What have you done to your 1st gen Tundra today?

Just got back from our yearly lake trip, it was a blast! Lots of wildlife and lots of fun! Coming back to 100+ degree weather from mid 70s sucked!
The road less traveled…… taking in the awesome views! We are pretty sure this is the same frog we caught in camp the night before, and then found him again at the lake in the morning caught this one with his bear hands! Wild man catching anything that moves
The lake was super low so lots of mud, my son lost his flip flop in knee deep mud and so did I trying to get his out. Both dogs smell like bong water now….defying gravity chasing a squirrel we saw bear every day while we were there Lots of smoke in the air from near by fires chimney sweep pic, both boys were disgusting getting showered at home lastly, what’s camping in AZ if you don’t bring your pet tortoise?!

 

Did the dogs go crazy when y'all saw the bear?

 

Django has decent recall but he was definitely interested!

 

....I guess we'll give welding a shot tomorrow...

 

Man, I totally forgot about the TG&Y chain. Blast from the past right there.

 

Similar here but totally different critter types, and much to my disappointment, no fishing for me. And sadly no Tundra.

​

 

Damn, almost forgot these fun little guys who we humans owe a fucking hell of a lot to!

https://imgur.com/a/5TQnnDX​

 

What’s the skelly of?
Out next trip is to the beach, but in the 4runner

 

Appears to be a duck saddle (pelvis) to me, but I'm not 100% sure.

We also found half a deer carcass, fully intact with all tissues, but it'd only been in the water for maybe a couple weeks, the sun hadn't quite bleached it out, and critters hadn't picked it clean. Only got one vertebra.

And as for my last post's video, we actually didn't see a single horseshoe crab carcass the whole time. Super weird, down in FL you find the shells everywhere.

 

How hot is it up there?

 

I need to go to the beach one of these days. Used to go all the time in high school. It's only about 45 mins away from the house and yet I haven't been in over a decade. Used to take my 2wd pickups and drive on the beach. Never even taken my 4wd.

 

When we left earlier it was 72°.
Step out of the plane in ATL and I think it was 92°.

Loved the weather up there. Loved the vibe. I've been to Maine a few times, I wish we'd have gone farther north than Damariscotta in the past. Everything from Patton Point northward was f'ing fabulous. Like, I'd-love-to-live-there fabulous.

I mean, not the ticks. But ticks are supposed to be 2x-3x worse this year, nationally, than any decades prior (tho I don't recall why)

 

Just buy new control arms, this is some shit.

 

Little sneak peek into the swing out build. I like it so far…might lower the height of the tire a little as well as push it closer to the truck. Thoughts?

 

From a safety perspective, I think that makes for one hell of a blind spot any time you need to turn right.

 

This picture is a bad angle, the edge of the tire is actually to the inside of the body line. I can’t even see it in my side mirror

 

I meant thru the back window. Shell is already impeding view, but that tire reduces half of your visibility out the back window of the shell, effectively cutting out, what, like 30 °or 40° of your direct-line-of-sight viz?

 

Those wolf box dash cams are really handy for this. Mine is mounted on my bed rack and I get a much wider field of view than a regular mirror.

 

I have given up looking out my rear view mirror at this point lol. Can barely see anything anyways, my rear view mirror is primarily used to see my kids in the back seat

 

The weight and angle of that tire is going to put a helluva leverage strain on the bottom of that mount when you go bouncing around.

 

Man, that reminds me. Budget rented us a 2024 RAV4 LE for our Maine trip. 16 days of driving that thing around, the OEM backup camera they use had an annoyingly fisheye field of view. The innermost 60% through the center was fairly normal, but as you got to the outer left/right 20% of the view, total fisheye/wraparound, so I'd be backing up, and a car 20ft to my left or my right would show up in the camera as if it was 3ft away. Absolutely annoying.

But the OEM stereo was seriously kickass. It must've had a subwoofer somewhere with how much bass it was kicking out.

I mean, why not replicate Toyota's LBJ design out back also?

(j/k!)

 

Looks awesome. But I agree it needs to sit a little lower.
For comparison

 

Ooh I just remembered my new Brute Force latch showed up yesterday

 

Thanks! definitely going to lower it. Can you take a pic from the side? I’m curious to see how close it sits to the back of the truck

 

The hinge itself is extremely strong. I can hang on the end of the arm when it is swing out 90 degrees

 

The hinge isn't the problem, these joints are the weak point. Keeping the tire vertical and as close as possible to the support will minimize the leverage. Lower the tire so it overlaps the swingout bar and then bring the tire in enough so it presses on the bar. You can weld a piece of stock to the bar to widen it if necessary. That way all the leverage is on the swingout bar and not the verticals.

 

Great ideas, thanks for the feedback! Going to make those changes

 

I've seen so many swing outs fail even if they hold static weight well. Dynamic weight is key. Gussets. gussets. gussets. Build that thing so if they fail it's only a crack and you can fix it. You don't want it to break and damage the truck. And notice how I said when it fails not if.

 

1 out of the 4 Allen bolts had to be drilled out, but it's done. This new latch is beefier than the old one and it says Brute Force on the grip with little finger grips too