Hey, it's editor Alex coming at you
Almost a week after we recorded this episode. We all got really sick and then with all the
The getting ready to go down to see Benji at Midwest Adventure Outfitters and everything we had going on
Podcast just kind of fell to the wayside a little bit. We we won't be doing that to you guys again
So for all six of you that care here is
Last week's episode a whole week late. We'll be getting back to our regular regular schedule starting this week
Welcome to botches 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
It's just me and Mark today Gavin sick. He's got the old pneumonia
Yeah, he feels better. I hope he feels better. He's gonna hear this too. Yeah
Yeah
Yeah, so
We're going to Mayo. Yeah, Mayo for Simon's area. No fun
Yeah
On the way home. We're gonna swing by and check out the arch
Yep
It'll it'll be good
For anyone who doesn't know it's already I mean, I guess you could show up and get tickets because I guess he's doing that but
Our buddy Benji from newfound overland is opening a new shop
It's gonna be an open house Saturday from noon to 3
I think he said or noon to 5 something like that
That sounds about right and then we're gonna have a little bit of a he set calls it a trail ride and then
Clarified that it's not really a trail ride. It's a gravel road
From his shop to a campground and then we're gonna do like a
little friends giving
You know bring a dish there'll be turkey
and then
Live music and it'll be a party. Yep
So we're gonna drive the old forerunner down there without any cruise control or any of those fancy
Braking assists or those stuff that people expect from a modern car
At night by the way at night
Like eight at night
We kind of I think most of us have used up our vacation time this year
So we're kind of nipping at the bite but just to get to do this do it in this weekend
We're not any issues of work
Yeah, I uh, I got two days left. So if we have to miss Monday
My boss would be very upset with me, but I could do it
I'm out of any time. I mean, I might have a sick time, but I don't feel like playing that card right now
Yeah, I don't even know if you'd had sick time, man. You're always sick
Yeah
It's a time of year sinuses, yeah
Yeah, so that's what's going on this weekend we did I did quite a bit of work getting ready for that
I'll kind of let so for anyone who doesn't know i've been building out a packout system a milwaukee packout
I'm bypassing the idea of doing drawers because what i'd like to do is have multiple different loadouts
That all I have to do
Is grab a box click it into the system and go something that can cover a day trip
Three day trip
Seasonal whatever um, right now we've got i've got a cooler on a packout slider
Oh a packout cooler on a packout slider
And i've got the kitchen that me and mark made which will we'll get into that in a little bit. That's pretty
The kitchen will actually end up staying in mark's truck long term because you know, first of all, it's a
I'm not going to go the kitchen will actually end up staying in mark's truck long term because you know third gen forerunner. There's no space
Yeah, and then i've got a packout excel that stores all my tools
um
And all the mounts to go with it to hold them in the truck
Uh, they make a little noise not as much as I thought they would but we'll we'll get through it. Yeah, let's go to here
Um
So yeah, i've got
I got quite a few packouts going i've moved my battery from under the hood to a packout in the back
and then
um
I put a new steering wheel on
fancy new carbon fiber with gold flex steering wheel
It uh eliminated my
I'm sorry everybody. My dogs are obnoxious
It uh eliminated my cruise control sadly, but my cruise control didn't work anyway, so who needs it? Yeah
it uh eliminated my clock spring so my
Uh blinkers don't reset on their own anymore
That that sucks, yeah, and now i've got an airbag light on but man does it look sick
It does
I know it's not your style, but man does it look sick. Hey, like I said, I never actually
I think i've never seen real carbon fiber. I've always seen the imitation stuff
So it was always like I don't like the looks of it and of course, it's all the imitation stuff
So I was never a big fan of how it looked but after seeing a real carbon fiber, it looks really good
Yeah, I also don't like imitation carbon fiber
It just it always looks cheesy like a sticker everywhere
Yeah
Yeah, that I will say the steering wheel was kind of dumb
I didn't want to buy a new oem steering wheel because they're like 300 bucks
Mine was really torn and was just falling apart on me
So I was like, oh well if I get this carbon fiber wheel I can save some money
Well, little did I know it was going to cost me about that much money to get the carbon fiber wheel
to work in my truck
Yeah
It looks sick
It does look sick
It'll look way better. It'll look way better when I get the racing seats in
Yeah, it would
Just uh slowly replace all that old toyota interior that's crumbling around me with nice aftermarket stuff
Hey, at least you're fitting your racer aesthetics now
Yeah, you know, I gotta fit with that sticker bomb man. I gotta do it
Yeah, no
It'll be a good trip the uh, the packout mounts are
They're pretty slick. I got those from off-road anonymous. I mean, they're just a sheet of metal. That's been
Laser cut so I guess there's not much to talk about there. No, what?
Things clicking nice things stay put where they need to be
and I think
For the third gen platform, you know, we don't have a lot of space to begin with without removing our seats
But I need my seats. Yeah
For the third gen platform, I think this is the best way I've found to make use of space
You can build out some complicated drawer system
Uh, it's gonna end up costing about the same but then you lose the ability to just remove
Individual boxes as you want to or need to
The other thing i'm not a huge fan of having a kitchen integrated into the truck
I get the appeal but half the time. I don't want to cook at my truck
I want to cook in front of the campfire. I want to cook, you know where everyone's hanging out
So having a kitchen kind of like the one we just built and we'll get into that now
Yeah
Having a kitchen that is removable but can still be used in the truck when necessary. That was really important to me
So what we ended up coming up with
It's what a two drawer pack out and a three drawer pack out
Yep, so the three drawer is a little bit smaller. The two drawers are bigger and
Everything just kind of fits in there. We've got place for plates. We got place for utensils. We got plates or places for bowls cups
An entire drawer for coffee
Yeah
And then we picked up
a
fire maple fire maple. Yep fire maple. We picked up a fire maple
isobutane
water boiler and a burner for it so we can use it as a grill
So, I mean for
Individual, you know individual to two-person trips. It's kind of ideal set up that way
Eventually, we plan on picking up a two-person
Clamshell stove kind of like the uh
The jet boil
Genesis cam? Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's a jet boil genesis
Yes, jet boy genesis. That's as she sounds right now
So eventually we'll get something along those lines probably not a jet boil because we're broke boys
Yeah
We're not a jet boil
Yeah, we spent a lot of money putting this just the pack out kitchen together
So I I was adding it up. I've got like
1100 of packouts in the back of my truck right now
Yeah, that is wild
You know if I compare that to say a drawer system and drawer system do you like 1100 bucks
And then i'm tied to the truck. I can't just pull it out
When I want, you know with
With this kitchen we built it's the two drawer systems and then we've got uh
Um tabletops that flip up on either side and then there's one on the top so it gives a decent size counter
Looks like a giant t
I'll uh, i'll have to put put pictures for chapter. Yeah. Yeah, you have to put some pictures pictures of all your packouts
in the back there and
Did you we're also going to pick up a normal size pack out
Yep
Because we need those drawers to be off the ground just just like five inches five to six inches would be perfect. Yep
Just put it that perfect height for cooking on top of that fire maple
but yeah, it's
The the idea of using packouts kind of looks like a
The idea of using packouts kind of formed when I needed a way
to store my battery
While keeping it somewhat waterproof and having it stay in place in the back of my truck
Because yeah, I like to go underwater and I like to uh
You know be at extreme angles and that's just
It's not ideal when i've got a crappy third gen battery hold down trying to hold down a battery
Yeah
That was there was
So there were what three or four times that battery fell down on my fan
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I forgot about that. Especially when you totally forget about putting the bungee cord on. Yep. Yep
I don't know. I don't know what toyota was thinking because underneath that battery, right?
Yeah, there's like no support whatsoever. Oh, no, none. It's a rounded tire
Cover your inner wheel well, and then they put this tiny little thin piece of flexible plastic underneath it
and then you just kind of wedge the battery between the front grill and the
the inner fender well, yeah
and
No one puts their battery hold down back on
I've got two third gens in my yard. Well, technically three
Third gens in my yard right now. Yeah, all three of them have bungee cords to hold the battery down
Today I would say you technically have two and a half. I mean take
I would say two and a half, but all of the crawler is in the yard
True. You're not rough not put together. Yeah, so I guess it's still three
Yeah, that poor old crawler man
But uh, yeah, so I mean that's what started this whole thing and then we got looking at it and they've got a pack out for every situation
They've got packouts with drawers. They've got packouts with organized tools. They've got a pack out med kit
They like it you name it. You can probably find it for pack out and
The community the pack out community is really big. There's all these 3d printed stuff. You can buy for it
There's all these 3d printed stuff you can buy for it and
Yep
I know you don't see packouts on overland rigs a lot
and I know that
I think of like four to five videos on
um, yeah youtube that is
People are off-grid camping slash overlanding and they have packouts, but it's still not that big yet
And when you look at the price of a packout, you're like, wow, that's a lot of money
But then if you look for a comparable
Overland style box to put stuff in for the same size
You're looking at three four hundred dollars per box
Well a packout is 150 tops
170 for the drawers
Yeah, depending what you're looking at
I know pelicans are one that most people go with and they're expensive and then you got their mounting solution
Which is about as much for the pelican case
Or you just get a packout that mostly has a
Mounting system built in as long as you get one mount you can mount multiples on top of it. Yep
I mean it
Honestly to me it's ideal
It is
And I wouldn't go with milwaukee's mount to put in your truck off-road anonymous makes a good one
There's a bunch of people printing them or cutting them out on etsy
Yeah, I mean
Yeah, I mean the packout community is just massive and there's so many little
I was gonna say ding-dongs, but there really are ding-dongs you can get for the packout like
Everything you can think of i'm sure you can find someone who can make it
Oh, yeah, there's tons of people out there. I mean they've there's middle fingers that mount into the packout
Yeah
Just to me
I don't I could see it being something that in the next two to three years
The overlaying community is really going to start adopting. Oh, yeah, because like
You did like the drawers that came with your forerunner when you first got
I wasn't the biggest fan when we had to take them out because you didn't want them in for
Round when you're traveling to work and stuff
Didn't want it. I got it, but it was a pain to set up. I mean, yeah, it was homemade
so it's a little more bulky than some of the
nicer ones out there, but
And that one is still bulky
That one was well made. I know it was
um, you know that the only issue was that
The sliding system that they've got that they had put on that was absolute fucking dog shit. Yeah
It it would take almost my body weight. I'm not a small guy. I'm 270 pounds
Like I'm not little and I was probably 300 pounds then
And it would take almost my body weight to open these drawers, especially if I had tools in them
Yeah
And I couldn't just tell my wife. Yeah, go get what you need out of the truck because she couldn't open the drawers
And then on top of that they took up
What 10 to 12 inches of space from the floor up?
So there was nowhere to set stuff on top because it was already eating up half my cargo space
it just
The drawers are cool. If your truck is only going to be used
For the purpose of over landing a drawer system makes sense
Yeah, but if you're like me, I daily drive this thing
And I need to be able to store farm tools. I need to be able to store, you know fixing truck tools
I store all that stuff and a drawer just doesn't work for me in that sense
No
I mean our thing is is that one you're gonna we're gonna make it where we can each individual
We can have this giant setup for each style of camping we want to do. Yep
We kind of done that previously with our giant
Military surplus containers. So but those required your truck
Yes, those required my truck we could at least put one of yours one of them in yours at the time
But it was just so big and you didn't like it
I had to fold down the back seats. Where do my dogs sit? I forgot. I forgot about that
I thought you were able to fit at least one barely in there, but I forgot your hatch was
Just right where you couldn't fit it
Yeah, that was when I was and if I had the drawers in I couldn't fit it
Yeah, and we had like three big containers
and
No, we did do four forgot. Oh, yeah four in total
But when we were camping we were like, oh, yeah, we're gonna do four
Yeah four in total, but when we were camping we had three in the back of the truck that first and they were just
We'd get to wherever we're going. We had to take them out at every campsite
Yeah, it just it was a pain
It was convenient. It was really nice having all packed and watertight, but it was
When we did that first trip, um
From keweenaw down into wisconsin on the seven hour plane crash door trail or whatever
Those containers were fantastic
Oh, yeah, they were they were perfect for that trip. We'd get to camp. We'd open up the one with our bedding and tents in it
We'd pop up our tents
Throw our bedding in close that container
Then we would use that container to cook on we'd open up the kitchen one set it right next to it pull out the stove
Everything was right there ready to go easy to use. Yep
But the longer that we used it
We were repacking each container for every single trip because every trip was different
Maybe it was just me and mark going maybe it was me mark and his brother going maybe it was me mark
His brother and my wife
Yeah, no, so every trip required different stuff that had to be in the containers. So I would spend a week
Packing these containers getting ready to go on a trip. Yes
but
You were at work, how could I
You were at work. How could I expect you to help? I know
It just it
It wasn't a bad solution
I just think that the packouts are the going to be a much better solution a lot more expensive
We had what a hundred dollars into those four containers
Yeah, yeah, those were inexpensive
We had to watch them
Demilitarize them before the brackets that were in and that was way more than what we put in the half the time
Oh, yeah, it was so funny. We'd get these we got these boxes and they're so heavy
And then we'd take the brackets out of the middle and they're like a quarter of the way
Yes
Oh
Yeah, i'm definitely
I'm glad that we're moving away from that system and towards something a lot more modular
yes
and
you know the ability to just
Like say the way it's set up right now because you know, we're getting ready to go to mayo. We're only taking one truck
So we've got
One box in xl that's filled to the top with tools. It's got every tool
Almost every tool we should need on this trip
Hey, it's uh editor alex again, we definitely did end up having to buy tools for this trip
um
Should not have said that we had almost every tool we would need because I definitely ended up having to buy some
We've got a cooler because obviously we need a cooler
Yes
And then we've got the kitchen
now
Nine times out of ten the kitchen is going to be in mark's truck. Not mine, but
Because we're only taking one truck and it's a modular system. We take out the excess that we don't need and we throw the kitchen in
Yep
And we could we could never have done that with the big totes. No, we can never done it with the big totes
Quite honestly if we still had them and we didn't even think about the packout system
We were going to try and figure out how in the world we were going to get our camping gear just for you me without
Having a whole bunch of stuff sprung all over your truck just for this trip
Yeah, exactly
and
you know
The one argument i've heard
Gavin is that the packouts themselves take up space and they do but in my opinion
It's organized space and there's something to be said about a space being organized over
You know clutter
No, yeah
I mean, yeah, we're gonna maybe have a little bit of dead space, which is gonna be some minor issue for someone out there
But at the same time when you think of most system you're gonna have a dead space somewhere
Like you just can't figure out what to use with and I mean again, you know nine times out of ten
We go camping we find a campsite
We set up camp we take everything out of the truck and then we go find hard shit to crawl
Yep, that's the other benefit of this is that we don't have the added weight with us all the time
We can have it left at camp
As long as we're doing that type of style
Where we have base camp we can have it all just sit there at camp and we go wheeling in the local area
But then if we do decide to do a true overland move every night trip it can stay in the truck
Oh, yeah is added weight
So it can do either, you know, either route works without having to
Build multiple systems. Yeah, like I said we we've been through this
We think this is going to be a great system for you and me to work with
we'll love to introduce it more into
The rest of our local group that we wheel with to see what they think
I know a couple of them have packouts. I know a lot of times they
Like I think um geo
Right. Yeah geo. Yeah
I know he mostly doing gardening
So i'm assuming the packouts he had was for gardening more than anything like because he works with his truck at work all the time
Right. Well, i'm sure he can probably do the same system like us. I just know that he has a lot storage in his already
Yeah, his truck has a boatload of storage. Yeah, and it's a truck. So there's that
No, no, man, I really think that
uh
The overlaying community like I said the next couple years we're gonna see packouts really take off. Oh, yeah
Like I said, I think I showed you that showed you the video. There's like a
Yeah, I know it's a japanese
Video, but a lot of them have their vans fully decked out with these backouts
And so that's probably the extreme way of using packouts
But there's just have so much storage from just doing that and it's insane
and
You know even let's say a roof rack
So maybe instead of having to tie stuff down you just put some packout mounts and you just click your packouts in
Yep, it just
You know it really
And there's so many things I mean packout has like i've got that water bottle where you can have packout cup holders and it just twists into the cup holder like there
There's so much that can be done with a packout
Oh, yeah
And we're seeing you know, there's our kitchen there's people that have cut the uh top of a packout out and mounted a stove into it
like
That was there's a there's some wild chunks of stuff
Some wild chuck boxes being built out of these packouts man. Yeah, there is like I said
It's still semi-new a lot of these videos that i've seen are like a year to two years old
or even less
but slowly getting introduced to people using it at least
On internet wise you see people using them
Uh, I know there's tons of mounting solution for Tacoma's as you know
Like for instance you got back seats
mounting plates for the rear seats
I'm gonna at least do one of them. I'm not gonna do the whole thing because we declare that
Without ripping seats out. I can't put the bigger
crates in
So we're just gonna do one side and just do what I need in the cab at the time and the rest is gonna be in the bed of my truck
Gonna get the same mounts actually speaking amounts. My mount came in today my one plate. Oh, I forgot. I got you to order
Yes, you did. You're you are a bad influence. I am such a good
So we'll have to get that centered in your truck so we can put the kitchen in there
Yeah, we next weekend not this weekend. Yeah, this weekend's a little busy
We're about to drive, you know 1300 miles around trip
Is that more than the seven hour plane crash trail trip? I mean down and back. Yes, it probably would be more
But I think our whole trip last time was about 1200 miles. Okay
So we're gonna be at about the same that last trip was the farthest we've
Yeah, that last trip was the farthest we've ever driven the forerunner
Yes
And we have done so much maintenance on it since then
Yes, a lot of maintenance
especially on the trip
Okay, listen my lower ball
Oh
Of course we did we did those lower ball joints just before that trip too. Yes we did
stupid toyota
Yeah, I mean sorry, uh, I know last week we didn't put out a video um, I was I was really sick I had a
really infected thumb that was giving me all sorts of secondary infections and it just
Sounds pathetic to say my thumb was infected and that's why I didn't record but like I I could not think but
Anyways guys, um, I know this is a short and sweet one. Hopefully we have more when we get back from mayo and
Hopefully, uh Gavin's feeling better and he can come back on and spend some time with us. Yep. I hope he feels better
I hope he feels better. Catch you guys later. Later