New muffler extension and replacement mud flap

Maintenance & repairs are no fun, compared to new additions. But if you want your vehicle to keep working properly, they’ve got to be done. Obviously. With a trip coming up and with things that needed to get done, it was a good time for me to bite the bullet and have several things addressed.

There were several things I was aware of that were due, and a few issues that had come up. The recently broken exhaust was an obvious one, and my starter had intermittently stopped responding on the first try or three. There were a couple of leaks from the engine bay that I had been monitoring, and several other items of maintenance that should be done while Toyotie was in the shop(s).

Here’s the full list of what was done:

1. Oil change.
2. Coolant flush & change.
3. Power steering fluid flush & change.
4. Brake fluid flush & change.
5. Tires rotated & balanced.
6. Rear brake pads replaced & rotors resurfaced.
7. E-brake adjusted.
8. Starter rebuilt, contacts replaced.
9. Engine valve cover gasket replaced.
10. Spark plugs, wires, distributor cap, and rotor replaced.
11. Power steering pump replaced.
12. Exhaust repaired & custom extension added.
13. Right-rear mudflap replaced.
14. General inspection.

That’s a lot of stuff, and my wallet was none too happy about it. But it’s a very good feeling to know that everything on the vehicle is sorted and in good working order.

The situation with the exhaust was pretty funny. Besides the exhaust tube being broken at the front of the muffler at Hollister, the two small bolts for the factory exhaust hanger had broken and been worn smooth. Also, to accommodate the 4×4 Labs rear bumper, the exhaust had been cut back. As a result, the hot exhaust gasses had shot out right at the right-rear mudflap and burned a hole right through it! Having the missing length added back but routed around the bumper and the auxiliary fuel tank corrected that problem. The broken pipe at the muffler was welded and the hanger was also fixed.

I’ve also got the Engel MT45 freezer/fridge mounted on the slider in the back of the Land Cruiser now. The hardwire plug just arrived from Sierra Expeditions so I will try to get that wired over the weekend if I can. I have a dual lighter/power plug I might install as well while I am at it, depending on how much work there is to get access behind the passenger side panel in the back.

I’ve picked up several other items in preparation for the trip to Overland Expo 2012 as well. Those items include a Trasharoo bag; a PETT portable toilet and PUP tent; a pair of lightweight wheel chocks; a Manchester 5lb. propane tank and carrier; and some other small items I am surely forgetting.

5lb propane tank and carrier, just installed.

]]> http://broadsword.com/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=1567 4 http://broadsword.com/wordpress/?p=1521 http://broadsword.com/wordpress/?p=1521#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:13:54 +0000 David http://broadsword.com/wordpress/?p=1521

As five or six thousand pounds of Land Cruiser hurtled backwards down the steep trail towards the abyss – with me strapped into it – I pushed on the brakes as hard as I could and hoped it would stop sliding. The loose soil was the deciding factor now, and the knobby BFG Mud Terrain tires tore long grooves through the brown dirt.

I had just enough time to wonder if it would stop before things turned somewhat disastrous. I was slowing, but was it enough?

My heart sank as I suddenly felt the rear wheels slide over the edge behind me.

This was not good.

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The day had started when the alarm went off at 0645, far too early for a weekend morning. I really wanted more sleep but I got up and got going to the Starbucks in south San Jose where I was meeting some other local geocachers. I had suggested that we convoy down but in typical cat-herding style this didn’t really happen. We had three vehicles in our group, several more in another and some solo drivers as well. I think there were probably about ten vehicles from our local geocaching organization (the GBA), most with multiple passengers.

We were heading to Hollister Hills SVRAQ for their “1st Annual Hollister Hills SVRA Geocache Bash” with which they hoped to lure more geocachers to the offroad park. In addition to the traditional Upper Ranch 4×4 area, we’d have access to the Hudner expansion property, which was normally only open to paying groups. For twenty years they’ve been putting in trails, post fences, signage and such and I think they are finally close to opening it up to the general public.

After arriving and greeting friends, we filled out our registration forms and received day passes for our windshields, and booklets for the event. Hidden all around the two sections of the park were around 30 new geocaches, most of which contained a unique information card. We were to use the information on these cards to answer questions in our booklet, and for each correct answer we’d receive one ticket for the raffle which would conclude the event.

After a quick opening briefing, off we went. I think most of the attendees – including me – headed off to the Hudner expansion area. We passed through the gate and the convoy of vehicles headed out onto the narrow trail. It was packed pretty tightly at first, but people made various choices that help to spread things out. Some stopped for the first geocaches along the way, while others continued on at their own pace.

The Hudner property has the feel of a typical regional cattle ranch. The trails were normal fire/ranch roads that led over and around the rolling hillsides. There were a lot of scenic views and it was a nice area to drive through, and not especially technical. There were some steep hills and some sharp hairpin switchbacks, but little in the way of rocks, ruts, or other obstacles.

After taking my time at the first three in order to get some breathing room, I settled into a routine for a while with a few other 4x4s and ended up stopping at the same points with them. This worked fine until we got onto a “black diamond” rated trail. It was still pretty easy, but narrow, and it was along the southeast corner of the park that I had my little excitement.

I’d arrogantly been in high range the entire time, turning on the rear lockers once for a steep climb. At one point there was a short turn which was very steep, and without enough momentum my forward motion came to a halt about two-thirds of the way up. Dammit!

What I should have done (Hello hindsight! Hey, thanks for eventually showing up! Maybe next time you could be there in the first place?) was to put on the foot and hand brakes, switched to neutral and gone into low range, then powered the rest of the way up the hill. Should have. Instead I tried to back down to make the switch at the bottom of the hill, and then try again with more momentum.

And so it was I found myself as the recipient of a nice adrenaline dump, as the Land Cruiser finally ground to a last-second halt. After a deep breath, I tried to drive myself back onto the trail, but the step the rear wheels had gone over was too steep and loose. Even in low range (better late than never?) and with both lockers activated, it was no go. I was stuck.

I got out the radio to call Sam who was ahead of me in the FJ, who I figured could strap me out. I had a drink of water first though, as my mouth had gone completely dry! When I called on the radio it seemed they’d gone farther ahead than I had thought, but Sam replied that they would come back and help, it might just take a bit.

I had started pulling out my recovery gear when Sam came on the radio and said that they might be delayed longer, because now they were slightly stuck as well. Soon after, he followed up by saying they were now very stuck. I had spotted a good tree uphill from me, so told them that I would self-recover and then come and get them out, which they felt was a fine plan.

I grabbed my tree strap and the winch cable, which I dragged up the steep, slippery trail. It was hard to walk up it while unspooling the synthetic cable, but I made it to the tree and set up the line. I returned to the Land Cruiser and started to feel better when I took up the slack in the winch line, knowing that the vehicle was now definitely secure.

As I started winching myself out, people started to arrive from both directions on the trail to see what was up. I got the Land Cruiser back on the trail and then up the hill, while now also having to be careful of people meandering around the side of the trail. But it was blessedly uneventful, and I was good to go again. Hot damn! Life is good.

I drove up to where Sam had accidentally backed the two right wheels of his FJ Cruiser “Tidy Tip” off the side of the trail. He’d tried to drive back up onto the trail but the loose dirt edge had crumbled and things only got worse, so he did the right thing and waited for help to arrive.

After examining the situation (and the inevitable “Tidy Tipping” jokes), I consulted with fellow geocacher “4wheeler” John who has been a highly-experienced offroad instructor for many years. He felt that we should pull the FJ backwards using the winch and a tow strap, hooked to a hitch-mounted recovery receiver he had with him. We set everything up properly, and got ourselves in synch with FRS radios. Sam would be in the FJ (lucky him), John would coordinate, and I’d winch from the cab of the Land Cruiser.

It was a hard pull to overcome the resistance of the rear wheel on the edge, and I had to be on the brakes full in the Land Cruiser so it didn’t move instead of the FJ! I bet it felt much more exciting for Sam in his FJ though. Happily, he was soon back onto the trail proper and a cheer went up from the gathered crowd, followed by a round of applause. Relieved, we quickly stowed our recovery gear and were more than happy to return to our regularly scheduled fun.

From that point we hunted a few more geocaches before riding some fun trails out of the Hudner area and making our way to Area 5 for a free lunch of hot dogs, chips and cookies. After lunch, we resumed the search for geocaches for about another hour and a half before we had to get back to Area 5 and turn in our booklets before the raffle.

We drove around the Upper Ranch area, mostly on trails I was familiar with but we did get into a narrow area where I had to squeak between trees again. There was a ton of poison oak in some of the areas too, and it was probably all over the outside of the Land Cruiser by the time we were done.

We got to one very rutted hill climb and Sam was ahead of me, and I heard his editorial opinion of it come over the radio as “Uh… No.” Quickly after that our friend Matt was in the awkward position of backing his Grand Cherokee down the hill after his left-side wheels had slid into a huge rut. We spotted him down safely, his diffs dragging a path through the soil at one point.

Finishing up, we returned to Area 5 and handed in our booklets and traded stories. My friend Bill had gotten tippy in his Discovery and then also had to back down a hill. To add to the fun, his seat belts had both locked up, so he had the uncomfortable experience of not wearing any restraints until they decided to work again: at the bottom of the hill, of course. Also Rick got high-centered in his vehicle at one point but was quickly strapped free.

The event concluded with a generous raffle with some great prizes, including tow straps, t-shirts, hats, an annual state OHV day pass, a nice dirt bike helmet, riding gloves, and a special state park pass that was good for entry, parking, and even camping for a year, something you can’t even purchase. I was lucky enough to win two different sizes of tow straps and a tire pressure gauge.

The raffle took place at the same stage that was used for the slide shows and other presentations at the Overland Rally & Workshop last year, so that also brought back good memories for me. As the event wrapped up, we enthusiastically thanked the Hollister Hills staff for a wonderful event and a job well done, and the attendees broke up to head their individual ways. For me it was time to head home to spend time with the family.

I felt especially fortunate to have dodged a figurative bullet this time out, and on the spur of the moment I stopped at our neighborhood grocery store and picked up a bottle of champagne. I was reminded that Life is Good and should be celebrated every now and again. I think it was Jeff Cooper who said that the best feeling in the world was being shot at – and missed. After a dangerous moment passes, the air seems fresher, the skies are bluer, and there was even more appreciation than usual when I walked into the house and hugged my wife and daughter.

It had been a fun and memorable day, and conking out for a late afternoon nap on my couch never felt so good.

Cheers, everyone.

It’s been about a month since my last post, so I hope you’re settled in for a long one today…

As I hadn’t gone anywhere especially interesting for the entire month of February, it was a relief when March was time for a semi-epic road trip to Desert Rendezvous 2012. The exact location was something of a mystery which would be disclosed only at the last minute, but it was obviously going to be somewhere in the Anza Borrego desert, southwest of the Salton Sea and north of the Mexican border.

It’s not really a proper road trip if there isn’t some insanity involved, and driving well over 500 miles each way to enjoy about a day and a half of fun out in the middle of the desert certainly met that requirement.

I was fortunate that Anthony of Overland Nomads was going as well, so the long drive wouldn’t be as tedious as it would have been had I been locked up with only my own brain to entertain itself for ten hours behind the wheel. We departed from my house before dawn on Friday morning, and bee-lined straight to a local Starbucks before getting on the highway and setting the cruise control for the long journey ahead.

Our route took us down I-5 to the northern part of the Los Angeles basin, where we cut east and then south again to Palm Springs, and then Indio. I’d not been to the Indio area since the ’70s, when two of my hippie uncles lived on a commune in the area. From there we drove south past the Salton Sea, then a bit west again to the first checkpoint in the Anza Borrego desert. We arrived around 4pm. It was at this checkpoint where – after some mild and good-natured hazing – we were given the final location of the Rendezvous, about 10 miles to the east.

From there we were on a sandy, very dusty dirt road that paralleled some railroad tracks. At certain sections the dust became a fine, deep powder which would threaten to strand your vehicle if you weren’t careful with your driving and maintaining forward momentum. Anthony was in front of me, and I could tell that I was approaching one of these dustbowl sections because his Land Cruiser would abruptly vanish in a large brown dust cloud and I’d have to halt and wait for the track to become visible again.

It was a fun drive and before long we found ourselves at the Desert Rendezvous campsite, located in a large wash crossed by a short railroad bridge. There were already a lot of vehicles parked at the site, tents (both rooftop and conventional) were up, and people were gathered around on the west side. After checking in with the event’s main organizer – Dave, aka Tacodoc – we selected a spot to park & made camp.

Once we had settled in, we made our way over to the main gathering place was and socialized for the rest of the evening, enjoying the company and campfires. After dark we also did some night photography, and I gave my new Goal Zero camp lights a trial run. As another test, I slept in the back of Toyotie which worked out pretty well, if just slightly cramped.

Starting around sunset, the desert winds kicked up. By the time we went to sleep they must have gusting at 30mph+. The winds howled and battered us until they abruptly died off around 1am, when everything became still and silent.

We awoke early the next morning, socialized a bit and ate breakfast before Anthony had to scramble to break down his RTT and get over to the other side of the camp area for the “Desert Challenge”. About a half-dozen vehicles took part in the various timed challenges, which included jacking up your vehicle; deploying your tent; repairing a punctured tire; creating a sling for a broken arm; and opening up an ammo can that was locked up with various sizes and types of nuts & bolts.

Between the various physical challenges, the pressure, and the desert sun, Anthony was pretty whacked after he went through the ringer of the challenges. For the rest of the day we took it easy and I kept an eye on him to ensure that he re-hydrated himself and was feeling better. We did more socializing, took part in the gathering of trash from the area (we each filled up a trash bag of all sorts of garbage), and more socializing. We spent some time checking out the “90-series corral” that was set up near us, and I purchased a used Engel MT45 fridge/freezer from Zach at Overland Gourmet. Woot!

There are a few things that I have notice in both of the “overlanding” events I have attended. First off is that overlanders tend to be very hospitable and friendly people. Like me, they enjoy traveling and exploring interesting and remote places,  and sharing those experiences. There are some rough edges here and there but you would expect this from independent-minded folks, and I’m probably no exception. I think that the less social types tend not to come to these events anyway, so there’s a natural filter to some degree.

It’s also a diverse group, from Marines to new-age hippies, from $100,000 custom rigs to well-traveled 40-year old rust buckets, from gung-ho outdoor types to normal families… It was fun to see how little the various differences mattered while everyone shared a common enthusiasm.

Desert Rendezvous was a very positive event and I didn’t hear a single complaint about it, the organizers, or the attendees the entire time I was there… This was good times!

That evening Zach from Overland Gourmet delighted the crowd with a free hot dog dinner with four types of dogs on offer: Coney Island, a hot & spicy dog with bbq sauce & cool slaw, a reuben dog, and a “Thanksgiving turkey dog” that included gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce! There was also a raffle with lots of prizes (I won an “overland junk drawer” by the folks who make the Trasharoo), and more time socializing around the campfire.

It was windy again but still warm, probably in the upper 60s by the time we went to sleep. Eventually the wind ramped up to the level it had the previous night… And then some! It was windy enough to rock my heavy Land Cruiser around, and I could hear Anthony’s RTT flapping around like mad. Occasionally I heard something get blown over, and I hoped that my camp table wouldn’t sail off into the desert.

The next morning revealed a blown-over bottle but everything else had survived OK. I was very glad I’d put away everything except my table and chair. It also helped that the wind seemed to come from the southwest & never seemed to change direction. After breakfast I did hear that some of the Overland Gourmet merchandise had gotten blown around overnight, and that someone had sustained some pole damage to their regular camping tent.

As we had a very long return drive ahead of us, we quickly packed up & said our goodbyes, and reluctantly headed out. I know I could have used another week there in the desert, but I had to get home that night and pack for a flight to Austin the following morning. Bleah.

The drive started off nice, even with a big headwind around Palm Springs. Then we hit LA which brought traffic, rain and accidents. We even were snowed on as we neared the peak of The Grapevine, just a couple of hours from the warm desert! We pushed on and eventually parted ways as we neared the Bay Area, and I think we both made it to our respective homes around 7pm or so.

It was a whirlwind weekend and I had a great time. Now I’m looking forward to the 2012 Mountain Rendezvous scheduled for September, and of course for Overland Expo 2012 in May.

Desert Rendezvous is a free event, put together by a group of folks from the ExPo forums and led by “Tacodoc” Dave. Organizing and running an event like this takes a lot of time and effort. The volunteers do all the work in return for nothing but gratitude from the attendees. In addition to the free Saturday night dinner, there was a pile of donated raffle prizes, free decals and t-shirts paid for by sponsors, and Friday night happy hour including peach mojitos. I would be amiss to not mention my gratitude and thanks to the volunteers and sponsors of Desert Rendezvous 2012. Thank you all!

It was great seeing Anthony & Zach in person again, other folks (like Tacodoc) who I’d briefly met at the Overland Rally in Hollister, and meeting Wolf, Apryl, Tony, Trump, and many others for the first time. It was worth every mile and hour of the 1100-mile drive. I’m looking forward to Mountain Rendezvous in September.

Desert Rendezvous 2012 Photo Gallery

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More posts are coming up on my visit to Texas, mods & gear (of course) and some other activities. I’m also supposed to rework the iPad post I started on a few months back, now that I have more practical hands-on experience with it… If you have any questions or requests, be sure to let me know.

After all the work done with the roof rack, lights, batteries, snorkel and such, you’d think I’d be done with that sort of thing, at least for a while. Well, excuse me while I break out in haughty laughter until I pass out from a lack of oxygen.

Just as with the Jeep, there always seems to be more to do. Like when my father-in-law contacted me out of the blue, offering a nice Kenwood dual-band, APRS-enabled ham radio that he no longer needed, complete with a Garmin GPS puck. That sounded perfect, so I thanked him and said “yes please” and suddenly there was more work to be done.

When it arrived, I spent some time checking it out. It had a remote head unit, with an interesting mount that allowed for some interesting installation possibilities. The GPS had a nice long cable, which was helpful as well. I determined that I would install the radio body under the driver seat. The head unit could mount in the center column between the shifter section and the cubby box with no drilling or other modification. It was a great location and it also meant I could reclaim the spot where I’d installed my Yaesu in the dash.

The first step was to completely uninstall the Yaesu mobile radio. That included the radio, handset, power cables, etc. I also needed to pull back the antenna cable and undo the cable ties and such. This turned out to be a fair amount of work.

Getting the new radio body mounted under the seat was the most difficult part though, because the space there is very cramped and awkward. I used cable ties to firmly attach the body to the underside of the seat. It took quite a lot of time to get it done right, and both my hands were pretty scraped-up when it was finally done. Routing and attaching cables to complete the installation after that was straightforward and painless.

The radio takes a bit of getting used to since it’s effectively two radios in one, plus it has the built-in APRS TNC and such. Despite that, I got APRS up and running pretty quickly and was able to confirm that I could be tracked online. This will be a useful addition to using the SPOT Connect.

While I had the center shifter cover up to install the radio’s head unit, I also replaced the bulb for the shifter illumination. The light hadn’t worked since I bought Toyotie but it does now. Naturally, I also discovered that there is – somewhat inexplicably – a similar light for the ashtray. Yes, an ashtray light. Like the shifter light, the bulb on this one had given up the ghost who knows how long ago, so at some point I will have to take the ash apart for the Nth time to replace it.

I also obtained a replacement passenger-side sunvisor to replace the existing one, which hung down about an inch or two. The new one stays fully up as it is supposed to. At the same time I got a replacement for the right/rear mud flap which is in bad shape. I’ll have the exhaust pipe lengthened and routed around it before I replace the existing flap.

Then there’s the odd driver-side carpet clip that is missing; the center diff switch I want to put in; finishing the steering wheel wrap lacing; doing something about the tear in the driver’s seat leather; fixing the leaky engine seal; and surely a never-ending string of other things. And add an awning, a freezer/fridge, yada yada yada.

On the plus side, when I have the time I don’t mind a wrenching project. Good thing, too.

Having accumulated several parts kits for the Land Cruiser, I was planning to install them on an upcoming weekend. Lumping the related kits together, there were three basic groups:

1. An IBS dual battery kit. This would be installed along with a second factory battery tray, and Slee’s washer bottle relocation kit. Of course, there would also be a second battery to complete this installation.
2. A Safari Snorkel kit.
3. An ARB high-output compressor. I didn’t need it for running lockers, but it would be very useful for airing up tires. Unlike my PowerTank, the compressor wouldn’t surprise me by suddenly running out of CO2. I also had a mad idea that if I got a compact enough Odyssey battery, the compressor might also fit inside the second battery tray alongside it.

I’d not installed anything like these three items before. None of them looked too intimidating, but they were all fairly involved and would surely take a lot of time, perhaps a full weekend or two.

When the snorkel, battery tray and washer bottle relocation kits arrived from Slee, I started thinking about when I could do the install. Just as I was about to schedule things, something came up to completely disrupt my plans. Of course.

I happened to drop in and take a look at the Classifieds on the IH8MUD site, and saw a fresh post offering an INTI roof rack for sale. These were pretty rare things, and in high demand. I’d only seen one come up for sale in the previous few months and it sold immediately, with a long queue of would-be buyers left out of luck… I checked and this listing had just been posted, and it turned out the seller was even nearby, only about a half hour drive from me.

I checked everything out quickly, twice. Everything checked out. I knew that this was a rare opportunity, so I pounced. I contacted the seller and told him I’d take it, along with the HID lights mounted on it. I knew this would torpedo my build budget for the next month or two, but sometimes you need to strike while the iron is hot, or you miss your opportunity.

I was a little crestfallen when the seller got back to me to let me know I was actually second in line. Someone else had gotten to him first. He said he’d be in touch if the deal fell through for some reason… I thanked him and wished him luck with the sale, and asked that he definitely let me know if it didn’t work out… Damn.

To my surprise, a day or two later came word that the rack and lights were mine if I wanted them. Woohoo! I made arrangements to come check them out on the weekend. I pulled off my old rack, made the drive up to Fremont early that Sunday afternoon, and after a couple of hours was home in my driveway with a new – to me, anyway – INTI rack on Toyotie.

I’d considered a couple of other racks – mainly ARB and Baja Rack offerings – as well as keeping the INTI-inspired homemade rack that had come with the Land Cruiser when I bought it, but the Venezuelan-made INTI was my favorite rack option. I just couldn’t be sure I was ever going to get my hands on one. It complicated my build plan because getting the rack finalized was a prerequisite to getting some other things (like the various rack lights) done.

Now that I actually had my dream rack, I was free to proceed with those other items. These were simplified somewhat because there were already four 7″ HID lights in place on the rack. Now I didn’t need to go buy a set of lights myself. Also, the previous owner had put in place some other touches in the form of amber LED sidemarker lights, red LED rear lights, and an amber flashing light on the center-rear of the rack. These were all nice touches, although it meant that I’d need to get a lot of proper wiring done. Also I was going to move the Land Rover work light over from the Jeep, so there was some more wiring to be done.

So now I had a list of rack-related items, in addition to the other list I’d started with, and probably more than double the amount of work. Some of that work, like the ARB compressor and the snorkel, was going to be totally new to me… So after dwelling on it for a while, I decided that in order to get everything done (and done right) I’d break down and take Toyotie into the shop and have them do it. I’d pay for that option – literally – but it would be done in a day or two instead of a month of weekends, and it would be done by experienced pros, and not an enthusiastic hack like me.

There was an additional complication, which was that my original battery didn’t seem to want to hold a charge anymore. I suspected a bad parasitic drain, which seemed to be getting worse over time. I absolutely needed to identify and put a stake through the heart of that problem. Again, this was something I wanted an expert opinion on.

And so it was done. The photo gallery has pictures of everything and captions with all the gory details.

I’ve just had a lot of work done on Toyotie after buying a new (to me) INTI roof rack. Lots of wiring mainly, but also I had a few other things installed at the same time. I’m working on the writeup and photos, but until that’s done I have another small gallery from this weekend.

I wanted to check out the new HID lights that came with the roof rack and get an idea of what they were like. I knew they were cheap HIDs (Kragen 7″) but I’d not had any HIDs before, so I wanted to see what sort of light these things threw.

As it turns out, these things are really, really bright. The throw isn’t as far as I thought it would be, but that may just be because of where they are aimed. I think I need to point them further out… Or at least one pair further out. It looks like I’ll have to park somewhere after dark where I can take my time and play with the adjustments and see what makes sense.

In the meantime, here’s a small gallery of photos comparing the lights on Toyotie as they currently stand.

A week after our return home from Death Valley, I was still buzzing from the trip. It had been an adventure, and I had already starting thinking about “Where do we go next?”

I started making some notes on my calendar, updating the list of company holidays, and I noticed that one was just around the corner: MLK Day. That would give us a three-day weekend to do something with. I started thinking of where we might go, and browsing some of my guidebooks. A plan quickly formed.

If we stayed overnight on Sunday night (not a problem with the Monday holiday), there was room available at the Ahwahnee in Yosemite. Because of the cost(!) and the popularity of the hotel, we’d never stayed there.  But it had been something that I’d wanted to do for several years and this seemed like a good opportunity.

The next step was looking through some of my trail reference books. From those,  I was able to identify a 30-mile offroad route into Yosemite that looked promising. I had been into Yosemite via the three most common routes I was aware of: Highway 120 from the west, Highway 120 via Tioga pass from the east side, and Highway 141 from the southwest near Wawona. I knew of the Hwy 140 entrance as well, but had never heard of a dirt road into the park. That was something of a dream combination as far as I was concerned.

In the Northern California “Massey book” (starting on page 226) this road was described as a collection of various forest service roads, winding along wooded Sierra mountainsides, on the Old Coulterville-Yosemite toll road, which was the original road into Yosemite Valley. It would normally be closed this time of year due to snow, but with the unusual dry weather this year it might yet be open. Since even the road to Glacier Point was still open – which was pretty unheard of – it was worth a look.

There was another important consideration in this trip, and that could be summed up as compromise. That’s often a key factor in family outings. Carrie and Allison had enjoyed the Death Valley trip, although both of them are somewhat less enthusiastic about “roughing it” than I am. This trip would get me to Yosemite – maybe my favorite place on Earth – and also I’d get a few hours of offroading in too. Score! But from their perspective, we would get to stay in a luxury hotel for the first time, really. We’d have fun in Yosemite, and I’d intentionally avoid any big hikes or other physical challenges for a change. We’d do the tourist thing, browse the gift shops and visitor center, have a couple of nice meals and generally take it easy for once.

I wanted them to share my enthusiasm for our family road trips in Toyotie, and not dread them. So this short trip was designed to make everyone happy, and in the end it was a complete 100% success. It seems that compromises don’t always have to be painful, as ours have sometimes been in the past. Maybe I’m slowly getting smarter about these things.

We left Sunday morning and drove up to Coulterville, a historic little town right out of the Old West. I’d been there a few years back with Antony while we were on our way to the GBES Navigational & Geocaching Rally in Nevada. It’s not much more than a wide spot in the road but it’s packed with several historic old buildings, a pioneer cemetery, etc. From there it was something like seven miles to the start of the Old Coulterville Road, and the dirt.

We reached the trail and I was happy to find the gates standing open, and no evidence of snow. There were warning signs about the trail being impassable and unmaintained starting in November, but that would be in a normal year, which this surely was not. My main concern throughout the 30-mile drive was that we could be halted at any time by gates, rockslides or washouts, or fallen trees. As it turned out, we saw evidence of all of these hazards along the way, but fortunately none that stopped us.

The road was a fun drive and very pretty along the entire route. As we were a solo vehicle in a remote area, I took it easy and paid extra care to avoid any hard hits that might cause a flat or other damage. The trail was mostly easy, but was sometimes rocky or badly rutted. There was one spot where a large tree had fallen on the downhill side of the trail, and its root ball had taken a very large bite from the trail. We’d have to winch ourselves out if we fell into that, and it would surely involve body damage. I had Carrie get out and spot me while I got the wheels up high on the uphill side of the trail. She said I squeaked past with about three inches to spare.

Along the way there were a few scattered fallen trees, but these had been cut by chainsaws or only covered part of the trail. The trail did narrow in places, with encroaching trees and brush that scraped at the roof rack and the CB antenna. At times I had to pick a line and squeeze through the brush while also accounting for the trail surface and ruts.

I navigated the numerous trail intersections and offshoots carefully, following the route I had created in my mapping software. Some of the side trails were gated, and most of those gates were closed. Some of them were ones I had identified as potential “alternate exits” back to civilization, so I was a little concerned to see our options dwindling as we went. I hoped that the main trail would remain open or we might face a lengthy backtrack.

We encountered only one other vehicle on the entire drive, an older Tacoma going the other direction from us. They may have been hunters.  Nearing the end of the trail at Foresta, we encountered a group of hikers at the waterfall where I had to drive through about thirty feet of the waterfall’s runoff. Then as we reached the end of the dirt road in Foresta, we saw that the bridge there was closed! Dire signs warned against any attempt at driving over it. Thankfully, our luck held and we had a quick alternate road available to another bridge that was open.

From there we quickly reached 120/Big Oak Flat Road, ate lunch at Half Dome View, and then drove into Yosemite Valley amid the usual “ooooh” and “WOW” sounds. It had been a few years since Carrie had been to Yosemite and I think it was Allison’s first time. She was thrilled to be able to play on some old snow and iced-up streams before we made our way to Yosemite Village and then finally to the Ahwahnee.

Our stay at the hotel was perfect and we enjoyed everything thoroughly. The Ahwahnee is a beautiful and large lodge, which also served as the inspiration to the large hotel in The Shining movie. I loved the old wood beams, fireplaces, and the grand lodge feel of the place. We ate dinner (and breakfast the next morning) at the hotel’s equally-expensive but very nice restaurant. The food was great and I actually enjoyed getting “dressed up” for it. Allison behaved perfectly, which is something of a rare thing when eating out, and that pleased us to no end.

We reluctantly checked out after breakfast on Monday morning and drove through the valley, making the obligatory stop at Tunnel View before driving up to Glacier Point, a wonderful and unprecedented treat for mid-January. There was some snow around but not much and the road was almost completely clear, especially on our return trip where the sun had cleaned it off. Glacier Point was just a little brisk and fog blew through the southeastern end of the valley, but otherwise the weather was splendid and I marveled at our good fortune.

We drove back to the valley – stopping to photograph a roadside coyote – and had lunch at the deli before picking up an inexpensive print at the Ansel Adams gallery, and began the long drive home. Sometime close to sunset we stopped at the huge and wacky Bass Pro shop in Manteca, gawking at the high ceilings, waterfalls into a large fish tank, and other unusual wonders. It’s a bit like the “Red State” version of an REI crossed with a theme park. It was a great excuse to stretch our legs, and from there the rest of the drive home was certainly pretty dull in comparison.

We made it home without incident, covering 450-miles over the trip, nicely within Toyotie’s 500-mile range. It had been an absolutely perfect two-day family getaway, for which we were grateful.

The next weekend, the late snow finally arrived and closed Glacier Point Road and others, almost certainly including the Old Coulterville Road. We’d just squeaked by at the right time!

Yosemite via Offroad Gallery

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Editorial note – As I worked on this post, I learned of a rockslide in Yosemite from the Yosemite Conservancy’s Facebook page:

“Due to an overnight rockslide, the Big Oak Flat Road is closed from the Foresta Road junction to the El Portal Road junction. There is currently no access to Yosemite Valley from Highway 120. The rockslide has caused major road structural problems; a complete assessment will be made later today and more information will be subsequently provided. The road is closed indefinitely.”

Happily, the damaged section of road is scheduled to re-open – with a temporary stretch of gravel – this weekend.

The infamous fuel pump end cap that detached at Echo Canyon.

Recapping, our complete trip totaled 1,250 miles. 450 of those miles were within the boundaries of Death Valley National Park, according to the maps I used. (Note that the park boundary on the west starts way out in Panamint Valley.) We spent a total of 130 miles on dirt.

Our drive from Stovepipe Wells to Titus Canyon to Homestake camp was about 100 miles. Returning to Stovepipe Wells from Homestake (backtracking to Ubehebe Crater etc.) was about 71 miles. Because our driving speeds were so moderate throughout the drive, we experienced better than normal gas mileage as well. YMMV!

Approximate driving distances*

Hampton Inn Suites in Ridgecrest to Stovepipe Wells: 100mi.

Stovepipe Wells to start of dirt road to Titus Canyon, off Hwy. 374: 28mi.

Titus Canyon drive, from Hwy. 374 and ending at North Hwy. pavement: 27mi.

Titus Cyn. dirt road exit/North Hwy. pavement to intersection with Hwy 267 to Scotty’s Castle: 19mi.

North Hwy/267/Racetrack Valley Rd. intersection to start of Racetrack Valley Rd. dirt near Ubehebe Crater: 6mi.

Racetrack Valley Rd. start to Teakettle Junction: 20mi.

Teakettle Junction to Homestake Camp: 10mi.

Stovepipe Wells to Wildrose campground: 31mi.

Stovepipe Wells to Furnace Creek: 25mi.

Furnace Creek to Badwater Basin parking lot: 18mi.

Badwater Basin parking lot to southern intersection of West Side Road: 26mi.

Full length of West Side Road: 36mi.

* All distances rounded up for simplicity & for conservative planning.

Just a few of the many resources used for planning our Death Valley road trip.

Observations & Lessons Learned

1. It seems that we narrowly avoided a disruption to our trip in the form of the reported power outage at Stovepipe Wells. I’m not sure how widespread the outage – which lasted a few days – was. If gas was also unavailable at Furnace Creek then it would have definitely been a major inconvenience. Lesson learned: while gas might be unavailable where planned for a variety of reasons, it’s probably more likely to happen in remote locations like DV.

2. Speaking of gas shortages, losing the aux tank fuel pump also lost us half our onboard fuel capacity, which I’d been using as a reserve. It was still available via my siphon in an emergency, but my lesson there is that it’s better to have fuel in the main tank than the aux tank.

3. The weather was pretty nice when we were in DV, but cold (mid-30s) overnight at Homestake. Someone who was there the following week reported an overnight low of 18F. When car camping, the best bet is to bring too much cold weather gear than too little, at least during the winter.

4. We ran our SPOT Connect throughout the trip and overall it performed well. Battery life was well beyond what I had anticipated, using lithium batteries as directed. However, the SPOT interface is still a bit flaky and we drove around for most of a day without the automatic tracking on like I thought it was. With no data/internet connection for the mobile devices, it wasn’t possible to check the SPOT tracking page to verify that things were working as expected. Overall though it has worked very well for us.

5. Next time I will pre-load offline maps into MotionX GPS HD on the iPad 2. Trying to cache MotionX maps (in GPS HD or Drive HD) when I had a data connection was not at all reliable or effective. In any case, my good old-fashioned paper maps came in handy.

6. Overall, our gear worked very well. Tent, sleeping bags, kitchen kit, tools, etc. all performed as expected. I did forget to bring the tire chains, although it turned out that we wouldn’t have used or needed them anyway.

7. I did note that our typical road trip pattern – driving around all day and camping overnight – was a serious obstacle to static solar power generation. Heavy dust would have been an issue for mobile solar generation too, and along with washboard road battering may be detrimental to the longevity of  expensive solar panels. But solar power generation is most likely to be needed in a longer-term static campsite, like when we’re at OX12.

8. Lastly, Death Valley is amazing. I’m not a huge fan of broiling temperatures, but even the deserts have seasons and I planned our visit accordingly. There’s a lot to do and see in the park and the whole family had a total blast. I’m looking forward to visiting again and exploring more.

……

And about that fuel pump incident… I’m still not sure what caused it. The most obvious possibility is that a rock was kicked up, or a root or branch, and the pump or the fuel line was pulled and the end piece came out. I would have thought the pump and lines were pretty well protected, but a lot of rocks were kicked up on this trip, so it’s certainly possible.

The fuel filter unit. Ain't it cute?

Another thing I thought of was that the end piece could have been pushed out with pressure. The fuel system on these things create a pretty strong vacuum and then when the fuel suction decreases, it can cause the aux tank walls to “BONG” out again. Perhaps that that kind of pressure change could pop out the plastic end piece.

So, what to do? First off, I repaired the fuel pump myself. I popped the end piece back on using two small clamps and hand-tightening each until the end piece popped back into place. It’s worked fine ever since, with no leaks. I’ve been using and closely monitoring it to be sure, and it handled our recent Yosemite trip (30 miles of offroad) with nary a glitch.

Fuel pump with the one end cap still off and vice grip improvised clamp.

I think that if I can get a good tie-down of some kind to stay on the barrel-shaped pump, it would help prevent a recurrence. Also, I’m going to zip-tie some pipe insulation around the pump as padding from rock strikes. I will also look into reducing the fuel system vacuum, if appropriate. I believe that Toyota does say that the factory fuel cap is designed to reduce that. Lastly, I’ve zip-tied the pump and lines so they don’t hang down as much as they used to. Hopefully one of those improvements will be the silver bullet. Time will tell.

I did note that both issues we had in Death Valley – the fuel pump and the battery cable coming off the post – were not issues I could blame on Toyota. It was an aftermarket auxiliary fuel pump, and my failure to tighten the battery terminal bolt sufficiently after I had loosened it.

Lastly…

Toyotie in Titus Canyon

Editorial note: This short post wraps up our Death Valley trip. It covers our drive home and our stop in the historic town of San Juan Bautista, so fair warning: the actual Death Valley and offroad coverage ended with the previous post.

There will be one more post after this one to conclude this series. That post will include a post-trip debrief, including notes, mileages and coordinates.

…..

We awoke early at the hotel in Ridgecrest. Not by choice, of course. We had a long drive ahead of us and had arranged to meet my sister’s family in San Juan Bautista early that afternoon. After a nice hot breakfast at the hotel – and checking my jury-rigged fix of the aux fuel pump leak yet again – we packed up and hit the road.

The drive north was (happily) uneventful. Now down to just one 24-gallon fuel tank instead of two, we made a single gas stop in Lost Hills again. We stretched our legs and made use of the restrooms at the uber-tourist trap of Casa de Fruta just north of Hollister before arriving at San Juan Bautista. We decided to grab a quick lunch before my sister’s family arrived to meet us.

No sooner had we parked and crossed the street when I heard a “Hey! What are you guys doing here?” It was my good friend Andy’s son, as well as his sister-in-law’s family. Small world again! There were big smiles all around and we laughed about the chance meeting in this small town.

We had a nice lunch at Jardines de San Juan. They were desperately understaffed so our order was taken and processed at glacial speeds, and my sister’s family arrived before we’d gotten our bill. They sat down with us and ordered some lunch for their kids while we all caught up on things in general. We wrapped up lunch and took a walking tour of the old mission and the small downtown area. Check the gallery for captioned photos of the scenic and historic old town.

It was a really nice visit. San Juan Bautista is a tiny town that has maintained a very genuine feel, and they haven’t (yet?) been overrun with the dreaded “upscale shopping opportunities” and chain stores. We don’t visit here very often but have always enjoyed it when we do. It was good to get the families together again too and watch the “cuz’s” just naturally fall into playing with each other again, despite not having seen each other for a few years. It was a great way to wrap up our long road trip.

After saying our goodbyes, we hit the road for the last time and within an hour were back home once more. We unloaded our luggage and such from the Land Cruiser and settled in at home, happy to be sleeping in our own beds again that night. It had been a great trip, and an adventure, and the buzz from the trip stayed with me for the next week. It wasn’t long before I had started planning the next quick getaway, taking an old dirt road route into Yosemite…

Death Valley Part Five Gallery