Any bug out or "prepared" FGT's?

So, my neighbor is a prepper. Big time. But, he gives me free beer so I listen...
We recently experienced Hurricane Ian. Although not first hand, I drove down the day after the hurricane to inspect & take care of our home.

This completely opened my eyes to what life is like after a natural disaster or some type of situation where it would help to be "prepared."

I'm slowly building my truck topper for better truck bed camping. I'd love to integrate a mild prepper build.

Asking the group to see if you have any good links, you tuubs or other cool pictures. Bonus if it's a FGT.

 

So, first rule of prepping, is you don't admit to being a prepper.

Welcome to the club

I don't know how deep you want to go down this rabbit hole....but I'm somewhere near the bottom.

What are you interested in knowing, doing etc?

 

If i was into prepping, *ahem*, and in a populous area, first thing I would focus on is being able to defend what/who you have. You can get by pretty damn well if you had to with just a firearm, ammo and water. That is honestly the only things i feel are without a doubt necessary. Without this, someone is going to take anything you have and you wont last 4 days without water. After that its all a bonus.

 

Being a prepper can mean different things depending on who you ask. Being prepared for me means keeping things in my truck I might need just in case. I keep tools(I really need to improve my kit), recovery gear, and a decent first aid kit in my truck.

Check this thread for pictures and ideas.

https://www.tundras.com/threads/1st-gen-truck-dump-thread.78811/#post-1995917

 

https://www.tundras.com/threads/so-what-are-you-going-to-do-are-you-prepared.16223/

I know you want to see trucks “prepped” but there’s no benefit to a truck owner in sharing pics of a truck d ecked out with survival gear. The idea is to not call attention.

 

Ooh... I don't want to go down the full prepper route. I consider myself prepared. I keep a good list of things in my truck at all times. But am looking to expand. What would you keep in your truck as a basic prepared kit?

 

Okay, if your just interested in bare basics:

Fire extinguisher.

Battery jump starter

Tire repair kit (and knowledge to use it) +12 volt air compressor or compressed air tank.

Recovery strap.

Spare headlamp (you should always have a headlamps as part of your EDC, this is just a backup.

Drinking water, at least a couple liters.


I'm a firefighter and EMT, and at least once a month I have to put out someones car that burned to the axles because it had a mechanical failure, started smoking, and the owner had no way to put it out.

Tire repair kits are something most people don't have or know how to use, but I would feel more comfortable with a spare tire, than without a tire repair kit. I rarely change flat tires since I learned to plug them. Its usually faster and easier to repair the tire on the vehicle, without even needing to jack it up in most cases, than to put the spare on.

For anyone interested in survival, I consider "The Unthinkable", By Amanda Ripely, to be required reading. Its a 'fun' easy read on WHO survives disasters, and why...the focus being on the difference between the mindset of survivors, and victims, and mindset is the absolute most important prep anyone can have. All the stuff in the world won't help you if you are overcome by normalcy bias when the decisive moment comes. The 'hard part' of prepping, is mental, it's truly internalizing the knowledge that normal life is just a thin illusion that can and will fall apart without warning at any moment.

After you accept that, its just a matter 'stuff'....and a lifetime of learning skills.

Now, if your looking to expand your stuff....well...I keep a GHB (get home bag) in my truck with nearly a hundred items in it if your interested in going that route. (The distinction between GHB, and BOBs (bug out bag) is mostly arbitrary, I am a Bug-in-prepper, which is the preferred option compared to bugging out if you are able to live in a suitable place for bugging in)

Detailed lists of bag contents aren't that useful IMO, as most people can figure them out for themselves and they need to be customize for their needs, but categorically, this is what is in mine:

Medical:

Focused on extending life from major otherwise immediately deadly injuries, and maintenance items for being more comfortable in protracted austere conditions.

There are many deadly problems for which you can't really do anything about in the field, so I pack less medical than some people, just because from being an EMT for 15 years, I have a pretty good of idea of which things can't be fixed, and which things don't need to be.

For example,I don't carry any splints for broken bones...in my experience, splints don't really do anything you can't do just by not moving the broken limb. A splint can't turn a broken leg you can't walk on, into one you can. If you break your leg, you can't walk, splinted or not. You're crawling, or waiting for help either way.

The one thing that anyone can carry, that can truly save someone, is a tourniquet, or better yet, two or three of them. (I was on a car wreck this summer where we used every one of the tourniquets on the ambulance saving a single patient)


When it comes to maintenance items, that is Sunscreen, anti-biotic cream, anti-fungal cream (don't underestimate how crippling athelets foot or crotch rot can be if your stuck in a hot humid place without a shower for a few days) bandaids, pain killers, caffeine pills, sleeping pills (not being able to sleep can be a crippling problem in disasters, not to mention, over the counter sleeping pills are actually the same drug as benadryl, and are actually a pretty effective anti-anxiety drug. 10 or so pairs of nitril gloves (useful for everything)

Shelter:

a 8x8 tarp folds up into a pretty small package and can be the basis of a good tent shelter.

Firestarters: a handful of butane lighters is all you really need unless you really want to learn how to use flint and steel or make friction fires.

Clothes:

One pair of thin 'yoga pants', underwear, and long sleeve lightweight fleece shirt. Makes a small package but can double as a spare set of light clothing, or an underlayer for your existing clothes on a cold night.

Two pairs of gloves. Cannot be underestimated, in almost all disaster scenarios, you will be in a world with sharp things, hot things, cold things, etc and need gloves to do anything.

Tools:

12" bolt cutters...heavy but they are like having a superpower in the modern world. No fence or lock can stop you if you have bolt cutters.

12" folding saw, makes short work of branches, etc, allowing you to build shelters, ladders, or clear the road.

Knife...anything will do. People get too hung up on knife brands IMO and use them more like fetish items than simple tools.

Backup multitool. I always carry one in my pocket, but I keep a spare in my GHB.

Water:

I don't keep water in my GHB because it just ends up freezing and break the container, so I keep an empty 1 liter SINGLE WALL stainless container, and a high end ceramic water filter that can turn any water thats not salty into fresh water by pumping it at high pressure through a filter directly into the canteen. I also carry a Sawyer mini (not a lifestraw, lifestraw are crap) for backup water filtration.

I always have a flat of water bottles on the floor boards in the back seat for water on hand.

Communication: TWO boafengs and spare batteries. Two, because you have a backup, and the most useful thing to have a radio for, is for speaking with another person, so I have one to hand out (say one person is at the truck while another is 100 yards uphill scouting, etc.) of course I also have all the local emergency frequencies programmed in, which makes it not only a backup work radio, but a useful disaster coms.

AA to USB mini power pack for charging phones, headlamps etc.

Cash....as much as you can afford.

A backup gun and couple mags of ammo.


I should note, this is all in a bag, because I don't LEAVE any of this in the truck. Many many would be preppers have lost their bags to thieves breaking into their vehicle. The bag comes and goes in the vehicle and only gets left in overnight when parked a my place, which being a fortified mountain hideout, is secure.

This is just the basics....depending on the mission, you can often find a lot more stuff in my truck. But like I said, the most important prep is not stuff, but mindset, followed by skills.

 

A good start point if your trying to figure out where to start, is to make a risk matrix for yourself. These are different for every person and every location but are a useful tool for figuring out where YOU stand in preparedness.

It's pretty self explanatory how they work, brainstorm up as many disasters as you can think of, ranging from minor, to major, and then rank them by severity and probability on a matrix chart. Your top concerns are the things that happen most often, with the highest consequences, and so on. Many preppers make the mistake of only prepping for the high risk/low likelihood events. Those are worth prepping for, but only AFTER you have taken care of the high risk/high likelihood events.

 

I have nothing constructive to add other than when I started reading the posts, I thought of the old Dr. Pepper commercial "I'm a Prepper, he's a Prepper, wouldn't you like to be a Prepper too?

I'll see myself out...

 

Prep for stuff you can contribute to. If your truck is a bulletproof go anywhere, but you have no gas you just wasted 10k. Don't spend money on bulletproofing a vehicle you can't change the oil on or fill with fuel. 6months of vehicle durability costs about the equivalent of 18 months of home supplies.

 

What is the lifespan of your starter/alternator/battery/tires/brakes? Most other shit you can mosh through. Can you improvise? Belts, hoses? Rationalize where you put your efforts.

 

For me personally, a canoe, bottled water, candles and beans goes far further than a lift, light bar, and a snorkel, and its half the price.

 

^^^This.
Anyone who has lived in a disaster prone area, such as Florida, will know that as soon as there is a sniff of trouble everyone hits the gas stations and the suppliers struggle to keep up with demand (Irma caused loads of fun in that respect). Once you overcome that minor hurdle, how many people carry the tools and know-how to extract gas from a station wwhose electric pumps don't have any electricity?

You'd be better off getting a bicycle than trying to run a gas guzzler.

 

I think I disagree. (Although I don't know what you mean by '6months of vehicle durability')

Nobody knows what is going to happen, for how long, or how fast.

Maybe all you need is for it to get you through a one way, one hundred mile trip through hell.

Maybe you need it to make a three hundred mile trip to pick up salt, once a year for the rest of your life.

Maybe you just need it to be a cheap and reliable throughout a 10 year long depression.

Maybe you just need to live in it for a couple months after your ex-wife takes the house and you get fired.

There is no downside to having a tough, capable, reliable vehicle in any scenario. Vehicles are like having a superpower, even if all you have is the gas in your tank right now, that represents the manpower of a small army at your disposal.


However, I think what you are getting at is something that I also harp on a lot to preppers, and that is keeping your preps in balance.

Having 10,000 rounds of rifle ammunition but only a week of food is unbalanced.

Having 2 years worth of food, in a apartment in the middle of a city is unbalanced.

Having $10k invested in your truck but no water storage is unbalanced.

Having a barely running 2wd car, but 500 gallons of gas stored is unbalanced.

You are only ever as prepped, as your weakest link.

That being said, how YOUR balance works out, is totally dependent on your situation. If you live in a an unsurvivable location, like a city, there is no point in having 18 months worth of food stockpiled. You will never survive 18 months in that location. You may as well use your resources to develop a really good way to get out of the city when the time comes (or preferably, a year before), even if that means you only have a month worth of food.

In some places, your truck may as well be a spaceship landed on mars....you cannot survive for even a matter of hours without it and if it breaks, you die.....in others it may be useless....that is much of the work of prepping well, a in depth, honest analysis of your situation and what your priorities are. Generic prepping doesn't take you very far. Real prepping is a hyper local activity.

 

this is the most likely scenario for 99.9% of dudes in a 25 year old truck. Its very clear by the board that these dudes want stereos, led puddle lights and Higher travel at high speed, and they don't care if their truck runs tomorrow. A one trip to bugout and done, is not really complicated. If your 2uz truck can't do that today you already lost.

 

Indeed.

BOV's requirements are pretty simple.

They need to be big enough to carry enough stuff to carry the stuff you need at your BOL. That can vary a lot depending on what your BOL is. If you're lucky enough that its a fully equipped bunker on land you own up in the hills, that stuff may be nothing more than road snacks. For most people, a fully loaded trailer is needed to really have a chance. Its even better if its something you can live in on its own and your BOV is your BOL. This option is usually really expensive however.

They need to be 4WD, with good clearance. If there is a situation so extreme that you have to leave your house, normally the best place to survive, then the situation is very bad and you can't count on roads being in a good condition. No matter wether it snows or not where you live...you need 4WD. One of the most important reasons is that most people don't have it. SHTF is a competitive situation. You need to place as many 'filters' between yourself and everybody else. A road that a 2wd can't get up is a great filter, right away you've reduced the number of other people competing with you for your spot by about 50%. Every filter you can add, is layer of protection.


Remember, a bug out occurs under bad circumstances, in a time that is not of your choosing. People can often get away with street only vehicles in normal life because they can pick and choose the conditions they drive in and the routes they take. This isn't true of of a bug out situation.

They need to be reliable....enough....for the trip.

They don't have to last forever, or get good gas milage. A bug out is relatively short, one way trip (long bug outs are extremely unlikely to succeed)

They need to be in good running condition, and you need to stock enough fuel at all times to make it to your BOL. Thats about it. This usually just means a running vehicle with a full tank of gas.

This is, in fact, the kind of thing that makes a prepper, a prepper. Having the tools, and know how....and then not needing them because they simply have stockpiled the fuel they need ahead of time anyway....which they don't need either because they have built their house to withstand the disaster everyone else is trying to flee from.

 

So, how many of the diehard preppers out there have stocked up on octane boosters for ekeing out the life of their 500 gallon stash?

 

It doesn't really matter here. You are in a forum of dudes that care more about the color of their add on LED puddles, than a crowd that knows how to use tourniquets.

 

Die hard preppers drive diesels and stock it, for that crowd 500 gallons is just a starting point.

500 gallons of gas is about a six month supply if you use a tank of fuel a week. Unless your dumb, your fuel supply is in constant rotation, just like your food and water so its never more than a few months old.

You don't need any boosters or preservatives over that time frame, and even without octane boosters, EFI engines will run on gas several years old without an issue as they simple adjust their fuel trim and timing to compensate.

There is also little point in stocking 500 gallons of gasoline. A world where you can't buy gas, is also one where you're not driving hundreds of miles a week, or running a generator 24 hours a day etc. If you can't buy fuel again in the 4-5 years it takes fuel to really get degraded...your almost certainly never buying it again anyway.

And like I said, people who seriously prep to be driving for 10 or 20 years after the gas stations closed for good, aren't stocking gasoline.

 

Of course, the vast majority of people are dead men walking. But presumably not EVERYBODY here is that way or we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

 

Who the hell doesn't know how to use a tourniquet? It's basic plumbing 101. Wanna stop a gusher, you tie the source off upstream. Use a belt, use a rope, tear a shirt into strips, do the thing. I get the gist of what you're trying to say, but at the same time, that's pretty condescending.

 

So back on topic....if we are interested in FGT specific prepper minded mods....there are a few simple ones

Day time running light delete....for the obvious reason of you don't always want your headlights on.

ABS delete, because it sabotages your braking ability in soft surfaces

Door chime and cargo light delete, because you don't always want to announce to everyone when your door is opened.

 

It's the mindset. I've been an EMT for 15 years and its hearbreaking how many people KNOW what to do in a crisis, but think of themselves as a passive observer and won't raise a finger until a 'professional' tells them to. Its a really common problem with people unprepared to act in a emergency. Again, I can't recommend enough that book, for a deep dive into how survivors and victims minds work when the SHTF

 

Good news for many FGT owners: unless you are meticulous about upkeep on every electrical detail, these may already have stopped working. I know because….

 

In an emergency, when you don't know what to do ... yes. If you have a trained first responder background, if you deal with wounds in a remote area, or a conflict zone with inconsistent evac and support, maybe not. Saving a limb, saving a life, or saving both is not just my belt on your femoral artery.

 

this is the reality. A bunch of people are willing to jump in. A lot of people freeze. In the moment that matters, the jump ins are absent. And my experience is that the rest freeze. The same is true of the 1st gen tundra crowd. When the moment happens, either their LEDs solve nothing , or a month later they are out of gas and out of battery. How long can you let it sit on a Start battery that doesnt deep cycle? How many dudes bought a pre-pandemic $6000 truck with 200k really have 100/500 gallons of preserved gas? If you have fuel, you bought a diesel, If you bought a tundra that needs tires, shocks, brakes, frame, ball joints,you either new the limits and the cost, or you are a kid.

 

I dunno, seems the vast majority of people here at least are just trying to solve practical mechanical problems. I think most of us know what we got into.

 

Surely the idea is to torniquet yourself? If not it seems a little pointless, tooling yourself up, shooting everything perceived as a threat and then patching them up...only to have them steal your shit later on.

 

Well deep down, Everyone is a 'Prepper', otherwise you wouldn't go to the grocery store...