LawnDart's Build Thread

[KEWW Pro]

Now that I have a minute I will give my full impression. After following your build thread throughout the trip and hearing little details here and there I was perplexed how they would grab a week of travel with 21 amazing rigs across that much terrain into an hour long feature. I could tell that the dialogue and feel of the whole thing was geared more to the masses who enjoy "idea of" the X factors in life and get their fill through forums, vlogs, tv shows and movies rather than to the absolute minority of you who can, and do, actually do it.

For the Monster Energy and BFG paid members in attendance the beginning was a who's who more than the what's what. I LOVED the presence of the family dynamic and that only further sells the idea of "what the he!! does an off road crazy adventurous person like ______ do for a vacation? ... oh...THAT!"

Here is why I think you(r rig) got the amount of airtime it did... It looked to me like yours was the only self sufficient set up out there. While the raptor, raptor, raptor, Jeep, Raptor, Hummer, Raptor ,Jeep will get you from point A to B I am pretty sure yours is the only one toting the Awning (which I saw deployed) and fuel and everything else...and its color pops out too. Having a support system for that trip is probably the only way to tote that many family members along. I have had tons of kids and gear road trips and there just is not space in the F-150's to be comfortable and hope the gear survives in the back and the kids are vertical the whole time. Having only one long family sized road trip so far in the 4R I can't believe we survived so long without it. Any way, squirrel, I think for the audience, your truck had the appearance of what the "idea" of an X games vacation trip would be like for the majority of viewers. While we all know what is under the hood and bolted on the raptors, and even on your rig, the outward appearance was exactly what catches the eye...and that beautiful color.

To be honest I was expecting a motor trend style presentation that was geared towards the gear heads but nope, and still cool as all get out, it was all the neat stuff that features well, while smoking out all the hard work and dedication needed to get you all there in the first place.

the question to ask though is this, a dozen years from now are you going to remember the difficulties you experienced of the comradeship, sunsets, river crossings etc.?

Awesome show in the end and I am sure we gear heads would love to hear any further anecdotes you'd like to share.

 

[sandcrawler]

Sorry I saw this last night but didn't have it in me to respond.

I think for my needs an actual truck with a bed is more ideal for my needs. Given that I think Baja will become a 3-4 time a year trip for me, for both work and vacations, the Raptor would be ideal. That said I do really like the 4Runner, it just feels ancient compared to the competition.

So lets excuse the whole raptor thing. I want to buy one, and plan to do so, to add to the 4Runner in my garage.

If I were doing things again with the 4Runner I'd have likely opted to do no roof rack and no cargo system inside.

I find that realistically I don't use my awning very often, and may take it off. It's a nice thing to have for those FEW times I need it, but it's really dead weight otherwise. At the very least I may flop it to the passenger side, as right now the truck is definitely heavier on the driver side (toyota lean, yo).

Outside of that the roof rack isn't doing much besides the top light bar and rear lights. I find top light bars to be great if you're the ONLY one on a dirt road, however I'd rather eliminate it since in dust it just whites your vision out. And again I don't know if the roof rack is really giving me much capability since I almost never carry anything up there. Last time I used it was to haul a TV I bought for my parent's new house this past christmas.

The cargo system is great but off road stuff bounces around inside of it. I haven't solved that, and it's a LOT of weight for everything.

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't really like the vehicles that have EVERYTHING crammed into them. At first I did, then I realized you can't really have weight/complexity and still have speed and versatility. Given that in retrospect I'd have kept the vehicle as light as possible.

I don't regret much, because if I did those items mentioned would be removed today post haste. However the reality is that the 4Runner is a very well balanced vehicle, it just doesn't make it super exciting for any one thing.

kudos for the self-reflection and self-criticism here. the "throw-everything-at-it" build is obvious gawker fodder for all the guys idly fantasizing about their "dream" build. it's probably a more meaningful contribution to be able to look back objectively and say what worked and what didn't, and what was and wasn't worth it.

 

[rickashay]

Makes sense to me. I'm going through the same thing, but from a truck to a 4Runner. After multiple iterations with that vehicle, I find myself looking at the 4Runner asking, "Why am I going to modify this truck? What is the bare minimum I need?"


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This is an interesting discussion indeed. So many of us have went through this change of mindset as we build our rigs, witness the pros/cons, identify our true needs, then adapt.

Hell, I've gone from building a old school pickup, to a 3rd Gen 4R (twice), to re-building an already built 80-Series LC, to building a 1st gen Tundra, to now being back in a V8 4th Gen 4Runner. I have learnt a lot from each build but have also learnt that my need are always changing. Learning to downsize
my "gear" and keep things simple and light has proven to be the most advantageous by far.

 

[CoMtn4Runner]

That said I do really like the 4Runner, it just feels ancient compared to the competition.

Are you able to give your feedback to anyone at Toyota that might actually listen and make changes on future models? It would be nice if toyota actually spent more time and $ developing their off-road program to be able to compete.

 

[TerraCrawler]

We should have a T4R ride through the missions......maybe not bombing it all race style, but a ride nonetheless, that would be badass!

 

[LawnDart]

kudos for the self-reflection and self-criticism here. the "throw-everything-at-it" build is obvious gawker fodder for all the guys idly fantasizing about their "dream" build. it's probably a more meaningful contribution to be able to look back objectively and say what worked and what didn't, and what was and wasn't worth it.

This is an interesting discussion indeed. So many of us have went through this change of mindset as we build our rigs, witness the pros/cons, identify our true needs, then adapt.

I don't begrudge anyone for taking enjoyment out of throwing all that stuff on their vehicles, but the reality is you add liability and weight to a vehicle carrying everything you THINK you'll need. Someone put it well to me, "If I go on a trips and don't use something after 3 trips, I pretty much take it out of, or off, the vehicle."

I try NOT to put things on my rig that are "what if's" but the reality is we all have ideas of what we need that don't always pan out to things we end up using.

Honestly our needs change, it's a human thing to have happen. If you aren't willing to admit what worked and what didn't you get into a hole of self-justification.

Are you able to give your feedback to anyone at Toyota that might actually listen and make changes on future models? It would be nice if toyota actually spent more time and $ developing their off-road program to be able to compete.

Toyota doesn't really solicit opinions from us peons. They gutted their TRD team, and now it's run by people who don't really care about racing. I lamented this coming back from Baja, as Ford Performance was there on the trip with us. That trip is an opportunity for their designers and engineers to feel how the Raptors performed, record data after each day on their laptops, and go back with tweaks for software or construction techniques on the vehicle. To me that was impressive as it really doesn't feel like Toyota is actively talking to it's most ardent users. Not sure if they ever did. But it feels less so now.

We should have a T4R ride through the missions......maybe not bombing it all race style, but a ride nonetheless, that would be badass!

The only way you can move even moderately fast down in Baja is with a support crew. When you know that there's a truck that can haul your vehicle to the next town, you tend not to be as concerned about breaking things.

That said when you go in a smaller group even the Baja pros like Leduc, Steele, etc all said they go slow and careful, because you're remote, as in it's a half day walk out to a tiny town if you break down somewhere.

That said the other thing to keep in mind is there's safety in numbers, but more than a few of the same vehicles and you also get on the radar when crossing military checkpoints. I think we did about 10 inspections. Sometimes they wave you through, sometimes they really pour through your stuff.

What allowed us to cross more easily as a 21 vehicle convoy was we (each vehicle) had a big binder of all our maps, timetables, rosters, and importantly...permits. The permits were filming permits from the mexican government. This helped ensure that the military wouldn't screw with us...as much.

It also helped that the helicopter would hover over the checkpoint, which put pressure on them to not waste time hassling us.

The main point being is that you want to go with a few vehicles for safety, but you also want to not go with too big a group unless it's organized by a professional company, because you'll risk shake downs. Also the federales are scary dudes, and these are the dudes to avoid. I'll expand on that in a bit.

 

[LawnDart]

Now that I have a minute I will give my full impression. After following your build thread throughout the trip and hearing little details here and there I was perplexed how they would grab a week of travel with 21 amazing rigs across that much terrain into an hour long feature. I could tell that the dialogue and feel of the whole thing was geared more to the masses who enjoy "idea of" the X factors in life and get their fill through forums, vlogs, tv shows and movies rather than to the absolute minority of you who can, and do, actually do it.

I think it's cool that Cam is able to get sponsors like BFG to basically put on a 9 day road trip through Baja for these guys, and I was able to wiggle on to the trip.

The interesting thing is that for guys like Rob Mac, Casey Currie, etc, this is a vacation because everytime they're in Baja, they're only in it for 2-3 days and it's a competitive event. So a lot of the locations they'd been to, but only at night, and always at a pit stop or for repairs while competing in the 500/1000, etc. So for them it was their first real chance to experience Baja in a different light, literally and figuratively.

Because of that it was awesome seeing everyone bringing their families. It also meant we had to curb our potty mouthes on the radio.

I think it was in Mulege where we stopped for lunch and Eric, the ShotOver pod operator was talking about my truck, "I think it's cool they have the 4Runner because it shows what the average person could bring..."

Which cracked me up because my 4Runner has more money into it than a stock raptor, by a LOT.

But yeah we used the awning when in San Juanico. I think in retrospect I'd have deleted the roof rack and cargo system before the trip. We did use the maxtrax in the silt beds to help recover one of the jeeps. The issue with the silt is if you lose momentum it's like sinking into mud. And as you saw the silt is so fine and cloudy that if someone slows down it forces everyone to slow down as you can EASILY plow into someone since visibility is less than 10-15 feet in front of you at most.

I guess a few things referenced but not really shown that I wish had made it on to the show.

The salt flats: This was really the fastest we went. Since it's flat, grippy, etc, we all pinned it in that section. There's also surprise rises and mounds that sent us all flying. I know I jumped the truck at least 3-4 feet off the ground doing about 95mph flat out. Rob Mac and Cameron Steele had a race that lead to Rob Mac taking a shortcut, which didn't work out too well and ending up stuck in a small fishing village. I cut off a raptor going about 95 miles and hour where I bounced the truck in front of the black Raptor and scared the shit out of my co-driver and the raptor.

Going into San Juanico: you can actually see the wash that we all went down into into the beach when we got to Scorpion Bay. It was a pretty off camber wash out that was fairly steep. I was behind Casey Currie, I think, and the wash was loose pack dirt. Well as we went down the wash out started to crumble and the back of my truck started to slide to the right really bad. I honked and Casey gunned it to give me space and I throttled it to turn into the slide. But I know they got footage of us almost flipping over. That was one of those moments where you didn't think that just going into town could have cost us the vehicle. But it also shows that you have to be really hyper aware of the terrain since all of Baja is basically a challenge.

Gravel Run Off / Loreto: I know they showed the vehicles going through that big river run off as we all made it into Loreto, but that was actually a tough final run into town. As it's all really really loose gravel, and we had it pinned trying to make it through that stuff. All of the vehicles were struggling to stay in the tracks and not get bogged down, and also not spin their wheels and blasting the trucks behind them.

San Gigantes: They showed that section where we were doing that hill climb, and that was gnarly because as they said it's bulldozed to keep it graded. The bulldozers were there working that day. So you'd come flying around a turn and there'd be the bulldozer bucket coming towards you while you slide around a corner. I learned to fish tail the truck pretty well that day.

The main thing is that Baja isn't really hard on a technical level. It's hard to convey on a show because you can't compress 9 days down into 44 minutes easily. But it's a pure endurance test, because the vibrations and sudden impacts are so tough and unrelenting. As I've said before, any vehicle can do what we did, just at what speed and for how long. You don't need a trophy truck to do this stuff. Mainly it's just how much time do you think you can spend in what feels like a paint mixer.

 

[LawnDart]

So I need a new alternator. Should I get an OEM? Or an upgraded higher amp model?

Is 160a enough or is 250a overkill?

 

[Ohio Hawk]

So I need a new alternator. Should I get an OEM? Or an upgraded higher amp model?

Is 160a enough or is 250a overkill?

I've got a DC Powersports 270xp for a 5th gen. It was from last falls group buy. I've decided to stick with a single battery, so it's unnecessary. If you're interested, shoot me a pm. I'll let it go for what I have in it. It's never been used and I had custom wires made for the big 3 upgrade as well. CE Auto Electric Supply out of Phoenix. Custom length and 2/0 guage with custom ends to fit everything perfectly.

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[Trixx]

Watched the show last night. Very good. When we went to Baja in February on Motorcycle it’s amazing how many people (who have never been) are concerned about the safety. We really found Safety to be a non issue, even on the beaches camping. You can tell that most of the locals really appreciate the tourists. My wife and I really want to spend spend 3-4 weeks down this time. Last time was 3000 miles and about 2.5 weeks.

Like LawnDart mentioned, you really have to be careful and definitely can’t drive like that alone. That being said, I won’t hesitate to go there with my wife and our off road trailer at a much slower but still very enjoyable pace. While the driving and group aspect of a trip like the trailer of missions look enticing, I really like having a lot of schedule flexibility and relaxing, so that’d be hard for me to really enjoy.

Here’s a map of most of our route.

LawnDart - do you have a map of your route?

 

[LawnDart]

For those that missed it, it's online:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5I-5bRuihjs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[007Tacoma]

For those that missed it, it's online:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5I-5bRuihjs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I was hoping to see more shots of your rig, but the ones we got were still pretty epic (+slo mo).

Now I am trying to figure out how to make this happen...

 

[YetiX]

Wow.

Such an incredible thread and amazing photography. Hats off to you LawnDart. I spent most of yesterday afternoon and this morning reading this thread, start to finish. It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive build and adventure thread I have ever read. (Which is saying something.) Everything is spot on, well thought out, and the photography . . .

 

[CoolMax]

Cooler vs Fridge: Which is right for you?

https://www.overlandbound.com/expedition-cooler-vs-fridge/

 

[LawnDart]

https://www.overlandbound.com/expedition-cooler-vs-fridge/

Yep, I wrote another thing.

Kinda hoping to eventually swap to the Dometic 65DZ one of these days.

 

[gm350reratliff]

Finally got a chance to watch the show last night. Really epic trip, hoping to explore Baja some day. It was good seeing at least one 4runner in the mix. Thanks for sharing.

 

[LawnDart]

Finally got a chance to watch the show last night. Really epic trip, hoping to explore Baja some day. It was good seeing at least one 4runner in the mix. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, I want to get back to NM soon to get my truck back to Walt's shop for some ideas I have floating around.

 

[T4RZAN]

It was pretty noticeable (to me atleast) that your rig popped up more and more as the show went on. Kind of like they didn't film you as much and then realized it was more than capable of keeping up and looks badass and then you won the splash contest.

 

[LawnDart]

It was pretty noticeable (to me atleast) that your rig popped up more and more as the show went on. Kind of like they didn't film you as much and then realized it was more than capable of keeping up and looks badass and then you won the splash contest.

Well out of all the sponsors; BFG, FOX, Baja Designs, and Method...we only had 1 of those. So we were a bit of the odd man out.

Day 1 every time we approached the photographers on the trail their cameras kind of went down as in they weren't going to photograph us. I think as the trip went on everyone started paying more attention to us.

As I've said before, everyone assumed we'd break on the trip, and there was a running bet on when we'd break. We really proved a lot of people wrong. As I said Curt Leduc came up to us at the end on day 8 and said, "Man I don't like Toyotas, but I really like this Toyota."

 

[LawnDart]

So the current plan is:

1. Truck needs a major service. I think my drive shaft bearing needs replacement, either on the input or output shaft.

2. New Alternator, replacing it with a 160A model.

3. New fiberglass flares, and rear bumper.

4. I'm debating do an aftermarket rear axle. But really not much left to do on the vehicle. I feel I may have reached the point where anything left is me just changing things to change things.