Build I bought a Whale, now I gotta build it and use it

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The Whale was a perfect family hauler.

Bellingham Ferry.

Hoh rainforest with no rain.

Loop around to Olympia for an awesome dinner.

The Whale is the best

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Forgot to take the odometer photo but this little side trip netted about 500 miles. It was great vacationing where the Whale was.

Seattle was great. They got their problems here but man, you can’t find a more beautiful big city.

I woke up at 5 and drove to Everette to drop it at @torfab for a few items before I fly back out in 2 weeks.

Uber back to scoop up Red and head to the airport.

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Well @torfab got damn busy for me this week.

I decided a few weeks ago that 105,000 miles on my Dobinsons MRR was probably pushing the envelope a bit and having the opportunity to have a first rate shop at my hands pushed me to act.

As much as I rave over my Dobinsons stuff I decided to give @orangefj45 (who is getting married today) a shot at a Terrain Tamer kit. Just like with the leaf spring stuff, I wanted to try it on my own vehicle before I recommend it to my customers.

Georg consulted with the team back in AU. Gave them my specs. I told them I wanted a bit more lift than I had before.
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They got my stuff in. It was a bit delayed in customs but it arrived this Tuesday. Torfab had my truck broken down and ready when the parts arrived.

I went with their adjustable remote res shocks with the tapered coils.
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Also, since it’s going up I finally bit the bullet and replaced the stock upper control arms 🤓

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They checked everything else. I have some cracked bushings on my sway bar bushings. Some highly dented skid plates but overall that’s all they found.

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They sent it off to alignment and the alignment shop could not move the adjustment cams so it came back and they soaked them overnight and freed them up.

Back to alignment Thursday and they make them remove the spacers to balance my tires 🤔

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Spacers back on…..Nicholaus runs a great shop but he sucks at pictures. This is all I got.
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When they were ferrying my truck back and forth the check engine light came on. I’ve just been resetting it. I spent a bunch of money on it at BTB to try to fix it but I just wrote it off to the LRA sending bad signals to the evap.

Enter Vitale, the electronic wizard Tor has on staff. He took it upon himself to clear codes and dig a bit
Deeper and found 3-4 vacuum lines had been chewed up by a rat at some point along this adventure.

I had a nice chat with him yesterday and came away knowing I made a great choice taking the Whale in for this tear down mid trip.

We had one flight cancel on us and we are now scheduled to land at 6 pm.

Stay tuned.
 
Picked up the Whale. As requested it’s about 2-2.5” taller. All I’ve driven is I5 at this point. It feels taller but the ride quality is great. I have no idea what settings they have it on. I’ll mess with it this week.

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Day 1. We stayed in Mt Vernon in a smelly Motel 6

Breakfast at 7. Short grocery run and off to Highway 20. This state highway runs through North Cascades and all the way to the Idaho border.

I looked it up. Washington State is #4 most diverse state after CA, TX and MT. We saw so many different ecosystems today.

North Cascades is pretty much unreal. Hard to beat the drive here
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Lake Diablo
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From there the land dries up more and becomes more sparse. Lots of wildfires and smoke.
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We broke out of the smoke at the Idaho border near Sandpoint where we hit dirt after 450 miles of driving.
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Some dude lost his tiller and we jumped out to help him reload it on his trailer.

Heavy.
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We climbed out into the mountains at 6 pm having been driving hard since 8 am
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We knocked off early (for us) at 7 pm and we are currently watching a doe whitetail try to join us in camp
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Almost 13 hours today got us about 220 miles. Lots
Slower. Nothing hard just slow. Beautiful country. Unreal really. Most of tHe trails were clear but we had to do some cutting.

We lost 3 hours down by Heller Creek when the trail was blocked. We had to turn around. It was about a 3 hour in and out. It was pretty but we hate backtracking.

We are 30 miles from Superior MT. Gas there tomorrow and we will get back to Idaho.

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Having just spent a lot of time wondering around Idaho it seems like down trees are a theme there.
 
A little over 13 hours. 328 miles. We ran hard. Lots of downed trees that made us have to turn around. Turning around sucks. Punished the Terrein Tamer today. Impressed.

We got behind a couple million in Earthromers. Morons.

We are somewhere in the dead center of the state.

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Another 13 hour day in the books. Got to use 4 Low a bit today. The smoke was bad but the views were still amazing. Some of the best trails of the trip today for sure over in Hells Canyon. Still punishing this new suspension. No complaints at all. SteveO lost his spare. Once again the long bed Tacoma saved the day as his carrier broke. I’ll come back to see this place with no smoke one day. Unreal

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We drove back north to the Salmon and caught the trail we left for Hells Canyon. This trail was a++

Great day. Dinner in Stanley. Camping on a nice creek.

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The 3 times I’ve vacationed here it’s been exactly like this week. Lucky lucky.
Yeah, they have a defined dry season in the PNW, even in the wettest areas of the peninsula. If you seek wet conditions in the summer, come to SE Alaska. :p
It looks like you hit Lake Quinault on your tour of the Olympic national park. I love that location. Several of the largest trees in the world of their species are found there.
 
Another huge day. 12 hours but only 230 miles. We had a flat. That was kinda bad because the wheel took one of those dopey lug sockets that was MiA.

We jammed a 6 point 17 on but it took 5 minutes of wailing on the lug to separate it from the socket.

Once we got back to civilization SteveO headed home 2100 miles and Laird and I went back in.

Currently way way back on a FS road on the west side of the sawtooth wilderness

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Last day. SteveO hit the road back to Mississippi in the GX yesterday so it was just me and Laird.

We took a one way out to Graham wheee there is a rental cabin and an airstrip. Two guys flew in to fish. So cool.

The trail is about 40 miles each way and it’s rough. Absolutely beautiful. Some of the best scenery of the trip.

We left there and picked our way on the trails less traveled over to Pine.

From there we hit the road to Boise for diner and a couple hours of cleaning.

Tomorrow we fly out. Leaving the trucks with @wardharris

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