It seems pretty clear that Toyota never meant the GX470 to be a hardcore off-roading vehicle of choice. It was designed as a suburban vehicle, with 3rd row seats, for families and snowy roads.

For me this is part of the allure; it’s atypical in the wild. It gets attention when it’s set up for true 4×4 adventures, but it takes work to get it there. Not because it’s not capable out of the box. It is!

As you may or may not know, it’s essentially a Toyota Prada 120 in the rest of the world. But here in North America it’s luxuried up with the Lexus badge and accruements. I do love those luxuries too! So to get this truck ready you have to do some things, and not unlike 4Runners and Tacomas, those things come from the aftermarket. The difference is that the Toyotas have tons of options, not only because there are so many more people building those out, but because those vehicles already are a lot of the way there.

If you want to build the GX470 up, you have to have some tenacity. This brings me to Front Recover Points.

You really can’t go off-roading without a way to get yourself unstuck. It’s essential. I looked around at the variants for hooking up recovery straps to the front of my GX. You could opt for a new front bumper with built in recovery points and the ability to mount a winch. There are a few steel ones, and at least one fabricated out of aluminum.

I was reluctant to replace the whole thing and add that weight into the front, ahead of the wheels. I just didn’t want to loose the excellent road manners and handling.

The aluminum one I came across was pretty nice, following the lines of the original bumper, but again it seemed like a lot, plus you had to trim the original bumper, which I wasn’t thrilled with what the results might end up like. I decided I would limit myself to recovery points, and maybe figure out a winch option later. That might be another post.

I only found 2 Front Recovery Point options: ARB and Treaty Oak Off-road. Both had pluses and minuses. The ARB looked truly hardcore and straight up ‘bolt on’. They were well over $200, but unavailable anywhere in the U.S.

So after searching I went with the Treaty Oak Off-road option. These cost $90. But…they are unpainted. I brought them to a local powder coat shop who sprayed them for $40 plus tax. I went with black since that was easiest and the most cost effective.

These also require one hole to be drilled. Treaty Oak includes instructions that are pretty easy to understand. The hole you need to drill out is actually the top through-hole for the upper bolt. One hole exists on the frame already, you just need to put the bit through the existing hole and drill straight so you have a through hole.

Seems easy enough. Wait. I found this to be rather difficult by myself. You have to remove radiator facia, and remove the radiator mounting bolts so you can lift the radiator up and out of the way to drill and put your bolts through. That was the real pain! I tired putting a piece of 2×4 under the front of the radiator, but I still needed to lift it more while at the same time, lying on my back, and drilling the hole!

Once I drilled my through hole, I painted it with some special primer, let it dry and then installed the recovery points.

I also bought a Bridle Recovery Strap. Each end attaches to the shackle and then you attach another recovery strap to the center of the bridle strap. This equalizes the load between the two recovery points.

These recovery points were tough to install. Now that it’s way behind me, I’m good with them. When going down a steep rocky ledge on the Poison Spider Trail in Moab, I dropped down a section of rock, the only thing that hit on the rock was my front recovery point. And they didn’t budge or have any effect.

I haven’t needed them for getting unstuck…yet. But the peace of mind is huge!

I discovered some really nice artwork/prints while visiting Topo in Denver CO. This is by Adam Ambro, he had a selection of artwork of Land Rovers and Land Cruisers on new paper…not the originals, but prints. Still very cool creative. Not many options for compelling off-road art you could or would actually hang on your wall.

While on a visit to LA I set up an appointment for a tour of the Icon 4×4 shop. This was an amazing place! Sorry, no pics allowed, but regardless, seeing them building their Broncos, custom derelicts, and the infamous FJs was really something.

I brought along some non-car, non-off road enthusiasts, who were all equally impressed! Love what Jonathan Ward has built!

First thing in the morning before my Icon 4×4 appointment, I drove out to visit Front Runner. These guys supply every kind of off road accessory for overlanding.

We took a road trip to Moab in May/June. I drove through Moab after I bought my truck in Arizona almost a year ago to-the-day, so this return was a bit of a pilgrimage. Moab is an off-roading Mecca, and an almost other-worldly beauty. My plan was to put myself and my rig to the test.

I did some upgrades, which are documented in my posts, and some add-ons to ensure my GX was ready and I was confident that I had the right preparations in place.

One upgrade I made was to remove the running boards and put on rock-sliders. In preparation for the rock-sliders, I took off the running boards right after I ordered them, breaking the job down into 2 segments. I’ll give more details on that later. The sliders are a necessity for off-roading and give you a lot of confidence that you can take on sketchy terrain without damaging your truck.

Here is a short video: This is day 1 in Moab, on Poison Spider Trail, when we drove up and encountered this “wall”. I hadn’t climbed anything like this before, and wasn’t sure of the GXs capability to handle it, but we went for it!

While the camera only captured a short segment, this wall went up for a bit with some really uneven rocky sections right after the initial accent. The GX470 took it with ease!

This ‘wall’ was a blast to drive up and then later, drive back down!

This was my first time taking my GX470 off-road! It was a friends’, uncles’ land with some hilly nice trails and streams to drive through. Nothing technical, but still a blast to drive around!

We also drove this amphibious vehicle around. This was a blast to drive and ride it, but it was a bear to handle! Steering is not like and ATV or anything else, but we all had a great time goingal l over the place with this monster.

As many of you know, the GX470 is a very capable hauler. My GX has a 6000lb tow capacity with the tow package already part of the vehicle…well, almost. Underneath it has everything you need to tow a trailer, except oddly enough, the actual hitch itself. I wanted to do this first as a rear recovery point, and secondarily as a trailer hookup

The wiring harness and trailer electrical plug is there, there is that removable section on the rear bumper that seems to be designed for removal when attaching a hitch. It’s not really. So when I wanted to add a hitch I had to dig around the internet to find out how to go about getting my rig trailer hook-up ready.

I discovered that there was a Toyota 4Runner hitch that fit the GX. I ordered that part along with 6 bolts for mounting. At this point my expectation was that it would mount to the part already on the GX underneath that plastic bump out section.

I expected to bolt on the new Toyota hitch to this pre-mounted part, underneath the bumper bump-out. That was not the case. While there are 4 holes with welded on nuts to attach something, that something was not the hitch I purchased.

Then I figured out that the hitch bolted on to the same spot as this pre-mounted part. And guess what? You can’t get to those top 2 bolts with the bump out cover removed. I had to remove the entire rear bumper.

Removing the rear bumper was pretty straight forward. Remove the retaining clips within the wheel wells, remove the tailgate ‘stay’ and then unsnap the body panel clips that attach it to the body.

The bump out cover needed to be trimmed in order to put it back on and make room for the hitch itself. That was pretty easy with a utility knife, a half round bastard file and some sand paper.

I like the end result a lot! I especially like that this hitch is up high and tight! Typically you see the hitch and hitch frame below the bumper, but this gets away from that. It looks better this way and it allows for a better departure angle when off-roading.

My new hitch worked just as expected. I did have to buy an adaptor for the electrical plug. My truck is a 2005, and trailer wiring has changed since then. That was an easy fix and everything worked great!

Just a little stressed when my teenage daughter was getting a driving lesson in an Audi S4. She did great though!

While flying is as ubiquitous as driving, it still has moments of wonder and beauty if you look for it.