Ski Bum Truck V2.0, F450 Rough Road RV

Great read!  Really cool truck and adventures.

Makes me want to update my Westfalia to some more modern equipment.

In reply to preach :

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. I do love me a nice westy, the layout is great, they are just SO slow and canvas.... What year is yours?

Mine is an '85:

I want to shoehorn a Subaru EZ30 and 5MT/LSD into it to solve the biggest issue.

In reply to preach :

Very nice! I fully support swaps on those! 

Foot powered weekend, and took the 4runner.... But this is kind of an "adventure/build" thread at this point anyway.

Hiked the Enchantments as we couldn't get a permit to spend a night. Makes for a long day. 21 miles, 6500vertical. Aasgard pass was brutal, 1 mile and almost 3000 vertical, climbing up a rockfall, walking on scree or blocks.... But it was fun none the less, left the truck at 4:55 am, got back a 9:15pm, took a 3 ish hour nap and swim in the middle.

Beautiful scenery, alpine and granite slabs make up most of the area.

Colchuck Lake with the pass in the background.

About half way up the pass 

Looking down to Colchuck from the top.... Whew. (little did I realize down is WAY worse than up)

A few more from the core. 

What's the yellow stuff on the lobster?

In reply to Enyar :

Garlic! :D

The Enchantments is easily my favorite hike ever. We did it back in 2006 with a high school friend of my then gf (now wife). He called it a "mellow" hike...yeah...not so much. We day hiked it as well, which caused us to get a lot of "are you crazy" looks from the other people on the trail. Once we're a half mile from the end, our friend finally breaks the news that it's actually a point-to-point hike and that we have eight miles of dirt road to get us back to the car. Luckily, there were some stinky climbers at the trail head that had just spend the last two days on the rock and offered to give us a ride back to our car in the bed of their truck. Stopped in the little Bavarian town nearby for dinner...beer has never tasted so good.

I need to get back to that hike.

In reply to klipless :

Awesome! It was a beautiful area. Yeah we went in and out the same side.... Would have been shorter to go thru to Snow Lakes Trailhead. This added about 3 miles. There are shuttle services now that run between the trail heads. I would not call it mellow, but I fell way better than I thought I would! My calves are a little sore but thats about it.

Prepping for spray foam under the floor. Sprayed down with simple green, sprinkler and hosed it off and started masking. 

Masking under there sucks ass!!

And just because the PNW is awesome, we did a little hike to Camp Muir on Mt Rainier

Your photos make a midwestern flatlander like me quite jealous. I would have a significant drive to get to anything that dramatic.

In reply to dculberson :

I know, living where we do is amazing. Lakes, ocean and mountains all within a couple hours. I love the PNW!

Well it's not pretty, but there is some insulation on there. What a mess.... Glad I farmed out the big project of foam.

OK guys opinion time.... Its Fall, I need to figure tires out.

Singles are not in the budget at the moment. So options are Spend good $$ on Toyo M608's to match the rear for the fonts. (~$832)

Buy cheap Chinese tires for the fronts. (~$382)

Or step up to Chinese 245's all around. (~$1350) 

So opinions, is the step up to a 245 worth it? 1" taller, 3.4% larger rolling diameter is not going to drop much highway RPM's, 1.5" wider may give slightly more traction (and more wander in the snow/slush?)

Tires for reference for anyone who cares.... 

Toyo

 
Milestar Tire

Well I know the Toyos are pretty good tires and I’ve learned my lesson from Chinese tires, so if your front tires are still in good shape, maybe stick with the Toyos. 

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid :

OK tell me more about your Chinese tire experiences.... I cant find many bad reviews of those ones. Both Milestar and Boto make that pattern. Maybe the 19.5 tires are beefier than most other ones?

My front are rib tires, I am looking to replace them with traction tires. Rears are currently the Toyo above.

Well you’re going to be running what? 14 Ply tires? I ran 10 ply and got 15k on on tire and 35k before they wore out and they were definitely out of round when they wore out. 

I imagine actual medium duty truck tires may perform better than LT tires. Milestar is a brand I’ve heard in the trucking world, so they must be decent, I just got burned on my No-Name Sortofrounds. 

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid :

12 or 14 ply depending on size.... Kind of ridiculous honestly, but there are not other options.

Thanks for the input! Im still stewing.... Wife thinks I should buy the Toyo and stud them lol, I kinda of want the larger size as it would tide me over a few years before I think about singles again (maybe?).

Would having the Toyos in front let you do a six-tire rotation?

In reply to thatsnowinnebago :

In theory, but the inner rears are steel, so no not really.... And this thing does bad things to the front tires.... Apparently from my reading, its a common thing in heavy stick axle fords.

Seeing as my experience is next to nothing, take this for what it's worth.  I would think that you would want the known entity, the Toyo's on your steering axle.  If something catastrophic happens, it's generally regarded as less of a problem on the drive axle vs. steering axle.  This is the reason I was given by a truck driver as to why the DOT doesn't allow re-treads on a steering axle.

java230 said:

In reply to dculberson :

I know, living where we do is amazing. Lakes, ocean and mountains all within a couple hours. I love the PNW!

Alaska Airlines is adding non-stop flights from Columbus to Seattle. I anticipate making use of that some time in the next couple years.

In reply to SlimShady218 :

This is true. But... You can run retreads on steer, just in very limited cases :) so no one does. 

I'm leaning toward the toyo. The price is just asinine.

In reply to dculberson :

Awesome! Let me know when your around  I've got an Mr2 you can borrow 

Go bigger all around and sell the rears to recoup some of the cost.  You already did the suspension to make room.