Some of you might know defrag4 [Home on the Highway], who did San Fran --> Ushuaia, Argentina in his '87 4Runner. Saw his thread on another forum a couple of years ago, got inspired. Wife and I saved up for a couple of years, did serious planning for about 6 months, and took off on a similar trip May 9, 2014.
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We spent the summer making our way through Canada, east to west. We hit up every province you can drive to [which meant we had to skip Nunavut]
We're currently in Belize after a month in Mexico, and will cross over into South America sometime early next year.
Planning to post in here periodically with updates, happy to answer questions.
Sweetcakes [our rig] we picked up for $3500; ~255k miles on her when we got her, we've since added another 30.
After having the mechanic give it a good once over, we began by replacing:
We supplemented that with easy stuff for us to do: anti-left gas cap, lugnuts, license plate screws. New battery, flat4 terminal, wiper blades, bull guard, hitch connector, headlights.
We had an alignment done after that, and then began the process of turning it into an overlanding rig:
The plan was to install a solar setup and a sleeping platform. My wife's 84 year old grandfather lent a hand.
with the piano hinge, the idea was we could still access stuff stored under the platform
despite my complete lack of knowledge on electrical work, we got under way.
we had a few small hiccups our first week: AC needed recharging, O2 sensor went bad, but we were able to fix it without any real issue.
Then, at the end of the second week, the head gasket went in downtown Portland, Maine.
Since then, things have been pretty smooth. We installed airbags in the springs to help with sagging, fixed the A/C when we dipped back to the states in July, and had some brake work done in Utah in September. We're holed up in a tiny town in Belize right now after the rear control arm finally snapped.
We have some rear O-ring work that needs to get done early next week, but then [not jinxing it] we should be back to square one.
Home
Facebook Page
We spent the summer making our way through Canada, east to west. We hit up every province you can drive to [which meant we had to skip Nunavut]
We're currently in Belize after a month in Mexico, and will cross over into South America sometime early next year.
Planning to post in here periodically with updates, happy to answer questions.
Sweetcakes [our rig] we picked up for $3500; ~255k miles on her when we got her, we've since added another 30.
After having the mechanic give it a good once over, we began by replacing:
- rear and front brakes
- shocks
- tires
- emergency brake
- fluids
- belts
We supplemented that with easy stuff for us to do: anti-left gas cap, lugnuts, license plate screws. New battery, flat4 terminal, wiper blades, bull guard, hitch connector, headlights.
We had an alignment done after that, and then began the process of turning it into an overlanding rig:
The plan was to install a solar setup and a sleeping platform. My wife's 84 year old grandfather lent a hand.
with the piano hinge, the idea was we could still access stuff stored under the platform
despite my complete lack of knowledge on electrical work, we got under way.
we had a few small hiccups our first week: AC needed recharging, O2 sensor went bad, but we were able to fix it without any real issue.
Then, at the end of the second week, the head gasket went in downtown Portland, Maine.
Since then, things have been pretty smooth. We installed airbags in the springs to help with sagging, fixed the A/C when we dipped back to the states in July, and had some brake work done in Utah in September. We're holed up in a tiny town in Belize right now after the rear control arm finally snapped.
We have some rear O-ring work that needs to get done early next week, but then [not jinxing it] we should be back to square one.
