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. Well, it's a weekend
recap, weekend update, whatever order you want
to put that. Yep. We should start this with the
important thing. What are you drinking today?
I got a Blue Moon. Man, you're getting fancy.
You even got that nice... botches uh koozie on
there that you can only get at the botches store
that is in the show notes i'm uh rocking a age
-old favorite the el chavo yeah i'll give him
a little crack too yeah i can't really crack
into that bottle yeah listen to that crispy goodness
Yeah, so this was a pretty exciting weekend we
just had. Yeah. Finally got some testing for
Leatherwood and with all that we've done to our
rigs. I have most of my skid plates on. Still
need some bolts for parts of it. I need to see.
Actually, we're on the podcast, and I'm going
to look for it live. I am missing a bushing for
one of my Icon shocks, and I tried to. I tried
to make it work by using another bushing from
another shock, but it's not working. Oh. So I'm
going to go on Icon and see if they sell just
the bushing. I would assume so. I'll do this
later. I'll do this later. But I pulled it up.
I'll pull it up so I can at least find it later.
But, yeah, so, I mean, I doubt it's a big deal.
The bushing works. Everything's fine. It just.
it could be better by you know having the right
parts yeah no my rear end worked good um look
real good from it was it was so noisy dude like
so we get out on the trail at rocks and valleys
oh yeah we went to rocks and valleys off -road
if you uh off -road park if you listen to last
week's weekend update yeah but so we get out
on the trail and all i hear is creek Crunch,
crunch, creak, creak, crunch. And I'm like, what
the hell? What is broken? And I'm listening.
I've got my head hanging out the window. And
it dawns on me it's coming from behind me. And
I'm like, shoot, man, we just did all that work.
And then I remembered that uniballs like to make
noise and pop. And every single junction on my
rear control arms are now uniballs. Yeah. So.
I'm going to chalk this up to just uniballs are
noisy because everything moved properly. Yep.
I'll say it. It looked like it was working like
it was supposed to the entire time. It felt great.
Those unknown shocks that I think might be Toyotex,
I might replace those. I just haven't decided
what to replace them with yet. It's not going
to be... Yeah, springs, I'm sorry. It's not going
to be OMEs, just because I don't like the OMEs
as much, I don't think. Yeah. I don't know. We
could throw the OMEs on and see what they look
like. Mm -hmm. That sounds like a lot of work.
Yeah. Like, two hours. Yeah. And 50 beers. Yeah,
sounds about right. We probably should do it
before I return the OMEs, though, huh? Yeah.
yeah yeah be a good idea anyways but yeah so
forerunners your ends working really well uh
it was really convenient having my cooler i think
this isn't the first trip we've done with the
cooler but because we we took the cooler down
to missouri with us yeah but i think this is
the first time other than that we've used the
cooler other than like shopping because i use
it every week for shopping yeah Yeah, I think
this is the actual first time I'm actually off
-roading with it in there. Yeah, it was pretty
great. No, no, you didn't have your rig for that
one. I was going to say New Year's, but I forgot
you did not have your rig for that one. No, I
had the black truck. The poor black truck. Yeah,
so the cooler was pretty great. I did not have
the packout drawers before, and those were not
as noisy as I thought they'd be off -road. So
that makes me pretty happy. Yep. What testing
did you have to do this weekend? I had to test
my front end, and I discovered something that
I need to upgrade as well beyond what I upgraded.
So anyone listening, if you got your, I think,
is it force alignment cam bolts it is? I'm trying
to remember the name of those. Yeah, alignment
cam bolt eliminator kit or something like that.
They're pretty much hexagons. You buy them, and
you actually off -road them hard like what we
do, you're going to want to get reinforcement
tabs. I about sheared them off. I bent them.
That's it. Was because I fat foot my foot off
the brake pedal onto the gas going downhill.
Don't listen to him. He makes it sound like it
was nothing. He jumped that truck. I did not
jump the truck. He jumped it. I watched. All
you heard was a loud banging. You assumed I jumped
it. I don't think I can jump it. No, no, I watched.
You jumped that truck. You went, whoo, and then
bam. That's impressive for how up and down we
were on the Python trail to do that. Okay, so
he didn't actually jump it. It just, it was,
I saw part of it out of my rear view window,
or mirror, and I thought for sure Mark was going
to die. We'll just leave it at that. This man
needs to learn that his feet are too big to go
from the brake to the gas. Yeah. So, luckily,
we didn't realize it was wrong until we got going
away from Rocks and Valleys. We pulled into the
gas station. My brother needed to use the bathroom.
And we went to pull out. I was like, shh. Shit,
why am I rubbing? I should not be rubbing. We
fixed the rubbing. And we looked and realized
my cam bolts were not in place at all because
the tabs bent over. I can't. So I'm not sure
if this happened at Rocks and Valleys, because
if you look at that tire, dude, you wore that
way too much for the, like, 20 miles that we
drove. You also got to remember, that's a tire
that had the bad wheel bearing that's been in
an accident. That tire's been through hell and
back. Multiple times since I forgot them. Why
are we so hard on our tires? But yeah, you're
right. You're right. You're right. But yeah.
No, it was a really fun trip. I think... I'm
not a huge park fan. I don't know. Parks are
fun. I just can't say that parks are like my
first choice on... somewhere i would go yeah
but rocks and valleys is one that i've always
just kind of enjoyed i thoroughly enjoyed it
i love that joe and derek do this for their birthday
every year oh yeah it's the best yeah they yeah
and they go in there with mst's fun oh yeah I
think those two trails we took was good enough
for us for that day because those are some black
diamond trails, though, right? Yeah, I would
have been fine with keep going. I just wanted
to take a break. But then you're like, man, I'm
so beat up. And honestly, I'm glad that you just
had a feeling you should stop because who knows
what would have happened had you kept wheeling
on those cam bolts being screwed up. Yeah. It
would probably have been way worse than what
it ended up being. I can't believe how much they
bent it, though. I know. I'm glad I was able
to bend it back in place with a tiny pry bar
and a hammer. I'm glad we were able to also,
because I was really concerned that it was going
to have to get told out for how bad that was.
And the whole time that we were bending those
back to where they had to go, I was scared to
death that they were going to snap off. I know.
Oh, you weren't getting towed out. You would
have driven at home either way. I just feel like
we really fucked something over if I drove how
it was. We would have got them as close as they
could have gone and tightened the piss out of
them with the impact. Yeah. I just... I wasn't...
Yeah. I didn't want to have to drive... We were
like an hour and a half from home. I didn't want
to drive the hour and a half back to my... to
get my dad's truck and unload that stupid van
my sister still has on the trailer. Yeah. Just
for us to drive an hour and a half back to get
your truck, then an hour and a half drive back.
Yep. I just need to hurry up and get a tow rig.
Yep. Definitely need to get that somewhat soonish
if possible. Especially if we're on a wheel like
we do. Sounds like it's going to be like July,
August, maybe September. That sucks. But maybe
when we do the botches yearly trip, maybe I'll
be wheeling my tow rig instead of the 4Runner.
Yeah. Because wheeling your tow rig is definitely
what you should be doing. You definitely should
always wheel the tow rig and leave the wheeling
rig at home. Yes. well in that case what are
your upcoming weekend plans oh for me i'll be
wrapping up my comms or my nav system all those
came in finally all my mounts sally i don't think
we're gonna be fixing or putting the reinforcement
tabs on yet i haven't seen it shipped yet That
sucks. That does suck. Did you drive it down
to work this week? No, I did not. But I do have
to next week. It should be fine. We got it bent
back into shape. Yeah, as long as I don't go
off -roading with it. Yeah. And I think we're
decking the trailer this weekend, because that
needs to happen. Yeah, that's the tentative plan
for that. We should make that tentative plan
a permanent plan. Yeah, I know. Because we really
need to get that done. I know. We really do.
Once we get that decked, we can start getting
mounts on it, and we can start getting packouts
on it. Mm -hmm. Yeah. I'm kind of thinking I'm
going to move pretty much everything from the
back of my Forerunner into the... off -road trailer
everything except for probably my cooler but
like my drawers will all go on the trailer yeah
all that stuff yeah at least for this trip yeah
yeah probably should do the same thing with the
kitchen too yeah i'm thinking the kitchen should
go on the trailer just kind of cut down on weight
that we have on the trucks because if we don't
need to have weight on the trucks we should just
not have it yep i agree with that Yeah. And it'd
be nice to do it before we leave. That way everything's
just packed and ready. That way we don't have
to undo everything when we get to Leatherwood.
Yeah. See, what else? Oh, we're camping this
weekend. Yep. Kind of. Kind of. We're testing
our new gear. Yeah, so Friday night we'll be
sleeping in my yard around the fire pit with
our... new individual tents and cots. Did you
get your cot and pieces figured out? They sent
them. I finally got ahold of them. They're sending
them out, but it won't be in for this week. Damn.
Yeah. You know, when we threw that cot that your
brother broke away, we probably should have saved
the end pieces. I didn't even think about that.
I didn't think it would work. I bet they probably
would have, but we threw it away now and the
trash came and got it. Yeah. I didn't even think
about that. Maybe we could borrow my dad's cot
and just use the end pieces with your cot. Yeah.
Oh. Yeah. So, you know how I went up to the surplus
store Sunday? Was it total waste of time? I don't,
because I said, Mark, if you're going up to the
surplus store, let me know. I want to go. Sorry.
That Sunday was a weird day to wake up and we
were doing cabinets and stuff. I wasn't sure
how late we were going to be done with getting
cabinets for that. Went up there, didn't have
them, but they had new canvas, so I bought a
new canvas. New canvas? Oh, for your cot? Oh,
sick. How much was that? Like 20 -something.
Oh, that's not bad at all. No. Yeah. Too bad
they didn't have your end pieces. Did they have
full cots? Oh, yeah, they did. They had... How
much were those? Two of them were like $79 .99,
which is about roughly what I paid for mine,
the account shipping. And then there was one
that they had for $100 something because it was
a little better condition. It almost would have
been worth grabbing one of those. I know. Then
we'd have spare parts galore. Yeah. Might still
do it, though. Yeah, honestly. It's not a bad
price at all. No. Where's that surplus store
at? It's up by Claire, Michigan. So that's right
up the highway from Roxham Valleys. Way out of
the way for you guys coming home. I was going
to say, grab one on your way home. Oh, yeah.
That's like four hours out of your way. That's
way out of the way. It's past home. Now, I thought
about biting the bullet, but at the same time,
I was like, eh, let's see what they say before
I bite the bullet and buying another full cot.
But we could have had three of them. I know.
I know. I couldn't convince Alan to get it. Well,
either way, Friday night will be fun. Yep. I
think this El Chavo might be bad. Yeah? Yeah.
I'm gonna... maybe I'm not drinking a full El
Chavo tonight. I might not get drunk tonight.
That one tastes not great. Yeah, no, I think
Friday will be fun. Yeah, I'm hoping that you
guys get out early enough that we can actually
maybe even run down to Home Depot and grab what
we need. Yeah. I'm thinking about, did you ever
test if your stuff fits in that packout? Yes,
I threw my new pad in there and then the tent
and they fit in there. So my pillow and my sleep
system should fit in there pretty well too. So
I think I'm going to grab one of those. I can't
find your pillow. So I found two sleeping bags.
Neither one had a pillow attached. I say they
should have been attached to the bag. Yeah, neither
one has a pillow attached, so I don't know which
one's yours and which one's mine. Okay. It's
weird. I mean, that doesn't really matter, but
I kind of like to have that pillow. It's in,
like, a blue bag. Yeah, I'm sure if it's around,
we'll find it. Yeah. But the podcast listeners
don't care about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. Yeah, no, Friday night should be fun. I'm
hoping we can at least go get the stuff to deck
the trailer. I want to get that small pack out
to put my sleep stuff in. Because that'd be nice,
man. Build out an individual camping setup. So
if I'm going with my wife, I pack all the crap
I need for her to be with me. But if it's just
me, I just grab the pack out and toss it in the
truck. Yep. Because usually if it's just me,
it's like a last minute thing that I'm going.
Yeah. Let's see. Do we have any housekeeping
to take care of this week? So third gen weekend
is April 25th through the 27th. If you live in
Michigan or surrounding States, I think we're
meeting in ever at, I don't know if you remember
what time I said, probably five or four, maybe
four or five. I'll look real quick. Yeah, so
if you're living in the Michigan or surrounding
areas and drive a third -gen 4Runner, we're meeting
in Everett, Michigan at Wesco at 4 p .m., and
then we'll be heading out to the campsite. Saturday,
we'll just be wheeling. We'll explore Everett,
see what it's got to offer. Everett's got some
really, I'm not going to say challenging trails.
All the trails are... just entertaining and then
there's one that's somewhat challenging yep but
it's it's nothing insane um a stock forerunner
can do 90 of what's in ever so i mean even if
you're even if you're on a stock build our friend
uh duncan one of the other botches he did pretty
much everything in a stock forerunner that's
open open open yeah um You got Gavin and his
FJ with the most challenging obstacle there.
Yeah. Yeah, the most challenging obstacle there,
Gavin accomplished it in his FJ, and he's super
proud of it. But, yeah, we'll be doing that Saturday.
I plan on doing kind of like a potluck dinner
Saturday night. So if you're going to come, bring
something to pass, and then we will be convoying
from Everett down to Riggs and Coffee on Sunday.
Yep. Our local Rigs and Coffee is one of two
Rigs and Coffee locations in Michigan. And it's
pretty baller. Yep. It's a pretty fun time. So
that will be, again, April 25th through the 27th.
Do we have any other things coming up? I can't
think of anything. Definitely check out our store.
I've been adding stuff pretty regularly there.
The patches don't come with Velcro, but you can
just stick them to sticky Velcro and they won't
come off because the glue adheres to it. The
stickers are top tier and phenomenal. The can
-shaped glass is probably my favorite drinking
glass I've ever had. Mostly because it has the
Botches logo on it. Yeah, mostly because of the
Botches logo. And I do plan on getting some t
-shirts and hoodies in there here soon. It's
getting to be that camping season where people
are going to want that kind of gear anyway. Yep.
And so I should have that stuff up soon. And
yeah, check out the store. There's cool stuff
there. And lots and lots of stuff to come. Yeah.
Now, we should talk about our Botches yearly
t -shirt. Yes. So, starting this year, as a group,
we've decided to do a goofy t -shirt for Botches
members. This year's, which I'll have, Mark will
put this as chapter art, don't worry. Yep. This
year's t -shirt is a very ugly Hawaiian t -shirt
with cartoon versions of our trucks all over
it. Yep. And then the left sleeve is a sticker
bomb to match my driver's side fender. It doesn't
match my driver's side fender, but the idea is
the same. It's just a sticker bomb. Yep. But
they're super goofy. It was very fun wearing
those on Saturday. It was. And next year's t
-shirt, I can't. I think what I'm going to do
is I'll add the Hawaiian shirt to the store next
year. Yeah. So that way, if listeners want one
of our ugly t -shirts, they can buy it, the previous
year's t -shirt. Yep. But our idea for next year's
t -shirt, I got to mess around with that because
that's going to be freaking sick. It will be.
I can't wait for next year's. The botches are
going classy next year. Yes. Not trashy. We don't
believe in trashy here. Ignore our Hawaiian shirts.
Those are kind of trashy, but we love it. No,
we're going full on class. Yep. All right, well,
I think that about wraps up our weekend updates
and other fun stuff. So stay tuned, guys. We
got lots of stuff coming up. I'm sorry Gavin's
not here today. He just told us last minute he's
feeling, in his words, sick as fuck. So I'm assuming,
knowing Gavin, he woke up late, he stubbed his
toe, and just said, you know what? Fuck those
guys. We love you, Gavin. So. All right. Well,
catch you later. Later.