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Old 08-20-2021, 09:24 AM #1021
HiLife HiLife is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Unner View Post
Lots of purchases the last few weeks.
  • Primelux LED lights
  • Baja Squadron Sport Amber in Combo Pattern
  • Security Hardware for the lights above
  • Strongarm 6815 Rear Hatch Struts
  • Depo Headlights
  • New Interior LEDs and Front Corner LEDs
  • New door checker hardware
  • 6.5" Kicker speakers for the rear doors
  • New Silblade wipers
Interested in what route you took to mount the 6.5 in the rear doors?
Did your cut the door? Use an adapter?
Been enjoying your built throughout these years!
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Old 08-20-2021, 11:18 AM #1022
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HiLife View Post
Interested in what route you took to mount the 6.5 in the rear doors?
Did your cut the door? Use an adapter?
Been enjoying your built throughout these years!
Thanks!

From what I've seen so long as the mounting depth is 2 inches or less you will clear the window and then you just need to make a mounting plate for the speaker. I plan to buy some cheap plastic cutting boards for my mounts and trace the stock mount onto it and then cut the hole in the middle for the speaker. There's an adapter for 5.25" speakers you can buy on Amazon. Rather than cutting that up I'll just make my own though, hopefully.

We'll see how it goes, I'll follow up here with whatever I end up doing.
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2008 Toyota 4Runner Limited 4x4 - Salsa Red, DD, Mostly Stock, 89k miles
2001 Toyota 4Runner SR5 4x4 - Not Stock, Lifted, Armored, 291k miles
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Old 08-30-2021, 12:47 AM #1023
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In the past week I have got a lot done on the 3rd gen, and the 4th gen.

The third gen I am getting ready for a long trip up to the Northeast/New England states this fall. If anyone has suggestions or input on places to stop I am welcome to it. I don’t have much of an itinerary, other than stopping in Baltimore to pick up a friend, driving north along the coast somewhat and into Maine. I will have my dog with me as well. We’re planning to camp most nights along the way. The one place I do definitely want to stop is Acadia National Park. I’m hoping the timing will be right to catch the fall colors up in Maine and the surrounding states as well.

From Maine we will drive back across upstate New York and then follow along the great lakes. I will drop my friend off somewhere in Ohio where he will fly back home, and I will either make my way home then as well, or I may spend another week wandering slowly making my way back home.
The list of things to do on the 3rd gen before the trip is getting shorter. I checked the brake pads when I rotated tires and they still had enough life for me to run them at least one more tire rotation. Those pads now have 113k miles on them…

Now I just need to finish up the following:

• Rear door sound deadening
• Rear door 6.5” speakers
• Tire Balance this week
• Alignment this week
• Baja Designs S2 Sport Reverse/Camp lights
• Oil Change
• Power Steering Fluid Change
• Reupholster Door Panel Armrests

So, onto what has been done lately.

The Primelux LEDs are installed, security hardware is installed where possible, and they are aimed. The Primelux are wired to two separate switches to prevent drawing too much power through the stock fog light circuit. I like having one on there to allow for easy flipping on and off as high beams.

The Baja Designs Squadron Sport Amber Combo ditch lights are installed with security hardware, aimed and ready to go. I wired these into the same harness that the old MRT Vision X Clones were wired into. I did have to cut off the DT style connector and put on Weatherpack connectors. Had to buy the special crimping tools for them as well. The connectors are pretty easy to put together with the right tools though.

20210822_125302 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

I put my new headlights in as well, and properly aimed them. I went with Depo brand aftermarket headlights. Less than $100 for the pair, versus $350+ for the OEM. The difference in how reflective the insides are is apparent when they are next to each other. Also the light output of the new headlights is incredible compared to the old ones. 280k+ miles of running the headlights took it’s toll on the reflective coating. These new ones shine so much brighter. Sure, the pattern isn’t as great as new OEM ones I am sure, but these put out much cleaner and more useable light than the old worn stock ones at a very reasonable price. I no longer dread driving the 3rd gen at night like I had after getting the 4th gen with its fancy projectors.

I did swap over the frames behind the headlight bucket so I could keep the Toyota ones on the truck. I also swapped over the drain hoses since the Toyota ones are much longer. They were a little loose feeling so I put a ziptie around them to help hold it in place.

I also put amber LEDs in the corner markers. I like how vibrant and orange they are, and when they’re on it gives a bit of an old Land Cruiser vibe. The quick LED flash when locking and unlocking the truck gives it a slightly more modern touch.

Some pics showing the old and new headlights:
20210821_101809 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_101803 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_140436 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_114842 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_115223 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_140411 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

In work, looks weird with no headlights…

20210821_104458 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Some pics showing the new installed headlights and corner LEDS:

20210821_182902 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_140500 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_183014 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_182928 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_183026 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
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2008 Toyota 4Runner Limited 4x4 - Salsa Red, DD, Mostly Stock, 89k miles
2001 Toyota 4Runner SR5 4x4 - Not Stock, Lifted, Armored, 291k miles
1987 Toyota Supra N/A - Stock, 2nd Owner, 92k miles
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Old 08-30-2021, 12:48 AM #1024
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Some pics showing all the new front facing lights (new headlights, Primelux LEDs, and Baja Designs):

Realized I never took any pictures since I installed the Baja Designs lights the other night. Pictures to come tomorrow in the daylight.

Some pics showing the light output:

Low Beam:

20210826_224815 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

High Beam:

20210826_224818 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Primelux + Low Beam:

20210826_224833 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Low Beam + Baja Designs:

20210826_224826 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210826_220458 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

High Beam + Baja Designs

20210826_224843 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Also, for those interested, here’s a comparison of the color temperature of the Baja Designs Amber lights, versus the Rigid Amber lights. You can see how much more orange the Rigid’s are. This made the Rigid’s about useless for seeing anything at night. Even in intense fog/rain they weren’t much help. I am sold on Baja Designs after installing these. The color is much better for me, and they are much brighter/throw light farther. If only the Baja Designs LP9 wasn’t so expensive I’d have put those on the front bumper.

20210822_001023 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210822_001019 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_235828 by Unner Unner, on Flickr


The interior got new LED lights in all the dome, cargo, and map lights. The dome and cargo area lights have given up long ago. The cheap ebay LED panels stopped working, and always had a bit of a blue tint which I wasn’t a fan of. I bought some regular bayonet style LEDs off Superbrighteds.com and they are a much nicer color temperature, and they can’t rattle around like those LED panels (I figured out that cargo one was the source of one of my rattles in the truck).

They are a tight fit so I recommend removing the light from the roof and installing the LEDs inside the house or something. Otherwise you may end up shooting the light up into the roof body and having to pull trim pieces to fish it out with a magnet. Ask me how I know…

The front map lights had continued to work, but were bluer than I’d like. So I got some warmer color LEDs for up there as well. All around this makes the truck much nicer to drive at night. I had forgotten that the dome light turns on when you unlock the truck. Nice to have that feature back.

20210821_200026 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210821_200512 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

The rear hatch shocks have been replaced twice. Once many years ago the OEM were replaced with Strong Arm 4826, and once again the 4826 were warrantied with the lifetime warranty. They weren’t keeping up anymore with the ladder even in the hot Alabama summer. So, knowing that it will be cold in Maine, and winter will happen here too eventually I sprung for a new set of Strong Arm 6815s, the higher pressure version of the 4826. The hatch doesn’t fly open like a rocket, but has a nice controlled lift and raises all the way up. Time will tell how long they last, and how winter impacts them, but I am happy for now. They also have a lifetime warranty. No more worrying about the hatch collapsing on your head which is nice.

20210821_195606 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

(Spare tire is off since it goes in for a tire balance and alignment later this week)
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2001 Toyota 4Runner SR5 4x4 - Not Stock, Lifted, Armored, 291k miles
1987 Toyota Supra N/A - Stock, 2nd Owner, 92k miles
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Old 08-30-2021, 12:51 AM #1025
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Per Tim’s @mtbtim video and @JZiggy ‘s find, I went ahead and rebuilt all the door checkers in the third gen. It’s not something you realize is an issue, until it is pointed out to you that your doors don’t stay open and they just fly open with the slightest effort.

The truck has over 280k miles on it now, and it’s seen some rough terrain. I also used to get in and out of the truck A LOT for work. Like probably 15+ door cycles a day for several years. So my door checkers were about as worn out as they could be, probably more worn than most with this mileage even.

Getting them out is simple and easy, just like Tim shows in the video. Getting them apart isn’t too bad either. Just drill out the spot welds like Tim shows. I will say that not all of mine were you able to access the side of the spot weld Tim uses in the video because of the positioning of the bolt, so I had to use a center punch and drill through the other side. No big deal.

20210823_181441 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Like Tim mentions in the video, the “bumpers” for lack of a better word on the front doors were very worn and clinging on for life on mine. The way these bumpers had disintegrated had caused the metal stop plate that the bumper rests on to begin damaging the metal housing that the fixators rest in.

20210823_180636 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

The passenger one was a little bent up, but not too bad. The driver one was very bent. I had to straighten that housing out with a large diameter punch because there was no way it was going to go back together right with the new parts. Pics of the driver side one before straightening are below.

20210823_180730 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

I wanted to fix up these rubber bumpers because one, I didn’t want the metal housing to continue to get damaged and two, I wanted to have that nice cushion when the door does get opened all the way to the max. Gives it a little more luxury feel.

So, I started searching online to see if these were available, or how much a new checker would cost. The bushings are not available separately, and a new checker is $100. Not gonna happen when the whole rebuild kit was like $30 for all 4 doors.

While I was searching, I noticed that it looked like other Toyotas used the same style of bumpers on their checkers, namely Camry’s. I had the idea then that I might be able to harvest these from donor cars to use on my checkers. So, with the pick and pull junkyard being open another 90 minutes I threw some tools in a bag and headed out there.

There are never 4Runners here, so I wasn’t going to be able to pull them off donor 4Runner rear doors, but I did find a nice 2011 Camry. I popped open the rear door, got the panel off with a couple screws and some tugging and then the checker came right out just like the 4Runner ones. And it has the exact same bumper on it!

I didn’t want to buy the whole checker, because I had no need for the whole thing. I thought about trying to press that pin out of the end of the checker to get the new bushings on, but that seemed risky. What I did instead was took a very sharp razor blade and sliced the checker on the bottom side, straight up, You want to make a nice straight cut, until the rubber is able to be separated from itself. Now you can twist the bushing free of the checker.

Bingo, now you have a new bumper for your old 4Runner checkers. I went around the yard pulling various door panels seeing what vehicles had the same ones, and what kind of shape they were in. I pulled door panels off Camry’s from 1997-2011 and they all had the correct style of bumper. The Avalon uses a different system, and the Corolla doesn’t have the bumper at all from the factory. Makes sense being that it is the base model economy type car. I only bothered checking rear doors since they would be in the best shape overall. Some were in better shape then others, and by the time I was done I had a nice handful of them so I could experiment if needed. I went to pay and they let me go without a charge other than the $3 entry fee. So, for $3, and 90 minutes, including drive time I had a way to fix the checkers.

Old bumper versus junkyard bumper.

20210822_170119 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
The Junkyard ones slip right onto the 4Runner ones just like the originals.
20210822_170129 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Now the only issue was that slice I had to put in there. You can probably just leave it like that without issue for awhile, but I wanted these to go another 280k miles. So what I did was put a little superglue into the cut on the bumper and then squeezed it together.

20210823_165248 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

And to make extra sure it wouldn’t come apart I wrapped it tight with a zip tie.

20210823_165431 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

After you do the rest of the rebuild per Tim’s video you just install as normal.

20210823_174105 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

A few pics from the rebuild process.

New versus old fixators.

20210823_105659 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210823_232107 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210823_170709 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Good as new, and now I’m into the new door checkers about $35, maybe 8 hours total time, and saved about $350. Plus, I think these new checkers are stiffer than OEM ones, and will probably last longer. The doors feel really solid now, which is nice.

While I was in the front doors I redid the foam on the speaker mounts.

20210823_202521 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210823_180121 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

The front’s have been back together for about a week now and it is fantastic. The back doors have had the new checkers in for a week also, but I haven’t put the panels and such back on because I am sound deadening them and upgrading the speakers back there as we speak. More to come on that later.
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2008 Toyota 4Runner Limited 4x4 - Salsa Red, DD, Mostly Stock, 89k miles
2001 Toyota 4Runner SR5 4x4 - Not Stock, Lifted, Armored, 291k miles
1987 Toyota Supra N/A - Stock, 2nd Owner, 92k miles

Last edited by Unner; 08-30-2021 at 01:06 AM.
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Old 08-30-2021, 12:54 AM #1026
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With the chip shortage I had been waiting patiently for the headunit I wanted in the 4th gen to come back in stock. I wanted the Kenwood Excelon DMX706S for the Android Auto functionality, Bluetooth, backup camera, and idatalink Maestro that is compatible with newer cars OBD2 system.

It finally came back in stock for a couple days at Crutchfield so I pulled the trigger. It showed up and I wasted no time getting it installed. The wiring was easy, once you realize you don’t need half the cables it ships with. The instructions from idatalink are a bit lacking.

Hooking it up is easy too, the worst part is running the backup camera harness through the hatch…

But in the end you are left with a headunit that has Android Auto functionality for nav, voice/speech recognition, hands free calling/texting, backup camera, and it will display your tire pressure and temperature, and a set of various gauges.

The only thing it doesn’t display that I wish it did is transmission temperature. I’m sure it can do it, but per idatalink it can’t. It should be nothing more than another PID that needs to be loaded. I will try to reach out to them and see if we can get that added for the 4th gen. The later 5th gens have it I believe. My scangauge in the 3rd gen displays transmission temp…

20210829_233115 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210829_232943 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210829_232934 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210829_232904 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210829_232847 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
20210829_232818 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

I wired up the backup camera so I can access it at any point. That will allow me to check on loads in the trailer. Or see how close that person following me really is ��

20210829_233029 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210829_233153 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

It will also give dynamic backup camera guidelines that turn with the wheel. Not really needed, but it’s a neat feature.

20210829_233041 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

The new headunit really makes the JBL sound nice and clear. Once I get the new 6.5” speakers in the rear doors of the 3rd gen I am curious how the two compare. Stock 4th gen JBL speakers with aftermarket headunit, versus upgraded speakers, headunit, amp, and some sound deadening in the 3rd gen.

I also had the sunroof tinted in the 4th gen with Air80 to block the heat and UV from coming through when the shade is open, but not block the light from coming through. It seems to make a difference.
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Old 08-30-2021, 06:41 PM #1027
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A couple daylight pics of all the new lights up front.

20210830_155237 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210830_162405 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

2021-08-30_05-39-44 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
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Old 09-18-2021, 06:52 PM #1028
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Everything is about ready for my New England trip. The only thing left to do is an oil change and check tire pressure.

In the last couple weeks I got a good bit done.

@HiLife

I got the 6.5" rear speakers installed. Basically I traced the stock speaker mounts onto a piece of cardboard. Cut it out and trimmed it to fit against the door. For the center hole for the speaker I just drew a circle in the diameter prescribed for my speakers.

Once I was happy with the cardboard template I traced it onto a plastic cutting board I got at walmart. Probably about 3/8" thick. I cut the board with a jig saw, and trimmed a few areas with a sharp razor blade. Now it was time to drill the mounting holes. I did so one by one, the board is translucent so you can see the mounting holes through the board. Mark with a sharpie, drill the hole, and then counter bore around the hole so the screw sits down in the mount. The last couple screws I had to slot slightly to make sure all the screws would go in smoothly.

20210831_174241 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210831_174234 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Now, wrap the backside of the mount with foam weatherstripping and mount it to the door.

20210831_174453 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Then I ran another thinner strip of weather stripping around the edge of the speaker hole and held the speaker up. I marked the first hole, drilled and "mounted" the speaker with that. From there I just carefully drilled remaining holes and mounted the speaker for good. Pretty easy.

20210831_185207 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210830_171224 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

I also picked up a pair of harness adapters so I wouldn't have to cut my stock wiring. Made it nice and easy to hook them up. Make sure you run the speaker wires so they don't get caught in the window at any point.

These speakers clear the window, so it still goes all the way down. No trimming of the door panel required either.

I also put the same peel and seal sound deadening in the doors, a square of closed cell foam behind the speaker mounted to the door skin, and then a sheet of closed cell foam between the door and door panel.

20210831_200240 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210831_203502 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Overall they sound pretty good. It makes a lot more bass now, and can be turned up higher. The stock rear speakers would distort before my JL Audio fronts. It doesn't sound as crisp and clean as the 4th gen's JBL system, but it sounds pretty good for what it is. I'm happy.


I also changed the Power Steering Fluid again. I've always just used a syringe to suck out most of the fluid, replace, drive around the block, and keep repeating until the fluid looks good coming out of the reservoir. It's easy to do fairly often, and the syringe works to pull the junk off the screen in the reservoir.


I got the Baja Designs rear lights mounted as well. These are their S2 lights in wide/cornering. I haven't got a chance to really use them, but I can say they are very bright.

Made a little splitter harness.

20210906_165454 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Tried to keep the wiring as clean as possible up on the rack.

20210906_183946 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210906_183950 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210906_184002 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210906_183958 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210906_184400 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Cleaned up my license plate light wiring while I was back there too. No before pics, but it was a mess. This is much cleaner.

20210906_183931 by Unner Unner, on Flickr



Years ago I had reupholstered my armrests with some vinyl I got at a fabric store. That didn't hold up too well over the years and was falling apart. I pulled the vinyl off and used some fabric I found. I like the new look, and hopefully it lasts longer than the vinyl. Good news is it isn't too hard to redo these if needed. Takes awhile for the first one, but the others go pretty quick then. Just use a staple gun, 1/4" staples, and a pair of sharp scissors to trim the fabric as you go around attaching with staples.

20210910_143822 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210910_143412 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210910_143408 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

2021-09-18_05-50-13 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Put a new set of Sil Blade wipers on the 3rd gen also. The first set I put on in 2014, they still worked pretty well, but were looking rough. Can't speak highly enough of these wipers.

20210907_110738 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
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2008 Toyota 4Runner Limited 4x4 - Salsa Red, DD, Mostly Stock, 89k miles
2001 Toyota 4Runner SR5 4x4 - Not Stock, Lifted, Armored, 291k miles
1987 Toyota Supra N/A - Stock, 2nd Owner, 92k miles
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Old 09-18-2021, 06:52 PM #1029
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And the Water Pump in the 4th Gen started leaking. Supposedly, per the Toyota service records, the previous owner had it replaced 5 years, and only 15k miles ago. When I got in there that water pump didn't really look like it had been replaced. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. It has a new one now though, hopefully no leaking will ensue.

20210917_160930 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20210917_195010 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
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2008 Toyota 4Runner Limited 4x4 - Salsa Red, DD, Mostly Stock, 89k miles
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1987 Toyota Supra N/A - Stock, 2nd Owner, 92k miles
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Old 09-20-2021, 03:12 AM #1030
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Nice job on the sound deadening. The outer panels on the doors were a huge PITA, but definitely worth it in the end. How do you like the amber Baja lights? I've been wanting to add either a colored filter or get new bulbs to get a color like that.
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Old 09-21-2021, 11:58 AM #1031
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Originally Posted by JerkyDrewster View Post
Nice job on the sound deadening. The outer panels on the doors were a huge PITA, but definitely worth it in the end. How do you like the amber Baja lights? I've been wanting to add either a colored filter or get new bulbs to get a color like that.
So far I really like those lights. They look good, and they're really bright. The color temperature is exactly what I wanted also.

I haven't gotten to use them on a trail or any really dark areas yet, but that should change soon hopefully.

The nice thing with the Baja lights is you can swap the lenses to change colors and output patterns pretty easily and cheaply yourself. Just a matter of a few screws and swapping the lens.
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Old 09-21-2021, 01:45 PM #1032
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So far I really like those lights. They look good, and they're really bright. The color temperature is exactly what I wanted also.

I haven't gotten to use them on a trail or any really dark areas yet, but that should change soon hopefully.

The nice thing with the Baja lights is you can swap the lenses to change colors and output patterns pretty easily and cheaply yourself. Just a matter of a few screws and swapping the lens.
That's super convenient that you can swap them like that. I looked into getting a lens cover or something for the KC lights, but it doesn't look like they make them for the older versions. I could see amber being nice to have for a campsite at night.
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Old 12-08-2021, 11:20 PM #1033
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I spent most of the month of October on the road. Up to Maine, across New Hampshire and Vermont, down to Cleveland, up through Michigan to the Upper Peninsula, down Wisconsin, to Chicago and then back home. The 4Runner performed flawlessly as expected. The only issue I had was the driver door started to squeak in Michigan. I assume I was too light on the grease when I rebuilt the checkers so I ordered a bigger bottle of it that is on it's way now to hopefully solve the problem.

Now onto some pictures!

I left Alabama and headed towards DC to pick up my friend who was flying up. I got started on a Thursday night, drove a few hours and got an early start Friday morning. Friday I got to stop at Shenandoah National Park and drive Skyline Drive.

20211001_171524 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211001_171606 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211001_182338 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

We left the airport late that night, I thought he was flying into Dulles, but he actually flew into Raegan so I had to drive into the heart of DC. Since we were down there we went and did some mall crawling at the National Mall. It's arguably better at night with no crowds and everything all lit up.

20211001_221113 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

The next morning we got started heading north, but first a stop in Philly at Dalessandro's for a cheese steak.

20211002_135644 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

And then a stop for some clam chowder in Connecticut.

20211002_201307 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

We camped that night in a state park in Rhode Island. There's not much for free public land/camping up there so we ended up paying just about every night to stay in state parks, but the showers were nice in the mornings. The trees were starting to show a little color as well.

20211003_082801 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

We drove up through Massachusetts on a mostly rainy dreary day. We made it to Portland, Maine and stayed the night there. I didn't get a picture of the Welcome to Maine sign unfortunately, but it was neat to get to my 49th state, and also be able to say that my 3rd gen has been to all the lower 48 states at this point!

Everyone told us we had to get a lobster roll, so we went and got one. This one had Bacon Jam on it which was really the star of the show.

20211003_191952 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

We continued further north the next day, heading towards Acadia.

20211004_151602 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

All of the Acadia campgrounds were full, so we stayed at a private one just a few miles from the park.

20211004_165916 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

The dog was having the time of her life. Spending all day with me, riding in the car with me, going on hikes with me, sleeping in a tent with me. It was a dream for her.

20211004_172955 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211005_115122 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211005_115730 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Acadia was beautiful, but parking there was a disaster. So many people, especially that time of year with the color change in the trees. We parked, walked to some attractions and headed into Bar Harbor for lunch and let the crowds have the park.

20211005_120320 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211005_124154 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211005_133930 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

We went back into the park in the later afternoon once the crowds died down and took some of the shorter hikes.

20211005_180126 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211005_180133 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

We stayed that night at the same campground again, but first we went back to the Sand Beach we were at earlier. At night there was almost no light pollution, other than the idiots walking around shining there flashlights at people... The stargazing was pretty good, but with no fire it got cold quick in October in Maine.
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Old 12-08-2021, 11:28 PM #1034
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We got up the next morning and continued to head north on Highway 1.

We drove through some nature preserve and went on a hike there, no crowds was much nicer.

20211006_152538 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

We made it to Lubec, Maine that afternoon where there's a lighthouse at the most eastern point in the US, across the water from Canada.

20211006_183059 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211006_183140 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211006_183151 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211006_183355 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211006_183443 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211006_185341 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211006_185920 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

We headed a little bit west from here and found another nice state park to stay the night at. It was dark at this point, but we woke up and knew we had found the amazing fall foilage everyone talks about Maine being known for. We just had to head a little inland to reach the peak colors.

20211007_114645 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211007_114746 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211007_114750 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

They were stunning everywhere we looked.

20211007_123307 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

The trusty steed looking good as always.

20211007_123443 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211007_125624 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211007_123530 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211007_123912 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211007_125616 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

We found another state park that night and set up camp. The new Baja lights on the back of the rack are great.

20211007_192512 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

And the dog was still living the dream.

20211007_220518 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
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Old 12-09-2021, 12:21 AM #1035
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The next day we left Maine and headed across New Hampshire and Vermont.

20211008_093012 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211008_102026 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211008_122133 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211008_122450 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211008_142907 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211008_143326 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211008_143449 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211008_143806 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211008_143841 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211008_143851 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

The ferry from Burlington to NY was a nice ride, and cheaper than the awful George Washington bridge we drove across in NYC!

20211008_164230 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Syracuse was a neat city.

20211009_114813 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

Lake Erie at sunset.

20211009_182602 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211009_182917 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211009_183250 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211009_183307 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211009_183413 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211009_183838 by Unner Unner, on Flickr

20211009_185158 by Unner Unner, on Flickr
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