The EXPO TRON Build

Good stuff brother!

 

Thanks dudes!

Hmm you know I'm always interested man! haha now it would be time just lacking funds. Gotta save up again to get the glass painted and wells bedlined

 

Powerstop Drilled/Slotted Brake Rotors and Evolution Ceramic Pads

As I dropped my truck off to SDHQ for the fiberglass I was basically metal on metal front brakes... I've heard great things about Powerstop Brakes on Amazon, including the price so I bought their drilled/slotted rotors and Evolution ceramic pads. So far so good! With proper break in method and now about 1500 miles on them, I'd give them a No squeaking and it's so nice to have some real braking power again! They came very well packaged, including instructions, and the new hardware to replace everything you need.

 

Looking good! We need to get together soon. Going to get my truck all set up this weekend

 

this is an incredible build. i love that you use it to its fullest potential too. keep up the greatness!

 

looking good as usual

 

I'm interested in seeing what you do for the inner fender clearance. I'm looking into raising the whole inner about 2" so we can increase uptravel with the 37s. I also have an air intake solution you might like since the intake is open in the wheel well now. Unless you're going with new fender liners instead. I'll be installing the new cowl intake on another buddy's Tundra in the next few weeks if you want to see it.

 

If 37s prevent my uptravel, I'll pass....really wasn't interested in tubing the inner fenders just to run bigger meats. I wish I could just throw them on there without any issues like the powerwagon guys.... I'm definitely interested in the intake! For now I have some makeshift fenders in there, mainly for our Colorado roadtrip since I was expecting rain, snow, mud, and salt but it wasn't all that bad. My fenders did hold up so you all can judge all you want! My shit works for now

First I sprayed down the inner fenders with what bedliner and undercoating I had left in the garage.








Next I mocked up some cardboard, only took me 2 boxes and once I had a good design I mirrored it for the other side, covered the entire thing in packing tape, then painted the crap out of them with bedliner and rubberized undercoating to seal them as best as possible. It's ghetto and cheap as hell but they survived Colorado and didn't get any water inside My goal was to keep everything out of the headlights and inside the engine bay. My intake was covered but I forgot pics

 

I’m in CO and I had the same concern about road slop, so I actually did the exact same thing but used sheet aluminum to create a barrier. It worked perfectly, until I removed them and installed my bumper. I’m having to ignore my irritation of road slop, or else I’ll never sleep

 

That’s awesome! I love the black inner fender. I keep meaning to spray ours, but instead we keep making it dirtier. I used some FlexSeal to spray the dryer vent I used in our mock-up of the intake. It lasted a few trips before it looked like a used Jiffy Pop container.

 

Apache Trail Hwy 88 Run - January 20th, 2018

Well it was raining and we hadn't seen precipitation in a couple months so we headed out to Apache Trail. We didn't go the entire length, just enjoyed the awesome weather and of course took some pics! Narrowed down my search for a new rattle from the fenders as well so it was a good break in run before our big trip to CO

 

Looking good!

 

Thanks man!

Should also note this was before I did the spray on bedliner and inner fenders. I got mud up under the hood and in behind the headlights so its what really prompted me to do something

 

Always enjoy your photos keep up the good work!

 

How are you liking the brakes and rotors?
I was looking at these.

 

ColoRADo - January 26th-28th, 2018

I must ask first, why the HELL have I waited 27 years to finally visit ColoRADo!? Our trip was beyond EPIC Arizona apparently just said NO to Winter this year, and it's been very sad. Beautiful weather yes, but still too warm, and not how I wanted to spend the holidays. I missed the snow, hell even clouds! It was time to put Arizona in the rear view and try something we've never done. My wife and I dusted off our winter coats and dug out our cold weather gear in prep for our first visit to Colorful Colorado. I asked around and got some good input from some friends before we planned this trip. I was full well aware that basically everything offroad was closed for the season, but this trip's sole purpose was to finally go and just be touristy Thursday night we left Tucson and drove up to the sis-in-laws house in Mesa so we could get an early departure from there Friday morning.


We left at 0345 and drove straight up through Payson, Holbrook and into New Mexico. It's cool to venture on new roads and highways. Always something new to see even though Gallup and Farmington, NM aren't the prettiest sight As we got into Colorado I shit you not we saw a Bald Eagle fly overhead!! It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen on a roadtrip as I almost drove into oncoming traffic It was a great welcome into the beautiful state. We arrived in Durango at about 1000 and were already starting to see snow! We got to check out the town for abit and stopped to look inside the Historic Strater Hotel. Really cool place I'd love to come back to and spend more time but we were on a schedule so we were off to Silverton!




The closer we got the more snow I could see in the distance




Finally we drove around a bend and there it was, the little town of Silverton! It literally looked like one of those little Christmas villages haha





Had to... The town seemed peaceful and quiet. It was truly a beautiful morning. Couple places were open so we figured why not grab a snack and a beer!







At this point I was on Cloud Nine, we were finally to where I had expected the best part of trip to begin! On approach to the "Million Dollar Highway" and I was beside myself! This specific section of road already warned multiple times about avalanches! Snow was in the forecast and the clouds were rolling in but we continued on.





I'll admit it was super sketch driving on this road with little experience, no guardrail, wet and icy roads all while it was roughly 18-21 degrees! Didn't stop me from jumping out every 15 min to take some pics tho!
























As we were getting closer to Ouray we found this tunnel! I was definitely being a tourist and had to stop again It also appeared to be snowing but it was just the snow drift off the mountain tops... I was really hoping for a ton of snow but the sunshine was in and out








As the clouds seemed to be pulling out, we drove alittle further and there it was! The coolest little mountain town I've ever seen, OURAY, COLORADO! I climbed to the side of a very icy hill covered in snow as well to get these pics, but it was worth it!


Perfect timing!




The Ouray Ice Park looked awesome! We just drove by but it definitely will be something we come back to in the future!








Of course we had to stop in Ouray! I had been looking forward to this for a very long time and it did not disappoint. I've heard great things from the FJ Summit about their brewery so we stopped in for another beer and lunch









As we were sitting there in this awesome little bar with a really cool group of people, to my surprise, the clouds rolled back in and sure enough it began to snow!! It was like Christmas all over again for me, I turned into a child and ran outside! No surprise there was also an FJ sitting out front







To Be Continued...

 

Sweet pictures and looks like a hell of a good time!!!

 

Truck is looking insane man, love it! We love the Durango/Silverton/Ouray/Telluride area and take a trip out there atleast once a year. Looks like you guys had an awesome time, pictures look great!

 

So far so good I have no complaints at all! Install was very easy and everything went together perfectly. I'll be honest I didn't notice a drastic change in brake power, but the truck does brake very well and atleast now I can trust the rotors not to warp as easily as the stock ones did

Thanks gents!! @Watt maker Yea to be fair I just knew what lied ahead for us in Colorado so I wasn't impressed with anything until I saw the San Juans haha. We are definitely going back around September!

 

ColoRADo - Continued

How could it get any better than Ouray? We loved that little town, so much that we almost canceled our hotel reservations and stayed there! We stayed just long enough for our little snow fall to pass and continued North. The entire goal of this trip again was to see all these little towns and make mental notes for our return in the Fall later this year. We pushed on making a few pit stops along the way, admiring the surrounding snow-covered mountains and scattered clouds. It was a surreal afternoon. Knowing most the trails were closed for the season was a little bummer, but I did find a nice muddy road off the highway and played around for a bit






Saw some Elk along the way and now we were closing in on our final destination!




12 hours later we finally arrived in TELLURIDE! I'm no expert in skiing or snowboarding so I wasn't concerned with the weather conditions. I've heard so many great things about Telluride and just the town itself. Coming from Tucson and exploring all over AZ, this place was like a combination of Bisbee, Sedona and Mount Lemmon all in one little town! It had a cool vibe just like Ouray but definitely seemed more popular.




We actually drove right through because as we got closer to the mountains I started to recognize them from pictures, and knew the famous Bridal Veil Falls was somewhere nearby! Sure enough we were scanning and kept looking right over it, having no idea that it froze over! We had only ever seen video and pictures of the falls running so it was a pretty cool surprise to see it totally frozen and blue in color.






Once we finished taking in the views as the sun was starting to set, it was time to check in and find a place to eat. Telluride's parking situation isn't the greatest but everything was fairly close making for a short walk to downtown from our hotel. We were quickly introduced to what 18 degrees felt like with no sunlight! I'm not even embarrassed to say I broke out the thermal long johns We were cold. Nonetheless, it was a fantastic ending to a long road trip and I was excited to check out the town in the morning.

Our view from the hotel in the morning and of course the sound of the San Miguel river running...it was fantastic. I can happily say I'm glad we decided not to camp! It dropped to 1 that night and was 11 when we woke up




Any of you seen the Disney movie UP? This was definitely the house Tundra also creepin in




Of course being AZ natives and after our bitter cold night on the town, we realized how serious we were lacking in the winter gear department so we went shopping around. While we shopped we tried to peak into every little restaurant. We ended up at La Cocina De Luz for an awesome Mexican breakfast and later, Baked in Telluride for coffee. Mainly referencing these for myself haha but I'd recommend them if you ever go After breakfast our first order of business was to check out this free Gondola everyone in the town was recommending, and also to check out the Mountain Village of Telluride. It certainly did not disappoint, and was like going on a ride in Disneyland without the wait haha! We watched a class of little kids below us skiing in sync...was pretty damn cool! I guess you could say I officially felt out of my element






Mountain Village was where the party was at! There were hundreds of people there skiing snowboarding and just enjoying the outdoors. I was impressed with how many people were there but then again I'm all new to this winter sport life The wife and I shopped around again and took a look inside the nearby hotels for future reference. We will be back! But first we stopped in to a place called Tracks Cafe and Bar for lunch


It was still cold so a good Old Fashioned hit the spot before we headed back down to Telluride


The wife and I


After careful consideration we actually just drove back up to the Mountain Village to cruise around and to look for Tom Cruise Not really but we found out he has a house nearby. Our view from our favorite bar up there was EPIC at the Mountain Lodge. Also TRON decided to cause a mini avalanche in the parking lot...








After dinner we just drove around taking in our last night and watched the sunset.






Brown Dog Pizza won the coin toss for dinner that night and well, even looking at the pictures again I'm begging to go back for more! His and Hers..




Sunday Morning it was time to say goodbye. Guess this trip report turned more into a blog since we didn't do too much truck stuff, but it was still an adventure!








On our way back to AZ we stopped a couple more times. As if a Bald Eagle and some Elk were enough, we spotted this guy off the road. Lets just say he wasn't a little coyote like we're used too!


Cant remember the name of the lakes we stopped to see but we pulled off and drove in the snow for abit before we made our way toward Cortez and back home.










Till next time Colorado!

 

Even those of us that live in CO feel like you did, every time we are there. Ouray is my favorite town in the state, with Durango being the coolest “reasonable” town to live

 

Awesome update as always and awesome purpose built truck.

 

That's awesome yea Durango makes sense for a reasonable town. When we go up in the Fall I'll be attempting Black Bear Pass and hopefully doing a lot of camping. Planning on a week long trip

 

Definitely good advice, thanks man yea I've been talking to guys here in AZ that have done it a couple times. I definitely wouldn't attempt solo, which is why we're planning for a small group of trucks. I wanna try to tackle all 3 of those trails during our trip!

 

Wow great story and pictures!!

 

You’ll need to go early fall. There’s just a small window of opportunity if we get a heavy snowpack late in the season

 

I definitely wanna get up there too. What are the major obstacles other than narrow trails? All the pics I’ve seen look to be just an extremely tight fire road in spots, snug switchbacks (fun for full size trucks), and incredible vistas.

 

I live at 10,570 so elevation wouldn’t be a challenge. I would certainly humor the idea if it had been a bit since it rained. I know Telluride/Ouray pretty well and know what the terrain is like after some heavy rains. Trails can crumble underfoot, and I’ve seen a few miles of Black Bear. I know it’s tight with some washed trail conditions. I’ve also watched enough carnage from the FJ summit to know our trucks are quite long for some spots.
Over in the zone where I live we get about the same amount of snow, and there are high elevation trails that are impassable until August. I just wonder what the window is for those high country trails in the San Jose

 

That looks about right. That’s what we see in spots over here too. Certainly not everywhere, but it can be the end of the trip if certain areas haven’t been cleared

 

I love your truck man, looking at your adventures always conflicts my choice of debating between a solid mid travel or just save money and go long travel. Im enjoying my kings f&r stock settings but always want more! keep em coming, great pics!