GR8ADV
Explorer
Here are a few. Nothing too serious this first summer with only extended weekend warrior duties. But clearly I need to take more action pics of the truck when we are out! haha. And yes Mike, I have actually changed the plates.
These are mostly from WA state as I test out a few things, find out some limitations, how/what works and what can use some TLC. For one thing, the tent was just too small for us on a regular basis so we upgraded to the 1600 and the added room is a real plus not night time changing, a place for the dog etc. This caused a few issues: The old tent's mounting position was so very low before, that the room with the new tent was difficult to use. In addition the length of the larger tent made access to the tool boxes a little tight. Again height being the issue. So I lifted it up with 2-8" Aluminum channels, still keeping it low enough to not mess too bad with weight distribution and still reasonably out of the wind. Likely I will powdercoat when I finally dial in what I want.
This helped in several areas. 1) Provided more room for the tool box access in the bed behind the cab,
2) Made the room tall enough for at least my wife, around 5' 10", to stand under
3) Provided enough height to put a Thule Box on top in the winter to allow storage for 4 of us to head to the mountains for a week to ski etc. (and clear the rear tire/shovel etc)
4) Created great covered summer storage for things like the tent's extra room, chairs, tarps etc.
On Mike's advice I had James Lombardo come up and do some re-wiring as well as installing a more robust back-up camera. This guy is good! (ding for the plug) Other than that, I have not done too much, but I tell you there are a TON of gadgets on this baby; it is fun figuring them all out. The vehicle is amazing on the street, smooth like butter on anything off pave, and very capable off road. The suspension is unbelievable on all three fronts.
