Road Trip Adventure Blog

We have started the ball rolling for a number of the mods we will need in order to take the FJ to the Arctic Circle, and off the beaten path along the way. Some of these mods are simple; others involve major components. To document the humble beginning we started with, like the best stock off-road rig is humble, we’ve captured a few quick shots of the stock rig in action.

One mod you will see already in place is the new addition to the factory roof rack. The FJ Cruiser Adventure Rack by Garvin Industries has been installed. I know the factory roof rack catches a lot of flack, but like it. The look works for me. What I did not like was all that wasted space up front. The new wilderness rack sits in the front and creates a nice four-inch deep basket. Having these two basket areas also helps keep everything neat and tidy while allowing access front and back. I only need to focus on digging through or securing half the load at a time.

While this little set of tracks is nothing to write home about, in fact it is only six blocks from home, it did give us a change to validate that all the nuts and bolts were tightened as well as test out the crawling gears and rear locker. The stock clearance is good enough to go up and down these little 20-degree dirt terraces.

This last picture gives you a good look at the stock rig.

Toyota did a good job with their stock rig. They made reasonable compromises necessary to sell a rig for a wide verity of uses without sacrificing its heritage and turning its off-road capability into complete mush. Part of our preparation is to ensure the rig is as self-sufficient as possible since we will be looking for opportunities to travel down washboard gravel and mountain pass two tracks. Of course we’ll be carrying a couple of tires, fuel and the usual stuff to get unstuck. Even though we are not going rock-crawling we will be getting off the beaten path and don’t want to rely on someone else coming by for help.

Soon we’ll post up the rig with its mods so you can follow the changes. We’ll also let you know if the mods perform as we hope and tell you weather we think they are worth the trouble, at least from our point-of-view. You can decide if they are right for you.