AWill147
New member
Hey all! New to Expedition Portal but I find myself wandering over here more and more lately as I seem to be switching from fast desert style offroading to more of an expedition / overland style of offroading.
I've always loved just getting out, driving around, and exploring what's down a dirt road. Coming from a moto background when I was younger, I really liked to go fast and jump so naturally I was drawn to the desert truck scene or what most people refer to as prerunners. A couple years back I moved up to the mountains in Big Bear and found myself cruising around a lot of the jeep trails in between desert trips since they were all over the place up there. Unfortunately one day I was coming around a blind corner on a narrow road at the same time as someone else and things didn't turn out so well. Eventually I decided to part it out and sell it off.
Right about the same time we upgraded the girlfriend from a 2wd Pathfinder to a 4wd Trailblazer since we both agreed it would be safer for her in the snow. In the meantime I started to drive the Pathfinder and it was actually a pretty fun little vehicle!
We did a fair amount of offroading, camping, and hiking in that thing and left the Trailblazer for road trips since it was a much nicer vehicle. We were having a lot of fun in the Pathfinder and it turned out to be a much more capable vehicle than either of us were expecting... so naturally we started itching for standard maintenance items and upgrades. In the back of our heads, though, we both knew it was still only 2wd so we were a little hesitant considering that we live where it snows. It wasn't much later that my friend posted his 1990 4x4 Toyota Pickup for sale. I've always been a Toyota guy, and with the boxed frame rails, swing steering, and 4wd, it was a no brainer. I checked it out and it needed some work and some love, but the price was right. He'd been driving it to and from work 5 days a week for the last few years so I really didn't see what could go wrong. I came back down the following week and picked it up.
It's a pretty simple truck. The torsion bars are cranked up and it's sitting on 33's. Other than that it's got a light bar that he had laying around from way back in the day that he threw on, and that's about it. Oh and locking hubs.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited about having a truck again and just felt like going somewhere and sleeping in the back the very first night I had it haha
I've had it for about 4 months now (just now realized it's been that long already lol, still seems like yesterday) and the gf and I have taken it out quite a bit. There's been a transmission and transfer case issue that's been ongoing and I've been dealing with that, so no 4wd currently, but it's still nice to use it as a truck. I had to upgrade the tail lights right off the bat because it's really dark where we live and I couldn't see anything whenever I would back up. In the meantime I've been plucking away at the want / to do list and cleaning it up a little at a time. I ordered up some trail goodies, swapped in some interior led's, removed the totally awesome purple tint, cleaned up the carpet a bit, and slapped on a sticker.
I've always loved just getting out, driving around, and exploring what's down a dirt road. Coming from a moto background when I was younger, I really liked to go fast and jump so naturally I was drawn to the desert truck scene or what most people refer to as prerunners. A couple years back I moved up to the mountains in Big Bear and found myself cruising around a lot of the jeep trails in between desert trips since they were all over the place up there. Unfortunately one day I was coming around a blind corner on a narrow road at the same time as someone else and things didn't turn out so well. Eventually I decided to part it out and sell it off.
Right about the same time we upgraded the girlfriend from a 2wd Pathfinder to a 4wd Trailblazer since we both agreed it would be safer for her in the snow. In the meantime I started to drive the Pathfinder and it was actually a pretty fun little vehicle!
We did a fair amount of offroading, camping, and hiking in that thing and left the Trailblazer for road trips since it was a much nicer vehicle. We were having a lot of fun in the Pathfinder and it turned out to be a much more capable vehicle than either of us were expecting... so naturally we started itching for standard maintenance items and upgrades. In the back of our heads, though, we both knew it was still only 2wd so we were a little hesitant considering that we live where it snows. It wasn't much later that my friend posted his 1990 4x4 Toyota Pickup for sale. I've always been a Toyota guy, and with the boxed frame rails, swing steering, and 4wd, it was a no brainer. I checked it out and it needed some work and some love, but the price was right. He'd been driving it to and from work 5 days a week for the last few years so I really didn't see what could go wrong. I came back down the following week and picked it up.
It's a pretty simple truck. The torsion bars are cranked up and it's sitting on 33's. Other than that it's got a light bar that he had laying around from way back in the day that he threw on, and that's about it. Oh and locking hubs.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited about having a truck again and just felt like going somewhere and sleeping in the back the very first night I had it haha
I've had it for about 4 months now (just now realized it's been that long already lol, still seems like yesterday) and the gf and I have taken it out quite a bit. There's been a transmission and transfer case issue that's been ongoing and I've been dealing with that, so no 4wd currently, but it's still nice to use it as a truck. I had to upgrade the tail lights right off the bat because it's really dark where we live and I couldn't see anything whenever I would back up. In the meantime I've been plucking away at the want / to do list and cleaning it up a little at a time. I ordered up some trail goodies, swapped in some interior led's, removed the totally awesome purple tint, cleaned up the carpet a bit, and slapped on a sticker.