@nnnnnate Thanks. It's a sad routine of mine. I would do some CL searches for the tires, etc every night before I went to sleep. I believe MetalTech has a sale atleast once a month on particular items in their stock. I was lucky enough they had one on their OPOR sliders and I jumped on it.
@Trist i like them. I was going to grind off the step plates to get a cleaner look but ultimately decide not to. Powder coated them and then within a few months scratched down to metal on a run in the desert. So i guess they work pretty good. Eventually, when they get really bad, i'll probably just coat them with bedliner spray.
I haven't been keeping up on this build, so here's a couple more pics of late.
Went out with a group that calls themselves SCORE (Southern California Off Road Explorers). Good group of off roaders who focus their energy on everything So. Cal. All kinds of vehicles.
This trail was close down by the Mexican border.
Heading up.
Had a throbbing in my brake peddle as well as an annoying ass squeak coming from my rear brakes. So over the holiday break I order myself up a front and rear set of new EBC rotors and green stuff brake pads. I put the replaced the front rotors and pads but haven't had time to do the rears.
Then during the holiday break, decided it was time to take the family on a road trip up the Sequoia and Yosemite National Park. I've never been there for more than a few days and definitely not during the Winter time. Our trip was still relatively short but very awesome. Having real young ones, makes it hard to do some real exploring like I would like to but some day, I'll get to back pack this place longer than a night or two.
Sequoia Nation Park
We then drove up to Yosemite National Park. It was late when we arrived and had to drive through the park at night, up hill, in the snow (sounds familiar right???) to get to our hotel in El Portal on the other side of the park. It was a long day and night of driving but thrilling and awesome. Talk about luxury. If I had to do that drive in my truck, it would have sucked. My wife wasn't all that enthused and thank god for iPads for my kids.
So then on New Years day and after about 1,000 miles driven, I grabbed my oldest son, threw on my set of BFG KO2s and headed out to Ocotillo Wells (Anza Borrego Desert) to drive from there, through the desert washes to meet up with friends who were staying in Superstition (another desert area). It took us around 1.5 hours to venture South and find my friends. We spent the night and head back the way we came to get home. It was quite the holiday break and all I can say is I love this truck. So comfortable and so capable. I did get stuck once trying to help a RZR out of some super thick mud. Luckily a friends Tacoma pulled me out. We had to bail on the guy in the RZR but we made sure he had friends on the way before we took off. Felt bad but our whole group was running late.
So, it begins. I now have to sucker one of my friends who can weld to help me or learn how to weld on my own. I'm tempted to buy a welder but that's just more money I don't necessarily have. We'll see what route I go but it's killing me that it's not done and sitting on my rig.
But to make things even better/worse, I get this delivered a few weeks later.
I better step it up. You never know when I could get stuck.
Love the look of your cruiser. The grey has always been my favorite color. Your pics make me miss my days living in San Diego and outside of Yosemite. Keep up the updates.
@Trist i like them. I was going to grind off the step plates to get a cleaner look but ultimately decide not to. Powder coated them and then within a few months scratched down to metal on a run in the desert. So i guess they work pretty good. Eventually, when they get really bad, i'll probably just coat them with bedliner spray.
Thanks, so do the step plates really help for entering and exiting? A lot of my friends have trouble getting in and out of my cruiser since I removed the running boards.
Ya they do but they don't sit as low as the running boards. My kids use them all the time and I find myself using them more and more. The sliders have already saved me some damage. I have scrapes underneath. Well worth the money IMO.
Off topic, the only thing I would have done differently is, I would have painted them black. I think painting them the same color as my truck makes it look lower than it really is.
@D21FJ60 Putting on the MT KO2s was probably my biggest loss in MPGs compared to the lift. Maybe a mile or two? Not sure. Never really kept track of what it was before. I just know I used to be able to barely squeeze out 300 miles before light went on with conservative driving. Now, I'm getting to around 275 miles when the warning light turns on. The weight of the sliders didn't help either and I'm sure once I put on my bumper and winch, it will only get worse. The road noise with the MTs is pretty bad comparably speaking. I didn't mind it though since I'm used to my truck being super loud (aftermarket exhaust, AT tires and without all the stock interior sound deadening like the LC has). But once I put on the Nittos, it was a nice quiet change. Thanks for the compliment!
Speaking of gas milage, I'm averaging 190 miles on a full tank. I've got steel front and rear (Jerry can and tire carrier) ARB bumpers, winch and running 35 KM2's with full size spare, sliders and lift( well it's all in my signature). Anyways, seems low even when I'm running 46psi cold in the tires.
I found this wire that was cut. It seems to be attached to the fan in front of my radiator.
Random wire... Little did I know the PO put in electric fan that they never hooked up. I'm thinking about putting this on a switch and if I ever tow something, I got a little extra cooling on demand.
Center piece of the Dissent bumper going on the rig.
So I dropped off my DIY Dissent bumper at a friend of mine. I was planing on doing it myself but since I don't have a welder and no experience welding, I decided to let an experience person do this part for me. (to put it bluntly, I didn't want to fxxx it up)
All welded up and on the truck. This is how sits as of right now.
Next step is to mount the fog/running lights, mount the winch and then get the bumper painted. So question I have to you all is do I paint the bumper the factory green/gray or do I just go a semi-gloss or matte black? Help me decide.
