u/Fast-Dinner-5357

i’m always surprised by how little things can affect an entire day on the trail. a better pair of socks, adjusting your pack properly, bringing something you actually enjoy eating, or having a comfortable layer for when you stop

none of these sound particularly important when packing, but they can make a long hike feel completely different.

what’s one small thing you never forget to bring now?

Got the floor pans welded in on the 240sx and now working through the prep sequence before paint. Patches are ground flush, bare metal is clean. The question is where seam sealer fits relative to epoxy primer.

My current plan is to hit the bare metal with epoxy primer first to lock out moisture, then apply seam sealer over the primed surface at the seams and lap edges, then another coat of epoxy or high build over that before topcoat.

The counterargument I keep running into is that seam sealer should go directly on bare metal so it bonds to the substrate rather than sitting on primer. Some people treat the primer as a contamination layer for sealer adhesion. I haven't found a consistent answer, and the product data sheets I've pulled give different guidance depending on the brand.

Curious what people have actually done on floor pan replacements specifically, where moisture intrusion is the real concern. Not talking about exterior seams you can keep an eye on. These are interior seams going under carpet and won't be touched again for years.

If your answer is brandspecific, include the sealer and primer combination if you can, because that pairing seems to be where the real variation is.

Looking at picking up a second vehicle, something more reliable for long road trips while the project truck stays home or goes to the shop. The problem is every used car in my price range has some level of rust and nobody seems to agree on where the line is.

Frame rust versus surface rust is the obvious starting point, but even that gets murky fast. I've seen people wave off significant frame pitting and I've seen others walk away from surface oxidation on body panels like it's a death sentence. There's no consistent standard I can find, at least not one with any real data behind it.

The car I'm looking at right now has visible rust along the rear subframe mounting points. Not throughandthrough but not cosmetic either. Seller says it's been treated and sealed. I have no way to verify that without pulling it up on a lift, which I may try to arrange.

What I actually want to know is what specific locations disqualify a car for you without any further consideration, and what you're willing to treat and live with. Frame rails, subframe mounts, floor pans, rockers, where do you personally draw the hard line and why. Bonus points if you've had something fail that you thought was borderline and turned out not to be.

sprung truck and trying to nail down where the practical limit is before a spring swap stops being optional and starts being necessary. Not talking about aesthetics or lift height, talking about actual loss of traction or axle bind on uneven terrain where the rear just can't keep up with what the front is doing.

Context: weekend trail use, nothing expeditionlevel, mostly Colorado and Utah terrain. Rocky shelf roads and the occasional moderate obstacle. Not doing Wheeler Lake lines regularly but I want the rig capable if it comes up.

What I keep running into is people jumping straight to coilovers or a full SAS without being able to say at what point the leafs actually failed them on the trail. There has to be a threshold and I want data points, not just upgrade culture.

If you run leafs and have backtoback comparisons on the same trails before and after a swap, that is exactly what I am looking for. Specific obstacles, specific failure modes. The flex shot posts are useful but they don't tell me what the truck could not clear that day.

Anyone running addaleafs or rearches as a middle step before a full swap, curious how that held up under actual load.

Lost about 30lbs over the last year and my old pack is sitting noticeably different on my hips now. The hip belt that used to land right on the iliac crest is riding up and loading into my lumbar instead. I can feel it on trips over 8 miles with a loaded pack around 25lbs. Shoulder straps are also gapping in ways they weren't before.

I've read the standard advice about getting refitted at an outfitter and I get the logic. What I'm less clear on is whether a refit on the same pack actually solves it, or whether the torso length and hip belt size are just wrong now and a different pack is the real answer. Some packs have swappable hip belts and some don't, so this isn't a universal fix.

Curious if anyone has gone through a significant body composition change and actually tested the same pack refitted versus moving to a different pack. Not looking for general pack recommendations. More interested in whether the refit was enough to fix load transfer and hot spots, or whether you ended up switching anyway after throwing money at adjustments first. Specific packs and what changed would be useful if you have it.

Eight months into the 240sx project and the floor pans are patched. Moving into suspension now and hitting the usual decision paralysis. The stock KYB setup is tired but not destroyed. Bushings are original and cracked through on the rear subframe mounts. Control arm bushings are soft but the arms themselves are straight.

The question is whether it makes more sense to rebuild the stock geometry with fresh bushings and shocks before I know where the build is going long term, or just commit to coilovers now and stop doing things twice.

My hesitation with coilovers at this stage is that I haven't settled on final ride height or tire sizing, and I don't want to buy something midrange and swap it out again in a year. My hesitation with refreshing stock is that I'm spending money on a setup I'll probably replace anyway.

The car does get driven on mountain roads and occasionally to trailheads for day hikes, so ride quality isn't irrelevant here. This is not a dedicated track build. Long stretches of uneven road matter.

For anyone who has done the rebuiltstock route on an S13 before eventually going coilovers: was the intermediate step worth it, or just a waste of money? I genuinely want to know if there's a meaningful structural argument for it, or if it's purely a timing and budget call.

Year make model engine: 2005 Honda CRV 2.4 K24A1, 140k miles. Use this as my camping and trail access rig so the trans gets worked moderately hard on inclines.

Previous owner clearly never touched the ATF. It was dark brown with a slightly burnt smell. Did a single drain and fill with Honda DW1 per the capacity spec, about 3 quarts out. Shifts were smooth before. Now 12 and 23 upshifts feel slightly jerky at light throttle, not violent but noticeable where it wasn't before.

The fluid that came out was dark but not black, no metal visible on the drain plug, no codes. Torque converter lockup feels normal at highway speed.

The common answer online is that disturbing old fluid dislodges debris and causes this, but that explanation is vague and I want to know if anyone has actually resolved this by doing sequential drain and fills spaced out over a few hundred miles versus one larger flush. Also whether Honda DW1 versus a compatible substitute like Valvoline MaxLife ATF actually matters here or if that's mostly forum tribalism.

Gen 2 CRV trans aren't known to be fragile but I want a real answer on what to expect and whether this resolves on its own or gets worse.

Been dealing with a recurring issue on longer backpacking trips, specifically on sustained downhill stretches over 1000ft or more. The outside of the knee flares up around mile 8 or 9 on day two. Flat terrain is fine. Uphills are fine. It's the eccentric load on the descent that gets it.

I've adjusted pack weight, currently sitting around 22lbs with water. Trekking poles help somewhat but the relief is inconsistent depending on how aggressively I'm using them. I've tried shortening pole length on descents specifically and that made a noticeable difference in a few cases but not all.

The terrain matters too. Loose scree versus packed dirt versus rooted trail all seem to demand different things from the knee even at the same grade, and I haven't found a clean pattern yet in terms of what surfaces are better or worse.

What I'm actually curious about is whether people have found specific footwear changes, stack height, heel drop, outsole stiffness, made a real difference on multiday descents. Not asking about general hiking boot recommendations. More interested in whether anyone has done backtoback trips with meaningfully different shoes and noticed a clear change in knee behavior on descents. Anecdotal is fine as long as it's specific.

Alt titles: Anyone tracked knee pain on descents across different footwear setups | Descent knee pain on backpacking trips, footwear actually a factor | What shoe changes have genuinely helped your knees on long downhills

Picked up a 1991 240sx hatch about eight months ago with the plan of doing a full shell refresh before touching the drivetrain. Figured I'd document the floor pan situation before getting into it, because honestly the extent of it surprised me even though the car looked solid from the outside.

Both front floor pans are rusted through in the corners near the rocker junction. Passenger side is worse. Previous owner clearly let water sit in the footwell for a while. The structural pieces underneath look intact, which is the one saving grace here.

My plan is to cut back to clean metal and patch weld rather than go the filler route. I have a decent Lincoln wire feed and have done smaller patches before, but nothing this size. The temptation to just buy preformed replacement panels is real, but I haven't been able to confirm they fit without significant trimming regardless.

What I actually want to know is whether anyone has gone through preformed floor pan replacement on an S13 and whether the fitment on those aftermarket sections is close enough to justify the cost difference versus fabbing patches. Also curious if anyone has dealt with the rocker connection point specifically, because that junction is what concerns me most structurally.

Pictures in the comments once I get the carpet fully stripped this weekend.

Alt titles: S13 floor pan replacement: preformed panels worth it or just fab patches? | 240sx shell refresh: floor pan rust worse than expected | Preformed floor pan fitment on S13: actually accurate or constant trimming?

Year/make/model/engine: 2003 Toyota 4Runner 4.0 V6 1GRFE, roughly 187k miles. This is a project/daily hybrid I use for road trips and trail runs, so I want to understand what I'm actually dealing with before I throw money at it.

Cold start rattle from what sounds like the top end, lasts maybe 3 to 5 seconds then disappears completely. Oil pressure comes up fast on the gauge. Ran it for a while on 5W30 conventional and the rattle was present. Changed to 5W30 full synthetic and it went quiet for about 6 weeks. Now it's back.

The temporary fix after the oil change makes me think this is a VVTi gear or timing chain tensioner starved for oil at startup, rather than a worn chain itself, but I want a second read on that. The 1GRFE has a known history with this from what I can find

VVTi actuator replacement versus tensioner replacement versus both is the question. The actuator is the more expensive route, obviously. For anyone who has done this job on a 1GRFE: did cleaning the actuator screen actually hold long term, or did it come back and require full replacement? Looking for real outcomes, not theoretical fixes