hell yeah, lovely area to get away from loud NYC

 

Returned from a 2,900 mile, 1 week road trip. GX performed flawlessly. No off roading unless you count the driveway at my sister's MD lake house which has a nice gravel switchback... used CC to have a bit of fun up and down it...

We averaged 19.8 mph cruising between 75 and 80mph the entire trip from Texas to MD across the Appalachians, gorgeous part of the USA!

 

I had my headlights wetsanded and buffed to clean off the yellow stuffs last week and today I sprayed on some Meguiars clear coat protection. Hope it would last 1 year as they said it would. Now off to do the wife's Camry haha.

 

Well, I bought a '17, got TRD PRO wheels & had a vinyl person cover all the chrome with satin black vinyl.

CBI front bumper on order
CBI sliders on order
Dobinson MRR on order

 

Paid to have the spark plugs replaced and an oil change today. Independent shop and I got a Toyota Camry loaner. No major issues @145K miles, just some minor leaks.

I gave them this to work with

 

@tecman That's a clean looking engine bay!

I bought some stick on window visors on ebay for $49. I figure these will be worth a shot at half the cost since weathertech wants $99 + shipping + tax for their in channels. AVS didn't seem to have any available when I was searching.

 

Those look great!
What size tires did you go with and any trimming needed?

 

265/70/17. Just have to remove that inner panel or some gentle massaging with a vehicle at stock height. I may regret going "that small" once I get a lift (on order), but alas... I'll live with it... and the spare tire fits!

 

Thanks, and I hear you on the tire sizing. Too big and it may not look right in its current form. I just sold my 18x9 (275/65-18) and looking to go to 17x8.5 soon and 265/70-17 as well after seeing your set-up.

 

Decontaminated and detailed it after our recent road trip. I was planning to install the front and tear Timbrens after the cleaning but by the time I was done it was already unbearably hot out... I'll save the Timbren install project for dec Jan time frame when it's much cooler.

 

Watched a few videos then plastidipped the rear emblem (rear door chrome, side door chrome, front grille chrome has already been covered in satin vinyl by a local vinyl guy. He recommended just buying ebay emblems since they were hard to vinyl. Ended up just trying plastidip first!)

Very happy with the results! 5 coats Plastidip + 2 coats glossifier.

 

Looks sharp, good job!

 

I really like Nightfall Mica

 

Thanks, I searched long and hard for nightfall/black.

I’m about halfway through installing an amateur radio.... have Dobinsons MRR & CBI bumper/sliders, pedal commander, ARB compressor & mount on order... CC/MTC parts are here... haven’t even had the truck 2 weeks yet .

 

Today I installed MTC & CC, plenty of pictures on that..

...and I also installed an amateur radio. I chose the ICOM 4100A. It lacks dual receive & APRS, two things I wanted.. but the control head is the smallest one available.

I had grandiose plans of dremeling out the rear seat mirror/sunglasses holder and putting it in there... so it would just pop-down when in use. Turns out the rear of the button/latch assembly in that unit prevents me from being able to dremel it out.

So I just 3D printed a little mount for the top corner of the windshield.




I put the radio itself under the driver's seat. No clearance problems, seat still has full range of motion. Sits just left of the vents.




The audio I used a device called the AudioInterrupt Wiz and hooked it to the center dash speaker. When a transmission comes in, it mutes the stereo from that speaker only. Pretty neat.


As for the microphone, I glued a magnet on the back of the mic - and then another on the inside of the seat trim. The mic is easily accessible, mostly hidden (passengers would never see it), and the magnets make it way easier than trying to clip it onto a... clip thing.




The antenna is on a mount that I'm not in love with, it'll be moved to a Rago ditch light bracket soon.