Recent content by socal66

My first "real" overloading vehicle was a 2000 Dodge Dakota Quad Cab which shared the same platform as the Durango. The only "mods" that I did was put on good all terrain tires and install a tonneau cover over the bed to keep all my gear out of the elements. I was able to take it really much...

Well the floodgates definitely seemed to have opened. Getting messages from January that I had received before so hopefully everything gets back to square one after the queue is finished.

We have a monthly overlanding group meetup every third Thursday in the San Gabriel Valley at 6PM. More info about our meetups can be found here. We have about two dozen active members and about half of us make it to these meetups. We also try to arrange a group trip each month. This time of...

I have a Jeep that has the same requirements for needing to pack things small. I use one of the Stanley nesting cookouts such as this: https://a.co/d/7NArTqA They have other sets with different combinations but we use this one and removed the plastic dishes/bowls/utensils and used the freed...

And Overland Expo has now added another regional show for Southern California at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds in March. https://www.overlandexpo.com/socal/ Both this show and the show Scott previously listed have on sale tickets thru tonight 12/31.

Another observation: Yesterday I had received a number of e-mail notifications for forum updates one right after the other but the forum updates had occurred sporadically throughout the day. It's like the e-mail notifications are being held in a queue somehow and periodically released as...

I looks like the OB1 notification on this message you left is now timely but the e-mail notification is still an hour-ish behind. I received that at 7:29 PT.

For the past few weeks notifications on watched threads or messaging updates seem to be lagging by around 12 hours for both OB1 notifications and e-mail notifications.

I have the plain 3.6L in my Wrangler but from my research and observations of others’ 2.0L rigs: 1. The 2.0L turbo will have more get up and go and is faster off the line than the 3.6L. More HP and torque. 2. The 2.0L is more “high strung” and “whiney” to some when you’re pushing it up a...

This is a real good question that I am also interested in. It has been my understanding that it is very difficult to impossible for foreigners to enter China with their vehicle and drive there without going through a lot of process and logistics that all but discourages that from happening...

I have an AEV Dualsport lift kit for my Wrangler and have been pretty happy with it both off and on road and with how it handles a full load in the cargo bay and on the roof rack. This suspension is more focused on vehicles carrying additional weight and not just pure rockcrawling. They also...

Thanks Kent for sharing the links to the rally points for the upcoming Mojave event. These events are always a good opportunity to meetup with folks from the other groups in the region, do some wheeling in interesting areas, and help out our park service on various projects. I think we have...

When I’m not carrying my roof top tent and traveling with the Gazelle I honestly just strap it down in its bag on my rack and have had no issues over the couple of years I have had it and the many trips that I have taken it on.

As of now there hasn’t been any discussion/plans in the next group outing for the month. I’m going on a separate outing that month for about a week and then will be out of the country for parts of October/November so I may not be available for an outing for a couple of months. There is a...

These days most new vehicles sold in America don’t have major reliability gaps vs other makes sold here. If you are buying used the way that the prior owner(s) used/abused/maintained the vehicle will have much more impact on overall reliability vs. the initial build quality anyway. That said...