Intro! Firenze in HD

[CRYA]

cont

 

[LB Bill]

Why?

Answer: 'Morons being morons'...I guess. Paraphrasing- it seems that some things unfortunately never change.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your adventure. Awesome day, truck looks great, and certainly more capable. What's next?..some under-armor perhaps, for more challenging routes? Btw- how is the 'Ridge Grappler's' road manners? (yeah, I'm picky).

 

[CRYA]

Yeah thanks. Grapplers were great. Quiet and pretty smooth on my highway roads. No vibrations or anything.
The build is in progress. Just grabbing pieces where I can and learning as much as I can as I go.
I snagged a Summit bar last weekend but won’t install until I get a winch to put it at the same time.
I’ve been emailing with T44 and they are super-busy. Hope to grab their sliders when I can.
That and a roof rack and awning and I’ll be pretty well set.
After all that it’s building a war chest for necessities and repairs. Although this one came to me pretty well maintained.

 

[PoorLifeDecisions]

Took a little adventure today to the far reaches of Napa County that few locals and even fewer tourists ever see. Beyond the tasting rooms, and past the last vineyards carved into the hillsides, we still have very wild country. Knoxville-Berryessa. No man’s land, post-apocalyptic landscape, wasteland. Or place of solitude, isolation, and peaceful. You can judge.

My ultimate destination was Hunting Creek Camp within the Knoxville OHV area. I’d sampled some of the terrain years ago, before the fires ravaged our county, on a Multistarada. I’d not been back since, afraid of what I might find, afraid of having memories of evacuating the 2017 firestorms resurface from passing by the still-blackened landscape, passing guardrails laying on the road surface, their wooden support posts having burnt out from behind them.

It took longer to reach the OHV area as I was taking it slow. I’ve been to a few BLM lands over the years. Unfortunately it’s always the same story. The human stain on these wild lands we are lucky to have access to is remarkable and sad. The lack of care, the failure to comprehend “leave no trace”, the blatant disrespect for these public areas. I sat alone in the small flat dusty area that passes as a campground, tucked in beside the creek. All manner of human waste on display. Plastics, food, ammo casings, waste in fire pits, trash in and beside the creek. I just kept coming back to one question: Why?

Great write-up, enjoyed reading it. Looks about how I imagined Knoxville.

I hope you were not deeply impacted by the fires. I can still clearly re-live those haunting few days where it was solid ash orange outside. It's one thing to watch Blade Runner from behind a screen and it's a whole 'nother to be in it.

The human waste and lack of respect and responsibility is something I imagine will take generations to fix. Behaviors are taught and this is just another example of how far we still need to go.

 

[CRYA]

Help me out all. I just got my quote including shipping and taxes for the T44 sliders. Wow! Now while I have grand dreams of over landing down the pan-American, realistically I’ll be cruising some fire trails and easy trails in the Sierra. Is there a more wallet friendly slider out there that isn’t 1/10th the cost of my truck?
I mean everyone I’ve talked to loves T44, and there’s the cry once buy once mindset, but ******* they expensive. No disrespect intended.

 

[ryanjl]

The terrafirma sliders from Lucky 8 are probably the cheapest. They aren't really "sliders" so much as they are sill protectors. They attach to the body and not the frame.

Those plus the compressor guard and air tank guard from APT would be all you would probably need for a fire trail--if you need anything at all. They'd also be a lot lighter for day-to-day driving.

Truth be told, I've got the Terrafirma sliders on mine and have driven on many of the trails in SW Colorado and have never really needed them.

 

[CRYA]

Ahhh great point. I’d not considered saving on the sliders and just adding in a few pieces of underbody plating. Thanks. I’ll got check back with Ben and also current state of Asfir offerings.

 

[CRYA]

Awhile back one of you all advised me that the Terrafirma winch was from Superwinch. I was looking for something more affordable as I didn’t feel I’d be able to fully appreciate a Zeon Platinum and their ilk. As it turns out, as I was researching Superwinch, they released this new model in a 12k with synthetic line that follows the Warn design language. All the specs looked good but due to its newness, not a lot of real-world feedback.
I’ll do a unboxing soon as I really want to get this into my Summit bumper. Probably a few more weeks. My biggest shopping hurdle was finding a winch where I could clock the clutch that wasn’t a Warn.

Believe it or not, people on the cruiser forums have been having success with that new winch from HF, but again, can’t be clocked.

So this is it. I pulled the trigger when Amazon had it at some obviously mistaken low price.

 

[ryanjl]

Superwinch is the brand the Camel Trophy used. They were a sort-of ***** drive then. I think they still make them, but they come at a premium.

EDIT: Oh come on. The word "$crew" is censored? What a joke.

 

[Stuart Barnes]

Screwdrive?