[bondvagabond]

Well, the project moved forward, been working on the cabin this summer like a demon and haven't been posting much.

Traded a sailboat for a 650cc dual sport (street legal dirtbike) got 55.45 for my many tank average if I stayed below 65mph. Thought I was doing great till I figured out 200bucks in tires every 5000miles, 500 miles between oil changes.... a lot more maintenance intensive than a car. and if I stayed under the gvwr I could only have 160lbs of gear besides myself.

So I swapped it last monday for a suzuki samurai, traded strait across, so I only have a few hundred in it. drove 240miles home with 4 steep 2000ft gain passes, and got 31.54 mpg, going off what google maps says the route is, since the speedo is disconnected and with oversize tires it wouldn't be accurate anyway. not too shabby. My parents live 5 miles from a 4 acre samurai only wrecking yard, so I got a used soft top for 50 bucks and patched 2 small holes in it with sail repair tape.

Oh, and it is on 225/75/r15's so like 28.5x8.5inch tires too! way bigger than stock.

I've got to fix the heater blower switch, and get a new water temp sensor and I'm good to go.

I'm thinking:
High lift jack instead of winch, can be used for two things, less likely to crap out on you, and with a 1900lb "truck" it should be easy.

All terain tires and chains instead of mud tires, truck already has them on with 2000 miles out of 50000, so good real economy to use them. Real truck chains can be used in mud as well as snow and work better than anything but tractor tires with 5 inch lugs. Lower rolling resistance

some sort of aero fastback top, either a stinger or a complete top. Interestingly to me, when I made my road trip home in it, the top was sucked up at highway speeds (into a more aero shape?)

thinking of useing webbing instead of tow chain for self extraction, the good tubular rockclimbing stuff, I have a huge wad of it, and it is much lighter/more compact than chain, will have to investigate further, again the 1900lb truck makes me think of this.

Bailing on the spool, but from a steering effort angle rather than safety, I'll start with a lock right locker in front, so it will have zero effect on road handleing unless hubs are locked. they are down to about 200bucks

Oh, a tuneup, that's right, I did 31.54 over the mountains with old nasty plugs/wires/ who knows what timeing etc.

I'm going to throw a k&n air filter on, not because they are the golden fleece, but because I literally pulled a new in box one out of the garbage, now that is economy.

Early sidekicks/trackers have a exhaust manifold that will bolt up to a 1.3 samurai motor. They are a long tube good scavenging style, that should give good torq. Am I right that if you can get torq improvement without using more fuel you get to upshift sooner and save gas? I could get one at the wrecking yard for 26bucks.

Have a dumpstered 12volt radiator fan. will see if I can rig it up to get rid off the mech. fan.

they are so little you can get a nice manifold back performance exhaust for 230 bucks, they have one that bolts to the tracker/sidekick upgraded exhaust manifold I was talking about, since I don't have welding capabilities right now.

been working on getting my tool kit paired down to the bare minimum without leaving anything out. to save weight.