8cam's 97 turbo

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Time for a tire upgrade! After reading lots of info here, reviews online, and recovering from the fact I thought race tires were expensive....I just placed an order for five Milestar Patagonia M/T tires 315/75-16. Nice upsize from my current 295s. I'll post up when they arrive.
 
New shoes have arrived! These things are beastly, can’t wait to get them mounted up. Got three delivered today, the other two due tomorrow, and mounting early next week. Based on reviews I’m expecting similar road manners to the Generals with much better trail performance. Really like the trad pattern and the shoulder guards. Big improvement.

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Very interested to see how the Patagonias are. I've been pretty dead set on KO2s and General AT2s for a few years now, but I need tires for my 80 and these might be the ticket.
 
DiscoCam said:
Very interested to see how the Patagonias are. I've been pretty dead set on KO2s and General AT2s for a few years now, but I need tires for my 80 and these might be the ticket.
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I will say the General AT2s have been very good. They have handled everything I threw at them from 1500 mile cross country drives to climbing Imogene and descending Rose Garden. I slipped a little on slickrock, but still did ok. I've even churned through mud and while they weren't the best, I got through. But my spare is older and cracking, so I had to replace that. Then I was also looking for something with a bit more off-roadability, so why not just replace all five? @smittycrusher pointed me to a deal on the Patagonias and I read some reviews. They all said similar things, excellent near-AT on road manners, with excellent off road capability. Combine that with the deal....five tires for under a grand delivered....and I couldn't say no. We'll see next week.
 
What is that on your roof? Is it a portable dance floor for campfire dance offs?
 
New tires done! First impressions are good. Smooth, balanced, no strange vibrations. A little more tire noise but not bad at all. Got it up to 60mph and tracked straight and smooth. So far I’m impressed. Will need to get some more miles on them and get some trail time. I might need to extend the bump stops and I’ll check that over the weekend. Happy.

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One more item checked off. Just passed my Technician exam, so now I'm legal on the HAM. Have to wait a week or two for my call sign, but it turned out not as bad as I thought. The guy asked me if I wanted to go for the General but I haven't even started studying for that one. Maybe next time!
 
8cam said:
One more item checked off. Just passed my Technician exam, so now I'm legal on the HAM. Have to wait a week or two for my call sign, but it turned out not as bad as I thought. The guy asked me if I wanted to go for the General but I haven't even started studying for that one. Maybe next time!
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now for the radio and antenna search. Nice to be talking to you this summer on ham.
 
Had to take the cruiser on a road trip this weekend. 330 miles so far, and the new Patagonias are as advertised on the road. 75mph cruise is smooth and steady, only a little more tire noise than the old tires, and I really don't notice it at all. Still haven't been able to get them off road, hopefully soon.
 
Finally finished a little project I've been working on, a portable battery box. Originally inspired by @JJBiggs who has something kinda similar, I went a little overboard. First I picked up an Apache 4800 box from Harbor Freight. This is a fantastic box, very rugged, with plenty of room inside for everything I needed. Then I added a FuelZero 50Ah LiFePO4 battery and a Redarc BCDC1225D for control. It's got truck-input, solar input, a 12v port, 6 USB ports (yes that's silly), 30A inverter, two volt meters, and later I'll add a 30A output for external things like tent power. And if I count the FuelZero itself, there are two more USB ports and a battery condition meter. Took a long time and a lot of head scratching to get to this point, and I sure learned a lot.

The breakers in the middle allow me to switch off both input and output so the box can be completely powered down whenever needed. Blue Sea MIDI fuse on the power input and a Blue Sea 6-circuit fuse box to distribute the output power, only using 3 circuits right now. There's also a separate 30A breaker on the outside for the truck input, so the box can be isolated quickly, and nothing bad should get back to the truck.

Interesting the two outside meters show different values, but hey I'll always know what my power level is. The one above the inverter is the one I'll see from the back of the truck when we're camping. The other one will be forward-facing and the refrigerator will plug into that 12v port. Should be safe from accidental disconnects that way, which is something we learned the hard way last year. My son is a type-1 diabetic and when he goes with me, we keep his insulin in the fridge. My old setup had the 12v port facing sideways and it was real easy to accidently knock it out and then the fridge was off.

We'll give it the first real run on the SAS4 trip....4 weeks!


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Finally got the new Patagonias on the trail today, and they worked great. Had a little mud to get through and they just rolled, and no issues at all with a moderate trail. They stuffed pretty good too. Pic isn't great but I was really happy with how they worked.

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Getting ready for SAS4 and today was belt day. I read up on the job and expected it to be a pain in the ass, and I was not disappointed. Total two hours, but that included pulling the battery box and tweaking the steering box, so not too bad.

Can someone explain to me how a vehicle with so much room in the engine bay makes this job so much more difficult than the yellow Corvette right beside it? Belts on the Vette take 15 minutes, tops.

Assuming the belt changing position.
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Yeah, these were not long for this earth.
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Once the new belts were on, tightening this little bastard was a royal pain. 1/16 of a turn at a time. The good thing about wheeling through a lot of mud means you can see where the screw was when I started, so I knew how far to go...it was a long way.
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FWIW I read lots of guys needed to actually bump the starter to get the alternator belts on. I’m here to tell you if you follow the instructions in the 25 minute belt change thread exactly, you don’t have to do that. There is just enough slack when you back that alternator bolt ALL THE WAY OUT to allow both belts on just using your hands. I tried at several intervals and I had to get that bolt completely out, push the alternator down, and then both belts just went on without too much trouble.

Overall still way more of a pain than it should be, but still not horrible.
 
8cam said:
FWIW I read lots of guys needed to actually bump the starter to get the alternator belts on. I’m here to tell you if you follow the instructions in the 25 minute belt change thread exactly, you don’t have to do that. There is just enough slack when you back that alternator bolt ALL THE WAY OUT to allow both belts on just using your hands. I tried at several intervals and I had to get that bolt completely out, push the alternator down, and then both belts just went on without too much trouble.

Overall still way more of a pain than it should be, but still not horrible.
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I do it from the bottom:meh: but then again it might be that turbo thing of yours making it difficult
 
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