Preparations Continue

It's all about preparation (not -H, unless you need it). FJ Cruiser comes pretty much ready for expeditions and driving off-road, if you are not going far, for those short weekend runs. If you are planning anything little more extensive, well you have to modify and prepare the truck.

I probably ran through 15-20 different scenarios on how far should I take modifications of the stock FJ Cruiser and I decided that since this mission will be more of exploratory than climbing rocks, I don't need heavy duty mods just yet. So, I settled for brand new tires Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo P265/70R17, set of 4 (see image above). In order to have 2 full spare tires, I bought steel 17" wheel from Toyota and I mounted one of the original tires on it, other 3 I stored.

Now, anyone driving FJ Cruiser has to complain about how small the tank is, since on average I can get about 220-280 miles per tank without draining it. That is all fine and dandy as I said for short trips when your next gas station is 40 miles away. How do you prepare for distances where your next gas station is 240 miles? In order to make sure I can cover 480 miles (round trip between Coldfoot, AK and Deadhorse, AK aka Prudhoe Bay, AK) I needed to get my hands on couple of Scepter MFC CARB-compliant Jerry style gas cans. And how do I carry all this? Well, since my truck came with roof rack (the first FJ Cruisers were loaded with option packages) I tried to stick with it, and I bought Yakima Mega-Warrior. I found out that I can fit tire and 3 gas cans comfortably (see image to the left and little above).


With some help (thanks Milan and Aidan) I was able to mount Yakima Mega-Warrior onto the front part of the factory roof rack. I had to move crossbars a little back to fit it, but I think it worked out okay in the end. It does look little bulky, hey factory roof is already taller than on most vehicles but when I tried it out on highway, there was practically no noise increase at 70 mph. Here you can see the end result, with Aidan in the shot.

Over all it was a fine Saturday afternoon to do some upgrades on the truck. There are only 10 more days before I leave for the expedition across Northwestern parts of United States and Canada and couple of more modification have to happen. I am expecting locking mechanism for the Mega-Warrior, spare tire carrier, Hi-Lift Jack carrier, shovel carrier as well as new set of snow chains. I am leaving you for now with few more shots of the last weekend preparations.