airkewld4life

Well, my girlfriend (now my wife...got married while in TN) and I took a trip from Tucson, Arizona all the way to east Tennessee to the small town of Kingston where my parents live.

The trip was great on the way there. We encountered no hiccups except for the absurd gutlessness of my 3VZE going uphill. Aside from that the vehicle performed flawlessly and got better gas mileage than I had expected. I reckon we averaged about 19-21 mpg on the highway. She didn't burn any oil or leak any oil. Nothing broke on the way there so that made it a good trip. While we were there we drove the thing everywhere. Drove it from my folks house up to their cabin in Gatlinburg, all over Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville. It got driven up and down this gnarly hill to get to our cabin, and through the mud and muck all over the woods. All the while performing great. It was driven I don't know how many times to and from Rockwood, TN, Oak Ridge, TN, Knoxville, TN, and so and so on. I must say, it performed much better all around than I had anticipated.

While we were there, we took time out to go wheeling with my good friend Adam and his wife in his 89 4Runner. This was my first time wheeling in the 4Runner and man, what a blast. That was the most fun I've had wheeling in my life. It was just a great time and the 4Runner did so good in and out of 4wd.

It was such a great trip and time. We were gone for over 2 weeks and I wish I didn't have to leave. I love it there.

Almost forgot one thing. On our way back to Tucson I stopped to fuel up and smelled oil really strong at the back of the 4Runner and was like wtf. So, I kneeled down to look only to see gear oil slung all over everything. I immediately think pinion seal. So, I find a service station and he sends me to another place that only does tires and nothing else. Why he sent me there I don't know but I'm glad he did because there was a guy there that called this guy that could fix it for me. Well, I could of fixed it myself but was in need of a lift and this guy had it. He met me at the tire place, I followed him to his place, put my 4Runner up on his lift, his wife went and got me the new seal, we put it in and were on our way. It was quite the adventure. It was super nice of the guy and his wife to help like that and I was/am grateful for it. Good thing I was in Tennessee when that happened, people out west aren't so nice. There is a handful that are but it's rare.

Anyway, time for some pictures

Just a cool one my wife took


Our cabin and my Runner


A little flex


Some more flex


And still some more


Goin wheeling





Mud hole we had to go through







Just some random shots

hilandfrog

Congrats on the wife....

Nice looking rig, running well.

repo

airkewld4life

Why thank you on all accounts

ohyeahcrx

Good trip! Glad to see it went off without many hitches (except on the way back) How long of a drive was it? Did you just stay in the back of the runner to sleep? One of the many advantages to having a 4runner haha.

airkewld4life

The drive took us roughly 30 hours but that is with all the stops we made for gas and to eat and let the dogs out. I just reclined the passenger seat and she slept in the back seat with the dogs.

INFINITY

looked like fun, nice rig i have an identical one i could sell you right now.