Looks great! Was the valve cover painted or just bead blasted?
West Coast Road Trip in my 'new' 78 FJ40
- Thread starter NW40
- Start date
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it was painted with silver caliper paint......
- Thread starter
- #23
Hey Matt,
The stock steelies and hubcaps are original to the truck and came with it. They had been in storage for 10+ years, ever since the PO put on the alloy wheels shown in the first post. But like pavieSD said, you can still buy stock steelies from Toyota.
I had them powder coated at a shop in Escondido, CA called Olympic Coatings because they were super convenient at the time and came recommended to me. I also discovered when I dropped the wheels off that they had an enormous number of colors and finishes to choose from, which only made the decision more difficult! I think I changed my mind on color and finish about 4 times before I finally left. They weren't cheap, though, which I didn't know until I showed up. If I had had more time, I would've shipped them off to Les Schwab and gone with their standard grey. But I was on a tight schedule to get the truck ready for the road trip, so had to pull the trigger.
- Thread starter
- #24
The trip begins: Lake Arrowhead
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Now that the festivities are over, I’ve finally found some time to make a post on the first day of our trip.
I had planned on making a solo day trip on Wednesday, Dec 5, to pick up the finishing touches to our traveling rig prior to officially embarking on our road trip the next day, but with family commitments that cropped up, I wasn’t able to make that trip. Worked out for the best, though, as it gave Noah some time to wrap up a couple more nice-to-have items on the truck prior to me picking it up. And that solo trip turned into the first day of our official road trip, putting us behind schedule, but it turned out to be a great addition to the route.
Come the day of our departure, Thursday Dec 6, we took some obligatory send-off photos posing with the truck, grabbed a couple In-N-Out burgers on the way out of town, and hit the highway.
Rather than heading straight for our drive up the coast per the original plan, our route took us first to Lake Arrowhead, a small town a mile high in the San Bernardino mountains of California, at the end of a long, slow climb up the twisty “Rim of the World” mountain highway (CA Hwy 18).
One of the scenic vistas along the way, as seen from the passenger seat:
We met up with Greg Steffens at DiamondRax to pick up a DiamondRax 2nd Gen RTT basket rack, RotoPax gas and water cans (came in handy with the 40’s short range and long stretches between gas stations along our route), and CVT Mt Shasta roof top tent that CVT’s Bobby Culpepper had shipped down from Bend, OR.
Freshly installed…
This setup would provide my wife and me our accommodations for the next 5 nights, and 5 nights provided us a thorough acquaintance with setting up & tearing down our new RTT. There’s a small learning curve with the RTT, especially when it’s recessed within a 6” basket rack on top of an FJ40 with a shovel and axe to work around on one side, but I had a 15 minute teardown routine by the third night, and it’s only getting easier. And that’s just me working the tent while my wife set up other stuff.
I can’t continue without mentioning how fantastic my experience with Greg and the crew at DiamondRax has been. They had the rack and tent ready for install when we arrived, and when we realized we weren’t going to make it down the mountain before dark, Greg went well out of his way to help us locate a suitably awesome camp site local to Lake Arrowhead for our first night in the RTT. Not only that, but he took time away from his busy schedule the next day to help us resolve some teething pains with the new RTT setup (a seriously stuck zipper…my own doing). I can’t say enough about how helpful Greg at DiamondRax was! It’s also been a pleasure working with Bobby Culpepper from CVT. Both great guys with awesome products.
With Greg’s recommendation, we spent our first night camping a few miles from the lake at Willow Creek Jeep Trail staging grounds, which put us well enough into the peace and quiet we were looking for. Seemed like no one for miles; just us and the stars, with a beautiful sunrise the next morning. We hadn’t anticipated camping a mile high in December, but were well enough prepared with 15-deg sleeping bags and hot water bottles to keep us toasty warm.
Just before sunrise (sorry, didn’t catch the best part)
Time for coffee
Morning dew
Packed up and ready to hit the trail
And after a quick stop at DiamondRax, we were on our way to the coast!
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Now that the festivities are over, I’ve finally found some time to make a post on the first day of our trip.
I had planned on making a solo day trip on Wednesday, Dec 5, to pick up the finishing touches to our traveling rig prior to officially embarking on our road trip the next day, but with family commitments that cropped up, I wasn’t able to make that trip. Worked out for the best, though, as it gave Noah some time to wrap up a couple more nice-to-have items on the truck prior to me picking it up. And that solo trip turned into the first day of our official road trip, putting us behind schedule, but it turned out to be a great addition to the route.
Come the day of our departure, Thursday Dec 6, we took some obligatory send-off photos posing with the truck, grabbed a couple In-N-Out burgers on the way out of town, and hit the highway.
Rather than heading straight for our drive up the coast per the original plan, our route took us first to Lake Arrowhead, a small town a mile high in the San Bernardino mountains of California, at the end of a long, slow climb up the twisty “Rim of the World” mountain highway (CA Hwy 18).
One of the scenic vistas along the way, as seen from the passenger seat:
We met up with Greg Steffens at DiamondRax to pick up a DiamondRax 2nd Gen RTT basket rack, RotoPax gas and water cans (came in handy with the 40’s short range and long stretches between gas stations along our route), and CVT Mt Shasta roof top tent that CVT’s Bobby Culpepper had shipped down from Bend, OR.
Freshly installed…
This setup would provide my wife and me our accommodations for the next 5 nights, and 5 nights provided us a thorough acquaintance with setting up & tearing down our new RTT. There’s a small learning curve with the RTT, especially when it’s recessed within a 6” basket rack on top of an FJ40 with a shovel and axe to work around on one side, but I had a 15 minute teardown routine by the third night, and it’s only getting easier. And that’s just me working the tent while my wife set up other stuff.
I can’t continue without mentioning how fantastic my experience with Greg and the crew at DiamondRax has been. They had the rack and tent ready for install when we arrived, and when we realized we weren’t going to make it down the mountain before dark, Greg went well out of his way to help us locate a suitably awesome camp site local to Lake Arrowhead for our first night in the RTT. Not only that, but he took time away from his busy schedule the next day to help us resolve some teething pains with the new RTT setup (a seriously stuck zipper…my own doing). I can’t say enough about how helpful Greg at DiamondRax was! It’s also been a pleasure working with Bobby Culpepper from CVT. Both great guys with awesome products.
With Greg’s recommendation, we spent our first night camping a few miles from the lake at Willow Creek Jeep Trail staging grounds, which put us well enough into the peace and quiet we were looking for. Seemed like no one for miles; just us and the stars, with a beautiful sunrise the next morning. We hadn’t anticipated camping a mile high in December, but were well enough prepared with 15-deg sleeping bags and hot water bottles to keep us toasty warm.
Just before sunrise (sorry, didn’t catch the best part)
Time for coffee
Morning dew
Packed up and ready to hit the trail
And after a quick stop at DiamondRax, we were on our way to the coast!
Boy Chad, you certainly are getting this thing set up for some great experiences and memories. It's gonna love it's new home in the Pacific Northwest. Looks great.
You've got a nice 40 there. Nice pictures as well, what camera are you using? Those nostagic borders are a nice touch. For some reason that in-n-out burger looks realy tasty and a neat picture as well.
What were your cruising speeds?
What were your cruising speeds?
- Thread starter
- #29
Looking forward to exploring parts of the PNW I've never seen before! And really looking forward to when my kids are just a bit older for some fun adventures with them.
Thanks for the compliments on the photos, AlaskanWheeler. Most of the good ones are courtesy of my wife; she has an eye for good photo composition. We were using our iPhone cameras (not too shabby!) and a Sony A300 Digital SLR. My wife had fun with the iPhone camera app "Instagram" throughout the trip, which provides a host of filters and borders that provide that nostalgic touch.
Most comfortable cruising speeds were between 62 - 65 on the flats as measured by GPS; speedometer indicated around 60, so the 31" tires were giving me those extra few MPH while keeping engine speeds in what I felt was a reasonable range. In the mountain steeps, cruising speed got as low as the high 30s to low 40s. Just had to sit back and enjoy the scenery!
Definitely hope to meet sometime, Pierps! Where in Seattle are you? I made it to my first Cruiserhead meeting a couple weeks ago, same day I returned from this road trip!
Great job documenting your trip so far and thanks for the props! It was a real pleasure to meet you both (and to "crown" your sweet ride with a rack, tent, etc). Can't wait to see where the trip goes from here. Happy New Year and here's to many more adventures ahead!
Pretty cool!!!!! Thinking of making mine that color blue!
Guess I missed this thread in January love the picks and I'm jealous always wanted to visit lake arrowhead.
I missed this one too, very awesome!!! the FJ40 looks amazing, the Trip looks amazing, the pictures are well composed with great lighting!!! how exciting!!!
- Thread starter
- #35
Glad to hear someone's following the thread! Yeah, I'll try to post more roadtrip photos soon. Between family obligations and exploring the Pacific Northwest in my 40 whenever I have a free weekend, I haven't had time to post!
Here's a few snapshots from a couple of my more recent adventures...
Millican Plateau OHV Trail Area, 30 minutes east of Bend, Oregon:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-byv5CGJuyXs/UTyt0TxkxHI/AAAAAAAAA8s/0vXyvVsyCoA/s800/IMG_4635.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--Y_YwvQOlWg/UTytpgq5PUI/AAAAAAAAA3A/QiDZDTcQ5p4/s800/IMG_4629.JPG
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--iGmb9yFR6E/UTytstEnceI/AAAAAAAAA8A/JcXlTo5K7MU/s640/IMG_4628.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5ZIPckKoxpw/UTyuiqFOicI/AAAAAAAAA84/vWaAtuQ2s18/s640/IMG_4650.JPG
Tahuya State Forest 4x4 loop near Belfair, WA:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-47_NTLWuTek/UTwjvf-DkxI/AAAAAAAAA8Q/kBwWGvWg4gs/s640/IMG_4711.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-z_XBpVzwE-U/UTwtM31R3OI/AAAAAAAAA8Y/ySj3eOI7qo8/s640/IMG_4724.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-IrzDXFX6Xdo/UT68qapVgaI/AAAAAAAAA8k/0pI47voXsq8/s640/IMG_4730.JPG
Glad to see you are getting to enjoy her. 
Yeah!
- Thread starter
- #39
Alright, I’ll try to pick up where I left off a few months ago.
After several hours of slogging through Friday rush hour traffic spanning the entirety of the Los Angeles basin, we finally made it from Lake Arrowhead to Highway 1 just in time for an awesome sunset. We pulled off the highway at one of the many beaches to watch the surfers and snap a few photos with a perfect back drop.
We hopped back in the Cruiser and made our way a few more hours north to camp at the San Simeon State Park Washburn primitive campground, which would make for a good starting point for the next section of cliff-lined coastal driving. After grabbing breakfast the next morning in Cambria, a quaint small town, we continued north for what turned out to be the most beautiful scenery of the trip. Turn after turn brought breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, craggy cliff sides dotted with bonsai-like Monterey pines, and the occasional redwood forest. We also happened upon an elephant seal rookery just south of the Piedras Blancas lighthouse, a beach full of lounging 3000-pound seals that made for some fun pointing and gawking. Don’t get too close, though. The males are viciously protective of their harems and will chest bump and gnaw you to death! Just check out the YouTube videos of these beasts fighting. My photo doesn’t convey just how monstrous these seals really are.
We continued north to a forest road (Nacimiento-Fergusson Rd) that I’ve been wanting to check out ever since I saw this awesome photo by a fellow MUD member and 40-owner, ‘90 Weight’, and reading their associated blog post:
Blog post: http://deliberateforager.com/?p=184
90 Weight’s build thread where this location is mentioned: https://forum.ih8mud.com/40-55-seri...landcruiser-78-frame-off-resofication-36.html
In fact, reading about 90 Weight’s trip up the west coast around the time we were thinking about buying the Cruiser was part of our inspiration to road trip our new truck up to Seattle rather than ship it. So thanks, 90 Weight. Road tripping was definitely the way to go!
Back to Nacimiento-Fergusson Rd… It’s an easy dirt road that climbs the cliff side above Hwy 1, through a redwood forest, and into the hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A few shots from the road:
In our trip planning we had hoped to make it all the way to Prewitt Ridge to camp for a night, which is where 90 Weight took his photo, but by this time we were a solid day behind schedule and had to turn back to Hwy 1 early to make it to the bay area by nightfall.
Next stop along this amazing drive was the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, which features what has to be one of the most beautiful coves in the world. Too bad you can't get down there and play in the 80-foot waterfall.
Stopped for dinner at the quirky Big Sur Coast Gallery Café (surprisingly good food, and the fantastic views go without saying), and spent the last few photos of the day on yet another sunset.
A birds-eye view of the truck and twisty Hwy 1 from the deck of the café:
We reached the city of Monterey well after dark and strolled through the historic downtown before setting up camp at the Monterey Veteran’s Memorial Park, a welcomed find in the middle of a small city. Being December, even this city campground was quiet with few campers. We could even hear the seals barking from the beach a half mile away.
After several hours of slogging through Friday rush hour traffic spanning the entirety of the Los Angeles basin, we finally made it from Lake Arrowhead to Highway 1 just in time for an awesome sunset. We pulled off the highway at one of the many beaches to watch the surfers and snap a few photos with a perfect back drop.
We hopped back in the Cruiser and made our way a few more hours north to camp at the San Simeon State Park Washburn primitive campground, which would make for a good starting point for the next section of cliff-lined coastal driving. After grabbing breakfast the next morning in Cambria, a quaint small town, we continued north for what turned out to be the most beautiful scenery of the trip. Turn after turn brought breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, craggy cliff sides dotted with bonsai-like Monterey pines, and the occasional redwood forest. We also happened upon an elephant seal rookery just south of the Piedras Blancas lighthouse, a beach full of lounging 3000-pound seals that made for some fun pointing and gawking. Don’t get too close, though. The males are viciously protective of their harems and will chest bump and gnaw you to death! Just check out the YouTube videos of these beasts fighting. My photo doesn’t convey just how monstrous these seals really are.
We continued north to a forest road (Nacimiento-Fergusson Rd) that I’ve been wanting to check out ever since I saw this awesome photo by a fellow MUD member and 40-owner, ‘90 Weight’, and reading their associated blog post:
Blog post: http://deliberateforager.com/?p=184
90 Weight’s build thread where this location is mentioned: https://forum.ih8mud.com/40-55-seri...landcruiser-78-frame-off-resofication-36.html
In fact, reading about 90 Weight’s trip up the west coast around the time we were thinking about buying the Cruiser was part of our inspiration to road trip our new truck up to Seattle rather than ship it. So thanks, 90 Weight. Road tripping was definitely the way to go!
Back to Nacimiento-Fergusson Rd… It’s an easy dirt road that climbs the cliff side above Hwy 1, through a redwood forest, and into the hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A few shots from the road:
In our trip planning we had hoped to make it all the way to Prewitt Ridge to camp for a night, which is where 90 Weight took his photo, but by this time we were a solid day behind schedule and had to turn back to Hwy 1 early to make it to the bay area by nightfall.
Next stop along this amazing drive was the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, which features what has to be one of the most beautiful coves in the world. Too bad you can't get down there and play in the 80-foot waterfall.
Stopped for dinner at the quirky Big Sur Coast Gallery Café (surprisingly good food, and the fantastic views go without saying), and spent the last few photos of the day on yet another sunset.
A birds-eye view of the truck and twisty Hwy 1 from the deck of the café:
We reached the city of Monterey well after dark and strolled through the historic downtown before setting up camp at the Monterey Veteran’s Memorial Park, a welcomed find in the middle of a small city. Being December, even this city campground was quiet with few campers. We could even hear the seals barking from the beach a half mile away.
