I'm a test driver!

So I responded to an invitation to be an official reviewer of the Nitto Terra Grappler all-terrain tires a few weeks back while perusing ClubFrontier.org. Low  and behold, the selection committee chose me to receive a free set of tires to review. I was a little worried maybe I was being Phished or that maybe there'd be some hidden catch. No catch. I provided a gentleman with my address over email and the tires arrived just yesterday. I was so AMPED. Anyway, I need to get these bad boys mounted and start driving.

I'm supposed to post a review every 3,500 miles and have them rotated at that frequency as well. That portion is on my dime. It's a bit more frequently than I would customarily rotate my tires (usually at oil changes closer to every 7,000 miles. But maybe that's why my stock tires are so beat. I've racked up just under 50K miles in this first 15 months or so of ownership. It might have been one of the selling factors to the committee...this young man puts some MILES on his truck.

 

So once I heard of the selection, I ordered these decals. They fatefully  arrived the same night as the tires. I took this as a sign that I needed to immediately wash the doors, windshield, and tailgate in order to affix these decals. I left the rest of the truck filthy.

 

Can't wait to get the tires mounted.

 

I'm nearing 1000 page visits, which is pretty cool. Spread the word to a friend or maybe leave a comment. I'm hoping to turn this into like a Travel Channel thing where I've got some sponsorships and am road-testing equipment. That would be a lot of fun. Here's to hoping...and grinding.

 

 

Not evident in the above photo is my latest endeavor. Although the Swing-Out Carrier was 'functional', in practice it was a bit cumbersome to operate. I had to unlink the safety chain, swing out the arm, lower the gate, pull the cargo box out and then repeat the reverse essentially to load things back in. That might not be so bad, except for the fact that the whole assembly was VERY heavy. I'm already eyeing an additional add-a-leaf, but to carry that added weight would have made it an absolute necessity. So to shed some of that weight, I've been working on a tailgate mounted rear tire carrier and jerry can mounting bracket. Now, the tailgate will need some sort of lift-assist to resist the added weight when letting it down. But other than that, it helps to shed significant weight while still giving me the option to have a secondary location to mount a spare. I'll do a build thread once I'm done. The project is installed, but I haven't finished the bracket for the jerry can. Also, none of the welds are ground and I haven't painted it. I need to get to it soon before it gets all rusted out.

 

It's the end of the semester and holidays are right around the corner. I'm looking to finish up that build up by my birthday hopefully.

 

Keep on truckin'!

 

(lame)

 

-will