100% agree. Really appreciate your message.
Tell us something about your special journey
When I moved to Chilliwack, BC, which is an area very close to some spectacular wilderness and awesome 4x4 trails, we decided we needed to get a new vehicle that was better on gas than the mini van I was driving at the time. The 4x4 aspect was secondary to the primary concern of a fuel efficient car that could fit at least 5 passengers and would be good for practical purposes like shopping, commuting, etc.
As we were looking around, a 1st gen CR-V came available locally for $1800 which was and still is a spectacular price for that vehicle.
Here's the build thread for it:
Hello all, Figured I'd start a build thread even though not a ton of progress has been made on this rig of mine. I figure it's as much a "to do" list for me as it is sharing my journey building up the CR-V with you guys. My rig is, as mentioned, a '99 CR-V. The CR-V debuted in 1997 and...
www.overlandbound.com
In practice, I found that the Realtime 4wd system worked far better than I ever thought it would given how it's designed, and that rig was able to get me into some insane places, to the top of mountains, deep in the bush, far from any paved road, and most of those adventured happened even before it had a lift and significantly oversized tires. Technically the first AT tires I bought were "oversized" but barely.
In 2019, it took me on a once in a lifetime trip to Kitsault, BC, probably the youngest and best preserved ghost town in Canada:
Hello all! Finally found a few moments to get started on a trip report of our recent expedition to Northwestern BC, to the ghost towns of Kitsault and Alice Arm. The idea for this trip began over a year ago when I first heard about Kitsault. Founded back in 1981 by Amax Mining Corporation...
www.overlandbound.com
Then in 2021, it took it's last major expedition across Northern BC
Hello Overland Bound! I wanted to share my trip from late summer of 2021 with you all. I did a 5 day trip in 2019 to some ghost towns here in Northern BC, and having been more or less prevented from doing a major trip in 2020 due to Covid and other issues, I was determined to get one done in...
www.overlandbound.com
There were many small trips and overnighters in between, and through it all, I really learned to appreciate the brilliance of the design of the RD1 CR-V. It was designed as an all around car that could do "some off roading" but the places it went and the obstacles it overcame far exceeded that goal. Very often I would get astonished looks from guys driving jeeps and other similarly capable rigs. One of the most frequent questions was "You drove that thing all the way up here?!"
Sadly when I moved to Alberta, I was forced to part with Ganbaru due to a snapped timing belt during the drive and other factors.
As we moved to an acreage, I replaced it with a pickup truck, a 2006 Dodge Dakota I named "Rumble" due to the loud rumble its V8 makes when the flex pipe replacing the stolen cat rusts out lol
This was how it looked basically stock, right after putting bigger tires on:
And how it looks now with my DIY setup:
It's old and rusty and has 365k+ kms, but it's still rolling strong, taking me on adventures AND hauling stuff around :)
EDIT: Almost forgot, here's the build thread for Rumble:
2006 Dodge Dakota Quad Cab 4wd SLT - "Rumble"
www.alu-cab.com
