Recent content by 2TimingTom

I checked out the Toyo’s. Unfortunately they don’t come in 15s. Not saying I’m going to be rocking 15s forever, but for now that’s what I’ve got. And as far as the shocks/sway bar, the shocks feel bad even on evenly loaded bumps. I haven’t confirmed they are bad yet, but it’s possible.

The tires are great offroad and not terrible on short pavement drives. But hours on end at interstate speeds…… little much.

The next day was Eclipse Day. Our selected viewing area was Russellville, AR. We arrived in town in the early stages of the eclipse. I fueled up beforehand because I knew afterwards was going to be a mess. I had been using my jerry cans to supplement the main tank during the trip because gas...

The next day we drove down to Coronado Heights near Lindsburg, KS. There is a neat old “castle” from 1541 atop a lone hill in the middle of flat KS. History in this part of the country doesn’t really date back very far because most structures were wooden and there just weren’t a whole lot of...

Some of you may have heard there was an eclipse recently. Being from Colorado, it was going to be a bit of drive to go see it (roughly 1000 miles each way). Being that it was a Monday during the school year I didn’t have high hopes of making the trip, but about Wednesday before, we started...

With my bump steer under control and with better shocks, my on road driving was pretty decent. But still wasn’t great. Ever since I got 35s (spring 2019), I have been running without sway bars. Works pretty good offroad (although a little tippy here and there), the on road performance was less...

I’ve always wanted an awning. But as you saw earlier, I’ve got no room above the rack for a traditional awning. And the space between the upper side doors and rack isn’t conducive for an awning to hang below the rack. A friend of mine was using the Dragon Fly awning on his Jeep LJ. They custom...

So now that I have a fridge, I need a way to prevent the battery from draining while I’m parked. This is mostly so I can load up for a trip, go to work and have it sit in the hot sun all day and not kill the battery. Enter the Cascadia 4x4 hood solar panel. I know a few 100-series Land Cruiser...

While looking at someone else’s expensive Goosegear system in their rig, I noticed it was built out of 80/20. I felt a little stupid for not thinking of this before: I could design my own 80/20 system. The fridge setup I had before just wasn’t working out. I needed to lower the fridge but to...

My days of a cooler sloshing around in the back had come to an end. It was time to upgrade to a fridge. I initially thought it would great to maintain as much of the backseat as possible so I removed the single seat and built a wooden platform to hold my ARB Zero fridge. This worked OK but...

The brakes might be fixed, but the WJ steering knuckles completely changed the steering geometry. I had a little bump steer before, but now it was really bad. If you don’t know anything about solid axle steering geometry, the links need to be as parallel as possible. Here you can see they...

And speaking of 35s- they absolutely ruined my braking. 33s on the Dana 30 brakes were pretty decent. But as soon as I put on these 35s…. How I haven’t rear ended people is a mystery. I have had to go onto the shoulder to to avoid ending up in someone’s backseat. Seriously. It was bad. And even...

My Eezi-Awn Platform Rack is honestly one of my favorite pieces of equipment. It was originally installed on my Explorer, then it moved over to my 1st gen Expedition, then I put it on my 3rd gen Expedition. But I decided the Explorer actually needs it….. so back on the Explorer it went. But...

Previously I had Rancho 7000s on the front and 9000s on the back. They worked OK. But after putting some Bilstein 5100s on my 2014 Expedition and REALLY liking them, I decided to upgrade the Explorer’s shocks. But I decided to go with Bilstein 7100s. They have a reservoir but are not adjustable...

My rear swingout bumper is great and all, but over the years I’ve broken the latch twice. After the 2nd time, I figured it was breaking because the bolt was being side loaded while restraining the swingout portion. So I moved it to the back side of the swingout so the bolt was just in tension.