No I was curious as I am looking at going the same route.
What Did You Do with Your 80 This Weekend? (35 Viewers)
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
Ordered a couple laser cut keys from eBay thanks to a link from lcp.
Contacted escape gear to get some seat covers for the rhd seats and some floor mats.
Contacted escape gear to get some seat covers for the rhd seats and some floor mats.
Did a big dirt road / two-track tour through the Gravellys and got some incredible long-distance views looking out towards Yellowstone and the Tetons. We drove ~120 miles on dirt, criss-crossed the whole range from north to south and west to east and got the truck good and dirty en route to camp. We came across a big flock of sheep being moved between pastures near the top of the range and thankfully none of the very intimidating andalusian shepherd dogs took issue with us just driving on through. Still can't believe this is a two-hour drive from my house.
Did some camping/wheeling outside Leadville this weekend. Found a pretty fun trail to stretch the legs.
First full detail on my new to me FZJ80
Love your rig!!! It is simple and clean but functional.
Fixed
suzuguru
SILVER Star
Just got back from Japan, and I thought I would share this super clean HJ60 I spotted in Kyoto. I didn't want to start a whole new thread in the 60 section, so I thought I would just drop it here. I'm sure you guys don't mind.
Well, I stole it :-D
After a short vacation on our summer house/cottage, we've prepared to fly off. Where were the keys, though? Stupid me. The truck was locked (most importantly the driver's and passenger sides, which both couldn't have been without a key), thankfully the rear wasn't.. so the keys had to be there somewhere. Well after several hours of searching, I'd accepted my fate as an idiot and proceeded with wrenching. How hard could it be, it's just a matter of unscrewing the starting switch, using a screwdriver to start and off we'd go, right? Right .. ughh.. yeah. How about the steering wheel lock?
Those awful security screws. Tried pliers, they laughed them off. Tried drilling them off, a tiny weeny hole after a minute of drilling, well. Tried a welder, but me being a beginner welder, they laughed that off too. To hell with it, I'd said, and cut one of with an angle grinder. Unfortunately the space was soo limited (I'd lowered the steering column of course) that I was unable to cut just the screw, so I'd cut the whole holder and bent off the other side (it was impossible to get there with anything at all).
This is how it looks now and I'd had real freaking hard time getting the screws off even after cutting a groove in it with a dremel (at home, there was no tool available for me to do it back out). They are torqued very tight and glued with some red crap (locktite?).. so I guess I wouldn't be able to unscrew them that way in the limited space of the vehicle anyway..Now looking for a replacement holder; probably I'll just fabricate something in my father's shop.
And the best thing? The second I'd drove off the parking spot I'd heard a very distinct *ring*.. yeah, the keys were all the time laying happily on the roof. Another lesson learned :-D
After a short vacation on our summer house/cottage, we've prepared to fly off. Where were the keys, though? Stupid me. The truck was locked (most importantly the driver's and passenger sides, which both couldn't have been without a key), thankfully the rear wasn't.. so the keys had to be there somewhere. Well after several hours of searching, I'd accepted my fate as an idiot and proceeded with wrenching. How hard could it be, it's just a matter of unscrewing the starting switch, using a screwdriver to start and off we'd go, right? Right .. ughh.. yeah. How about the steering wheel lock?
Those awful security screws. Tried pliers, they laughed them off. Tried drilling them off, a tiny weeny hole after a minute of drilling, well. Tried a welder, but me being a beginner welder, they laughed that off too. To hell with it, I'd said, and cut one of with an angle grinder. Unfortunately the space was soo limited (I'd lowered the steering column of course) that I was unable to cut just the screw, so I'd cut the whole holder and bent off the other side (it was impossible to get there with anything at all).
This is how it looks now and I'd had real freaking hard time getting the screws off even after cutting a groove in it with a dremel (at home, there was no tool available for me to do it back out). They are torqued very tight and glued with some red crap (locktite?).. so I guess I wouldn't be able to unscrew them that way in the limited space of the vehicle anyway..Now looking for a replacement holder; probably I'll just fabricate something in my father's shop.
And the best thing? The second I'd drove off the parking spot I'd heard a very distinct *ring*.. yeah, the keys were all the time laying happily on the roof. Another lesson learned :-D
Epic weekend of runs near Bridgeport, CA
Mt Patterson
Kavanaugh Ridge
Barney Riley Rd / Leviathan Mine Hot Springs
Mt Patterson
Kavanaugh Ridge
Barney Riley Rd / Leviathan Mine Hot Springs
Went up Fortune Creek Jeep Trail yesterday. It was a good trip and my buddy and I were the only people. Saw some wild trout in a tiny little stream, ate some wild blue berries, and found some amanita muscaria.
Untitled by Jeremy Nugent, on Flickr
Untitled by Jeremy Nugent, on Flickr
Untitled by Jeremy Nugent, on Flickr
Untitled by Jeremy Nugent, on Flickr
Untitled by Jeremy Nugent, on Flickr
Untitled by Jeremy Nugent, on FlickrUntitled by Jeremy Nugent, on FlickrUntitled by Jeremy Nugent, on FlickrUntitled by Jeremy Nugent, on FlickrUntitled by Jeremy Nugent, on Flickr
After bending my second set of LCAs, I decided that it was finally time to sleeve them with 1.75"x.188 wall DOM. After that, I pressed in new bushings and should be good to go for a while. 
I also ordered some LCA skids/stiffening brackets from @eimkeith and will weld those in after they arrive.
The DOM rear driveshaft held up really well though!!
Oh, and I caught some beautiful Brookies to take my mind off the minor damage.
I also ordered some LCA skids/stiffening brackets from @eimkeith and will weld those in after they arrive. The DOM rear driveshaft held up really well though!!
Oh, and I caught some beautiful Brookies to take my mind off the minor damage.
Preparing for a month-long trip out west...from Minnesota so I recently picked up the Bluetti AC180 at a great price. It will be nice to run a small 600W heater to take the edge off in the higher elevations. My question for everyone is how are you charging these while on the road? (should I start a new thread?) For those days I am not driving much the 100W input from the car's 12v outlet won't cut it. I tried a pure sin wave 400W inverter but it shut off around 200 watts because it started drawing too much from the alternator. Regardless, this should be a rad trip.
Last edited:
Mark W
Yep, I really don't really care that much I guess.
We headed to the eastern edge of the Talkeetnas this last Friday. North of the Eureka Roadhouse. Originally three of use were headed in to camp. Myself in my fairly mild but very experienced '97, Paul in the not so mild '94 that he has been building since he bought it from me (stock) a couple of years ago, and Steve (I don't remember his screen name but he is a mudder too) in his "Iceland style" '95. Unfortunately, when we all met up and I handed out the surprise bags of fresh Jason's Doughnuts to the others, Steve had an odd clicking sound that was making him uncomfortable so he headed home. Good thing it turned out. The clicking *apparently* was a rear wheel shifting due to failed wheel studs and the last one broke as he was jacking the rig up in his driveway! Maybe next time Steve.
We had a very easy run from the trailhead to our campsite at the mouth of a small canyon about 36 miles in. Weather was pretty darn good, and improving. We made the choice to head out this way in the Cruisers because of weather. My original plan had been a four day, 39 mile hike on Curry Ridge, over closer to Denali. But the forecast there was telling me to expect heavy rain and solid overcast for all four days. Not my idea of fun. Since we have not been out to the Eureka Highlands yet this summer, it seemed to be the obvious answer. Especially since (as usual) the Talkeetna Mountains were gonna be screening out all the nasty weather coming in from the southwest.
Once we pitched camp I had a moment of slight sadness. When I first stumbled across this spot about 30 years ago, the trail to it was MUCH less traveled, and actually did not even make the last river crossing. There was no track on the ground at all where we pitched camp or for the few hundred feet further around the corner past our camp to the mouth of the canyon. But over the years, some of the people that do make it this far had noticed our tracks and followed them. And other followed theirs... and now there is a beat down trace for anyone to see. It is orders of magnitude less than what would happen anywhere in the '48. But it is still kinda sucks when others find your "secret spot". On the bright side no one is abusing it, Not even out of ignorance, much less lack of concern. (The track on the ground does not indicate as much traffic as you might think at first glance. It does not take much to beat down the thin vegetation that pushes up and survives in the hard river rock of the routinely flooded creek bottom).
In the morning we had a relaxed breakfast and let the day warm up some as the sun climbed higher. Beautiful day with just enough cloud to give the sky some personality but not keep the sun off our skin. In Alaska you really enjoy that kind of day. Our only goal for the weekend was to relax and enjoy being where we were. We followed a once forgotten trail that (so far) only a few others have re-discovered about 2000 feet higher up into Gold Creek Pass and then up to the gently rounded higher slopes above it. In the alpine tundra it was just a matter of pointing the Cruiser up the hill once we were up in the pass itself. Once we were up there, the view up the valley we had come out of was totally different than the perspective down low. Of course.
Our camp was down in the creek/river bed that lies at the bottom of this valley, about a half a mile past the extreme left hand sie of this pic. Following the water course it is about 7 miles to the back of this valley as it bends around behind the hills on the left. It has been a few years since I hiked all the way to the top, so if no one else had wanted to come with us for this run, we would have done a quick in and out hike to the high pass at the top of the valley. Maybe pitch a spike camp at the top and come out the next morning. But we figured it would be rude to simply abandon the others in "our camp" to entertain themselves for a day or two, so.... next time I guess.
After enjoying the scenery for up top for the rest of the morning, we headed back down to the bottom and backtracked a bit to a small waterfall we have found that consistently yields some nice pieces of fossilized wood with a little bit of poking around. It is far from hidden, but no one knows about the fossils and it is also about a quarter mile off the track so it is likely that the only people who will ever be poking around there will be people I have shown it too.
Surprisingly we only found a couple of nice pieces and they were just a little larger than we felt like carrying back to to the rigs. It changes all the time as the constant erosion reveals and hides what is there at random. There are three other water falls similar to this one cutting through this ridge within a mile or so. Next time out we will pay new attention to a different one I think.
We spent the evening around the camp fire, laughing at and pampering our dog who had run a hard 8 miles or so and over estimated just how bad ass he was. He was fine, just pretty worn out.
In the morning, *he* thought that he was ready for more, but we made him ride in the rig for the trip out. I thought I might have to argue that with him as he was craning out of the window to watch the small herd of early gather Caribou that crossed our path up in Horsepasture Pass.
There were only a couple hundred of them. Nothing like the herds of several thousand that you can encounter if you hit the timing just right. But it was still fun to sit and watch them meander by, basically ignoring us if they were a bit further away and actually even approaching us with curiosity if they happened to be closer. They are the fastest thing on the tundra and they know it, so they do not need to be very smart or very wary.
An easy run back to the trailhead, a FANTASTIC burger at the Eureka Roadhouse, enough rain heading down the Matanuska River to wash the windows clean and we were back in town fairly early on Sunday evening and (almost) ready to rejoin the world on Monday.
Mark...
We had a very easy run from the trailhead to our campsite at the mouth of a small canyon about 36 miles in. Weather was pretty darn good, and improving. We made the choice to head out this way in the Cruisers because of weather. My original plan had been a four day, 39 mile hike on Curry Ridge, over closer to Denali. But the forecast there was telling me to expect heavy rain and solid overcast for all four days. Not my idea of fun. Since we have not been out to the Eureka Highlands yet this summer, it seemed to be the obvious answer. Especially since (as usual) the Talkeetna Mountains were gonna be screening out all the nasty weather coming in from the southwest.
Once we pitched camp I had a moment of slight sadness. When I first stumbled across this spot about 30 years ago, the trail to it was MUCH less traveled, and actually did not even make the last river crossing. There was no track on the ground at all where we pitched camp or for the few hundred feet further around the corner past our camp to the mouth of the canyon. But over the years, some of the people that do make it this far had noticed our tracks and followed them. And other followed theirs... and now there is a beat down trace for anyone to see. It is orders of magnitude less than what would happen anywhere in the '48. But it is still kinda sucks when others find your "secret spot". On the bright side no one is abusing it, Not even out of ignorance, much less lack of concern. (The track on the ground does not indicate as much traffic as you might think at first glance. It does not take much to beat down the thin vegetation that pushes up and survives in the hard river rock of the routinely flooded creek bottom).
In the morning we had a relaxed breakfast and let the day warm up some as the sun climbed higher. Beautiful day with just enough cloud to give the sky some personality but not keep the sun off our skin. In Alaska you really enjoy that kind of day. Our only goal for the weekend was to relax and enjoy being where we were. We followed a once forgotten trail that (so far) only a few others have re-discovered about 2000 feet higher up into Gold Creek Pass and then up to the gently rounded higher slopes above it. In the alpine tundra it was just a matter of pointing the Cruiser up the hill once we were up in the pass itself. Once we were up there, the view up the valley we had come out of was totally different than the perspective down low. Of course.
Our camp was down in the creek/river bed that lies at the bottom of this valley, about a half a mile past the extreme left hand sie of this pic. Following the water course it is about 7 miles to the back of this valley as it bends around behind the hills on the left. It has been a few years since I hiked all the way to the top, so if no one else had wanted to come with us for this run, we would have done a quick in and out hike to the high pass at the top of the valley. Maybe pitch a spike camp at the top and come out the next morning. But we figured it would be rude to simply abandon the others in "our camp" to entertain themselves for a day or two, so.... next time I guess.
After enjoying the scenery for up top for the rest of the morning, we headed back down to the bottom and backtracked a bit to a small waterfall we have found that consistently yields some nice pieces of fossilized wood with a little bit of poking around. It is far from hidden, but no one knows about the fossils and it is also about a quarter mile off the track so it is likely that the only people who will ever be poking around there will be people I have shown it too.
We spent the evening around the camp fire, laughing at and pampering our dog who had run a hard 8 miles or so and over estimated just how bad ass he was. He was fine, just pretty worn out.
In the morning, *he* thought that he was ready for more, but we made him ride in the rig for the trip out. I thought I might have to argue that with him as he was craning out of the window to watch the small herd of early gather Caribou that crossed our path up in Horsepasture Pass.
There were only a couple hundred of them. Nothing like the herds of several thousand that you can encounter if you hit the timing just right. But it was still fun to sit and watch them meander by, basically ignoring us if they were a bit further away and actually even approaching us with curiosity if they happened to be closer. They are the fastest thing on the tundra and they know it, so they do not need to be very smart or very wary.
An easy run back to the trailhead, a FANTASTIC burger at the Eureka Roadhouse, enough rain heading down the Matanuska River to wash the windows clean and we were back in town fairly early on Sunday evening and (almost) ready to rejoin the world on Monday.
Mark...
Last edited:
That's a great trail! Did you take the J spur for a little bit of a bonus challenge?
I upgraded to the 150A Sequoia alternator a few years ago so it doesn't sound like my setup will work very well for you if you're already taxing the stock charging system. Based on how other portable power supplies charge, you were going in the right direction by using an inverter instead of a 12V input for faster charging. The only way I see you getting additional charging would be to incorporate solar into the system.
I'm currently running a 30A DC/DC MMPT charger/controller, but have also used a 40A DC/DC charger with good success with my 100Ah Battleborn LiFePO4 house battery. The reason I went with the DC/DC MMPT controller was to give me flexibility to add solar down the road if I want.
LC4LIFE
Supporting Vendor
I'd try their 12V charge cable. Always better to charge directly rather than using an inverter. It looks like that unit can take 10amps in so you should be able to wire that up and have it charge pretty effectively.
An alternator upgrade would be cool but from my research, they are pretty expensive too. I was looking at a DC/DC charger but I still think the limiting factor is my stock alternator. I do have a solar panel but in the real-world application they are not as easy or efficient as one would think. We have all experienced this. The weather (lack of sun), wind, chasing the angle of the sun etc. But when all things are working they do supply a nice amount of energy.
Thanks!
Thanks...charging from the 12 directly using their cable isn't too bad. It's 1152 watt/hours so even if I drive a little bit each day I should be ok. Or I can occasionally haul the whole thing in to a Starbucks and charge it up while getting coffee (and taking a shower in their bathroom...hahaha)
FFDawson
Dirt Head
What did I do today? Well... I awoke to the sound of smashing metal and screeching tires last night at 2AM. It came from the street below my house, where my precious Honu is parked and I immediately knew it was bad news.
My baby had been hit.
Thankfully the damage to the drunk a******'s vehicle was worse, and he only managed to get half a block away before his Kia quit on him. I called 911 and CHP arrived quickly, finding the driver wasted. After their usual DUI routine they provided him with some much deserved fancy silver bracelets and hauled his bitch ass off to jail.
And to make matters worse I had to work in a few hours so I was only able to scrape up the broken pieces, I haven't had time to fully assess the damage.
At first glance it appears I got lucky, bumper cap and fender flare took most of the impact, then he hit my tire full on. The wheels were pointed straight when parked, and are now HARD driver... so I'm worried my steering linkage might be beat.
I won't know till I get off on Friday and have time to check it out further. So pissed. But luckily no one innocent was hurt, and hopefully Honu's not too terribly damaged.
My baby had been hit.
Thankfully the damage to the drunk a******'s vehicle was worse, and he only managed to get half a block away before his Kia quit on him. I called 911 and CHP arrived quickly, finding the driver wasted. After their usual DUI routine they provided him with some much deserved fancy silver bracelets and hauled his bitch ass off to jail.
And to make matters worse I had to work in a few hours so I was only able to scrape up the broken pieces, I haven't had time to fully assess the damage.
At first glance it appears I got lucky, bumper cap and fender flare took most of the impact, then he hit my tire full on. The wheels were pointed straight when parked, and are now HARD driver... so I'm worried my steering linkage might be beat.
I won't know till I get off on Friday and have time to check it out further. So pissed. But luckily no one innocent was hurt, and hopefully Honu's not too terribly damaged.
