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. Today we are going to
do some weekend recaps. I know you guys had a
pretty eventful weekend. We'll do some recaps
of that, and then we'll talk about our upcoming
weekend, what we got planned. I guess, why don't
you guys start it off, because you guys had all
the fun. How about you, Alex? Do you want to
lead? It was a big weekend. Friday night. We
were up late Friday night. Late Friday and Saturday.
Friday and Saturday. It was both late. Two days
in a row. So Friday, we took all the suspension
off the back end of the 4Runner. Springs, coil
overs. Springs, control arms. There was something
else. What else? Shocks. Everything's gone. Shocks.
Everything's gone. Then we welded in some outboard
shock mounts, which I was kind of leery on doing
just because, I don't know, it just seems weird
to move my shock mounts because they seem so
fine for so long. Little did I know, they were
never fine. They are so much better now. Yep.
And we can't even use the old ones anymore. Oh,
yeah. The old shock, like the top of the shock
is still there because we couldn't get to the
bolt, so we just cut it off. So outboard shock
mounts, I got them off eBay for like $35. They're
supposed to be... They had some really cheap
self -tapper that you're supposed to use, but
we just welded them on. Yeah. And then I got
my cheap Icon shocks that I got off Marketplace,
and I mounted those up, and they look sick. So
freaking cool. And then I'm not sure what the
springs are. I cannot find a... I bought some
OME springs. And I was going to use those. But
then we were getting parts off the crawler because
I needed the control arms off the crawler frame.
And the springs that were on the crawler are
significantly better progressive springs than
what I actually bought. So I was like, you know
what? We'll try them. If they don't work, I've
got the OMEs to fall back on. Everything will
be fine. Well, so we got those in. Got the new
shocks on. Now we're into Saturday. This was
a very long process. There were so many roadblocks.
Oh, yeah. First, we broke one of the shock mount
bolts off inside the mounting point on the rear
axle. And I thought for sure I was boned. Yep.
Then we realized that the shock bushing. or the
sleeve that was still on the shock mount was
actually a metal sleeve from a shock bushing.
So we cut those off. After we got those cut off,
then we realized that there was actually enough
bolt to grab onto with vice grips. So life was
way better. Heated it up with a torch, grabbed
it with some vice grips, twisted right out like
it was nothing. So got the shocks and springs
in, got everything mounted up. At this point,
it was like... one in the morning saturday yeah
started this at like eight o 'clock on friday
finished at like one in the morning on saturday
we beat it just before the time change oh yeah
i was taking a shower getting ready for bed and
i was watching a video on my phone and uh i have
eos it's not it's android but not android and
all of a sudden my phone flashed and it was like
uh The time has changed. It is now 3 a .m. Some
weird announcement came across my phone. I was
like, what the fuck? Yeah, so it went from 1
.59 to 3 a .m. It was terrible. So got that done.
And then I kind of. detailed the truck on Sunday.
That's all I did. I spent like six hours. I did
a deep clean on this truck. I vacuumed everything,
wiped down every surface, put new air fresheners
in. I made my truck look almost as good as you
can without replacing my bad, my super terrible
seats, right? Yep. Put the kid's car seat back
in, went up to the house, got the kid. ran into
town to get some food, got back from town. We
haven't eaten yet. We went and got fast food,
brought it home with us. I go to get the kid
out of his car seat and he's got his hand over
his mouth. And I'm like, Jackson, what's going
on, buddy? And he's like, there's something in
my mouth. And then he projectile vomited all
over my truck. Like every surface you could think
of. And at first, you know, I'm thinking he's
sick or something. Get him inside. I get the
truck pulled back apart. I clean it while she
takes him up for a bath. And we get done, and
he comes downstairs after his bath, and the first
thing he says is, okay, I want my chicken nuggets
now. He was fine. No idea why he threw up. He
just... Kids will be kids, man. That's... sounds
like a a similar weekend event to mine mine was
uh fever fever no fever fever and then we're
like oh he's doing good you know got a hit of
his breast milk he was like yeah man i'm i'm
good i'm going to bed we're like sweet man then
uh then he coughs and i'm like Oh, God, because
when he coughs, he'll cough until he pukes. So
he coughs, and I went and grabbed our little
bowl just in case he pukes because we knew he
had a fever. So I grabbed the bowl, smack him
on the top of the head, trying to pull it down
fast enough. Whoops, sorry. Then he stops coughing.
Everything's good. I'm like, oh, okay, cool.
Because, you know, at the same time, you know,
I grabbed the bowl. pulled the blanket away because
i didn't want to puke in on the comforter and
i'm like all right well okay false uh false alert
false alarm pulled the comforter back put the
bowl up soon as i pulled the comforter back all
over our comforter and i'm like oh my god dude
are you kidding and he's just like he's just
looking up at me you know his his little doe
eyes like like yeah yeah you know here's the
bowl So I get the bowl out, and he doesn't like
puking in it. I'm like, okay, I get it, but please
don't continue on a bed. So I am not holding
his head down in it, but I'm bracing the back
of it so he can't turn away, and he was pissed.
I mean, he's like screeching. Too bad the AI
won't let Mark make a chapter of someone holding
a kid's... face and vomit yeah i know that's
what that's what you think it sounds like but
i'm just holding my hand you know uh vertically
on the back of his head so he doesn't turn it
anywhere and he stays in front of the bowl well
The kid gets the idea, for some reason, to put
his hand in the bowl and splash and play in it.
Oh, my God. I'm like, get your hand out of there.
So then I get a rag, clean his hand off, and
I'm like, this is just great. Thanks, man. Kids
are so gross. So we've been making Jackson play
outside since it's nice out now. We let Wrangler
out, and Wrangler went and peed. And then Jackson
was like, oh, mud. Dude. Oh, we had Jasper went
outside the other day, too, and it was nice out.
By the way, now he's got these little rain boots,
and he loves these boots, dude. He hated shoes
for the longest time because his first year.
damn near year of his life he was shoeless we
didn't have any real i mean we had shoes but
he always took them off he didn't like normal
kid stuff but but yeah so we we had him out there
on that nice day and he's walking around we're
like oh this is so cute so fun he starts walking
towards our mud puddle no no no no No, no, no.
You start walking towards him to get him back.
He trips and falls into the mud puddle and just
starts screeching. And we're like, all right,
yep, that was fun. Take him inside, clean him
up. Oh, kids. Yeah, and then, you know, then
the fever and everything like that. So as far
as my weekend went, the staying up past 2 a .m.,
not for fun work stuff. putting new shocks on
your truck, but nursing the boy and making sure
he's good to go. And that was pretty much my
full weekend. I tried cleaning my truck out,
filled a couple garbage bags with fast food and
monster cans. And, yeah, I mean, I still have
the winch and stuff in there. so i mean it's
coming you got to get a day off and a warm day
at that so i can take the uh take the old paint
and rust off of it repaint it real quick and
then uh then i'll put the plates together with
whatever bolts that we had make sure i have the
right bolts and then once that's done I'll just
take four or five hours at some point and just
take the front end off and mount it on. It doesn't
seem too hard. Derek from Michigan State Tours
said that he did it himself, so if he can do
it, I can fucking do it. He also changed the
brakes on his own, so no one can complain about
wrenching anymore. If Derek can do it, anybody
can do it. Are you sure? Dude, I was. Are you
sure? Did he actually do it on his own? I was
going to say, I watched it live, too. He had
help. Everyone has help. He gave him pointers.
But for the most part, we just threw beer cans
on top of his truck and made his job harder.
I forgot about that. I forgot about the beer
cans. What was the last time? I think it was
Becker. No, no, no. I think it was a different
one. I can't remember his name. Derek, maybe.
While he was working, drilling stuff out, he
grabbed boxes and styrofoam. Then he was packing
the back of his truck while he wasn't looking.
Then, I'm not going to say what else they did,
but they were pulling little pranks, putting
things in places. Drawn penises on the hair intakes.
We dumped an entire trash can full of empty beer
bottles on his roof rack that day. That poor
guy. He gets the brunt of it, I swear. Yeah,
so past weekend stuff, I think it was Monday,
I got the ambitions to take my 33s off and put
the Crawler's 35s on. And lo and behold, if it
wasn't for, so the crawler had 16 inch wheels
and I have the Tundra brake upgrade. So I have
to run a spacer to be able to fit the 35s off
the crawler. And if it wasn't for that spacer,
I would clear without rubbing at all. So the
way the 4Runner sits right now, it is ready for
35s. Yep. And 35s look fucking sick. They do.
I'm sure I could fit 35s. I should bolt those
up to mine. Yeah. I could see Alex staring out
into the distance. Let's try. I'm down. Break
it over. Let's try it. I was about to say, I
think I'm semi -close. I don't know about you,
Gavin, but I'm a little closer to that. But I
still wouldn't try it yet. I know I'd have to
do some cutting and stuff. That's pretty typical
of running 35s on the FJ. I do have. And I don't
have any kind of spacers. We do have those 37s
we could try throwing on there. There you go.
If 35s will fit, 37s will fit. My lift makes
37s fit for sure because that's how it works.
I mean, with 16 -inch, right, with 16, I have
17, so 16 will give me about an inch less. It's
still the same size tire. It just has more rubber.
Yeah, you're very fair point. I guess I was thinking
with a smaller rim that it would be a slightly
smaller footprint. Exactly what I'm saying. Because
if you have a 17 with a 35, I guess, in my mind
when I was thinking about it. that would give
you like a little bit more but i guess i see
what you're talking it's just like less side
yeah yeah yeah 17 just means less side yeah like
my uh okay my old j truck i had 37s on that with
a 15 inch wheel and it's exactly the same size
as the 37s on the jeep with a 16 inch wheel it's
just I mean, they weren't exactly the same because
then you've got a variation in tires. So let's
say a grappler's 37 is, might be two inches smaller
than an actual 37. It might be a 35 or yeah.
Cause there's no actual standard for whatever
reason. No one actually follows a standard. No,
not at all. So what you're saying is if I get
semi bald 35s, I should be able to do it. Yeah,
but at that point, you're going to have to replace
the tire sooner, and you're going to have less
grip. So, bald 35s are worse than good tread
on 33s. I think bald 35s are the equivalent to
an all -terrain. So... You can get 35s that are
all -terrain. Yeah, I know. I'm just fucking
with you. I know, I know. I mean, at that point,
they're all terrains, right? I mean, they have
less dig. They have more surface area. Yeah,
I was impressed. The 35s fit pretty nice. I really
hate that I had to run a spacer because I wanted
to run them at rocks and valleys, but that can't
happen. Nope. Plus, we'd have to trailer the
tires to Roxham Valleys because they're pretty
dry -checked. Yeah. And they aren't balanced.
So I drove it in to get... I was working on some...
Oh, I needed a wrench. I was working on one of
the curtain motors at the farm, and I needed
a wrench. So I just jumped in the truck and drove
it to Gavin's hardware store. And I will tell
you that I thought I was going to die. I only
went 45. I think I went 55 once. But when I got
to 45, it felt like I was going into, like, hyperspace.
The whole truck's shaking. It's bouncing up and
down, bouncing me across the road. Dude, it is
going to shake all your welds apart. Hey, my
welds are solid. I was about to say, those welds
are solid. Alan's been getting a lot better with
that. The only weld that wasn't solid, we went
back over, and it is rock solid now. That bumper
will never come off my frame. Yep. Yep. I mean,
the old, if it ain't enough duct tape, just add
more duct tape thing. Yeah, no, it's... Well,
so, okay, so we have your... Is that pretty much
your whole past weekend, Alex? Yeah, back...
Do you have any other kind of fun? Backend rebuild,
I think. I think that's all we... Oh, we took
the spacers off, too. That makes a huge difference
in handling. I should have done that a year ago.
But... Besides helping him with that, I was helping
my parents remodeling their kitchen right now.
Which is looking sick. It is. It's doing really
good. How are we going to get that... How are
we going to get that counterpiece to my house?
Do you want it? I do. Okay, because last night...
Does it fit? It might fit. Does it fit in your
truck? It might. I got to see it with my mom
because she was saying that one of our co -workers
might have been interested in it, but at first
I was like, I don't know if any of my guys are
interested in it, but... It... Alex had apprehension
in there. He goes, I do. I was going to buy a
cheap desk for my upstairs studio I'm building,
but a free countertop is kind of like a cheap
desk. I don't know, man. It might go good in
our shed. It's corner. It's a corner. It's a
big piece. It wouldn't fit in our shed. It would
make a good news announcer table. Oh, man, it
would for an upcoming botches project. Oh, my
God. Which I do think is going to be both video
and podcast format. I can see that. Yeah, I'm
thinking. Oh, yeah. Complete squirrel thought
here. Botches listeners, you're getting a little
foresight here. So we're working on a off -road
news. Originally, it was just going to be a podcast,
but I think that it would be really fun to do
it in the full on news studio style where you've
got like a green screen behind you. And when
you're like, and in today's news, and then a
little box pops up with whatever you're talking
about. Yeah. Like a family guy when they're talking
about people on family guy. Yep. Yeah. I think
that that. Yeah, because we could feature people
and their breakdowns. Well, I'm not so much looking
that side. My goal is to cover more national
off -roading news, so like stuff that Blue Ribbon's
doing. The Drummond Island drama would obviously
be covered by that. I don't want to so much cover
group stuff or Michigan -specific off -road stuff.
I want to cover... national news events regarding
off -road oh so you're not like a local news
station we'd be like you're trying to be like
a national i think a local would be hilarious
i think be like just getting like pictures of
people who got stuck or broke a cd axle i'm like
in other news derrick broke a cd axle on the
way to Rocks and Valleys, didn't even get to
his own birthday. Like, just stuff like that.
So, on that... Morphlate finally released a new
compressor that actually works for more than
a year and a half. Not that Morphlate doesn't.
All Morphlate stuff is great. Tyler, don't yell
at us. It is. But... No, we love Morphlate. I
actually think that... it would be cool. So I'm
going to start with the national news, but then
maybe find someone who'd be willing to do local
news. Cause it'd be cool if we could get local
news that goes, you know, let's say there's a
Michigan specific one. There's a California specific
one. There's a Georgia specific one and they
all cover their local stuff, but then they can
show national news stuff on the same thing. So
just an off -road news. Oh, so you're going to,
yeah. I'm going to try and make an actual off
-road news. So you're going to be more like the
Weather Channel. You're going to be like, let
me forward it to my friend Jerry. And Jerry's
in a hurricane. It's going really good. That's
exactly what I'm looking for. The swamps are
deep. The alligators are tough. They bit my sidewall
out. We'll see how it goes. Me and one of the
other botches who aren't part of... this podcast
we're kind of banging it out and putting things
together but i just i think that it's something
that isn't out there yet and i think that it
has the potential to be really funny and really
fun yep because it's going to be like a mock
news kind of like it's going to be serious right
all the news is going to be serious but it's
going to be put forth in a way that's entertaining
rather than just dry cut news or it's going to
be so dry cut news that it's funny I would love
if I had more time and I was getting actually
paid to do some of this and I didn't have to
work to do, like, a local podcast like that.
It would be hilarious. Just cover, like, West
Michigan Off -Road, Mint State Tours, do, like,
you know, Cindy Pope stuff, you know, cover all
that stuff there, you know. It's kind of an overarching
Michigan local news, off -roading news thing.
And that's the other thing is it's only going
to have one episode a month because obviously
it's only off -roading news. Now, granted, when
I say off -roading news, I mean the stuff we
do. I mean F1 racing, NASCAR racing. All of it
is what we're looking to cover. So it'll be an
entire month's worth of news at one time. I might
do like a weekly newsletter where... You get
kind of like a newspaper, an off -road newspaper,
if you will. And you'll get that every week.
And then once a month, we'll have the full hour,
two -hour, whatever episode. Yep. Yeah. I really
do. I think a local would be fun if I could do
that. Like, hey, just so you know, the seven
-hour plane crash trail has finally... close
this trail and this trail so if you wanted to
do this trail again it's too late now hey if
you wanted to do drummond island uh this trail
is no longer a uh badge of honor trail so don't
bother yeah you know stuff like that hey if you
wanted to do prairie and grant don't even try
it it's just a dirt road now so a muddy dirt
road but a dirt road yeah i I definitely want
to see a local thing come out of it, but I think
that putting the framework in for a national
one is going to be the important first step.
Because then it opens it up where anyone, anywhere
who wants it has something to fall back on. And
I'll open it up to the, obviously it'll be value
for value, just like this show. So they'll be
able to. put our content into their episodes
and just have the boost split so that we get
part of whatever they make off that episode.
So it could become a pretty decent network without
much effort from each, you know, each individual
in each location. Yeah. And you could, you could
cover a vehicle release. That's part of what
we like when the, Hey, you know, yeah, it'll,
it'll be more, We'll be more of an automotive
journalist than we are now. Cause right now we're
just kind of three assholes that bullshit every
Wednesday night. Yeah. But it's coming together
slowly. I'm working on collecting sound bites
right now so that we have like the fun do do
today's news. Yep. Like those, those kinds of
things. Yeah, it'll be fun. I kind of want to
do a rip -off of the old NBC intro. I think it
was NBC. From, like, the 50s. You mean the turkey?
I think it's ABC's The Turkey. NBC's Peacock.
No. Oh, okay, yeah, but it could be the turkey,
though, because, you know, reasons. No, I'm pretty
sure... Yeah, it's NBC, Sound of the Nation.
But, yeah, they're... So you can go into AI Sound
Generator and do, give me Sound of the Nation
song sung by a turkey. Yeah, something like...
Yeah, that right there. That's what I'm looking
for. That was perfect. Yeah, so we'll... I mean,
we'll play with it. Yeah, catch me in the recording
studio. I'll start charging for it. We're going
to play with it some more. Obviously, I got to
get a studio built and all that. It's kind of
just an idea on paper right now. But I think
that it could be a really fun show. And if we
do it right, it can get more people interested
than just our local guys. Other guys who like
the same stuff we do. Because, like I said, I
want to cover racing news. I want to cover drift
news. You do drifting off -road. Everything.
I want everything to be covered. Yeah. Yeah,
brings up some good points. Some good topics
to actually bring into it, though. I guess I
didn't really think about it too deeply until
we started talking about it just now. Yeah, there's
some potential there. I think that it could be
a lot of fun. And it won't take away from what
we do here. This will always be here. Mostly.
Some weeks you get me and Mark. Some weeks you
might get Mark and Gavin. Some weeks you get
just me. Some weeks you'll get just Gavin. We
never know what's going to happen. Just whoever's
available on Wednesday. Yeah, I was sick as shit
last Wednesday, so I took a bow out on that one.
I was effectively peeing out of my butt. Been
there. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, it's one
of those things where you can't sit down for
30 minutes to do an episode when every two minutes
you're peeing out of your butt. You just do the
episode from the toilet. Mute the mic. I bet.
You'd be sitting there and you'd be like. Imagine
how great. Imagine the acoustics though. Imagine.
Yeah. You'd be there and you'd be like. All right.
Yeah. It's going to be. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. I'm
good. But then you've got to remember the echo.
Yeah. Yeah, the bathroom's not big enough for
an echo. Remember, we're a small town here. We
don't have echoing bathrooms. Dude, when I was
growing up, we... I don't even have a floor.
It's still subfloor. When I was growing up, we
had a half bath at my mom's house. So like tiny
bathroom, right? But it was tile everywhere.
Floor, walls, ceiling, everything was tile. And
that bathroom echoed so bad. Like you'd be sitting
on the toilet and then you hear it for like five
minutes. No, I couldn't do that. I like not having
any echoes when I'm taking my morning dump in
the morning. I'm half delirious when I wake up
anyway. I don't know about you guys, but I am
half delirious. I don't know. I am lightheaded
for the first 10 minutes of waking up. My morning
routine. And then like I go to is my alarm goes
off at 430. I spend about an hour putting it
on snooze. And then finally I roll out of bed
and I stumble to the shower. And even though
I work with turkeys and they're disgusting, I
have to take a shower in the morning or I cannot
work for the day. Oh, dude, it's it's at 630.
I always wake up first alarm or I'm sorry, six
o 'clock. Always wake up. First alarm. I am not
one of those snoozers. But I get up, walk straight
to the bathroom, which is literally the next
room over, take my morning dump, take my couple
hits of my vape, and try to stay conscious because
I'm so lightheaded from getting straight up and
walking straight to the bathroom and then hitting
my vape because my heart hasn't started beating.
I already got a nicotine rush. I clean my ears.
Brush my hair. Go back to the room. Put my deodorant
on. Put my shirt on. Put my pants on. And then
try to leave without kissing my wife. And then
she catches me. And then I try to give her the
three quickest kisses I can because I'm like,
I'm late. And then I leave. And then he smokes
a cigarette on his way to work. Well, he has
a monster in the cup holder. And the whole time.
He listens to the Kyle broadcast where they talk
about how shitty women are. No, no. Close. No,
no. As soon as I kiss her, I go out to the kitchen.
I take my heart pill. Then I get in my truck.
I smoke and drink my Monster until I get to work,
which is about 10 minutes. I get to work, I sit
there for 30 minutes and listen to my book, finish
my monster, continue to smoke, and then I clock
in for the day. If anybody wants to know how
Gavin starts his day, that's it, man. That's
the ticket. That's how you keep going. I also
should add, I have four devices with alarms on
them, so I'm snoozing all of them, so it gets
to a point where it's like every 10 seconds there's
an alarm going off. And that's when I roll out
of bed. Oh, yeah, no. I'm a one alarm guy. Don't
even have to worry about it. Sometimes I wake
up before my alarm. And don't get it twisted.
I'm getting shit sleep. Sleep's not good. But
it doesn't matter. I still wake up with that
one alarm. So, you know, it's fun. But you know
what? On that note. Now that you know all of
our waking habits. Our deep, darkest waking habits.
We didn't talk about mine, but mine's not a lot.
I usually sleep through almost all the alarms,
and I wake up right at the last second. Very
shameful. Yep, that sounds familiar. What shameful
hosts. Yeah, on that. Well, and with that. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I beat you to it, Alex. On that note,
we're going to dial her out. Later. We'll talk
to you guys later.