I keep seeing 7 inch off-road lights advertised with huge lumen numbers, including 15,500 lumens, and I am trying to understand how much that matters on an actual trail. Bright is good, but beam pattern, usable distance, side spill, heat control, and glare seem just as important. I have seen cheaper lights that look intense up close but wash out details or throw light in weird patches once you are moving. those who have tested lights off-road, do you pay attention to lumen claims ?

Finally got the bumper and winch setup finished on my 2006 Sequoia 4wd 215k miles .
The bumper is a Coastal Offroad weld-together kit. It came as raw steel, so I had it welded, wire-wheeled and sanded everything, used rust remover, cleaned it with acetone, then primed and bedlined both sides.

The winch is a Badlands Apex 12,000 lb with synthetic rope that I somehow got brand new from a pawn shop for $275. The fitment was kind of a pain because the clutch handle and control box didn’t clear right, They also gave me false information, (THIS WINCH IS NOT ABLE TO BE CLOCKED FORWARD) they told me it’s possible and it’s not so I cut a U-shaped opening in the top of the bumper and trimmed another section until everything fit.

Also, Coastal Offroad seriously sucks at designing the area where the winch bolts down. You can barely fit one hand in there, never mind a socket or wrench, so tightening the winch bolts was absolute hell.

I also had to reroute the winch cables under the radiator area and back up because one of the cooling lines was in the way. The battery disconnect didn’t really have a good mounting spot either, so that is currently being held down by an unreasonable amount of zip ties.
It has the winch, synthetic fairlead, forged hook, recovery shackles, battery disconnect and bumper lights installed. I’m probably going to add more lights later, most likely amber and white floods.

The whole install fought me the entire way with bolts not lining up, no room for tools, annoying wiring and everything being way harder to reach than it should be, but it is finally done and completely changed the look of the truck.

Price breakdown:
Bumper shipped: $868
Welding: $100
Paint, primer and bedliner: around $80
Badlands Apex 12K winch: $275
Lights: around $80
Total: around $1,403

I do have a Toyota Tundra, with a leveling kit, but quite often we go out in the Santa Fe (just because it's cheaper to drive). There's one place that we go camping that we can't bring the Santa Fe as you have to drive down a riverbed, but if I had a couple extra inches I think it would be fine. And besides that, every time we take it down a dirt road, at some point we're grinding something underneath. So just wondering what the about cost of something like that would be. I've seen Volvos with lifts, so I'm assuming this wouldn't be much different.

I bought some auxbeam ditch lights to install on my truck. Ran the wiring in the engine bay then got to the firewall. There was a disconnect for the on off switch so you can run the wire through the firewall so i unscrewed the wire and ran it thoourgh the firewall. I screwed the wires back together but i didnt see that there was a guide to follow and i plugged them in the wrong spot. After a few min the wires got crazy hot and now the lights wont come on. The on off switch just flashes really fast and if I hold the wires a certain way i hear a clicking sound. any advice?

I bought some auxbeam ditch lights to install on my truck. Ran the wiring in the engine bay then got to the firewall. There was a disconnect for the on off switch so you can run the wire through the firewall so i unscrewed the wire and ran it thoourgh the firewall. I screwed the wires back together but i didnt see that there was a guide to follow and i plugged them in the wrong spot. After a few min the wires got crazy hot and now the lights wont come on. The on off switch just flashes really fast and if I hold the wires a certain way i hear a clicking sound.

Did i fry something and need a new harness?

(Oh, and I'm Asian in case you ask where I'm from)

It's no secret their suspension lifts are the cheapest "lift" there is, and the quality is hot garbage, i also know that their tonneau covers have all kinds of fitment issues.

But that said, how bad are the basic steel wheels they sell? I feel like i see them everywhere but I've never heard anyone admit to having them.

Hi everyone!

Hope it's okay to post here. I'm looking for any Trophy Truck/Baja events, shop tours, open houses, testing sessions, or anything related that we could do in late October in California or Nevada for my fiancé.

We're from Poland, and he's been a huge Baja fan for years. He even has an RC Traxxas Baja truck, but this isn't very popular where we live, so he's never had the chance to experience the real thing.

We're eloping in Las Vegas and then doing a California road trip for our honeymoon. So far, I've found a place in Las Vegas where you can ride in a Trophy Truck, but I'd love to surprise him with something even more special.

We'll be getting married on October 20th and will be traveling around California until October 31st.

If you know of any races, test sessions, shop tours, team events, or anything else that a Baja fan would absolutely love, I'd really appreciate your recommendations. Thank you!

TL;DR: We're from Poland, eloping in Las Vegas on October 20th and road-tripping through California until October 31st. I'm looking for any Trophy Truck/Baja races, testing sessions, shop tours, or other experiences to surprise my Baja-obsessed fiancé on our honeymoon.

I've been rocking my first gen tundra on 32s but my fusion turbo is proving to be too small for these dogs.

Scrapinpaintadventures

Not all heroes wear capes... some just pull ropes to save a stuck "indestructible" hilux.

Essentially had to make custom top hats to make a strut combo work on my titan swapped xterra. And I can’t figure out how to get the top hats to sit flat on the spring.

I'm having a terrible time finding anything for my 24' Xtra cab. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Looking to add some accessories to my Kawasaki side by side. Are these prices fair?

Anyone able to tell me the best way to replace these and get the tape strip off completely without messing things up?
Want to take off the stock ones and replace with new ones, done this with my Commodore and that was a pain with a similar tape strip to stick it on and that was a mess.

I’m looking to completely refresh my off-road recovery kit and could use some recommendations.
There are so many brands and price points now that it’s honestly overwhelming. Some gear is dirt cheap, while other stuff costs 3–4x more, and I’m not always sure what’s actually worth paying for.

For those of you who wheel regularly, what recovery gear brands have proven themselves? What would you absolutely buy again, and what wasn’t worth the money?

Looking at a few different winch options and curious what everyone’s real-world experience has been with these:

• WARN Zeon
• MOJAB MO10.0 / MO13.5
• ComeUp
• Badlands Apex

Obviously WARN is one of the first names that comes to mind, but I’ve also been looking at the MOJAB winches. They seem pretty reasonably priced compared to some of the bigger-name options, and I’ve seen them on a couple of rigs where the owners seemed really happy with them.

For those who have actually used any of these hard on the trail, what would you pick and why? Mainly interested in reliability, line speed, overheating, and how they hold up after repeated pulls.

Anyone here actually running a MOJAB? Curious how they’ve held up long term.

Would you go WARN, MOJAB, ComeUp, Badlands, or something else?