LX450

Got a good pose shot last weekend tho ;)

Got a set of 33" Bfgoodrich All-Terrain KO's (285/75-R16) installed today at NS OR.

The truck still drives very smooth and can rip around corners. It feels very se cure. Seems a good combination with them and the OME lift kit.

Had North Shore Off Road install a 2.5" OME kit today. Very pleasant results so far..

• No noticable decrease in drivability
  
• Fine at highway speeds
  
• Truck "feels" a fair amount larger - but not harder to control
  
• Still not too hard to get into (my 6 year old may not agree here)
  
• OME kit has very good articulation
  
• Truck has a very smooth ride on and off road
  

I did about 400 km this weekend on it, including at least 100km of gravel road and 15km of very rough terrain. We had no problems.

Here are some pics of the truck "stretching" the kit :) I broke the rear mud guard doing this so the mud guards are now removed from both sides.

Our family appears to be "hooked" on sleeping on/in vehicles once we realized how much less stressful it is to camp without any &*(@#&*% poles or pegs or any nasty contraptions like that.

After a bit of thought it seems the easiest way to do this is fabricate a board that runs right across the front seats. It can rest on the drivers & passenger side door handles. By mounting it there it will clear the shifter and remove any danger of the shifter being moved during the night. This should also allow it to clear the middle console, but worst case that console can be left open at which point its clearance is much lower.

The only drawback is that the doors must remain shut while it is in place. But if you know any 6 year old boys you will realize they don't object to having to climb over seats to do anything. It seems to be a source of entertainment for them, even..

This is my best shot at a diagram:



Once the wood piece is fabricated I need to join front & rear "mounts" for it to sit on the different heighted front & rear portion of the handrests. These will then be felted to avoid damage/scuffing the interior. Add a trimmed foamy and a child and we're set.

We will then test it out and if it works like a charm, cut it in half, add a hinge (for easier carting around), and cover in matching leather to the interior..

This will then allow Jacklynn and myself to sleep in the rear of the truck on a 4" foam mattress by shutting the top gate, but leaving the bottom gate open for extra foot clearance for me, and a bit of fresh air.
Update:

This was quite easily assembled and worked quite well.

Here is the board in place:

Other side:

Top view of fit on door handle:

All set-up and ready for use:


The rear sleeping quarters:

When I took the lexus out last saturday night for some quick sand dune wheeling I was horrified with the lack of headlight created light! Absolute amazement washed over me that they could be this bad. After some research on the super informational ih8mud it turns out that for a measly $20 per bulb you can replace your stock bulbs with a new fangled HIR (Halogen Infrared) bulb. This yields up to 88% more light I am told. HIR has a different shaped tube you can see here:
New unit is on the left hand side:

Here you can see the "large" tab on the left unit which has to be filed/snipped off to fit:

After dismantaling my entire front grill last week I realized you only need to reach in behind the headlamp assembly and un-twist your low beam in order to do this switch on the driver side. For the passenger side you have to only remove a coolant bottle. No screws at all.

Also it turned out that the poor lighting on the road was due to one of the stock low-beam bulbs being burnt out (whoops).
Stock on right. Bright on left:

Both on brights:

Regardless you can see the difference these make.

Comparison (It was more dramatic in real life. Unfortunately my camera has a "light balancing feature" that has diminished the results.
For full information you can visit ih8mud.com FAQ 80 & 100 Series Headlamp and Auxilary Lights. Props to cary over there for such a complete write-up.

After getting sick of seeing the truck look so heavy it was time to start pulling off some of the Lexus add-ons that are not so worthy. First step - the huge clumbsy steps.

I took the truck to my dads shop and got very dirty doing this. I was kicking myself for not washing the underside of the truck before climbing under it for a few hours.

Each side removed very easily (the arm that reaches up vertically under the truck is the easiest to un-bolt it) other than the very last 2 bolts at the rear end of each step. We ended up having to remove the step from its arm (broke 3 different ratchet adapters doing so we had to use so much torque to undo those bolts), and then remove the mounting bracket by itself. The rear bolts are so tight in there you couldn't fit:

- a ratchet with no extension (due to a flange)
- a ratchet with an extension (too long - can't fit it in there)
- a crescent wrench (again due to flange)
- etc..

So as before we finally removed the step from its bracket, and then used the bracket itself for the first un-twist of the bolts at which point a vice-grip worked.

Frustrating!

On the plus side the truck (agreed by whole family) is easier to get in and out of without the clumbsy step. And it really shows just how much clearance they packed into this truck.

Front corner view:

Ground view: