Hodakaguy's Overland Tacoma Builds - on to new adventures.

Awesome camper info! How bad is the hit on the fuel mileage installed?

 

@Hodakaguy do you have an Instagram?? I was starting to think you ditched the the project...lol.

 

What a great build! You keep giving me ideas of what to do next.

 

Really enjoyed reading about your Unimog and Westie builds on ADVRider in the past, I hope you and your father have just as much fun with the Taco's!

 

Yes, I am curious about this as well. I know MPGs are not the first concern on a build such as this, but wondering for reference what sort of MPGs you got on the trip down after the mods and MPG for the return trip after the camper was installed. Any info you can share would be appreciated! @Hodakaguy

 

holy crap!! this is easily the most informative build i've read on here so far ( obviously i don't get out much)..damn those are nice trucks

 

Wow - what a great build thread. Very well chronologged and photographed!

Many items are "sticky worthy", I'm stealing your spare tire relocation idea.

On the note of the spare 5th tire --- do you plan on cycling it in rotation with the other 4 tires to distribute wear evenly? (or just keep in for emergency use?)

 

Just saw you post up on Facebook this week. Impressive build

 

No problem, if you need any specific info or pics just let me know. The Swift and the Tacoma make a great combo!

Hodakaguy

 

Radio works great as does the GPS. The satellite radio fades in and out a bit but I can live with that, I usually listen to music off my phone anyways

Hodakaguy

 

Sharing ideas is what makes these forums so great! I'll do a 4 tire rotation, if the spare is needed there won't be enough difference in tread depth to worry about.

Hodakaguy

 

Running 70 mph we got 16.5 indicated heading down to CA (Speedo isn't corrected yet so it should be slightly better than indicated), coming back with the camper we were in the 14-15 mpg range indicated. I never ran a manual calculation on the trip. I also should note we are running 4.11 gearing.

Hodakaguy

 

Yep. Hodakaguy_Tom

No ditching this project!

Hodakaguy

 

We will!

Hodakaguy

 

Testing the ARB fridge for fit in the camper. The ledge in the shell model is a perfect fit for the ARB!




ARB Compressor Fridge/Freezer. These units are awesome, very efficient and keeps items cold or frozen if needed. You also loose less cool air when you open the lid compared to a standard fridge with the door on the side.




This is the area in the camper where the stove and sink would be if you ordered the full camper model. Since we ordered the Shell model the kitchen was left out and this empty bench is left. The ARB makes a better fridge and we found we didn't use the water system in our VW Syncro so the shell model works perfect for us. I will use backpack camping gear for cooking etc.




And fridge in place. Fit's perfectly on the shelf. I will make a tie down attachment point to anchor the fridge in place.








Hodakaguy

 

pretty cool thread if I do say so myself!

 

Our second SSO Bumper showed up and we opened it up for inspection.

The hoop on this one was straight so no having to cut and repair on the hoop like we did the first one......BUT. The welds holding the hoop on are terrible, I can't believe they allowed this to leave the factory this way. The rest of the welds on the bumper were OK but the ones on the hoop look bad and need to be fixed. The packaging was also terrible with very little padding in the box resulting in one of the sharp bottom corners becoming bent/cracked in shipping.

We didn't want to wait weeks for a new one so time to fix it so we can get the unit installed.

Bumper as it arrived.






Bent Corner




Factory SSO Welds on the hoop. Man I would be embarrassed to let this go out the door.








Going over the factory welds to clean them up. Not as pretty as starting with bare metal but a BIG improvement. Now it won't bug me to look at the bumper every time I walk by the truck












Straightening out the corner bend, welding it up and blending it back down again.






After welding we tweaked the sheet metal back to level above the light bar opening with a piece of wood and some wedges.




Now to get the bumpers primed, painted and installed.

More to come soon....

Hodakaguy

 

Damn makes me wonder what's under my powder coat now...

 

The same thing happened to the corner of my bumper.

I used raptor upol for the outside of my bumper and normal paint on the inside. I also added some gussets to the winch fairlead and d-ring also.

 

This entire thread just stinks of pure awesomeness!