Cam's Garage

June 30, 2023 Death & Resurrection of the North American Land Cruiser The Toyota Land Cruiser is one of the most recognized and reliable vehicles ever produced. From the FJ20 series produced in the 1950's to the now modern 300 series, each edition has served as the industry bar in terms of reliability on a global scale. For example FJ70's are still for sale in Australia (designed in the 1970's), 80-Series are still heavily used as a desired off-road rig due to its solid front axle design, and the 100-Series is a million mile mall-crawling machine. So in 2021 when Toyota killed the Land Cruiser for the 300 series for the North American market (excluding the LX600), North American consumers (including myself) were not happy. Two weeks ago Toyota provided some new-found hope though as a Twitter post was published stating the Land Cruiser is coming back... Making Way for the Land Cruiser's Return While 2 years may seem short for the Land Cruiser to have been gone, T...

June 22, 2023 Shifting Priorities With the Cannonball Run being a short few weeks away and available time being at a seemingly all-time low, the last thing I need in my garage is a motorcycle (that I don't ride) sitting and rotting over the next month. For that reason, I decided to list the 1999 Kawasaki Vulcan 750 for sale. Listing the Vulcan I did some market research across Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for similar motorcycles in what I felt was comparable condition. I decided to set the price at $1,200 and added that I would be open to trades. Like most of my posts, it was simple and direct. Shortly after listing, the flurry of Facebook messages began. For those that have never placed something on the lower-end of the market on Facebook, your phone is essentially consumed by Facebook... My already slow iPhone XR became essentially inoperable... Within 24 hours I had over 70 messages from individuals making low-ball offers ranging from $500 cash to firearms to non-running ...

June 14, 2023 If you missed my last post on my latest purchase (a 1999 Kawasaki Vulcan that I picked up for $1), check it out here . After getting the motorcycle off the trailer (FYI these Harbor Freight trailers are fantastic), the first thing I did was break out the pressure washer to give this thing a formal spray down. I did what I could to avoid hitting the mechanical areas (engine, transmission, etc) directly just in case there was a significant leak. I was pretty impressed with the outcome after the 5 minute spray down: I am not a patient person. The next thing I did was roll the bike into the garage and immediately start thinking through what I should do. There's 4 things that are required to make something run: Air Fuel Spark Compression If you want a more thorough explanation on how these 4 required items, others can do a better job of breaking it down than I can. Here was one video that would be helpful: First thing I checked were the twin airboxes (one on each side). I...

  June 12, 2023 Let me paint a quick picture. It's summer time, the weather is beautiful, you have just sold your two latest projects ( Seadoo and 4Runner ), and your wife is leaving town for 2 weeks . You have a couple of options to fill the time during her absence: You perform the required chores around the house and focus on keeping the house immaculate (maybe even in better shape) for the duration of her trip You sit down, have an ice cold beer, and enjoy the projects that you already have (including potentially spending a day on the lake) You sit and play mindless video games You mindlessly search to find and purchase an unnecessary project to detract attention away from any required chores, while passing time in the fastest possible manner (because you miss your wife so much) If you selected option 4 , we are probably already friends. Within 1 hour of my wife leaving, I was en-route to pick up my latest purchase: 1999 Kawasaki Vulcan 750. Here was the ad on the motorcycle: I...

June 9, 2023 About three months ago, my friend Jake and I started planning for our Cannonball Run trip (feel free to read the background on that here ). While I had provided general information about the trip, a lot of the details were not included such as our vehicle of choice or our "official" route (which included changes as recently as June 8) and vehicle of choice. The Vehicle Let's think hypothetically for a moment. If you were trying to take a road trip across the United States, what would you want to drive? Would you want your own personal car? Would you want a large SUV to cram every item you own into it? Maybe a cheap car focused around getting the best fuel economy possible? How about a sports car to enjoy fast roads?  Well, we decided to go with a rental and our selection would make the Griswold's envious Our (current) vehicle of choice is a MINIVAN because what better way to spend an American vacation! So why did we pick a minivan? I receive a corporate d...