So heres my story, and what I want to do. Id like some of you veteran Overlanders to lend me some advice.
I live out in the cornfields in Nebraska and have myself a 2006 Silverado 2500HD gasser 4x4 extended cab, and it serves its duty as my daily driver and farm hauler. It sees hay bales and trailers often enough that I dont want to mess it up with things such as lifts, etc.
What I would like to do, is be able to take it on roadtrips to places such as Colorado (probably be the most common, as its not too far at about 8 hours away) and farther south west like Arizona, and instead of staying in a lame hotel, take the truck off the beaten path a bit and do some camping. Obviously being big and heavy, and staying on stock suspension (which is IFS) its not going to go too far, but thats ok, Im not trying to climb mount Everest here.
Im looking for some ideas on how to build up a little better set up vehicle for what I want to do, using what I have. I would love nothing more then to go buy a 80 series Landcrusier or something, but being only 24 and trying to save to buy a house, and a wedding next year, my funds are pretty limited. I think some pretty basic things would for sure have to happen - the factory shocks are getting pretty bad (truck has about 121k miles on it) so maybe some Ranchos? Or Bilsteins? I would also like some very low profile rock sliders, and probably a skidplate or two. As for a bit more involved, and farther down the road, I really want a rooftop tent (holy moly they are expensive tho!) that I would put over the bed of the truck. I think I could weld up a support that sits in the bed and would support the tent at the high of the bed sides, and use the space underneath for storage.
So, thoughts? Concerns? Does it sound like a waste of time with such a lightly modified pig of a machine? What else would you recommend I do? Better ideas? What could I do on the interior?
Thanks everyone.
I live out in the cornfields in Nebraska and have myself a 2006 Silverado 2500HD gasser 4x4 extended cab, and it serves its duty as my daily driver and farm hauler. It sees hay bales and trailers often enough that I dont want to mess it up with things such as lifts, etc.
What I would like to do, is be able to take it on roadtrips to places such as Colorado (probably be the most common, as its not too far at about 8 hours away) and farther south west like Arizona, and instead of staying in a lame hotel, take the truck off the beaten path a bit and do some camping. Obviously being big and heavy, and staying on stock suspension (which is IFS) its not going to go too far, but thats ok, Im not trying to climb mount Everest here.
Im looking for some ideas on how to build up a little better set up vehicle for what I want to do, using what I have. I would love nothing more then to go buy a 80 series Landcrusier or something, but being only 24 and trying to save to buy a house, and a wedding next year, my funds are pretty limited. I think some pretty basic things would for sure have to happen - the factory shocks are getting pretty bad (truck has about 121k miles on it) so maybe some Ranchos? Or Bilsteins? I would also like some very low profile rock sliders, and probably a skidplate or two. As for a bit more involved, and farther down the road, I really want a rooftop tent (holy moly they are expensive tho!) that I would put over the bed of the truck. I think I could weld up a support that sits in the bed and would support the tent at the high of the bed sides, and use the space underneath for storage.
So, thoughts? Concerns? Does it sound like a waste of time with such a lightly modified pig of a machine? What else would you recommend I do? Better ideas? What could I do on the interior?
Thanks everyone.