Some of you may remember my thread asking if it's worth trying to rust-proof something for salt exposure...instead of leaving my GX unused (well, used by my friends while I pay for it, LOL) at my house in AZ, I decided to sell it to my dad in Texas. He's been wanting a 4x4 for a while and he's absolutely in love with my rig. My girlfriend and I went up to Overland Expo West and then spent the following week exploring the forest service roads across New Mexico, finally ending in San Antonio where I dropped my rig off at my dad's place.
I recently discovered that Sports without nav do exist, so I may start hunting for that holy grail while I wait for my inevitable second GX purchase (I want to be back in AZ in 18 months, or better yet find a job that'll let me work remotely and then go wherever I damn well please).
Having spent some (but not enough) time with my rig, I am adjusting my thought process for my next one. I'm now on the fence about drawers; as awesome as they are when you're out exploring for days, the permanency of them eliminates a lot of the practicality of an SUV (i.e. I couldn't move large items anymore). She was also getting heavy (complete set of Budbuilt steel skids, sliders, fridge, drawers, rack). I learned that I don't really use a roofrack much at all (plus I don't like adding too much weight on the roof - and the wind noise, at least from a platform rack, is surprisingly high). I learned that you can't fit a 255/75R17 spare in the stock location with KDSS so I'm also contemplating stock-size tires (or a Prado rear door, if I can figure out how to get one!). Lightweight bumpers to help my approach and departure angles (I was dragging my hitch and ever so close to scraping my front end last week), an aluminum engine skid (and selective skids for other important stuff, but I think a full smooth belly of steel is overkill for my purposes) will round out protection. I will probably do sliders again because rocker damage sucks. Really though, I should probably find a Prado door or decide to go for a bumper with a swingout...I think stock sized tires are a good plan in theory but I'm sure I'll want to go bigger later....that's just how it goes!
Part of me wants to go non-KDSS this time around so I can go long travel, but really for what I do I'm probably better off just with a good set of coilovers/shocks (I spend so much time on roads that KDSS is nice to have, and removing sways to go long travel would probably be a net loss given my specific use case).
If I can land a remote-work job, I'm considering getting a small travel camper/trailer (example) and bouncing around the US exploring national forests/etc on the weekends. As long as I have decent cell service, that'd be fine...so I don't want to build a truck that's too heavy to tow anything (or so complicated that stuff is always breaking). From what I've been able to find, that trailer is about 4900lbs with water and propane -- that may be too close to the limit once there's clothing/etc in it. Thoughts?
I'm all ears for any input you all may have -- I have plenty of time to plan this out before I buy the next one (I plan on paying cash when the time comes, so the accumulation phase has to happen), so I'd like to have a roadmap of sorts so I can do everything exactly once.
I recently discovered that Sports without nav do exist, so I may start hunting for that holy grail while I wait for my inevitable second GX purchase (I want to be back in AZ in 18 months, or better yet find a job that'll let me work remotely and then go wherever I damn well please).
Having spent some (but not enough) time with my rig, I am adjusting my thought process for my next one. I'm now on the fence about drawers; as awesome as they are when you're out exploring for days, the permanency of them eliminates a lot of the practicality of an SUV (i.e. I couldn't move large items anymore). She was also getting heavy (complete set of Budbuilt steel skids, sliders, fridge, drawers, rack). I learned that I don't really use a roofrack much at all (plus I don't like adding too much weight on the roof - and the wind noise, at least from a platform rack, is surprisingly high). I learned that you can't fit a 255/75R17 spare in the stock location with KDSS so I'm also contemplating stock-size tires (or a Prado rear door, if I can figure out how to get one!). Lightweight bumpers to help my approach and departure angles (I was dragging my hitch and ever so close to scraping my front end last week), an aluminum engine skid (and selective skids for other important stuff, but I think a full smooth belly of steel is overkill for my purposes) will round out protection. I will probably do sliders again because rocker damage sucks. Really though, I should probably find a Prado door or decide to go for a bumper with a swingout...I think stock sized tires are a good plan in theory but I'm sure I'll want to go bigger later....that's just how it goes!
Part of me wants to go non-KDSS this time around so I can go long travel, but really for what I do I'm probably better off just with a good set of coilovers/shocks (I spend so much time on roads that KDSS is nice to have, and removing sways to go long travel would probably be a net loss given my specific use case).
If I can land a remote-work job, I'm considering getting a small travel camper/trailer (example) and bouncing around the US exploring national forests/etc on the weekends. As long as I have decent cell service, that'd be fine...so I don't want to build a truck that's too heavy to tow anything (or so complicated that stuff is always breaking). From what I've been able to find, that trailer is about 4900lbs with water and propane -- that may be too close to the limit once there's clothing/etc in it. Thoughts?
I'm all ears for any input you all may have -- I have plenty of time to plan this out before I buy the next one (I plan on paying cash when the time comes, so the accumulation phase has to happen), so I'd like to have a roadmap of sorts so I can do everything exactly once.
