaust on the truck, so this was the perfect excuse. I always thought it looked funny just sort of hanging down way below the flatbed. This is the stock location, and it looks like something is wrong. Can't have that!
Went with a Stainless Flo-Pro 4" turbo back kit. I couldn't figure out how to route it better over the axle and make it look nice, so I opted for a side-dump exhaust. It fit perfectly right at the back of the cab past a hump in the frame.
Ohh, so shiny! Still in the bubble wrap.
Out with the old (mallet was well used)
In with the new!
Being a custom install, had to do a bit of custom hanger fabrication. Luckily, my friend is good at that welding thing:
Fits nice and tight:
Good. Upgrade #1 done.
2) Next thing was a table on the back door. We frequently prepare food back there and end up blocking the access to the back with the food paraphernalia. I saw this really cool table from RockSlide Engineering at the NWOR last year, so I picked it up. Fits the bill perfect.
It is a 2-level table. Went back and forth on this too. A single level table, in my mind, would get filled up straight away and no room for activities. This table allowed ~1.75x the space, based on my loose calculations. It works great for our use. I used some riv nuts so I can remove it very easily if needed
Tucks away nice and flat
Good. Upgrade #2 done.
3) Ok, purchased a fridge. Went back and forth forever on this decision, but ultimately, we are very happy with it and I think I made the right call. The fridge had some requirements though, for the LA portion of the trip (and other trips), the fridge needed to live in the back of the camper as we were using the backseats to shuttle people around when down there. It also had to fit with the full bed as we would be using the bed for our trip down and time in LA. When in Baja it was going to have to live in the backseat as we wanted max space in the back for living.
Measured, made templates, fretted, gave up, looked at my coolers again, got back into it and settled on the 50qt ARB. They have an office in Renton (just south of Seattle) So I was able to order and pickup without having to pay for shipping. That was nice.
We had to modify one of the removable bed panels in the back to get everything to fit, so now the one panel works perfect with the single mattress and the other works perfect with a double mattress + fridge!
Just doesn't quite clear with the top down in the back:
backseat is great though, it clears the roof by many inches
Good. Upgrade #3 complete.
4) Misc upgrades + stuff
Upgraded to a better BBQ. Got a Napoleon Q285 grill. Fit perfect in the side box with the camp table. Good stuff. Burgers for days!
Filtration. Wanted better filtration for my fuel. Got this dual filter kit from
http://www.dieselfuelfilterkits.com/
The stock dodge filter for the cummins doesn't filter down to the level that cummins recommends for their injectors. weird. This kit takes the filtration down the the spec level + an extra water filter. This kit requires no drilling and uses standard filters that you can buy anywhere. This is a great kit for the dodge diesels.
Figured I needed some bigger shackles. Got a set of these from ARB.
Getting stuck was not an option, so I opted to go with MaxTrax. They are spendy, but I believe that they were the right choice for the trip down there.
they are still shiny!
Good. Upgrade #4 complete.
5) big upgrade. Wanted to do a roof rack for some time on the truck. I wanted a bit more usable space and figured the cab needed some love too. Looked at many, many roof racks. Tried Yakima & Thule. Those didn't work how I wanted. Looked harder. Rhino racks? Front Runner? None of them made a rack for the '06. What to do? Decided I liked the Front Runner racks the most as they were sort of squared off and abrupt like the canopy poriton. Needed some custom brackets. Have a different fabricator friend? Yup. This was his solution (ignore the tracks further inside, those were test dummies):
Heck yeah!!
Wow, this keeps getting better
Oh, awesome, the maxtrax fit up there just great too
Spare tire as well? Sure, why not!
Nice! Looking Baja ready! Now just have to actually do the trip!
And if you wanna come ride that would be rad, wife doesn't ride, so it's usually just my lonesome self. i'm really looking forward to it, getting to ride the north shore, coast gravity park and whistler again, i can't f#*$ing wait.
