Search results

Life changing magic of tidying up - or, "I hate my stereo" August 7, 2016. I've suffered enough. That Panasonic stereo I installed back in 2013 was great for the Bluetooth, and it was nice for playing videos, but the UI was just horrendous. I mean, why can't there be an option to just make the...

Flat tire vs. Best hike. July 22, 2016. The trip started out on the iffy side. We wanted a beautiful weekend for a stunning hike, and instead it was raining, there was a faint hiss coming from the back left tire, and 20 miles up a Forest Service road I had no tire patch kit. But, a spare...

Mileage milestone - 60K July 2, 2016. It's been close for a while, and it's been a long time coming, but on our way out of town for a what would become an off-road adventure to a brand new site - the truck hit 60K miles. That's an average of 3,600 miles each year, or a whopping 300 miles per...

Replacing the wimpy horn May 18, 2016 First generation Toyota Tacoma's are known as great trucks. The horns - specifically on 2000 Tacoma's - not so much. For some reason, Toyota decided to only put "half a horn" in the 2000's, and it's obvious. The thing is wimpy. It's quieter than my Honda...

Oh ********, the engine light's on - upgrading the air filter (Part 5: Upgraded air filter) May 2016 Epic journey behind us, it was time to find out what was wrong with the engine and get it fixed. Step 1: Read the error code. To do that, I bought a Kiwi3 OBDII adapter and the DashCommand app...

Dinner was simple - we'd mastered it the previous night. A package of hot dogs, an ear of corn, and veggies. We skipped the marshmallows. A rip-roaring fire at the top of the ridge, a washcloth "bath," and views of the sunset were all we needed before hitting the sack (under the stars) after a...

Oh ********, the engine light's on - upgrading the air filter (Part 4: Owyhee, The Honeycombs) May 2016 With a new lease on life (no check engine light), the trip through Jordan Valley (again) and to our final destination was fun. We saw a ring-necked pheasant and of course 1 million billion cows...

Oh ********, the engine light's on - upgrading the air filter (Part 3: Owyhee, Three Forks) May 2016 A few miles outside of Jordan Valley, it was back onto dirt roads for 30 miles to Three Forks. Mostly uneventful, we saw many more cows than cars, and we arrived at our destination around 7:00pm...

Oh ********, the engine light's on - upgrading the air filter (Part 3: Owyhee, Jordan Craters) May 2016 The whole of Owyhee Canyonlands are composed of various volcanic activity. Jordan Craters is the most recent of that activity (parts of which are only ~100 years old) and are a crazy sight to...

We continued on. Turn after turn, the landscape improved. Turn after turn, we were more and more lost. We saw deer (both alive and dead), all kinds of geology, and we saw what we thought was a landmark called Yellow Dome. We thought wrong. At this point we were in the "head...

Oh ********, the engine light's on - upgrading the air filter (Part 2: A trip to the Owyhee (pronounced 'Hawaii') Canyonlands - Chalk Basin) May 2016 It was just like any other work week. Or at least, any other week where you go to work for half a day Monday; take a 24-hour flight to India at 6pm...

Oh ********, the engine light's on - upgrading the air filter (Part 1: Prelude) May 2016 "Uh, Dad? Can you hear me?" I yelled into the phone, hoping that 1 tiny bar was enough. But we're getting ahead of ourselves again. We need to rewind about 20 minutes. To when the engine light came on. Or...

The camping mod - disabling the courtesy lights March 20 - April 28, 2016 Courtesy lights are those little lights around the car that turn on when you open your doors. They generally include the dome light, some door lights, that kind of thing. Now, I know what you're thinking - "How in the...

Thanks! glad to hear you're enjoying - there's definitely more to come :)

Day 2. With so much less to do, I'll go for my Sunday morning walk, and still be done by the time @mrs.turbodb gets back from church (around lunch time). I pushed the truck back out of the garage and got to work installing the new Monroe MA-820 air shocks. These puppies are like the old air...

The BOSS lift - prepping for armor February 2016. Or March. Sort of April. If you're going to lift your truck, there are two ways to do it. You can do it for looks, or you can do it for real. For looks, you're talking about a spacer lift or a body lift - something that raises the truck but...

New tires all around August 2015. After driving the same truck for 15 years on the same set of (original) tires, you get to know how it feels, how it sounds, and frankly - how it smells. It still smelled normal. But it didn't sound or feel normal when we were on our way home from work, that...

What's wrong with the clutch? - The first tow July 26, 2013. We're headed home from work, just about to get on the freeway and I push the clutch in to change gears. The clutch never comes up. I reach down while trying to keep an eye on the road, squirm my fingers behind the pedal, and...

Jealously and smartphones = Bluetooth for the Tacoma January 13, 2013. It turns out that auto tech changes in a decade. "What?," you say. "Yes, yes it does." Before @mrs.turbodb and her Audi (which I call a station wagon, but she'll have me tell you is a "Dark Gray 2008 Audi A4 Avante named...

Sportz Truck Tent and Truck Bedzzz July 2012. Without a tent, camping in the truck has always been a fair-weather affair. Which in Washington limits options. So I decided to change that. With products that contained the letter Z. You think I'm joking, but I'm not. You'll see. The way I've...