Welcome to Bacha's Off-Road. Join us as we talk about everything from gear reviews to
trail stories, tent camping to rock landing, and all things to do with the outdoors. Today
is just going to be one of our regularly scheduled episodes. Nothing fancy, nothing special. Just
gonna chit chat, talk about our builds, talk about what's going on right now. And got Alex
and Mark here on the same line. How's everyone doing?
No, you know, life's good. Can't complain.
Yep. You guys have a good night. Just stay up for the election.
Oh yeah. I stayed up. I went to the rally and then I stayed up. It was terrible.
Well, you were up all the way till like, I was up till like 3 a.m.
Because that's when the last like votes went in.
I passed out. I probably passed out on 1130.
I was gonna say, Caitlin told me you did. So I was waiting to snitch on you.
Yeah.
He was like, you're the snorer next to me.
But no, I stayed up. My buddy Hayden and I were watching the results and then watching some
comedy and stuff on the side while we were watching it.
I mean, the results were pretty comedic.
Yeah. TikTok this morning is pretty interesting, too.
The view today, I watched the view and that was.
Oh, God, I'm so sorry.
Yeah. Oh, I fucking made you mad, dude.
But we're.
Yeah.
Okay. This is the last politics thing. This doesn't need to be a politics episode.
No, it won't be. It's not what we're about, but.
Whoopi cracks me up because if you go back, I think it was like eight years ago,
there's videos of her. Oh, Donald, I love you so much and giving him hugs and stuff.
And then now look at what she's turned into.
No, there was. I can't remember her first name, Sunny, Sunny Hostin, Sunny Hostin,
something like that. I will say this before I go, since you mentioned Whoopi,
she was talking about how sad the statistics were with women voting
as far as like the red side goes.
And she was reading some statistics statistics off and read out that 52 percent
of white women voted for Trump.
And then she goes, I'm assuming they're all uneducated white women.
And then went on and other people tried to like cut her off a little bit.
Like, I don't I don't know if I would say that, like, like, because as soon as she said it,
everyone was like, oh, fuck.
And then and then someone even tried to review her.
I said, I don't think it's right to say that 52 percent of white women
who voted for Trump are uneducated.
And she's like, but that's what that's what they say.
I mean, that's what I'm that's what I could assume.
And then then they went on break a couple of times and come back and she tried to take it all back.
Said, well, what the statistics say is on college or women who didn't go to college.
And I'm like, dude, you already fucking and you can take it all back.
And you can hear it in her voice that she was speaking from a point of like passion and she was angry.
Right. Which the whole cast was.
They were all just saying stupid shit.
But that is the view.
And that's part of what makes America so so unique is our First Amendment,
the right to talk whatever stupid bullshit you want for and and, you know, and nothing happens.
I you know what?
Fuck it.
I'm going to say it.
A hot topic.
That's good. This is going to be a hot topic.
This is the other week.
But I think that media should not be so widely.
How do I say this without like I feel like free speech is extremely important,
but I think there should be a committee or some kind of office that has to go through.
And and I mean legitimately fact check without bias before these newsplaces.
Let the stupid shit fly, you know, because at the end of the day,
they're hurting the American public and they're creating more bias and more
more of a divide between red and blue or between us people.
And it hurts us more than it's helping.
Yep, I agree.
There should be a ministry of truth.
You heard it from Gavin first.
Ministry of truth.
I honestly believe that I would.
And it's just like you have fact checkers that go back
and fact check through the elections, through the debates.
You have fact checkers that are always making videos after the fact.
Why don't we have these going through?
And this is the issue is that they're so biased.
You have like Fox that's supposed which is in quoted like a red channel.
And then you have the liberals and then you have the ABC, which is like a blue.
And it's like and they're both slandering each other.
They're both saying stupid shit.
And all that it does is make it worse.
So I think something that one abolishes the red versus blue,
which I don't I believe in free speech.
I believe that people should be able to say what they want to say.
But I don't think they should be able to say it via a news.
If you're getting your news, it should be factual.
And it should be informative to inform the people of real things,
not slander each other and put like false
rhetorics and fear mongering into people's lives.
I think that all of these public news organizations, your ABCs, your Foxes, your NBCs,
they should all have something that watches them.
But what's awesome is that we have another route to get our news, which is podcast.
And this is going to be it could easily be the year of the podcast
because you can say whatever you want in a podcast without anyone watching you.
You know, and if you own your podcast, like little peek behind the curtain here,
we own our entire stack from the ground up.
We can say whatever we want and never have to worry about getting shut down.
And and as an opposing side of that, that also leads to more disinformation.
But but because this is a podcasting platform, you have the right to choose
whether you want to listen to that or not.
I think that if it's being put and broadcasted as national news,
like these big ones like ABC, Fox, NBC, all these big ones,
I think that there should be a ministry of truth.
And I think it should regulate all of this.
No, I agree.
All of your national broadcast news agencies, they should be monitored more.
I mean, if someone wants to listen to whoopi go off on how terrible Trump is,
well, we should have. Yeah.
We should have a podcast or the view should be a podcast if they want to tout that kind of crap.
Right. So and obviously, like talk shows are a whole different thing.
They're not those are comedic.
They're not there. They're for a different reason.
But I'm talking actual news stations.
If you're a station or one of these big news corporations, they should all be fact checked.
They should all be put through some rigorous fact checking before they're even released.
And that's the hot take.
And if you guys want to weigh in on any of that, I think Alex, you agree there should be a ministry of truth.
Mark, what do you think?
I mean, it sounds like something that should be a thing, but you know,
so hard to go into that because this is why I pause when I first went to say this is because
it goes pretty in there.
First Amendment wise, like like how far are we going to push it before?
And just not following it.
But it would make it very easy to twist and manipulate things behind our backs
because let's say the ministry of truth decides that, oh,
I hundred Biden's laptop was fake news.
Well, then everyone's going to run with that and won't be able to say otherwise.
It should be a hundred people, 50, 50, either side to start.
And it should be fact checking each other until they could come to an agreement.
And if they can't like a fucking judge and jury, if they can't come to an agreement,
that doesn't get out.
I don't know.
I that's obviously not an actual choice, but it's just, let's say
real quick that something happens at a college, a car runs through a college.
Someone says, oh, it was a minority because someone did this.
And then another news station says, oh, it was a white person because they didn't like a teacher.
You have two conflicting stories and they're both bringing divide.
There needs to be something in between that says, okay, the facts are this.
We have this person in custody. It was this kind of car.
And as a motive, there is none.
So let's not create one.
No, to kind of salt, like to bridge that.
Well, that's what we pay.
And, you know, we, NPR is paid out of our taxes, right?
The national mobile broadcasting, whatever.
Yeah.
They're paid out of our taxes, but they went so heavily left.
So now we're paying for one side to get.
So now we're paying to have one side get all their information out and not the other side.
That's why we need a ministry of truth, baby.
That needs to be on a, that needs to be on a teacher.
American needs a ministry of truth.
Even was this, and I just want to double check you.
This is Harry Potter reference, correct?
No, this would be a reference to the book 1984.
Oh, I thought there was a Harry Potter reference ministry of truth or something.
They have the ministry of magic or magic.
Same thing.
Okay.
All right.
Onto your regularly scheduled stuff.
Overlanding is a scam.
Yes.
Overlanding is a scam because of the tax.
For me, I don't know.
I like, I like paying a little bit of extra money for some fancy shit here and there.
I'm not going to lie.
Oh, we know the, uh,
the, uh, but to me, it, uh, it works.
I don't know.
I, I like the most efficient and cleanest looking option.
And sometimes that is the only option for me as far as like, uh, the ability to do it myself
and, or to have friends help.
So I know I was, that might pop up like Alex can help, uh, Mark can help, but they're not
going to fab up a folding fucking like an extremely intricate and nicely fabbed, uh,
you know, system for me.
I told you I would.
Yeah.
You were talking to the bridge slide.
That's a little different.
I was talking to a slide with a sink and a counter on it.
I want a roof rack that tilts with gas.
Well, yeah, with gas, uh, uh, what the fuck are the struts underneath it?
That's up to like a 60 degree angle.
Dude, I love this slide.
I want to undo a latch and slide all of the equipment down.
So I don't ever have to get on the hell.
Yeah.
Hey, if your pockets are, you know, they're not your pocket.
If your pockets are deep enough, I would gladly help you build that.
Cause that would be fun.
And so, so this is where I find and can he do it?
Can we do it with enough time?
And money and practice and tried and, uh, cause cause you have to remember
there's going to be a lot of mock-ups.
There's going to be a lot of mistakes trying to get this done.
So let's factor in.
How long do you think you could have that mocked up?
I have deep pockets between your work week, between Mark's and
Alan's work week for welding.
What do you think?
Two weeks.
Bullshit.
If, if that is all I have to do with the amount of time with your work week
and everything, let me finish.
Like, yeah.
If that's the only project I have going at that time with the way my work week
is, you know, I end up with a lot of time when I'm getting paid to work on my own
projects and I could hammer out a lot of that during the week.
I don't know.
I, to me, I don't see that because I see the fact that I'm, because I'm working
Mark's working, Alan's working any weld fab stuff is typically Alan's real
house and I don't know, I just, I see that taking a lot longer.
And all the whole point that I was trying to get at is at some point you get to a
real realization that it's almost more efficient.
To buy it and have it done.
And that's, that's what I was trying to get to.
And I know you're not like discounting that or saying that that's wrong.
I know that you have the ability to do it, but I think that's where Overland
tax and that's where Overland scam gets people is because at the end of the day,
I don't want to have to spend a shit ton of time building it because I don't get
the same satisfaction.
I don't want to have to spend a shit ton of time building it because I don't get
the same satisfaction that other people who build it do.
Like, let's say you, like, it's the same concept with working on your vehicle
that you like to do it.
I absolutely hate working on my vehicle.
That means I failed.
That means I broke something.
That means I failed.
That means I have downtime from what I like to do from my daily driver.
So I look at it completely different and I think it's kind of the same.
If if we're building something like that and it takes me six months to get that
six months that I have to wait to utilize that or I could pay extra money, which
for something that's prebuilt that I could put on in a day and is ready to roll
that I can utilize six months because time time is not infinite.
As we all know now that big stuff like that, I can see where you're coming from,
but little stuff.
You know, people spend beaucoup bucks on something as simple as like a hot take
twin the twin air compressor.
That's a lot of fricking money.
It is.
And you don't need it.
You can get away with like, say, your little or I guess I've got one now, too.
Those little dual compressors that we bought.
It's the same one that more flight cells.
They're fantastic little compressors.
They'll do everything the ARB will do.
Sure.
They take up a little more space.
Sure.
You can't put them in your engine bay, but if you put an ARB in your engine bay,
it heat bakes and then dies in six months.
I don't know.
I've had a lot of people that have a long lasting ARB, right?
I mean, there as far as I would know, like these ARBs are one of the best.
I would say they're are they twin cylinder?
I think they're twin.
They're twin.
They're smaller than they're compressors.
They're slower because they don't they're not as large, but
they're slower and they die more often.
There's a lot of people that have issues with those dying because
they're installed in their engine base because that's where ARB, you know,
advertises them being installed and anything like Jeep JK, most Toyotas,
they run warm because they run warm that little air compressors getting
hot and staying hot the whole time.
I don't know.
It's a convenience.
It's a convenience thing, I guess.
Is it's.
I don't know if I could recess that into like a
plastic access panel.
I'd probably do that inside the vehicle.
Yeah, I've been away from water and hot air, but I've seen them put under
people's driver seats and they last a long time like that.
They're happy, maybe not in Michigan because, you know, you're getting in
with salty boots and that salt soaking into them.
But yeah, no, I wouldn't put it on the floor.
But like, for instance, my you open up my back door and you have the like
the fenders, how they flare out and you have access panels for like
jacks and shit, which of course I'm not using.
I'm not going to use my and my jack doesn't get up high enough anymore for
that.
But that would be a great place to throw the compressor in.
And if I was to do something like that for the size, it would be an
interesting option.
I'm not I wouldn't do it, especially right now, because I have the Thor's
lightning.
Right.
But I will say the Thor's lightning is about a nice crack.
The Thor's lightning is about a foot long, about a foot tall.
And that space.
Yep.
Space.
It's space is like I said, it's finite.
So if I start getting to a spot where I have more money.
Then time and more money than patients.
That might be a reality for me.
But at that point, though, you're kind of buying into a scam there.
And those twin ARBs are not that expensive to make.
So I'm not saying it's a scam in the sense of you're not getting
anything for your return because you are.
There's just if you want, if you're able to put that little bit of extra
work in and work on the backside, it will save you so much money.
Yeah, but I can't make a twin twin cylinder air compressor like that.
You can make something about that size that still twin cylinder.
I personally cannot.
Period.
If I could sit there and study all I want, look at the electrical, how to
how to wire in electrical, solder things on and install it, how, you know.
But again, by the time I figure out how to do all that, I'm wasting precious time.
Yeah.
On something that is two hundred dollars more than the fucking thing
I have sitting in my truck.
How much are the air bees now?
I think they're about four.
I want to say like four fifty five.
I was honestly more than that.
I was like, I remember being like six.
They're five eighty on sale from six sixteen.
Okay.
I was I was thinking the six hundred mark.
Or I think a lot of our things is it's situational based off of do we need this
or can I even make this?
This is the main thing.
What?
A lot of people don't realize it's very situational based.
Yep.
But like Gavin, you're saying something about a roof system popping off and down.
There is a system.
I've seen it.
I was looking at making one myself at the time.
I think it was looking at using what was it?
The aluminum rails.
It's more truja rails.
Yep.
I was.
Yep.
I was going to look into using that for a drop down roof rack system.
I was going to make at one point, but that changed from what I was going to do.
That would be going to be on my truck cap.
That honestly would be pretty easy to do because let's say, say your roof rack
you've got right now, right, Gavin?
So we make an extrusion frame that goes all the way around it with crossbars.
And then we put sliders on it.
And then we put gas struts on it.
All of those are easy parts to get and install.
All of them are easy to lay out.
It won't take us long at all.
Now all you do is flip the switch.
The whole thing lifts up and then you grab what drawer you need and it slides down to you.
Yeah. I mean, theoretically in a perfect world, I would agree.
But maybe I'm the glass half empty guy when I'm looking at this and going, there's a lot more
to it than just, yeah, that's pretty easy to match everything up and
welded in, you know what I mean?
To get everything to work just right.
I don't know where the extrusion rail.
You don't even have to weld.
They bolt together.
No, you just bolt together.
Are you talking about the same type of rail that like they're using for like roof racks and stuff?
The roof racks, drawer systems, a lot of the DIY guys use extrusion rails.
Well, what?
OK.
And so as a finished product, I don't know if I want a shit ton of holes sitting in my.
I don't know if I want mine to look like a fucking Lego.
You know what I mean?
At that same time.
So well, that point you dress it up.
I mean, it's not hard to make stuff to make it look prettier.
Because I know there's a system I saw that I was looking at getting.
That's different than what I'm thinking.
I'm taking that same railing of like what Nolan has on to make his roof rack.
Yep.
The slotted like.
I want to say it's like slotted like L channel type.
I don't know.
Oh, yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Yep.
So that's what I was picturing when you said that.
And that's why I was like, it's going to look like fucking Swiss cheese and I don't want that.
But no extrusion rail is super cool.
It's not cheap, but I mean, that system you're talking about wouldn't be cheap.
No, no, I would say it'd probably be like six thousand something like that.
But that was just a theoretical like that was just the first thing that popped up in my mind as an example.
But to me, it's just I value my time more than I value.
The.
The time that it takes to build that kind of shit.
And like I said, like there's there's people that are like like Corey from MST's talked about, I think, trying to build his own like rooftop tent.
Yep.
And you can, of course, argue up and down all day long that you could build one much cheaper with better quality material.
Sure.
But I don't have the time.
I don't have the workspace.
I don't have the tools.
And at the end of the day, I don't have the tools.
I don't have the tools.
At the end of the day, I don't have the craftsmanship knowledge, the carpentry knowledge, the fabrication knowledge and any of the minor CAD knowledge you might need to fabricate smaller parts that fit just right for what you need.
And that's why I pay other companies to figure that out for me so that I don't spend a year and a half designing this.
Right.
I hate.
I don't want to.
The time that I spend doing that, I can spend with my son.
I could be camping.
I could be organizing my vehicle in another way.
I can take a trails.
And that's how I look at it.
I think it's to me because I don't already possess those skills and I don't have to.
Right.
I don't see a need in wasting the time to do it, but I could definitely.
If you do have the skills and you have the way to do it for some of the guys that actually can build their stuff.
Absolutely.
I absolutely more than I've never.
Of course, I'm not saying that you should always build or buy rather than build.
There are things that make sense.
Like my drawer system is going to be built, not bought, but that's because I do per I do have some of the skills required and some past knowledge to do it.
So.
And I'm not saying I'm not necessarily saying there's anything wrong with buying either.
I know I come off that way.
Sometimes that's not what I mean.
Yeah.
Because to me, if I can save the money, I've got the time.
I really do.
I don't mind taking time off of wheeling.
If it means I'm building something, no one else is going to buy it.
I've seen before.
Sure.
Yeah.
And that's perfect.
And that's great for you.
Absolutely.
There's an analogy, not really an analogy, but I guess it was a video that I watched and it was like a World of Warcraft game.
And there was a girl that had worked hard, grinded her shit out, and she got some really cool armor and weapons.
And she had the new guy out.
And then he's like level two.
And all of a sudden, he just bought fucking armor swords that match your same stats.
And it's like, all right, I'm ready to go.
And she's like, no, you have to grind.
You have to build it.
You have to work your way up.
And he's like, why?
She's like, it's cheating.
You didn't have to work for it.
He goes, so that 40 hours I spend a fucking week or 45, 50 hours I spend a week working my ass off to be able to afford an expendable income to use on this isn't good enough for you.
And that's the same kind of thing.
It's like, and I'm not saying that towards you, but I am saying that towards people who throw shade towards the buy, not bill or built, not by, you know, you know, because there are, there are some people that are like, if you don't build everything on your rig, then are you really like they throw shade at you for it.
And there's just things that I have skills that that I can.
And then there are things that I don't.
And if I could support another company that has taken the time to do it themselves, which I have worked my ass off to have that expendable income to do so.
Then I will.
The only caveat I have there are there are a lot of companies right now that are taking a product that is not at all meant for overlanding and then making it look overlanding and then marketing as an overland product.
And then as a consumer, you need to do your job.
Yep.
And research these and then research if you really need it, or if you just want it.
Right.
So my biggest, and I'll use an example for this is the water, water systems and tanks right now.
That is my absolute biggest and stupidest fight, because I know when I do get my roof rack.
I'm probably not going to be able to have a tube DIY water system around my my roof rack area, because my roof rack and my tent is going to take most of the land that I have now.
That's just stock.
Obviously, this is this is stock prunzoo stock tent.
I might not have that land available stock.
Can I get brackets?
Can I make it work somehow?
Probably.
But then we have to think about the weight of the water.
It's sticking out for branches, stuff like that.
So I've considered it moving into the truck.
But then I have something that holds.
I would for me, I think four gallons is perfect between washing dishes, drinking water, etc.
I think the three to four gallons is perfect.
We drink water right now.
The kids, he's drinking milk out of a bottle, which we need water for.
And then I wash my dishes and clean them off with water, etc.
So like four gallons is perfect for like a four day trip.
Anything else, obviously, I can stop at a camp and feel like a state campground and fill up.
So I'm looking at like Dometics, just the water containers.
Dometic has a four gallon rigid water container that's about a foot by foot or 10 inch by 10 inch.
How much is that?
That is I want to say that that container is probably seventy dollars
for the rigid container with the handles and spout.
But it's made to hold on their they have like a like a water fountain system or like a faucet system.
But I don't want before I know you're going to say that there's a way that you could build this or do it cheaper.
So I'm stopping you before you say this, because I want to preface this and say that I don't want to do that in particular.
Because the faucet itself is one hundred dollars and I could buy off of Amazon as much cheaper system for fifteen.
And they make non name brand Dometic like containers for forty, fifty bucks.
And so that's a consideration.
But I have to think about how much space that's pulling.
And that's like and until I figure out what my end game setup is for my truck, it has been like my most difficult thing.
I've thought about doing a auxiliary water tank underneath the truck strapped in like a gas tank because I have spot for it.
I was going to say aluminum plate for like if I hit bombs or anything like that to help guard it.
And then the only thing the only issue with putting it on the outside of your truck is you got to remember we live in Michigan.
Oh, yeah, that thing would probably if I didn't drain it properly, it'd probably be cracked.
And you'd have to winterize the lines, too.
Yeah. So what I really recommend is, you know, think about where you live and stuff like water.
You have to take that out of the truck in the winter.
So your best route is to have something that is either something that obviously you have a tent in the way, but something that can go on your roof rack or something that can go on your tire carrier or something that you can put in the truck that is easy to remove when the time comes.
So that's where yeah. And that's where I thought about the auxiliary tank and then just draining it because, of course, you could drain it.
And if you pull your lines off, that's not a big deal. Right. Right.
So I thought about doing that. I thought about doing something inside of the truck, but my interior space is gold.
So I have to think hard and long about if I want to do something like that.
And I think what I'm going to do first is build the entirety of my back system up and then see where that puts me and then build from there.
See what I need, because another possibility is I have my behind my driver's seat.
I should in the future here have a delete in that area and I might be able to hold it there.
So, you know, how sick it would be if we could find a tank that fills your entire cargo area, but is only like two inches tall.
Right. So it's really skinny and flat.
So there's an actual tank that would you know how my seats angle back like a lot of work to see to angle back on like a what would you say that is like a 20 degree angle?
Something like that. Yeah, I'm bad at math. Yeah, I have no idea.
Crooked your hand just a little bit and that's about it.
And so you can't put something flush. Yeah, you can't put something flush against the seat without having a gap.
And there are certain tanks that lay up against the seat that are kind of a triangle shape that will make that a flat edge, which I've looked at.
But that extra two to three inches that those tanks take, I don't have length for most fridges unless I do a delete.
But if I do a delete, then I don't need that fucking tank.
Well, that's why I'm saying if you had a tank that was flat, you know, I'm talking maybe it's four foot wide or four foot long by like two foot wide by two inches tall.
Yeah, then you can put it underneath your drawer system without it taking up that very valid space.
There's there's a couple of options. They have some like.
That move like just hang on to one side of the wall and maybe I'll look for seeing if someone's got one that forms into.
Where I have like my window area at.
But at that point, I will be paying a shit ton of money for it and.
I don't know, I would see about doing some L brackets to an extend some PVC out to just use that for a water container.
But I'll see, because I would like to put an awning up with the tent.
My end game is a tent with an awning with an XL one hundred or 270 degree XL awning.
That's like the end game, because I need it for sun.
I need a forward rain and I want it for comfort.
And I would like to have it over the and I like the 270 XL awnings because they wrap around where I cook in the back of the truck.
Which, as you guys knew from our botches yearly trip.
It would have been really nice to have one that wrapped all the way around so that we weren't all crumped up in the one spot.
All right, so this is getting into money, but I'm about to send you one.
It's from Iron Man.
And it's supposed to be vertical, but we could definitely make it work flat and you could just put it under your drawer system without losing any space.
Oh, yeah, this is the one that they were that I've been looking at, actually, to actually put in.
I don't know if you remember seeing the back tailgate area of my truck, but I have a spot where I had my stove.
I had my cutting board vertically in my pants vertically, and that would have fit right in with those and I would have to do very little.
But here is another option.
I could put that same tank.
You know that my fridge slide is about four inches wide.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So I could put that tank right there in with my fridge.
That combined weight should be still within the weight range of that all top slide.
Mount that tank there.
And then when I pull my fridge out or I need to fill that tank, it pulls straight out and I don't have to put like a hose inside of the vehicle when I fill it.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, that'd be pretty sick, dude.
It would be part of the slide at that point.
Right.
But then I've also looked at like roto packs with because I do have in my car a roto packs mount that you could fit four cans on.
And because I will be getting a diesel heater, I'm going to do one gas, one diesel, maybe two water.
And it's an investment, but but you can connect the the the cans top to bottom or whatever it is.
Like, so something I've thought about, too.
So we'll see. Like I said, packs are fricking expensive.
They are really expensive, but they they work so good.
Yeah, they're nice. I was just saying they're hard to look so good.
They look very good.
The the thing is, too, is that they have like no name, you know, like aftermarket versions of them.
But if you look at the reviews of them, they get such bad reviews.
I've even seen roto packs that get bad reviews, though.
So, well, so, you know, facts do.
But I think some of that is user error.
But like I had one guy that was like mine exploded and then but he did.
It just sounds like someone did check the pressure vents.
Yeah. So I think then he gets I think half of the bad reviews on Amazon or on any of our
any of these off websites are fucking user error because people don't want to read the directions,
me including. I don't know that I ever read the directions.
OK, I don't ever read the directions until something goes wrong.
Right. Right.
And then I have them and I read through them and then I'm like, oh, yeah.
I don't know. Yeah. When I say overlanding is a scam again, I don't mean that it's a complete scam,
because obviously it's fun and it's just there is so much money that you can spend on stuff
where you could get the exact same thing, but maybe not overlanding looking for a quarter of the price.
It's the same thing.
No, no, no. Let me let me let me put this into perspective for you.
You want to go to the gym? You could spend four thousand dollars on a fucking Bowflex
to do the same thing that you're getting with rubber band or not rubber bands,
but you know what I mean?
Yeah. Bands, weights and body weight workouts.
You could do the same thing that you're doing with all this expensive equipment.
But Bowflex looks cool.
Yeah. So, I mean, at that point, it goes back to that.
I have more money than I have time or I have more money than I have
than I give a shit and I want the efficiency and I want the because the Bowflex does
fucking do. We're still off.
But the Bowflex does like pack down a bunch of different workouts into one area, whereas
and a lot of it can be said for all of this other equipment, too.
This is where I'm getting at here.
But I mean, it makes things more efficient.
So is overlanding a scam sometimes?
No, I think sometimes it makes it more efficient.
No, I would say overlanding products typically.
Have a alternative that might be better.
Oh, yeah. As a sport is not a scam.
No, not at all. Overlanding is not a scam.
Yeah, that's all we're saying.
No, as a sport, it's not. But overlanding products.
So I would say that I'm not as far on the scammy side as Xox is,
but that's just because he's got more working build knowledge.
I would say that.
If you really don't want to get
taken advantage of, then do your research and check other sites.
Etsy has a lot of custom overlanding equipment.
Etsy is sick.
Yup. Etsy is great.
Amazon's got cheap overlanding.
Use Temu, but you like use it without your account information.
Like get a separate prepaid debit card and don't put, you know.
Obviously, don't put it on your phone.
Make sure you have a burner phone to use it.
Don't use your Google account.
Have it sent to a PO box in another city.
Just be there at the right time and right place when it gets dropped.
But no, I've got a couple of people order from Temu and other places
and get products much cheaper.
Oh, yeah.
So I can't say that Temu is a bad option,
but what are you really trading off for?
The world may never actually know.
All of your personal data, all of it.
Which honestly, if you're talking about me, I fuck it's already out.
It's been out.
So at that point, I'm not using it.
So at that point, I'm not using anything.
We shouldn't have to be giving it up for cheap products.
I mean, I'm not. I mean, it's not cheap to me.
I don't know.
What do I have to hide?
I'm not some like government conspiracy theorist.
Doesn't matter.
What if they decide tomorrow that owning a Hot Wheels car is illegal?
Well, they can come and take it.
No, most like most of our redneck ass community would say.
And then they would.
And then we'd start right out of my hands.
Yeah.
But you pry this bitch out of my cold dead hands.
If you want to waste your fucking time and your life on my fucking Hot Wheels,
a.k.a. whatever shit that you want to try to take away from me, go ahead.
But there's reasons.
There's reasons why riots and shit happen.
Like the people, the people won't stand for that shit.
You heard it here first.
Gavin's inciting a riot.
I will take away my Hot Wheels.
See what happens.
These were given to me. These are gifts.
Yeah, no.
I mean, building's fun.
And if you if you have the kind of mind
and not everyone does, but you have kind of that engineering type mind
where that's what you like to do.
Overlanding can be an extremely cheap option for you to get into.
And if you're willing to rough it a little bit, you know,
like we did back in the day, overlanding.
I mean, I think my TJ build total
that was, you know, lift, wheels, tires, truck, all my camping gear.
I think I had like fourteen thousand dollars in the whole thing.
And that's more than you need, really, for most for Michigan.
Yeah, not when you need a stock vehicle,
some all terrains and some coal in here that you bought at a yard sale.
So I built that one for Arizona.
So that one was a little more than what we need here.
Yeah. I mean, if you if you're looking for like basics for overlanding,
then look no further than your garage sale.
Yeah.
Not for real. Like you.
Yeah, I agree.
You get an old Coleman roll up sleeping bag.
You get an old Coleman twenty dollar tent.
And if you look at it again, don't don't wait and spend shit
ton of money on something else, because I could guarantee you that you spend
eight hundred dollars on your gazelle tent.
And then you go out and take your gazelle tent out and you're like.
Oh, I don't like how tall this thing is, or
I don't like how much space this eight hundred dollar tent puts up
in my in the back of my Subaru Crosstrek.
Like then you're like, fuck, I have an eight hundred dollar tent.
What do I do with it? Oh, I'll sell it for five hundred dollars.
Nobody wants a sale for three hundred dollars.
So start small, start cheap.
And while it sounds stupid to to spend that little bit of money at first
and then work your way up, because at the end of the day,
you're spending more money that way.
It's better because then you can actually personalize.
Yep. And learn how you like to overland and wheel and build up from there.
So and that whole that whole statement of buy once, cry once.
That's fucking crap, dude. Yeah. No, you don't.
I would say buy once, cry once only applies if you know what the fuck you
what you're buying. Yeah.
If if you're just starting out and you go and you go for
not to pick on Zach here, but if you go for like the the most expensive
luxury rooftop tent that you got a good deal on.
Our buddy Zach, he he got one of those off of Facebook marketplace,
thinking it was going to be the fucking bees knees.
And it ended up really not being what he wanted or needed.
And he actually went down to something else that was
about two grand cheaper and more space.
And he likes that much better.
So, I mean, it's it's not a good suit.
So he's totally going to hear us talk.
Well, it's not crap. It's it's facts.
Like, you know what I mean? But like so it's.
Let it be known first.
The GMC terrain is not the best overland rig.
Yeah. Well, neither is a super cross track, but that's not.
Oh, dude. Cross tracks are great.
You blow them up on the first trip, spend a bunch of money getting them rebuilt.
Transmission goes out two weeks later.
It's a great option.
I think the newer transmissions are all like snowmobile transmissions anyway.
Aren't they? Yeah, they're pretty sure they're.
See, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think I got mine wasn't a CVT, so I got lucky.
I think nine or six wasn't not positive, but pretty sure it wasn't.
But anywho, it's like, I mean, you start early
for me in particular.
I started out with my wife and son.
We started out in a cheaper tent.
And after about three trips,
I started to realize what I did need and what I didn't need.
And I'm a big overprepper, big overprepare.
That I have.
I have a case of mosquito repellent.
I have a case of M.R.E.
I have a case.
I have a fucking big bag of rope.
I have 15 headlamps.
And through the course of the summer, not only inexperienced,
but through the experiences of camping and overlanding
and trying to optimize it for the for my family, I've realized that.
60% of the stuff that I had in my truck, I didn't need.
And if you go by that rule, I mean, I again, I overprepped.
I had I had fire starter and match matches
like those stupid kits that you get out of the back of like
the GI Joe fucking Kbar knives.
I'd like to just hanging around the truck because I'm like, you never know.
Well, dude, I have also five lighters.
I have two fucking propane lighters.
I was that that fire started.
You turned me on to that super cheap stuff.
That stuff worked. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So and that's one of the things too, is that you learn while you go.
It's actually just wood stove fire starters
that you can get for just starting a wood stove or starting a fireplace.
And I bought mine at Tractor Supply and I don't want.
What was it like 240 squares for like 20 bucks?
Yeah, it was so 240 fires for 20 bucks.
Well, and that's you can't we didn't even use the whole square.
We were ripping it into sections.
Yeah. So I mean, it's it was a much cheaper option.
Those cheap are those expensive even.
And this is where like backpack tax and overland tax
get you to is like they try to get you to buy these crazy like
fire starters that are like fucking expensive.
And you don't need them half the time.
My brother. You need. Yeah.
Well, you have you have most of what you need out in the woods.
And if you don't, if it's rainy or you just don't feel like it, those
those squares work just fine.
So when I was growing up, we never took fire starters with us.
Dad would bring some newspaper out in a match and he'd get a fire going.
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, there there is a limit.
I'm still over preppy.
Like I still I buy five big lighters and I put one in each glove box
and one throughout the truck.
So I always have an extra.
But that's mostly because I'm trying to make sure that I have fail
saves for my own memory.
But no, I mean, I've gotten rid of I think I would say.
A good 60 percent of the inventory that I had in my truck,
I've gotten rid of, and that is hiking and backpacking pots and pansets.
I got rid of two of those.
I got rid of four hot dog pokers, two hobo pie makers.
And I'm not throwing away, obviously, I have them for when I need them.
But if you know what you're doing, if you know where you're going
and you have a meal plan set out, there's no frickin reason
why you should have all this equipment already in your truck
and why you shouldn't have it ready to go.
I mean, I had the the mindset that I would just have absolutely
everything that I owned in my truck that I could go.
But as I was driving more.
And I don't know, utilizing my space, actually, and utilizing the equipment,
I realized I didn't need a good percentage of it.
So I don't know, it's when you're first starting out overlanding,
that's kind of the best way to dismiss all that out, is to figure out
what you need and don't need, obviously, a reliable caveat
to bringing stuff you don't need is you can never bring the wrong tools.
No, no, I brought I logged a ball joint press for three trips.
And we always said, we'll probably never need this.
We'll probably never need this.
But then I did need it on the side of the road one day.
And I was so glad that I had it in the truck.
Mm hmm.
I I would say that tools and spare parts are a massive part.
And I don't think enough people carry spares and spare tools and parts.
I'm one of them.
I just started carrying it.
And the only reason I started carrying it is because it's the my old shit
that I just repaired.
So I have a couple of idler pulleys that are on their way out
as a backup and a belt that wasn't bad, but was on its way out.
So I have spare parts, but making that investment to buy things like CV,
CV axles or knuckles, you know, tie rods, steering components,
the typical things that fail on IFS is probably pretty important.
And I only did it because I had some, you know, I had a knuckle break
and now I'm like, well, fuck.
Yeah.
And group rides are one thing we learned pretty, pretty well
that during the botches yearly trip that, you know, it's nice to have
a couple of vehicles because we have one that can work, you know, work with you.
The other one can run out to town and grab the parts solo.
You don't have that.
So if you're doing it solo, man, you need to be prepared.
Parts wise, use a VIA strand out of the middle of nowhere.
And yeah, if you have self-service get a lot of places, I don't know,
if you're over landing, like we overland tow trucks, aren't going in there.
And you don't want to pay for the tow truck if it can get in there.
That's the deal.
Right.
I mean, I mean, I guess for the listeners, something we should put out there is,
you know, what are spares that we consider, you know, important?
Important. Like for me, CV axles, alternator, knuckles.
That is in preface to this with that.
We're talking Toyota's currently.
And I'm talking specifically the third gen.
Yeah. The three things that fail the most are CV axles, alternator and knuckles.
Yeah.
On my experience, what would it be?
Tie rods?
Is it what the bent tie rod?
Mm hmm.
That's I'd add that to.
I would say either police, if you get in any kind of water or mud,
they can get bad pretty quick, but usually you can get out with those.
Alternators definitely one because on Toyota's
usually the alternators are mounted pretty low.
So if you get in kind of water or mud situations, they tend to
they tend to get gunked up and fucked up pretty quick.
So I would say, where's your guys's alternator?
Where's the motor?
It's modern low.
Yeah. I think mine's higher.
OK, because mine's like midway.
I think mine's more midway.
Well, yeah, typically, I mean, I would say it's not on the bottom of the engine,
but it's mid.
That's where it's at on Sequoias.
But it's.
It's it's far enough down there that if you do any.
Any water at a pretty decent speed, it's getting wet.
Any any kind of deeper mud, it's getting wet and mud, dirt and water
on electrical or anything running off your pulleys is not good.
So it's
I don't know if you if you like to be prepared and you want to make sure
that you get your get your shit ready, then I would.
So other than that, what do we think?
Because we kind of went from talking about elections
to talking about elections to this over here.
Getting to spare tires.
Oh, absolutely. If you don't have a spare tire or at least
I would say if you don't have a spare tire, you're a dummy.
I love you. Ouch.
I love you.
But everybody should have a spare tire.
That's that's like number number one.
I just got to figure out a way to put it and then I got to buy one.
Yeah.
I don't know, man, just throw it on your thought on your hood.
I'd never see out of that car.
I say mount it to your front bumper so that you hit the tire
before you hit anything else.
It's like like one of those tugboats.
You get a hitch mounted receiver because I got that front.
Yeah, yeah.
I'll make your approaching nice.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Well, I think it's very tired for sure.
But if you don't have any kind of patch tire kits.
Oh, then you're an idiot.
They're so small that they're so cheap that if you don't have anything.
I mean, you're kind of asking for trouble.
Even like a glue tread, you can, you know, with a glue tread,
you can do the sidewall.
Yeah, I have.
I think I have a slime tire patch kit
and then I have some spare like rubber cores or whatever.
Yeah, I'd pull.
That's what I keep in mind.
And if you don't have something, they're so cheap. Why not?
I mean, you have no excuse for it at that point.
Yeah. But other than that, I would say if you don't have a fire extinguisher
or a first aid kit.
You're dummy.
Maybe that should be maybe that should be our next episode.
We do we do a 30 minute.
Are you are you a dummy if you don't have these and then we
you don't have a spare tire, you're dummy.
You don't have a first aid kit, you're a dummy.
If you don't have a fire extinguisher
or any kind of comms to navigate out, you're a dummy.
So on that note, I mean,
not to not to bring it into a whole different section.
That I think that pretty much sums up our
our little Thursday chat.
Yeah, I mean, it was great.
It was on topic 100 percent.
There was no something.
Yeah, there was.
This is one of the one of those episodes where we just kind of get together
and just chill and bullshit because I don't know about these guys.
These guys probably seen each other a couple of times this week, but
I'm busy with the kid. I'm doing my own shit.
Oh, I'm out of town.
Oh, see, there you go. So yeah, he works like three hours from me.
Yeah. So I don't we don't really see each other all that much during the week.
So, you know, it's a good chance to to bullshit.
Talk about what's going on at the same time.
So we appreciate you guys for joining us.
Alex Mark will we'll see you next time.
Later. Later.