gilmorneau
SILVER Star
Better than camo.
Last edited:
Builds The "Red Rocket" Troopy (4 Viewers)
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
Pura Vida
What an absolute noob
but those are the best kind of trips lolForget Montana for this summer's roadtrip, my and I buddies will be taking the troopy to the Russia/Ukraine border!!! Can't wait to see what trouble we will get into over there
Me and my brother, mom, dad and family friends on a blown up tank near Kabul
We learned later there were still land mines in the area lol
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #543
Awesome old T54/T55 I believe, pretty awesome pics to have. Crazy pieces of soviet machinery.
Not that funny if you have friends in the Ukraine and on the Krim peninsula.
My wife and me met and fell in love on the Ukraininan sail training ship Khersones, which home harbour is Kertsch, Krim.
The vessel used to do trips in Europe during summer. We did several trips on 'our vessel, guiding up Newby tourists and being friends to staff and officers.
The vessel was taken a prize by the Russian when invading the Krim 2014. Don't let that happen to your cruiser.
I like 17 students in a Troopy better than 17 soldiers and a machine gun.
My wife and me met and fell in love on the Ukraininan sail training ship Khersones, which home harbour is Kertsch, Krim.
The vessel used to do trips in Europe during summer. We did several trips on 'our vessel, guiding up Newby tourists and being friends to staff and officers.
I like 17 students in a Troopy better than 17 soldiers and a machine gun.
FJBen
SILVER Star
Boy I'm so glad we didn't have ways to capture our stupidity easily growing up. Camcorders were huge and only a very few people had them. We only have to worry about being caught or Narc'd out...oh well and serious bodily harm and injury.
Ahh the good old days...
Me now
Ahh the good old days...
Me now
- Thread starter
- #546
This vessel is absolutely spectacular, terribly sorry to hear it was taken. I aswell would much rather have 17 students in my troopy than armed soldiers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In other words I just finished another video of my trip I put together, give it a watch for more footage I've never released on the trip.
and here is the first and my all-time favorite video I've ever made, if you haven't watched it I would strongly encourage it if you have the time, enjoy!
In a lot of ways you learn a lot more from “stupid” than anything else. 
Pain is a great teacher.
Pain is a great teacher.
Very cool videos. Stunning places. Very well done. 
You are very lucky to be able to document and put soundtrack to your great times. You will cherish these videos when you're older and you inspire alot of us to go make our own memories with our LC's. My wife after watching overlanding videos is pushing me to do a engine swap so we can more reliably/succesfully go do the same.
Pura Vida
What an absolute noob
You don’t need an engine swap or any fancy “overlanding” tools or anything….just get a tank of fuel and do it! globb did it with a 3b engine with a 50 dollar turbo from the junkyard. No engine swap necessary
- Thread starter
- #551
Some more pics of another troopy sunset on the BRP
Here are some vids I had just laying around that I thought I would share of the past 2 weeks up here. Troopy drift footage
A pic of his rig for reference, it's personally one of my favorites.
Here are some vids I had just laying around that I thought I would share of the past 2 weeks up here. Troopy drift footage
I'm unbelievably glad I can inspire some to do what I've done, and yes these videos I make I'm going to be able to look back on for the rest of my life, show my kids, grandkids, and whoever else wants to view along the way.
Not to speak on Rob's behalf but I believe his rig has been giving him troubles for a while now. It definitely is one of my favorite rigs I know about and have seen in person, a lot of "jerry-rigged" modifications to keep it going which I love, not afraid to experiment and give the cheap china turbos a shot, or that his water to air intercooler is a radiator from a Geo Metro (I believe) attached to his roof rack, painting it all on his own, using retreads for his tire choice, and welding his "box style" exhaust manifold together as I did for mine as well, just stuff most 70 series owners or Land Cruiser owners would do in general. His transfer case has a pretty hefty whine, and he's had head problems in the past, I think a lot due to being neglected by the PO. In robs case, an engine swap would definitely give him, and his wife peace of mind if they ever go on long trips in it.
A pic of his rig for reference, it's personally one of my favorites.
- Thread starter
- #552
Back on mud a bit. Troopy has been giving me issues with fuel delivery for the past month, eventually traced it down to the injection pump diaphragm, was gonna try to limp it back to Wilmington from the mountains and repair it over spring break. Made it about 100 miles before the troopy wouldn't even go anywhere in first gear. It would idle at what id guess would be 300 rpm and if I tried to give it any throttle it would take 5 seconds for any difference in RPM to happen. Called my dad and he was nice enough to go grab a uhual trailer and tow the troopy home with me, spent around 13 hours driving (or trying to drive) when it should've been 5 hours. That diaphragm is a grueling job, took me 4 hours to get like 5 tiny nuts off and then 2-3 hours to put it back together, all while my buddies were enjoying the campfire 20ft away from me haha. Anyways got that all sorted, took it to the beach but noticed quite a lack of power, got halfway down the beach when it really started to act up again... crap. Limped it off the beach in 4 Low and got it towed home again... turned out there was just a crap ton of air in the fuel system. While it was idling I could crack the bleeder screw open and not any bit of diesel would come out for minutes. Primed it, cracked all the fuel lines, injectors, lines going into the IP, etc, and cranked it until diesel started spurting everywhere. tightened stuff up then opened the bleeder screw on the fuel filter and pure diesel was coming out, no air or anything. Now it runs great! Drove it all the way back up to Boone and it's still going strong.
New and old diaphragm
The tear in the old diaphragm.
Also, there was an insane amount of Man O' Wars on only the 4WD beach back at home, I mean like hundreds. My buddies and I picked up buckets full of them from the beach, you could also run them over and it would sound like a balloon popping haha. Absolutely beautiful forces of nature, the blue is so mesermising.
New and old diaphragm
The tear in the old diaphragm.
Also, there was an insane amount of Man O' Wars on only the 4WD beach back at home, I mean like hundreds. My buddies and I picked up buckets full of them from the beach, you could also run them over and it would sound like a balloon popping haha. Absolutely beautiful forces of nature, the blue is so mesermising.
Been trying to research these numbers here as I need the same rear cross member for an australian hj75 1986 troopy. But I get 51209-60100 from amayama which is discontinued. Google comes up with 51209-60111 which looks kind of the same but for 1991-97. But 51209-60101 really looks like something different.?
I wonder if 51209-60111 would be the same as 51209-60100?
Did troopy frames change much from 1985-90 and 1991-97?
Can you bottle that as a cocktail and send it to Putins inner circle?
- Thread starter
- #555
Was able to attend the 2022 Relic Run in the Uwharrie National Forest this past weekend, was a great time. I was already going this weekend with a large group of people but the relic run just so happened to be happening the same weekend, worked perfectly. Got to meet up with @robmobile73 yet again which was great as usual, along with meeting many other new and old friends. All around great event. I ended up becoming a trail leader within 5 minutes of arriving at the relic run, could tell there were some skeptics about having a 19-year-old being their trail leader but no one else had any clue what was happening so I just ended up in that role as I know the trails roughly. Spent the rest of the time talking to people who had read the most recent Toyota Trails paper with my story in it about going across the country, should totally give it a read if you have the chance! My KO2s are extremely low on tread, I think just below what is technically "legal" to drive with, gonna have to get the Red Rocket some new shoes whenever I get home from college.
me and @robmobile73
Short Video of some wheeling
me and @robmobile73
Short Video of some wheeling
- Thread starter
- #556
Other pics from the weekend and a short story about our neighbor "Captain Crack Sparrow"
My buddy bought this beater 1986 Isuzu trooper with a blown head gasket for CHEAP, so naturally, we put head gasket sealer, which has sealed the head gasket for now... took it to the trails to wheel and it did flawlessly. Went everywhere the troopy went, with a lot less ground clearance, and even went everywhere a dual locked rubicon went, albeit with a bit of rocker damage. Only drawback to the trooper was a power steering line was cracked and would piss out a decent amount of fluid whenever it was at full lock, ran out of power steering fluid to fill it up with, then ran out of ATF, then we figured it was better off running gear oil than running dry which slowed the leak down quite a bit.
Newish Jeep breaking down as usual
and now for The Adventures Of Captian Crack Sparrow
Buddy here was our neighbor about 75ft away and stayed away from us until about halfway through the last day. He thought it was a good idea to introduce himself and chill with us by the fire, ok pretty reasonable for a neighbor, the only problem is he was definitely tweaking. After a while, he ended up asking if we had any drugs or alcohol when we said no then he started pressing for hardcore drugs like meth, heroin, coke, etc etc. At that point everyone was getting a bit more uncomfortable with this guy being around us, but we outnumbered him 30 to 1, all had knives and even guns so we didn't feel unsafe per say, just uncomfortable. Then over the next hour or 2 he admitted to us that he was on the run from the law and started going off about how he hates law enforcement and wants them all dead, all while tweaking out pretty bad and then proceeded to tell us he was in fact on multiple hardcore drugs. At this point, everyone was pretty unnerved. Before we didn't really want to call the law in fear of escalating the situation but by this point one of us headed out to "pee" in the woods and called them, being in the middle of nowhere it would be a while before they arrived though. Then a few minutes later the fire started blowing smoke in his face and he lost it, whipped out his knife, started screaming at the top of his lungs, cursing out the fire and stomping on it. Then he ran to his car and sped away flying down some windy dirt roads, a few minutes past and he FLEW by at upwards of 70mph on these crazy tight roads. Then a few minutes later he flew by again, then we heard crashing rolling and whatever else. 8 of us smushed ourselves in the beater trooper which was closest to the exit and sped down to see the damage. Flipped his car 3 times, luckily just him, no one else was injured. Empty beer cans were scattered all over the road that were flung through his now broken front windshield, along with him who got flung out of the car. A minute or 2 later rednecks in XJ's pulled up on the scene and were winching him back over even though we were telling them not to and that he was messed up. They did regardless, he got in the car sped away and then as soon as a the cop pulled up, Captain Crack Sparrow appeared from the dark fly past all of us, almost hitting a couple swerving everywhere... he was pulled over shortly after.
Somehow 2 hours later he was released from custody and had walked back to the campsite, no car just him on foot. I don't understand how he got out. Beer cans were all over the road... anyways we then had to pack up camp and leave at like 12:30am cause there was no way we were spending the night next to him he had already started yelling at us when he came back. here are a few vids of the whole incident for anyone that read this far.
My buddy bought this beater 1986 Isuzu trooper with a blown head gasket for CHEAP, so naturally, we put head gasket sealer, which has sealed the head gasket for now... took it to the trails to wheel and it did flawlessly. Went everywhere the troopy went, with a lot less ground clearance, and even went everywhere a dual locked rubicon went, albeit with a bit of rocker damage. Only drawback to the trooper was a power steering line was cracked and would piss out a decent amount of fluid whenever it was at full lock, ran out of power steering fluid to fill it up with, then ran out of ATF, then we figured it was better off running gear oil than running dry which slowed the leak down quite a bit.
Newish Jeep breaking down as usual
and now for The Adventures Of Captian Crack Sparrow
Buddy here was our neighbor about 75ft away and stayed away from us until about halfway through the last day. He thought it was a good idea to introduce himself and chill with us by the fire, ok pretty reasonable for a neighbor, the only problem is he was definitely tweaking. After a while, he ended up asking if we had any drugs or alcohol when we said no then he started pressing for hardcore drugs like meth, heroin, coke, etc etc. At that point everyone was getting a bit more uncomfortable with this guy being around us, but we outnumbered him 30 to 1, all had knives and even guns so we didn't feel unsafe per say, just uncomfortable. Then over the next hour or 2 he admitted to us that he was on the run from the law and started going off about how he hates law enforcement and wants them all dead, all while tweaking out pretty bad and then proceeded to tell us he was in fact on multiple hardcore drugs. At this point, everyone was pretty unnerved. Before we didn't really want to call the law in fear of escalating the situation but by this point one of us headed out to "pee" in the woods and called them, being in the middle of nowhere it would be a while before they arrived though. Then a few minutes later the fire started blowing smoke in his face and he lost it, whipped out his knife, started screaming at the top of his lungs, cursing out the fire and stomping on it. Then he ran to his car and sped away flying down some windy dirt roads, a few minutes past and he FLEW by at upwards of 70mph on these crazy tight roads. Then a few minutes later he flew by again, then we heard crashing rolling and whatever else. 8 of us smushed ourselves in the beater trooper which was closest to the exit and sped down to see the damage. Flipped his car 3 times, luckily just him, no one else was injured. Empty beer cans were scattered all over the road that were flung through his now broken front windshield, along with him who got flung out of the car. A minute or 2 later rednecks in XJ's pulled up on the scene and were winching him back over even though we were telling them not to and that he was messed up. They did regardless, he got in the car sped away and then as soon as a the cop pulled up, Captain Crack Sparrow appeared from the dark fly past all of us, almost hitting a couple swerving everywhere... he was pulled over shortly after.
Somehow 2 hours later he was released from custody and had walked back to the campsite, no car just him on foot. I don't understand how he got out. Beer cans were all over the road... anyways we then had to pack up camp and leave at like 12:30am cause there was no way we were spending the night next to him he had already started yelling at us when he came back. here are a few vids of the whole incident for anyone that read this far.
FJBen
SILVER Star
Captain crack sparrow 
Safety in numbers, glad you and your friends stick together. Often times on a country backroad camping spot you'll run into some people in a bad way with nowhere else to stay. Sometimes their paranoid wierdos that think everyone is out to get them. I'd advise you camp in/off the trail that requires 4wd to get to and not on the gravel road. At least there the people need a good 4wd to get there. Sending you a PM.
This concerned me at first, but then I saw the guy with the knife was wearing crocs. Now I know why you weren't worried. I don't think you can intimidate people if you wear crocs. Crocs and knifes sort of cancel each other out.
