The Wild Crow - A Not So Wild Build Thread

[jim65wagon]

We also ordered seat covers while we shopped on Amazon. These are not what we really wanted, we're holding out for a few years but wanted to be able to prevent damage to the very nice and comfortable seats the Tacoma came with.

These are CoverKings ballistic Cordura covers. The rear set showed up within days of the order. I did the install while Beth worked on the rack mount. The instructions included are minimal, but it's pretty obvious how the covers slide on and what attaches to where. The only advice I can give is take your time, and DO NOT reinstall the headrests backwards! They are a PITA to get back out.



For the price of $150ish a row, they seem durable, and look acceptable. It takes some hand strength to get them pulled tight. They should last a few years while we save up for the alligator hide set we fell in love with.....

 

[mtnbike28]

Looks awesome! You two are so smart!

 

[jim65wagon]

Engaging Ultragage Gauges

From day one of ownership I've wanted some way to monitor the "need to know" information about the engine and transmission. I've owned all kinds of vehicles, and I'm always disappointed with the gauge clusters provided by the factory. From my 65 wagon, which had a speedometer, a fuel gauge and three idiot lights to the Tacoma which (like my Tundra) has gauges, just none of them tell you really what is happening.

The gauges are just a scale - no numbers provided to give you a solid reading. You know, "My temperature needle is between C and H, but not in the red so I must be OK" kinda thing.

Back in the day you had to run wires for an amp gauge to monitor your battery, an oil line for oil pressure, another line for engine temperature, and yet another for your transmission. All these lines went to an aftermarket gauge cluster hanging under your dash.

It's so much easier these days! You buy one teeny tiny black box, find a spot on your dash, plug it into the OBD2 port and you've got more gauges at you're fingertips than you could ever fit on your dash!

I use a scangauge in the Tundra and love it. Easy to use, small, unobtrusive, etc. For the Tacoma I wanted to try out the Ultragauge. I've read good things about it on the interwebs, it's small, and even one third the price of the Scangauge.

After some time sitting in the truck and moving it around, pretending to be driving in the woods, or in heavy traffic (yes, I wiggled the steering wheel back and forth making vroom! Vroom! noises), I chose to install it left of the steering wheel near the door. In this location you can easily read its screen, it obscures none of the factory gauges or lights, All it blocks is a little bit of the vent but you can still adjust the vent easily.

Now I can keep track of my transmission temps while I'm towing the CrowsWing, check my battery or engine temp, and not worry about running out of gas from the fast dropping gas gauge Toyota provided.

The UG is an easy to install easy to use item. The price is right and I'm so far happy with the result.

 

[jim65wagon]

We got our front seat covers on finally. Well, "we" didn't, my wife did. I was busy with another project on the CrowsWing (trailer) so she installed the seat covers. They've done their job already saving some spilt coffee from staining the seats. I think I may spray them with some waterproofing spray. They stopped the coffee but I really expected it to bead up and roll off more.

 

[jgpoirier]

What is the brand of your seat covers Jim?

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk

 

[jim65wagon]

See post 31 above.
Coverking ballistic Cordura seat covers

 

[jim65wagon]

In an effort to gain some expedition style street cred we finally made an upgrade that we've been holding off on for a while collecting the necessary parts until we were ready. After months of saving and acquiring we took the time to add our steekers!





And for an added bonus: For our anniversary I made my wife a present for the truck. We had both decided that it needed some defining decoration that matched the Wild Crow to the CrowsWing. I bought a sheet of vinyl car wrap in brushed aluminum (to match the trailers aluminum sheeting) and made a large cut out of a wild crow. Similar to the late 70s Trans Am but crow style. We applied it and added a stripe which really set it off. It turned out well and she is happy with it. I'm diggin the distinctive look the truck is taking on.




Today while I was at work Beth finished the crow stripe adding in the section above the birds head and filling in places under its wings

 

[jim65wagon]

We briefly discussed buying new wheels for a few days. While I like the look of the Baja wheels I found out my wife doesn't. She shopped online and found a set she likes. Fuel Revolver D525s. Nice looking wheels.

We got our calculator and started adding up total costs. Wheels are expensive! And let's not even mention the possibility of getting larger tires too! We decided to hold off on the expense of rims. As we were talking about the merits of each rim and what the likes and dislikes are ( the Fuels are black with shiny trim screws on the edge) we decided that maybe it was the bright aluminum beadlock that was offensive to the eye.

What to do? What to do?
Paint!
So I removed, cleaned, sanded, cleaned and painted the beadlocks.
A can of satin black later and voila! No need to buy new wheels!
20160711_192224 by James Hays, on Flickr

 

[mtnbike28]

Nice! I like the paint on the wheels!

 

[jim65wagon]

We've used the Wild Crow for two trips this past July. Since it's not our only truck, we use the Tundra when we can to keep miles off the Taco. For July the kids both needed rides for work so we got to use the Tacoma for towing the teardrop.

The first trip was to the North Bend campground at the Kerr Reservoir. I didn't take hardly any pictures though, it's just a chill trip with friends. Eat, drink, swim, kayak, repeat

 

[jim65wagon]

The second trip was with old Expedition Portal friends (Mtnbike28) that wanted to do a waterfall tour of North Carolina. We loaded up the truck and teardrop and headed to Asheboro to meet them at their house.



The trip down I95 and I85 was uneventful but a 4+ hour slog of freeways and high speed traffic. Beth is always ready to keep my wits sharp. At one point I saw selfie mode out of the corner of my eye. I looked around and saw this:



We spent the night in Asheboro and the next day headed to Highlands NC, hopefully to find a dispersed campsite in the National Forest. I'll camp in a campground if I have to, but I really prefer those quiet nights in the woods. If the 'drop will fit down the trail I'll camp there. In this case our "trail" was just a gravel but rutted forest road which posed no problem for either the Wild Crow, or the CrowsWing.


photo by Jay Capers

Campsite set up and we were ready for a week in the woods (against TLC's musical advice) of chasing waterfalls. Seems the rivers and the lakes I'm used to need to give way once in a while to new territories.

 

[jim65wagon]

We got to drive the forest roads a lot over the week and the Baja really wanted to fly down the gravel roads I had to remind myself to keep a cautious pace as the roads (both unpaved and paved) were all full of blind turns.

Waterfalls:
Glen Falls. Touristy location near town. The altitude of these mountains (4000 - 5000 feet elevation) means the hike down and back makes old men that live at sea level huff and puff.








Jay hard at work!

This day was mostly "drive to" falls. Our next stop was Bridal Veil which is one along the road you can drive behind. It sounded cool, but was disappointing in reality. Touristy, almost no water and the road was closed. On down the road!

Dry Falls. Again touristy. Pavement all the way to the falls made walking easy. Lots of peeps hanging out at this one. It rained hard enough we waited out the storm in the truck


I snapchatted our daughter our progress when data service was available





From there we found the roads going to Wayah Bald. Jay wanted to check out the lookout tower. Great views on Tennessee and Georgia from the 5342 foot elevation.









On the way back down the mountain we stopped at the Wilson Lick ranger station. It dates back to 1916. I would have more photos but we kinda got swarmed by wasps,hornets, or yellow jackets. Don't know which as I wasn't sticking around to get a closer look. Lol. A few stings among us and we knew to leave well enough alone.










After all this travel we took the scenic route back to camp, cutting down into Georgia and catching a glimpse of Estatoah Falls on a hillside in the distance. Sadly, it's on private property so no can see....

 

[jim65wagon]

The next day we hit Scotsman's Falls. Nearby but a real workout to get to. Finding the trail was an adventure all it's own. The guide Jay had read " after a hard left turn on the gravel road look for two tall pine trees. The trail in next to them"

OK. First of all, in the mountains, every turn is a hard left or right.....and there are tall pine trees everywhere. After a few miss fires, we found the right two and got on the trail down. It was really a scramble through and over and under trees, and rhododendron and brambles.


photo by Jay Capers





Snowflake (aka Kodak) didn't know what to think about the waterfalls


Beth and Sam though they were cool!


After an equally hard scramble back to the vehicles we had a brief lunch, and then headed for Lower Whitewater falls on the Duke Energy property. It was an interesting and pretty hike to get to the overlook, but oddly enough every sign we came to said the overlook was 1.7 miles away. Seemed like we were getting nowhere!

Eventually the wooded trail gave way to an overlook with the view.






After the hike back we met Jay's wife at a nearby gas station (she missed the first two days due to her work schedule) and we got back to camp well after dark.

 

[jim65wagon]

Our next day brought us to Cashiers Sliding Rock. FUN! No pics from my camera though, I left it in the truck fully planning to slide the falls and get wet. It was crowded like a public pool in the summer but it was tons of fun.


A short way down the road led us to Silver Run Falls


....and then we took the hike down to High Falls. The hike itself was impressive. A mile or two downhill, but with staircases made of logs, bridges of sawn trees and a stone step staircase that would have been daunting to build.
and a sign like this makes everything more fun!




















The hike back up was slow but not too bad for all the "up" that had to be done


One of my favorites is the log staircase, from the bottom it looks like a pile of logs


The day was great, we were tired. Stopped for ice cream on the way back to camp, then finished the day with good food, drink and conversation about camping, travel and truck tires

Deb chills by the campfire.....warmed by the stories of tires

 

[jim65wagon]

Another day, another waterfall.....or two.....maybe three....

With Deb around Jay wanted to show her Dry Falls, he thought she'd like that one. On the way we made a stop at one called Secret Falls. It's listed in the guide book, OK, but if it's listed in a guide book, how Secret can it be? Turns out it was secret enough that we had the falls to ourselves for several hours. We spent our time wisely.



swimming in the deep pool and splashing through the falls.








We dried off and headed back to Dry Falls. On our way we ran some forest roads looking for future campsites around Blue Valley. We stumbled upon this little fall along one of the roads.


It was off to Dry Falls again. It was also much drier than the day before.

Dry Falls take 2


Beth and I became two of the many people being photographed behind the falls by friends stationed along the walkway


.......only to be photobombed by professional photobomber Sam, taking on the difficult job of out-cuteing us.




Another fine evening after a hard day of chasing those pesky waterfalls. I usually do the basic white girl thing and photograph our meals. I didn't this trip. I don't know why. You would have loved them. Pizza, Taco Salad, Porterhouse steak and Escargot......all the goodies.....and all downed with fine wines.

This evening after the meal and cleanup we had a nice campfire. Our daughter had previously gifted us with some color packets to put in the fire. It worked well, and looked reaaaally pretty, especially with a nice rum - in this case Kraken.