Sniv's Custom Long Travel Build
- Thread starter snivilous
- Start date
shootmymime
New member
Scramble
New member
I did COB's in one night, it was about 55 pgs. :sing:
shootmymime
New member
Well then after Toby's hit up mine.
snivilous
Senior Member
Hahaha that's the million dollar question. My answer to everyone who asks me is I need to graduate first, which is hopefully next year. Then I can do proper engineering and testing on a second generation kit and sell it, ideally in like the $1500 price bracket.
Thanks!
shootmymime
New member
Hahaha that's the million dollar question. My answer to everyone who asks me is I need to graduate first, which is hopefully next year. Then I can do proper engineering and testing on a second generation kit and sell it, ideally in like the $1500 price bracket.
Thanks!
Well there goes my hopes.
Why wait and buy a total chaos for a few bucks more.
snivilous
Senior Member
I need to stop talking to about axles before I become more poor than I am.
Go build your own! You're studying ME! And it's $1000 in materials so $1500 is optimistic
And that's less than half of everyone else
snivilous
Senior Member
I have to run to some Mint 400 activities now, but this is from earlier today near Nellis Dunes. Did a few runs, this is the larger of two that were on video, and this is the video from the DSLR out of a few cameras people had.
Before anyone shits on it, yes I know it's loud and I know why it's loud. Yes it's soft (I was the one who valved the shocks), and yes they will get revalved once I can work on the suspension in the summer.
For everything else, I'll find the other videos later and once I get back from spring break will post a ton of pictures. The computer I have can't read the RAW format of my camera so can't post them for a few more days.
Before anyone shits on it, yes I know it's loud and I know why it's loud. Yes it's soft (I was the one who valved the shocks), and yes they will get revalved once I can work on the suspension in the summer.
For everything else, I'll find the other videos later and once I get back from spring break will post a ton of pictures. The computer I have can't read the RAW format of my camera so can't post them for a few more days.
snivilous
Senior Member
Sadly no, I have this angle and then my girlfriend took a video from the next berm over and my other friend had a GoPro somewhere that I haven't looked at yet. I'll find everything and throw together a little montage later.
solsnowbarger
New member
Haha that looks like so much fun. I'm still at the point where I break before crossing railroad tracks, so I commend your proper use of the truck.
snivilous
Senior Member
I just got back from my spring break today, which I left for over a week ago on Friday. I took over 400 photos/videos, and narrowed them down to my favorites, and then narrowed them down to ones I figured people on T4R would enjoy. Still a ton of photos, I think there's 44 or something I'm gonna post so all of them will be spread out over multiple parts.
Part 1
My girlfriend and I started our trip on Friday, the ultimate goal being to get to Las Vegas for the Mint 400 (race day being 8 days later), and specifically getting into Vegas on Tuesday to meet up with some friends where we had rented a little cabin.
With that in mind our schedule was pretty loose, I had been invited on facebook to an offroad trip that would explore near Dinosaur, CO over the first weekend. The tentative plan was spend a day or two with them (all Toyotas too) and then head south and curve around Utah to Vegas. Outside of our Vegas deadline, and meeting the Toyota group near Dinosaur, we hadn't plan at all.
We first headed east out of Logan (northern Utah) into Wyoming, then dropped down to Evanston and hopped on the interstate for a few miles, and then took second hand highways down to Vernal where we met the group nearby. These few photos are from a little area we explored near Flaming Gorge.
Road turned out to be gated a half mile in, but got some cool photos and found lots of critters.
A finger of Flaming Gorge
We went from the terrain of Flaming Gorge into some mountains that were forested and reminded us of home in CO. We eventually dropped out of it and ended up going past the lake we camped at north of Vernal from our trip to Moab last summer. At vernal we headed east again and found the group, who we didn't even recognize at the beginning since I thought we were meeting 4Runners and I thought it was a coincidence there was an expedition 80 series and taco following us.
Initially we found a pretty stock '15 Taco, then the 80 series and expedition '15 Taco pulled in behind us, and later on a 1st gen Taco, two 3rd gen runners, another '15 Taco, and a 1st gen Tundra arrived.
In the morning we headed off, with a plan of driving over this mountain range and dropping down the back side.
We all got to the above spot and waited for everyone, I was 3rd in the group so pretty close to the leader. The 80 series never showed though, so the expedition Tacoma turned around to look for him. Only three of us had CBs for comms which was annoying. Eventually I turned around to go see what they were up to since it was taking too long and I knew I could fly down and find them fast.
Apparently the 80 series had run out of power pulling his trailer up the hill. I don't know much about 80 series, I've driven my sisters but not super familiar with them. I question whether his low range was working, or maybe his engine was screwed. Considering he could maintain speed on the highway, but somehow didn't have enough torque to even break traction on the snowy and icy hill, I question if his transfer case was working correctly.
Long story short, we had to unhook the trailer from the 80 series (and had to anchor it before detaching it otherwise it was gonna roll over backwards), then hook it up to the Taco, which even aired down and dual lockers he could only move it a few feet, so then I dropped my air pressure and hooked up to the taco and with a few yanks was able to get him moving. The rest of the way the Taco pulled the trailer.
The group had decided to start moving again but only made it a few feet.
I ran lead after this with the intention that I could pack the snow down a little, especially where the lead 4runner had powdered the snow up. I had aired up from helping the Taco, then aired back down but only to 10psi and didn't have any issue and was able to make it pretty far above the group and got a cool overlook.
Soon after the overlook the snow got worse so I dropped air pressure more and stopped having issues, but no one could make it very far. Eventually I came up with the idea of hooking up to one of the tacomas and pulling them up the hill. We were all hoping that we would drop down the south side and the snow would be melted, so if I could pull a rig at higher tire pressure up the hill and pact the snow down then the others could follow the ruts. Well I was able to pull the taco up the hill without issue, but eventually the trail forked and since we hadn't planned the trip we disconnected from the taco and went exploring. It turned out the trail never went down the south side and instead followed this plateau, so we went down the trail exploring for about a mile and decided to turn around when it wasn't getting any better.
Part 1
My girlfriend and I started our trip on Friday, the ultimate goal being to get to Las Vegas for the Mint 400 (race day being 8 days later), and specifically getting into Vegas on Tuesday to meet up with some friends where we had rented a little cabin.
With that in mind our schedule was pretty loose, I had been invited on facebook to an offroad trip that would explore near Dinosaur, CO over the first weekend. The tentative plan was spend a day or two with them (all Toyotas too) and then head south and curve around Utah to Vegas. Outside of our Vegas deadline, and meeting the Toyota group near Dinosaur, we hadn't plan at all.
We first headed east out of Logan (northern Utah) into Wyoming, then dropped down to Evanston and hopped on the interstate for a few miles, and then took second hand highways down to Vernal where we met the group nearby. These few photos are from a little area we explored near Flaming Gorge.
Road turned out to be gated a half mile in, but got some cool photos and found lots of critters.
A finger of Flaming Gorge
We went from the terrain of Flaming Gorge into some mountains that were forested and reminded us of home in CO. We eventually dropped out of it and ended up going past the lake we camped at north of Vernal from our trip to Moab last summer. At vernal we headed east again and found the group, who we didn't even recognize at the beginning since I thought we were meeting 4Runners and I thought it was a coincidence there was an expedition 80 series and taco following us.
Initially we found a pretty stock '15 Taco, then the 80 series and expedition '15 Taco pulled in behind us, and later on a 1st gen Taco, two 3rd gen runners, another '15 Taco, and a 1st gen Tundra arrived.
In the morning we headed off, with a plan of driving over this mountain range and dropping down the back side.
We all got to the above spot and waited for everyone, I was 3rd in the group so pretty close to the leader. The 80 series never showed though, so the expedition Tacoma turned around to look for him. Only three of us had CBs for comms which was annoying. Eventually I turned around to go see what they were up to since it was taking too long and I knew I could fly down and find them fast.
Apparently the 80 series had run out of power pulling his trailer up the hill. I don't know much about 80 series, I've driven my sisters but not super familiar with them. I question whether his low range was working, or maybe his engine was screwed. Considering he could maintain speed on the highway, but somehow didn't have enough torque to even break traction on the snowy and icy hill, I question if his transfer case was working correctly.
Long story short, we had to unhook the trailer from the 80 series (and had to anchor it before detaching it otherwise it was gonna roll over backwards), then hook it up to the Taco, which even aired down and dual lockers he could only move it a few feet, so then I dropped my air pressure and hooked up to the taco and with a few yanks was able to get him moving. The rest of the way the Taco pulled the trailer.
The group had decided to start moving again but only made it a few feet.
I ran lead after this with the intention that I could pack the snow down a little, especially where the lead 4runner had powdered the snow up. I had aired up from helping the Taco, then aired back down but only to 10psi and didn't have any issue and was able to make it pretty far above the group and got a cool overlook.
Soon after the overlook the snow got worse so I dropped air pressure more and stopped having issues, but no one could make it very far. Eventually I came up with the idea of hooking up to one of the tacomas and pulling them up the hill. We were all hoping that we would drop down the south side and the snow would be melted, so if I could pull a rig at higher tire pressure up the hill and pact the snow down then the others could follow the ruts. Well I was able to pull the taco up the hill without issue, but eventually the trail forked and since we hadn't planned the trip we disconnected from the taco and went exploring. It turned out the trail never went down the south side and instead followed this plateau, so we went down the trail exploring for about a mile and decided to turn around when it wasn't getting any better.
Last edited:
snivilous
Senior Member
Part 2
If anyone ever debates between beadlocks and lockers and do a lot of snow, I would highly suggest beadlocks since no one could make it more than a football length up this hill, even aired down and dual lockers like the Taco and 80 series had. Don't need lockers when your tires won't slip to begin with
Anyhow, we went back and let everyone know to turn around and got the taco flipped around we had towed up. With this route out of order, we all went back to the highway and around the mountain we had tried to go over, but on the eastern side of Dinosaur we hit another bump where the bypass trail we were going to take was closed. After that we decided to head south, and my girlfriend and I found an overlook where we all setup camp.
This was the second night, so everyone was set to head home on Sunday.
My girlfriend and I turned off from the group after about 5 miles to continue south to Moab as everyone went west. From here on out until we hit I-70 was all dirt roads.
Long story short, we did a ton of miles of back roads and trails, popping into and dropping out of snowy regions and going through forested mountains and crazy canyons and miles of river beds. Really cool area! Literally hundreds of miles of roads. Nothing extreme by any means.
Finally found the main trail after using a terrible map to navigate and turning around multiple times after finding dead ends and not wanting to air down and go through deep snow.
We arrived in CO on I-70, even though we thought we were gonna show up near Green River and found a town with an 1/8th of a tank of gas. From there we went down and took the Colorado River to Moab, where we also bought a 5 gallon spare gas tank. Hopefully this will help me from running out of gas all too commonly.
After a night on the Colorado we headed south with the intention of pulling into Vegas the following day. We dropped down to Blanding, UT and went west following some route that was drawn on our GPS, and then took dirt roads to bypass as much pavement as possible. On highway 95 towards Lake Powell we saw a cool road going up a plateau so decided to check it out.
On the top of the plateau we explored a little
We ended up finding this mine in the side of a cliff, lots of little dog prints around it (fox or coyote maybe?). We didn't explore down them, being in the middle of nowhere and exploring an unknown mine wasn't high on the agenda.
Afterwards we fueled up in Hite and crossed Lake Powell, then turned off on a dirt road and started hauling ass. After probably 30 miles of dirt we approached a mountain range. Heading up the road split, and we had previously decided to go north because there was supposed to be a spring on that side. Soon after turning off the fork we ran into this guy hiking, he called it the Henry Mountains Trail, and he said there was so much snow he had to turn back and was gonna go to the south side and there was a decent size tree covering the road further up. We decided to check it out.
View from the south side:
We weren't sure how tall the mountains were and what the snow would be like, so we aired down when the drifts started since they were intermittent so I was confident we could go over them and there wouldn't be a lot.
Low tire pressure again for the win! Though I was sketched out on the little rocks running so low. Eventually we had to turn around because it was getting too sketchy and the snow was getting deep and becoming that horrible crust with powder underneath that stops the truck. It turned out to be a really good move considering the south route took probably an hour to cross the mountain range.
This is the one photo I snatched while driving over the summit.
We were around 9000ft at the summit and it was COLD so we dropped down the western slope to try and find warmer weather, and talk about a sketchy drive! I'm fine in any level of snow, but I hate mud. At least you can see ice and snow, where as the trail looked totally fine but the mud was super thick, the kind where you hit your brakes and you just slide forever. Not to mention with the stance on the front, holy shit does it throw mud! Even going 10mph the tires are so big and throw massive 2lb blobs of mud 40 feet through the air since the fenders barely cover anything. Eventually we made it down and got to dry road and were able to pick up speed again and eventually found a random place to camp in the dark.
Tuesday morning:
If anyone ever debates between beadlocks and lockers and do a lot of snow, I would highly suggest beadlocks since no one could make it more than a football length up this hill, even aired down and dual lockers like the Taco and 80 series had. Don't need lockers when your tires won't slip to begin with
Anyhow, we went back and let everyone know to turn around and got the taco flipped around we had towed up. With this route out of order, we all went back to the highway and around the mountain we had tried to go over, but on the eastern side of Dinosaur we hit another bump where the bypass trail we were going to take was closed. After that we decided to head south, and my girlfriend and I found an overlook where we all setup camp.
This was the second night, so everyone was set to head home on Sunday.
My girlfriend and I turned off from the group after about 5 miles to continue south to Moab as everyone went west. From here on out until we hit I-70 was all dirt roads.
Long story short, we did a ton of miles of back roads and trails, popping into and dropping out of snowy regions and going through forested mountains and crazy canyons and miles of river beds. Really cool area! Literally hundreds of miles of roads. Nothing extreme by any means.
Finally found the main trail after using a terrible map to navigate and turning around multiple times after finding dead ends and not wanting to air down and go through deep snow.
We arrived in CO on I-70, even though we thought we were gonna show up near Green River and found a town with an 1/8th of a tank of gas. From there we went down and took the Colorado River to Moab, where we also bought a 5 gallon spare gas tank. Hopefully this will help me from running out of gas all too commonly.
After a night on the Colorado we headed south with the intention of pulling into Vegas the following day. We dropped down to Blanding, UT and went west following some route that was drawn on our GPS, and then took dirt roads to bypass as much pavement as possible. On highway 95 towards Lake Powell we saw a cool road going up a plateau so decided to check it out.
On the top of the plateau we explored a little
We ended up finding this mine in the side of a cliff, lots of little dog prints around it (fox or coyote maybe?). We didn't explore down them, being in the middle of nowhere and exploring an unknown mine wasn't high on the agenda.
Afterwards we fueled up in Hite and crossed Lake Powell, then turned off on a dirt road and started hauling ass. After probably 30 miles of dirt we approached a mountain range. Heading up the road split, and we had previously decided to go north because there was supposed to be a spring on that side. Soon after turning off the fork we ran into this guy hiking, he called it the Henry Mountains Trail, and he said there was so much snow he had to turn back and was gonna go to the south side and there was a decent size tree covering the road further up. We decided to check it out.
View from the south side:
We weren't sure how tall the mountains were and what the snow would be like, so we aired down when the drifts started since they were intermittent so I was confident we could go over them and there wouldn't be a lot.
Low tire pressure again for the win! Though I was sketched out on the little rocks running so low. Eventually we had to turn around because it was getting too sketchy and the snow was getting deep and becoming that horrible crust with powder underneath that stops the truck. It turned out to be a really good move considering the south route took probably an hour to cross the mountain range.
This is the one photo I snatched while driving over the summit.
We were around 9000ft at the summit and it was COLD so we dropped down the western slope to try and find warmer weather, and talk about a sketchy drive! I'm fine in any level of snow, but I hate mud. At least you can see ice and snow, where as the trail looked totally fine but the mud was super thick, the kind where you hit your brakes and you just slide forever. Not to mention with the stance on the front, holy shit does it throw mud! Even going 10mph the tires are so big and throw massive 2lb blobs of mud 40 feet through the air since the fenders barely cover anything. Eventually we made it down and got to dry road and were able to pick up speed again and eventually found a random place to camp in the dark.
Tuesday morning:
snivilous
Senior Member
Part 3
Woke up early Tuesday and hauled ass, even hit 74mph in one area which I thought was cool! Fastest speed yet. Not going to make up anything, it was far from rough. There were some little bumps, I don't think we got any air, and the road was a perfect dirt road otherwise; still, kinda cool I think to say I was going that fast off pavement!
Our turn off was super sweet, and took us through about a mile of Capitol Reef National Park. This was all we saw, but some of the coolest sights of the whole trip through this sliver of national park!
Not many pictures afterwards. We went in and out of Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument like four times. The plan was to go through Panguitch and then Cedar City, but the route to Cedar City when we hit the fork between Cedar and Parowan looked like this:
Needless to say we took the north route through Brian Head and from there beelined to Vegas. In Vegas we went to Nellis Dunes for a day and did some jumping. After that we hung around and yesterday went to the Mint 400.
If no one's seen the video, this is yanked from it:
Bryce Menzies prerunner
Bug with CO all over it
And then a last photo
Truck ran fine overall though. I lost my left blinker, I appear to have a pattern of losing one of all my lights when I'm in the desert. LED bar, corner light, blinker, probably a headlight next. On the way home the truck did good and did 80 the whole way pretty well. In Salt Lake City it felt like the torque converter was disengaging a little bit which was weird, we pulled over but the tranny appeared fine. I seem to be burning a lot of oil, I think I failed to seat some valve seals properly. I'm also either losing, or burning coolant since I seem to be losing some a lot. At one point at a gas station it looked like I was leaking from somewhere all over the drivers side suspension, but didn't see it leaking anywhere and it didn't happen again. This would seem like a blown head gasket, but the engine doesn't feel like it has low compression, so I'm hoping I'm just leaking from a hose or something for the coolant. I'll check it out later on.
This summer I have some big plans, and am planning on how to pull it off. I'll probably redo the heads if I get bored and correct the valve lash and valve seals. I'm thinking a full powertrain with a turbo 400 is due once the suspension is setup well, but that won't be for awhile. Anyways, thanks for reading! 2000 miles, mudding, jumping, high speed desert, super low pressure snow crawling, the truck did it all without hassle. I'd say she is a good multipurpose rig
Woke up early Tuesday and hauled ass, even hit 74mph in one area which I thought was cool! Fastest speed yet. Not going to make up anything, it was far from rough. There were some little bumps, I don't think we got any air, and the road was a perfect dirt road otherwise; still, kinda cool I think to say I was going that fast off pavement!
Our turn off was super sweet, and took us through about a mile of Capitol Reef National Park. This was all we saw, but some of the coolest sights of the whole trip through this sliver of national park!
Not many pictures afterwards. We went in and out of Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument like four times. The plan was to go through Panguitch and then Cedar City, but the route to Cedar City when we hit the fork between Cedar and Parowan looked like this:
Needless to say we took the north route through Brian Head and from there beelined to Vegas. In Vegas we went to Nellis Dunes for a day and did some jumping. After that we hung around and yesterday went to the Mint 400.
If no one's seen the video, this is yanked from it:
Bryce Menzies prerunner
Bug with CO all over it
And then a last photo
Truck ran fine overall though. I lost my left blinker, I appear to have a pattern of losing one of all my lights when I'm in the desert. LED bar, corner light, blinker, probably a headlight next. On the way home the truck did good and did 80 the whole way pretty well. In Salt Lake City it felt like the torque converter was disengaging a little bit which was weird, we pulled over but the tranny appeared fine. I seem to be burning a lot of oil, I think I failed to seat some valve seals properly. I'm also either losing, or burning coolant since I seem to be losing some a lot. At one point at a gas station it looked like I was leaking from somewhere all over the drivers side suspension, but didn't see it leaking anywhere and it didn't happen again. This would seem like a blown head gasket, but the engine doesn't feel like it has low compression, so I'm hoping I'm just leaking from a hose or something for the coolant. I'll check it out later on.
This summer I have some big plans, and am planning on how to pull it off. I'll probably redo the heads if I get bored and correct the valve lash and valve seals. I'm thinking a full powertrain with a turbo 400 is due once the suspension is setup well, but that won't be for awhile. Anyways, thanks for reading! 2000 miles, mudding, jumping, high speed desert, super low pressure snow crawling, the truck did it all without hassle. I'd say she is a good multipurpose rig
poleclimber63
Member
Wow!
Fantastic pics! There really isn't anywhere like Utah! I took the family to SLC ,by air, in 2004 when my kids were young, rented a 4wd and drove down to Moab sampling the national parks. we also drove through Canyonlands, the Grand Staircase-Escante and worked our way down to Zion. In those days, and with a rental, I was a little nervous going too far off road, but we were able to get some great views and a taste of off roading! That unforgettable trip solidified my ambition to own a 4x4! In fact, my Wife's' god mother, who lived in Australia at the time, looked at our pics and admitted, it looked liked the Outback, but with tall mountains! One day my Wife and I will return, and this time, travel the area in my 4Runner and not worry about napping kids and snacks!!! I must admit we live in a beautiful part of Canada for off roading and have also spent time up in the Rocky Mountains...
Fantastic pics! There really isn't anywhere like Utah! I took the family to SLC ,by air, in 2004 when my kids were young, rented a 4wd and drove down to Moab sampling the national parks. we also drove through Canyonlands, the Grand Staircase-Escante and worked our way down to Zion. In those days, and with a rental, I was a little nervous going too far off road, but we were able to get some great views and a taste of off roading! That unforgettable trip solidified my ambition to own a 4x4! In fact, my Wife's' god mother, who lived in Australia at the time, looked at our pics and admitted, it looked liked the Outback, but with tall mountains! One day my Wife and I will return, and this time, travel the area in my 4Runner and not worry about napping kids and snacks!!! I must admit we live in a beautiful part of Canada for off roading and have also spent time up in the Rocky Mountains...
snivilous
Senior Member
Thanks man! I've road tripped through Canada a few times, following the Rockies north. Plan is to go back in a few years once I graduate for a couple month expedition to the artic circle. It's amazing how much you can drive exploring everywhere and never actually dent the amazing places you can go.
4Running Daily
New member
I think I need to move
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