Finally time for a quick catchup! We’re already on the road heading south (stealing wi-fi in Florence, Oregon) but thought I should work on catching up this build a little bit!

The new engine was dropped in about 5 weeks ago, was broken in, and then dropped off at Disturbed Industries for a valve adjust and oil change. Since we were cutting it really close to our departure date I left Ryan to complete the fluid changes and do a full tuneup on the 22RE. We ended up replacing most of the vital engine sensors since they were all either not working at all or out of spec significantly. The thing runs like a dream! Well… a 100hp dream at least! A new flywheel, clutch, and radiator were installed at the same time as the engine.

I went to Home Depot armed with a quick sketch of the platform I wanted to build. They cut the 2x4s and plywood for me and I utilized my underground parking space to screw it together. After $70 and 45 minutes of my time I gained a bunch of space for storage. Nice. My grandiose plans for a sliding drawer and hinged/locked platform wasn’t in the cards this time.

A set of Trail Gear rock sliders and a rear bumper were bolted on as well. Looks like they shipped me the wrong bumper since it was too narrow to open the tailgate without hitting… nothing a sawzall couldn’t fix! Whoops!

Since I didn’t have access to a welder the week before departure so I ended up bolting together a roof rack out of angle iron and unistrut. It’s fine for now, but I expect I’ll be happier when I eventually weld it up.

Our Cascadia Vehicle Tent looks pretty good up there! Our ARB awning is bolted on the other side.

I’ll detail our Samlex inverter and solar install in a future post, but for now we’ve been on the road for about 5 days and are quickly chasing the sun! Check out our current location here: https://desktoglory.com/current-location/