TheSkeeter
New member
Darwin Award here guys...
K.Ray's Lame Tacoma Build Thread
- Thread starter K.Ray
- Start date
K.Ray
Adventurer
Going to need a cabinet soon.
livetoride21
Adventurer
Great build so far! You seem to be going in the same direction my build is. nothing too outlandish, fully daily drivable, but very capable.
look forward to more!
look forward to more!
K.Ray
Adventurer
Blue Ridge Expeditions 2016 Winter Safari
Whirlwind weekend! Amanda and found out about this event two weeks prior during the ETO/Bold Overland trip. The Bold crew mentioned they were going and it would be a great opportunity to meet some vendors and learn some new skills. They had us at "camping." We paid and dues and set our reservations the next day.
The event was base camped in Mortimer, NC. An extremely small little dirt street corner nestled deep within the western North Carolina mountains. Amanda just happened to be traveling to Asheville, NC for business that Friday before the event started. I left work a few hours early to pack the Tacoma and leave town. A quick sprint over the mountains to pick Amanda up from downtown Asheville and we were in full vacation mode. We followed my preconfigured GPS tracks up from 40E to the campsite in Mortimer. We hit a washboard dirt road still speckled with snow and ice right at dusk. Overlanding.
We hit camp somewhere around dark:30. I was worried we wouldn't have a place to setup, or worse, missed check-in all together. As I pulled in and hoped out of the Tacoma I was immediately greeted with familiar faces and a quick check-in from the staff. The Bold Overland folks had saved up a piece of prime pond-side real estate. We pulled in and immediately began setting up camp and adding clothing layers to stay warm. We did a pot-luck dinner that night and opted out of the night trail ride offered up by the event to sit around the campfire and share war stories. We had a great evening.
The next day was one filled with lessons and adventure. I spent the morning chatting, taking photos, and talking with various vendors. Mike, with ARB USA, was gracious enough to do a 1-on-1 with the ARB awnings and tents. A lot of great info learned and I very much appreciated him showing up to the event. Next up, we had scheduled the afternoon ride that was set to commence at 12:30. Around 1:30 we headed out with 17 other rigs. Somewhere around 3:00 we finally made it to the trail head some after doing a big fuel up and supply grab at a small shop along the way. The trail was stock friendly but offered up some challenging spots for the more well equipped rigs. It also had snow/ice all over it, which wasn't expected. Doing a trail ride with this many rigs is always a challenge. Logistics need to be pinned down days in advance with a clear and conscious method of engagement. Unfortunately, this didn't happen and a lack of communication and organization quickly resulting in a confused and disjointed group. We lost two rigs due to part failures and formed mini-groups traveling across the mountain. The shining light in all the murky waters was the Bold group. They quickly saw a need for leadership and stepped up to lead the best they could.
We made it off the trail some 7 hours later. After rolling back into town and stopping for fuel and tire air we decided to join our friends for dinner away from the main event group. We convoyed up to Boone and had dinner at Chili's. A military-like convoy back to camp took mere minutes and we were shortly nestled in our beds after a long hard day.
The next morning we did our own thing for breakfast and broke down camp. The event held a raffle and quite a few people won some nice swag from the various vendors that were attending. We then planned our route out with Bold and headed out. Our path took us straight over the mountains and down to 40E heading southwest. It was an old dirt road with spots still covered with 3-5" of snow. With only one little oops we made it back to main roads and proceeded to run over to Asheville and have lunch-dinner at Jucy Lucy's. Food baby. We then made the last sprint home to Knoxville where we spent the night cleaning out the truck and getting ready for another office filled work week.
Total Trip Distance - 456 miles
A big thanks to Blue Ridge Expeditions for putting the event on, Mortimer Campsite for the superb location, ARB USA, Southest Overland, and Bold Overland.
Night 1 - Day 2 Part 1 Photos:
Whirlwind weekend! Amanda and found out about this event two weeks prior during the ETO/Bold Overland trip. The Bold crew mentioned they were going and it would be a great opportunity to meet some vendors and learn some new skills. They had us at "camping." We paid and dues and set our reservations the next day.
The event was base camped in Mortimer, NC. An extremely small little dirt street corner nestled deep within the western North Carolina mountains. Amanda just happened to be traveling to Asheville, NC for business that Friday before the event started. I left work a few hours early to pack the Tacoma and leave town. A quick sprint over the mountains to pick Amanda up from downtown Asheville and we were in full vacation mode. We followed my preconfigured GPS tracks up from 40E to the campsite in Mortimer. We hit a washboard dirt road still speckled with snow and ice right at dusk. Overlanding.
We hit camp somewhere around dark:30. I was worried we wouldn't have a place to setup, or worse, missed check-in all together. As I pulled in and hoped out of the Tacoma I was immediately greeted with familiar faces and a quick check-in from the staff. The Bold Overland folks had saved up a piece of prime pond-side real estate. We pulled in and immediately began setting up camp and adding clothing layers to stay warm. We did a pot-luck dinner that night and opted out of the night trail ride offered up by the event to sit around the campfire and share war stories. We had a great evening.
The next day was one filled with lessons and adventure. I spent the morning chatting, taking photos, and talking with various vendors. Mike, with ARB USA, was gracious enough to do a 1-on-1 with the ARB awnings and tents. A lot of great info learned and I very much appreciated him showing up to the event. Next up, we had scheduled the afternoon ride that was set to commence at 12:30. Around 1:30 we headed out with 17 other rigs. Somewhere around 3:00 we finally made it to the trail head some after doing a big fuel up and supply grab at a small shop along the way. The trail was stock friendly but offered up some challenging spots for the more well equipped rigs. It also had snow/ice all over it, which wasn't expected. Doing a trail ride with this many rigs is always a challenge. Logistics need to be pinned down days in advance with a clear and conscious method of engagement. Unfortunately, this didn't happen and a lack of communication and organization quickly resulting in a confused and disjointed group. We lost two rigs due to part failures and formed mini-groups traveling across the mountain. The shining light in all the murky waters was the Bold group. They quickly saw a need for leadership and stepped up to lead the best they could.
We made it off the trail some 7 hours later. After rolling back into town and stopping for fuel and tire air we decided to join our friends for dinner away from the main event group. We convoyed up to Boone and had dinner at Chili's. A military-like convoy back to camp took mere minutes and we were shortly nestled in our beds after a long hard day.
The next morning we did our own thing for breakfast and broke down camp. The event held a raffle and quite a few people won some nice swag from the various vendors that were attending. We then planned our route out with Bold and headed out. Our path took us straight over the mountains and down to 40E heading southwest. It was an old dirt road with spots still covered with 3-5" of snow. With only one little oops we made it back to main roads and proceeded to run over to Asheville and have lunch-dinner at Jucy Lucy's. Food baby. We then made the last sprint home to Knoxville where we spent the night cleaning out the truck and getting ready for another office filled work week.
Total Trip Distance - 456 miles
A big thanks to Blue Ridge Expeditions for putting the event on, Mortimer Campsite for the superb location, ARB USA, Southest Overland, and Bold Overland.
Night 1 - Day 2 Part 1 Photos:
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K.Ray
Adventurer
Thanks! Yes, a no nonsense build for sure.
K.Ray
Adventurer
ARB Deluxe Bull Bar Install
Called Chris up at the Marietta, GA 4wheelparts store. He had my ARB bar there in less than 24 hours for pickup. We sprinted down early morning and had the thing on the truck by that evening.
Install was fairly straight forward. I just happened to have about 4 extra guys around to help so the thing was on the truck in about 2 hours. The hardest part was just making sense of the hardware. Why they don't put scaled photos of the bolts in the instructions I will never know. Really quality product, as to be expected. Very happy with this purchase! Now M8000 and sliders.
The foglights are still pending. I ordered 9005 pigtails from Amazon and I'll solder the female end onto the ARB wires for a stock hookup.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008H6ZHYS?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
Called Chris up at the Marietta, GA 4wheelparts store. He had my ARB bar there in less than 24 hours for pickup. We sprinted down early morning and had the thing on the truck by that evening.
Install was fairly straight forward. I just happened to have about 4 extra guys around to help so the thing was on the truck in about 2 hours. The hardest part was just making sense of the hardware. Why they don't put scaled photos of the bolts in the instructions I will never know. Really quality product, as to be expected. Very happy with this purchase! Now M8000 and sliders.
The foglights are still pending. I ordered 9005 pigtails from Amazon and I'll solder the female end onto the ARB wires for a stock hookup.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008H6ZHYS?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
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K.Ray
Adventurer
Had a higher-end local tire shop do a Road Force balance on the new BFG KO2s. I've been having tons of vibration from them and couldn't stand it any longer. After going through all the tires we found the culprit that was out static and dynamic. In other words, we could watch the tire wobble on the machine it was so badly out of round. I called up Jason Smith at the Marietta, GA 4wheelparts to see how they normally handle this sort of issue. He put me on hold and came back 5 minutes later to tell me a replacement has been ordered and that he would call me when it arrived. Sweet!
wreckdiver1321
Overlander
Truck looks sweet with that bumper on it!
Glad to hear your tire woes will be solved efficiently. I always love when companies go out of their way like that to help their customers.
Glad to hear your tire woes will be solved efficiently. I always love when companies go out of their way like that to help their customers.
BentBomber
www.bomberproducts.com
Bumper looks great! I'm trying to free up some funds to start actually doing stuff to my truck. Way to keep to build moving along.
K.Ray
Adventurer
Partners in crime, the both of ya!
Big big things coming next week. Stay tuned!
K.Ray
Adventurer
Absolutely incredible. The next best thing would be tank tracks. I will forever put them on all my vehicles. Including baby strollers.