Off-Road/Garage

I often joke that in college I would take my first car, a ‘96 Mazda Miata, places Jeeps shouldn’t have gone. That’s of course a slight exaggeration, but on more than one occasion I balanced that car on only the two opposite corner tires.

I learned to do an oil change and other light maintenance with my grandfather when I was a kid. He wanted to make sure us kids knew how to work, and it was also a good excuse to get some help.

I really started wrenching on that Miata though. Doing slightly more complex jobs like replacing my brakes, and installing stereos, speakers, and lighting. I installed a CD changer in the trunk and made a carpeted false floor to cover and protect it!

In 2012 my wife and I had moved on to a Ford Escape and it was on its last legs. We were looking for something similar and happened upon a 2012 Nissan Xterra. When I crawled underneath it I realized it was a truck based body-on-frame SUV, a dinosaur! It became the catalyst for us to get back out camping again!

The off-roading bug bit pretty quickly after that. The weekend after we had passed the 1200 mile break-in period we were off on a trail 3 hours from home. Shortly after that we attended our first off roading event, and a month after that I had found a club for us to join.

I’m not going to claim to be a hardcore mechanic or fabricator because I’m not. I have a ton to learn. But I am an enthusiast tackling projects I feel comfortable tackling. And along the way inevitably coming up with some gadgets to make our trips more enjoyable, like a vibration isolated GoPro mount or an easier to use setup on my air compressor for airing up tires. Of course I’m also tackling custom upgrades to the garage itself too, whether it’s an easy drain for my shop compressor or a storage rack for paint or lumber.

So here is where I document my little projects to help me out off road, in preparation for the next trip, or just to make my time in my garage more enjoyable.