Tundy, house and beetle build thread...and exploring.

Installed the AAL this evening.

It was nice and warm outside, which meant melting snow, on the driveway, which meant mudding on the way up. Perfect, a nice coat of mud on my work area!





Decided to paint the high performance rusty drums so I didnt cringe every time I looked at the back wheels.


The hardest part was getting the centering pin to line up with the hole in the axle mount. Great advice was learned... use a ratchet strap to pull it if you can, or loosen the other side U bolts and it'll move!

Time to go test it out in Utah this weekend.


This was adding the

$77 D29XL Leaf Spring

D29XL AAL to the OME Dakar Pack. I only needed the leaves, the centering pins were plenty long enough... theres still a good amount of threads above the nut.

 

Last minute trip to explore the north part of the San Rafael Swell since it was nice out!

Entrance road was mostly frozen when I got there at night, little muddy but nothing too crazy... it was bentonite clay... ugh!

Found a nice camp spot on the Wedge Overlook. Zero people anywhere around.

Did a little too much playing around, slid around a corner, found ice, met boulder, cut tire...

Nice sunrise!


Headed up to get an alignment since it was all out of whack, as well as a temporary spare since I didn't want to be offroad without a spare.

Got back and did some more exploring.


And some less dangerous playing around.

Found a nice camp spot under the stars.


My rib was still killing me from the other day, sleeping in the hammock, and the tent... both irritated it and kept me up all night long.



Truck looks good in the sand color...


Bentonite clay.
My brothers car was parked here... and was now stuck since it thawed out.

There are no car washes (that I know of), and I ended up driving to Fruita... bouncing all over since the insides of the wheels were completely caked in clay. Spent about $20 at the car wash just trying to clean off the wheels so I could drive without rattling my teeth out.

 

A nice picture my brother took while in the Swell.

 

A week or two ago, I heard a strange clanking sound. Thought it was the Hi-lift on the roof banging around a little.

Nope


The threaded part of the shaft snapped off leaving the top of the shock loose and bouncing around in the mount.

I thought about going with a longer shock. But then that meant more expensive shocks, bumpstops, brake lines, so I just went with a replacement for what was on there.



Went with Bilstein 5125 SERIES 236.5MM SHOCK
4wp had them the same day, they were the correct measurement and valved for the heavier loads I carry.

 

Hey bud, I've got a baofeng adapter for you whenever we cross paths again. The ones I ordered finally showed up ha.

 

The time has come for a little extra LIGHT!

No aftermarket front bumper to put them on, and dont want them on the roof, so they'll have to go in the grill. I have slotted metal for the grill that I'll cut out around the lights, but trying to now decide on lights.

HID's seem superior for light output/distance vs LED's. Lots of youtube videos out there of lights with HID bulbs in them putting out some crazy light.

KC Apollo Pro lights have been mentioned a few times. I like them, other than the fact that the rock guard is part of the light so you cant take it off. I guess I could paint over the KC part of them to make it less noticeable.

Hella Rallye 4000's have also been mentioned.


Trying to decide if I still want to go with a spot/pencil beam or go with a driving/spread/euro pattern. I'm also thinking that I could put two spots, with a driving light in the middle to cover all bases. Which means I'll need to do a little testing before I cut up the new grill mesh!

 

Ordered some goodies...

Guess I'll have some light testing to do next week.

 

Getting back on the topper panel build.

Ordered a part that i should've ordered a while ago so i can build it out as needed. But I guess i can start drilling it out for the mounts after i get it painted.

 

Moar sneak peeks.



Locking water tank filler goes on the bottom (ordered), QD will be for water hose/faucet. QD will be recessed enough to not stick out. And switch will turn it on/off (secondary switch is inside bed to give this switch power).

Was originally going to put the panel on with rivets. But I'm thinking I'll drill out the holes in the panel, through the topper and then have aluminum/steel strips that are tapped for the screws to secure it and it'll be removable for future additions.

Still thinking a narrow weatherproof, locking box would be a great addition for random items. But unless i find one soon, it'll be one of the later additions.

It'll be wrapped in gloss black to make it look like a window and hopefully not noticeable.

 

Let me know if you need any assistance! I can help point you in a direction or be super specific, up to you. HID is a great way to go, but LED technology is still improving constantly and with a better system around the diode (such as reflectors) the distance can be great improved. Just food for thought!

As I said, give me requirements or criteria for lighting and I'd love to give you options. I'd shy away from the Apollos in HID as well due to that stone guard and as they'll be behind your grill. Do you know the dimensions for the space you have behind there?

 

Thanks for posting up. I plan on cutting out the grill so the lights will not be obstructed. I almost grabbed the Apollos until i realized the covers could not be removed, which i don't like. I'd rather replace the lens in the event that it got cracked instead of running those covers... Which really don't seem like they would provide much protection due to the small area covered IMO.

And for the price of an hid setup i figured i would give it a shot and see how it works.

I have the led light bar up top, but it quickly renders itself useless when there is snow coming down. So it'll be trial and error before i settle on a setup.

I went with the 5" lights so there was spare room in the grill.

When i get a chance I'll be trying to get some good shots of the lights and output that i have so far, light bar, headlights, the 5" with halogen and 5" with hid. Depending on what i see, I'll have room for another set of 5" in the grill if i want to add led/halogen that i can flick on/off that can take the job of the light bar and not be horrible in snow.

 

Ah okay I gotcha. What lights did you end up with for in the grill area? I was looking into some HID options for you last night after I replied here and the Pro Sports would work well and are really affordable right now, but are 8" in diameter. If you're interested in those for future options, the link is below.

http://www.kchilites.com/light-type/hid/pro-sport-hid/8-pro-sport-hid-pair-pack-system.html

 

Thanks. I grabbed some 5" Hellas since they would fit without completely tearing up the lip of the grill to make it fit. They arrived tonight so maybe tomorrow I'll have a chance to see how they'll fit.

 

Going to take a little modification. But I'll do one, test it side by side vs the halogen, then decide where to go from there. Maybe I'll start on it tonight.

 

So what all did you end up getting, Brandon?

Halogens and HIDs?

 

The lights come as halogen and going to put the hid in them. But I'll leave one as halogen to see the difference for the light testing before i convert it as well.

 

Sweet. Looking forward to seeing the results.

I'm clueless with all of the lighting tech.

 

Yeah i haven't ever been big on it, but now I'll be able to test and see.

 

Apparently it's my trucks birthday month, not mine.


Got this from Customcargrills.com since I'll be gutting the grill to make room for lights.

Great customer service, emailed them late at night, got a real quick response, then managed to mess up the address and they got that fixed on the fly. Grill was nicely packaged.

Unfortunately it'll be a minute before i install it since I'll be cutting holes in it for the lights, which I'm not sure if I'll be going with two or four at this point.



Also ordered a camera module thing so i can add a front camera... And a few more extra to the stock headunit. The original solution that i found on the forums was well over $200... And i didn't need a camera that bad. This was half that (group buy going on right now on the site).

Now just searching for a camera that works decently for the front as well as ones for the sides.

Think I'm going to go work on the hid mod since I'm still waiting on my water box for the window panel.