Wackyhacky's 2013 TaCOmarado Build

After two good weeks of fun, I am back to working on this build out again. I really want to eliminate the need for carrying my kitchen tub & misc tub before taking a longer trip in the fall, so I need to get down to business. I got the hardware I needed, and decided on just attaching the drawer module via two fabricated L Brackets on the inside of the frame to the accessory rails on the CC. I have found that some M8 nuts are way harder to slide into these rails than the head of the bolt, so I just decided to use bolts sticking out instead.



Then I took some very light aluminum angle to make two more brackets that will secure the frame to the base plate along the front edge. I still need to take the plate out once I am ready to insert Tee Nuts for these, but they are ready to go. I think these 4 contact points should be more than enough to hold it down once there are slides & drawers built into it.



And speaking of drawers, I need to get cranking on those as well. I ordered some 12" full extension slides that are supposed to stay closed and then you push in on the drawer front to open them. I am hoping they will work out so I can avoid messing with latches, so we will see how that works. I don't really see a need to have locking drawers, so it seemed like a good way to go. As far as the drawers, I looked into ordering some pre-made ones with nice dovetail joints, but after last night's experiment I think will just make them myself. I wasn't sure if I could do pocket holes in 1/2" thick birch plywood, but it turns out it actually works pretty well. Not to mention, I just had way too much concern about getting my measurements right to order some like that.

 

I got my drawers for the kitchen module about 90% done over the wkd and they turned out pretty well. They are square at least! I still need to put a bottom on them, which I am planning on using 1/8" plywood for and need to pick up.
I also cut out a top for the module as well. Hopefully I will get the aluminum angle I need to mount the drawer slides tomorrow and can start getting them mounted.

 

Kitchen drawer module is getting close & just about to start fitting the slides. I needed to put a 1/8" thick bottom on them and would have preferred actual birch plywood, but just didn't think it was worth buying a whole 5x5 pc, so I used that tempered hard board. We will see how it holds up, but thankfully not a lot of weight is going in these drawers.



I had already cut a top for the cabinet, but it wasn't very nice material (weird scrap) and had a bit of warp to it that was going to be a pain, so I bought a small pc of 1/2" birch and cut a new one out. Since this surface is also going to see foot traffic as it will also be the step in & out of bed, I tried coating it in a rattle can Krylon bed liner and so far I think this will work AOK. May need recoated in a year or two, but I like it enough, I think I will shoot the drawer fronts in the same stuff once I am ready.





With that done, I started mounting pcs of 1" x 2" angle on the top & bottom of the frame to mount the slides to. I have to say, the angle from McMaster was way nicer quality that the stuff I am used to from Home Despot or Lowes.



Now I just need to start checking final measurements to position these slides.

 

So, where was I....? Ha. Lots of things I need to update on here I guess from the past couple of weeks. The drawer module is 99% complete now.

The Accuride push locking slides I chose to avoid fancy compression type latches are working really well actually & they aren't even the heavy duty version. They got a test run of being jostled and bounced over an hour each way on some beat up forest roads and haven't popped open once. It was definitely a little bit of trial & error to get them adjusted/aligned properly and as much as tried to follow the drawer size instructions, I probably pushed my tolerances a little tighter than I should have, but they working and holding closed. Honestly, if I just would have had the tools to do a slot joint for the drawer bottoms instead of just capping them on the bottom of the drawer it would be perfect. I also really like the rattle can bed liner coating I put on the top & drawer fronts. We will see how it holds over time, but looks good to me.



The assembled unit though bolts right in & out of the truck with zero screwing around, which was the whole plan for any of these cabinets I will be installing. Keeping it very easy to remove them for other modifications, wiring, etc. that I will be sure to be doing down the road.



These little pulls I added were also perfect as they are low profile, but strong enough to work the drawers.



The only thing I need to do is craft a panel for the side of the module towards the door to keep that sealed off. I have 1/8" thick pc of ABS plastic to finish that & it will be done. Most importantly, with some minor equipment changes all of our kitchen shit fits in these two drawers. The one change I made was to buy a hanging kitchen for utensils & plates that still stows in the drawers instead of tray or dividers which just take up too much valuable space.



We got it from Adventure Tool Co. based in Nederland, CO and it's really nice stuff. They have a ton of different soft goods like this. It's got plenty of room for all the basics including a cutting board.

 

Next up has been the long awaited water tank install, which I needed to get done before I do any more cabinets/storage. I originally considered doing a tank between frame rails under the bed, but it just seemed like a lot of work to accomplish it. Then there is the Alu-Cab designed tank, which while it is a slick design to install, I just never liked the idea of all that weight up high on the front bulkhead of the camper. Then I saw the answer, which is this 12 gallon tank being made/sold by Juniper Overland in Denver. I don't think they loved the idea of the high mounted weight either, so they designed a tank to sit on the floor of the bed up against the front bulkhead of the bed and under the lip of the camper frame. It comes with mounting straps (that use the OEM bed rails and then however you choose to mount it to the bed floor on the other end) in addition to a tank vent, and the plumbing hardware basics you need to do gravity feed. Just the basics.



So, first I had to modify my baseplate for about the 20th time. ha ha. First it went from one pc to two pc with the change in campers. Also I did what many DIY baseplate folks did & use the existing bed bolts (the front four in my case) to secure it to the bed from the beginning. The only problem is that now, the water tank needs to sit right where those big bolt heads are exposed on top of the base plate against the front of the bed. So I finally secured it through the bed which is I guess what commercially available ones from GooseGear etc. do. So I pulled this pc out, cut out recess for the bolt heads and then drilled more holes in my bed to secure this half of the plate with SS carriage bolts and rubber backed sealing washers.



So far, I have done ZERO insulating to my bed for the camper and also haven't added a bed rug or anything like that. Therefore I felt like there should be something between the front of the bed and the water tank, one for padding & two for some layer of
"insulation". I had some adhesive neoprene foam I bought for another project that didn't come to be, so I stuck it to the back of the tank and it fit perfectly.



Then it was time to actually fit/mount the tank. I got a set of nuts off Amazon machined to fit in the OEM bed rails to secure the top of the mounting straps and was able to use the bolts that came with those thankfully. Next, one of the installers at Juniper suggested putting some kind of foam padding under the aluminum mounting straps the provided with the tank. I think the straps were designed (sized) for the distance from the rail to actual bed floor, but I still was able to make them work with my 1/2" baseplate without modification. After bolting them into the rail, I determined where I wanted them placed and decided about a 1/4" of foam under the top of the strap and 1/2-5/8" thick foam under the vertical part of the strap would be perfect. I used the same adhesive foam that I put on the tank on the top and then cut up an old gym mat for the verticals and gorilla glued it to them overnight.

The Amazon bed rail nut below....



With that all prepped, I put the tank in place, making sure that I would be drilling on one of the upward pointing ridges in the bed for each strap and drilled down through to secure the bottom of each strap through the base plate & the bed. Once again securing these with SS bolts and sealing washers under the bed. It can be a bit of bear under the bed here due to whatever that stupid plastic box (emissions I think???) is that is mounted on the cross member, but with a little assistance for holding the bolt or nuts, it's doable. With that, the tank is mounted secure and once it has the weight of 12 gallons in it, I don't think it will be going anywhere.

 

Next up with the water tank was fitting & plumbing in a Shurflo water pump to keep the water flowing. I have plans for hot water showers down the road, so the pump was something I wanted to integrate with the water system from the beginning. These pumps are pretty simple to install and can go anywhere & in any position within 6' of the tank, though the closer the better. They also recommend using 1/2" ID hose for all your water lines, but aside from that, there isn't much to know about these pumps. Therefore, before I decided on where my plumbing is going or the 12v wiring for the pump, I had to decide where to mount it out of the way, but in a place where I can easily service it if need be. I crafted a base plate to mount the pump to out of some sturdy 1/2" thick plastic I had leftover from another project and found a spot in the front corner of the bed next to the tank. It will be located nicely inside what will be a future utility cabinet area and I secured the mounting plate to the OEM bed rail with some of those nuts I bought on Amazon along with some longer bolts. Then I set to prepping the pump for plumbing & wiring, and added a weather pack connector for the wiring connection to make it easy to remove as well as started covering all the exposed wires with some braided loom.




I ordered another Shurflo elbow like the one peeking out behind the pump for the input to the strainer basket. Shurflo does recommend using their plastic wing nut fittings on the inlet/outlet connections to the pump. They are to be hand tightened only and are tapered sealing & DO NOT require or recommend using teflon tape on these connections. The outlet from the tank is the elbow pointing up. So, 1/2" ID braided hose will connect from there to an elbow going into the strainer basket, then out the elbow on the other side to the same hose or whatever connection I decide for water output. Most likely a sprayer with a hose for now. I am undecided if I want to do the water tap that most do out the back of the camper. I really don't water being slopped on the ground right where you are in & out of the camper all the time. Another thing to keep in mind is that while Juniper does provide fittings with their kit, it's just the basics for gravity feed with 3/8" ID hose. Shurflo recommends 1/2" ID flexible (no hard lines or PEX) hose & I wanted an elbow for the outlet, so I got this SS one from Titan Fittings in Denver. These are all 1/2" NPT threads in the tank except the fill plug.

 

The water tank also comes with a vent/tubing to be mounted/attached to the elbow coming out the top of the tank. I guess it would just be typical RV water tank type vent (if I knew what one was!) which they provide mounted to a bracket w/ hardware designed to mount into one of the Alu-Cab accessory rails inside the camper which accept an M8 bolt or nut. It tucks nicely out of way under the lip above the tank.



At this point I needed a few more items to button up the water system, so I worked on installing the velcro on the driver's side of the camper for the Alu-Cab bug nets. I think these will be a nice addition, though Alu-cab shorted me on velcro which is kind of disappointing. I cleaned all the surfaces with 50/50 water & isopropyl alcohol as recommended and used 3M Primer 94 on the surfaces to promote adhesion. I have let them cure 24 hrs without even trying to attach the actual net, and I think I will be adding rivets to hold the velcro (top & sides) as suggested by many b/c I just see it starting to come off down the road with the heat.





I also finally added a set of Alu-Cab cross bars and low profile feet to the camper roof for additional cargo space. My wife's "new favorite toy," is a set of inflatable paddle boards she got us for taking on our trips, so these will come in handy for transporting those.

 

I just picked up one of these from Paul, same color... really awesome storage solution for all our lil camp kitchen stuff. Made very very well.

 

Absolutely. I think it's going to be a great solution.

 

Alright, Alright, Alright... It's time for me to get caught up on here.

First up the water tank is finally (well, finally two weeks ago!) plumbed, 100% installed and operational.

After finalizing all the wiring on the pump I reinstalled it in place on the mounting place and ran the wiring along (between the OEM accessory rail & the camper rails) to the back & up into the wiring track, then back down into my electrical panel.





This was the first I opened the electrical panel since I finished it back in March or April. I am happy to report everything looks great in there. No signs of dust or water intrusion and all the circuitry is looking great. I had pre-terminated wiring into the original harness for the switch panel for the pump when I did the electrical, so all I had to do was install a few ends into the existing weatherpack connectors & the pump was powered up & ready to go.

With that done I started on plumbing the rest of the water lines into the pump and then out to the back of the camper. Once the input & output were hooked up, I did run a quick test to check for leaks with the main output plumbed into a garden hose and the pump worked great and zero leaks at any of the connections, so considering my disdain for plumbing work in general, I will call that a win.



After that I decided on the route for the water line to the back of the camper, which goes along the accessory rail behind all the cabinets. I used some rubberized hose clamps, along with some u-nuts that work well with the accessory rail to hold the water line safely in place which worked really well.





At this point, due to where the line had to run b/c of cabinets, etc. I marked & drilled a hole through the rear bulkhead of the camper, then installed a grommet to run the water line through which all went smoothly.



I was still testing fittings out in the shot below, but as long as you leave yourself enough slack to move the water line through the hole by 12" or so, it should be good for installing and them moving things back in place once the spigot is installed.



Then using some tape as a marker, I took some measurements to decide where to place the spigot on the rear bulkhead panel and got that hole drilled. Then mounted the spigot which requires screwing into the hose barb fitting with the panel between the two.

 

Then you just attach the water line hose to the barb with a hose clamp and pull the water line from the inside back tight to seal up the bulkhead panel.



I was trying to come up with another solution here, b/c I eventually want to add the ability for a tankless hot water heater and I don't love the water right next to the back door b/c my wife is messy (ha ha ha!) but it is pretty nice & a game changer to have this tap/pressurized water. It's fantastic.

So with the water system all buttoned up, I was finally able to lay out a design and build my utility cabinet on the passenger side. I maintained the same width as the drawer module & used the same method L brackets fabricated with angle to attach the cabinet to the side of the camper rails. This really allows for a pretty strong platform and kept me from having to make a complete box with 4 sides etc. and cuts down on weight. It's also attached to the drawer module with an 80/20 corner gusset to keep things as squared up as possible. I set one of the top rails to the camper about 5" in from the front bulkhead. This allowed me to have a space that is just access to the water pump and water fill. I also dropped another vertical support here as well for strength and to keep anything heavy from sliding back into the water tank or plumbing.



With the frame design completed, I then took it back out and added a 1/4" birch front panel that is slid into the slot in the extrusion and once again coated in my new favorite coating, which is just Krylon Truck Bed Liner. This shit is so easy to paint with, drys super quick and so far has held up extremely well.



Once that was all buttoned up, I reinstalled the cabinet back into place in the truck and got to work on a lid. I knew from the get go, I didn't want to do GG style hatches/latches, etc. b/c I wanted the largest useable opening I could get. First I got my lid measured up & cut to size out of more 1/2" birch plywood.



I had seen another DIY build video on YT that clued me into the idea of using those spring loaded bench top hinges. So I grabbed a very cheap set ($15) off Amazon and started laying out how to make them work. My initial idea was to have them open inward, which would allow access from the outside and inside, but the width of my cabinet just made that idea unworkable with these hinges. I quickly determined how to mount the hinges to the 80/20 using a 1/2" block wood and then what hardware I would need to mount the hinge to the block, which did require drilling another mounting hole in the hinge. These things are really cheap & came w/ zero mounting instructions, so from here, it was a lot of trial & error to get them positioned properly.

 

.........but after quite a few test fits, I got them positioned correctly and the lid working smoothly as intended. I don't love that the best thing I had to use for the hinge to lid attachment was dinky wood screws as I think they will fail eventually and I may have to move to a Tee-Nut, but for now it's working smoothly.





With all the mechanicals sorted for the lid, I took it off one more time and coated the top with that Krylon I keep raving about. Literally got this buttoned up (and the water) the last night before another trip. I am always doing this to myself. ha ha.

It's finally starting to look like a little camper in there!!! I am pretty stoked how this all turning out......



....and most importantly. One more tub eliminated!! Kind of messy in the utility cabinet at the moment, but there are some small things like hatchets, shovels, etc. that will soon have a home somewhere else on the doors as I hope to get some molle panel organization added to those in the near future but it will do for now.



After using the cabinet on another trip, I decided the stove needed a little help to be easier to move around. Kind of like the behemoth fridge we ended up with, I have a love/hate relationship with this Camp Chef Ranger stove. It's fantastic for cooking & easy to keep clean, which is important for us, but it's heavy bitch to move around. I had another plastic handle from my old camp kitchen lying around, so I drilled into the cast iron lip and bolted this handle to it. Now we can easily move it in & out of the cabinet. Great little mod.



And finally, I got that abs panel affixed to the open end of the drawer module to keep dust & dirt out. I really tried to come up with a cheaper option than these 80/20 panel mount blocks. but with the brackets holding drawer slides, etc. taking up all the room on the extrusions, they proved to be best option. Also, I wanted to be able to get this off & on easily if needed out on the trail for maintenance, so they are better for that as well.



They just sit in the extrusion slot and can used for flush mounting or overlap mounting like I did. You just use 1/4-20 hardware then to hold the panel.

 

And one PSA on two things that are NOT working out. Well one that is a definite fail & one that is getting problematic.

The first is my screen door I made from that $25 Amazon special I bought. Functionally, it works great & hell, the Chinese velcro is holding to the camper 10x better than the stuff that came with the Alu-Cab mosquito nets (which is real annoying considering I cleaned, then prepped with 3M primer just like your supposed to!) but the screen is not holding up at all. I had been folding it up to store it when not in use and it's breaking along all the folds, so that thing is a definite DO NOT BUY. I am currently looking into other solutions there. I don't want the AC one b/c then your just zipping & unzipping all the time like a freaking tent. The split w/ magnets works way better for this in my opinion. Anyway, I will let you know once I have a new solution on that front.



The second one is the 12 volt fan (older pics below) I installed on the roof (to the light mount bracket). The fan itself is still great, don't get me wrong. But, first I have had to lose the outer metal cage b/c after being closed against the bedding a couple times it was enough to bend it so that the fan rubs on the center of the cage causing all kinds of noise. I tried to bend it back to gain this clearance again and it just didn't work. Not a real biggie since the blades can be stopped with your finger, but something to know. The real issue is that little lever and system you use to lock/unlock it up out of the way has already stopped working and now will not hold it up flat to the roof so I have to tie it up first before closing the lid. I plan on submitting warranty claim for this b/c it's BS this has already broken considering the price of the fan. I will have to report back what they say.

 

Bummer to hear the bug nets don't work. I was about to copy you on that. Same with the fan! I bought the same one and plan to install it on the underside of the small opening hatch so it can be utilized inside hanging out or upstairs when sleeping as I don't fold that down when sleeping.

 

I hate to hear that about the fan. Mine has been flawless and much used this summer in the heat. I even have a 2" mattress topper on top of the factory matress and have had no problems with closing with the fan. The only problem I have had is if I do not fold the fan up just right bedding has caused the fan to turn on when closed but I have figured out the positioning to close and don't have that trouble anymore. My fan is older than yours some maybe they have made some changes. I would hope they would warranty it for you.

 

Yeah I like that idea as well, though we usually do keep the lid down when we are sleeping. I guess we have been fortunate enough not to get stuck in the "downstairs" and needed a fan down there but it's a good idea. I am working with someone on a possible replacement screen (same magnetic split design) so once I can get some more confirmed cost on that I will post something on here.

 

I mean losing the guard didn't really really bother me but it is just annoying that was even a problem. We are using an Exped mattress we delfate before closing so I would say our thickness of bedding would be similar to yours all things considered. I need to see about submitting a claim today.

 

Well, that was easy. Caframo answered back right. All I sent was my receipt placing me in the warranty period and it looks like they will be replacing it.

 

Cool build. Wanted to ask where did you get these hinges?img_6892-copy-jpg.4677485

 

Thanks man!! These are the ones I used from Amazon.

$17 2 Pieces 80 Degree Foldable Lifting Bracket, Black Spring Hinges are widely Used in Sofa Hinge Lifters, Furniture Storage Support Hinges

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085NDGW2H?ie=UTF8

I am sure you can find higher quality ones out there but they are still working at least! They are normally called bench top hinges or lift off hinges.