NH Home Fab Build

When I bought it

About me:
I am in my last year of my mechanical engineering degree working as an automation engineer part time while being a full time student. I started out doing woodworking but I have quickly built my skills doing basic fab work, machining, and even a good amount of 3d printing. The general way I do mods on my truck is I do it as inexpensively as possible the first go around with a small investment to see if I will like a certain upgrade. Of course this does not apply to anything that would affect reliability or safety.


Far Future plans: (no guarantee it'll happen)
Engine swap: VW 3.0 TDI with some manual transmission

Favorite pictures:

Off the pavement 4 days after purchase

North Maine Woods acting like a child in the puddles

North Maine Woods

After seeing this picture I realized I needed sliders

Loaded up with the lady's kayaks

Fall camping in Vermont

UPGRADES & MODIFICATIONs

Suspension:
Fox 2.5 DSC
Wheelers U bolt flip and superbumps in rear only
Amazon special front bumps
Chevy 63 and Locked 2.5x14


Wheels & Tires:
Past - Goodyear Duratracs stock size
Present - RRW RR6-H
- 255 80 r17 Wildpeaks
Future - Kenda skinny 35's??

Exterior:
Front bumper DIY 73lbs - Net 50
Rear bumper DIY 86 lbs - Net 0
Warfab IFS Skid -
Allpro Trans skid (yet to be installed)
BAMF Sliders with kickout bolton
Mud flap delete
Relocated Trailer hookup on 3D print-Removed
License plate light trailer hookup-Removed
Poorly painted the grill when I did the headlights
Fumoto Valve
Cowl intake

Lighting:
Retrofit headlights
Amazon Special Fog lights with 3D printed mounts -Removed
Amazon special ditch light with brackets
Hidden LED Lightbar
Interior LED swap
LED reverse lights


Camping stuff:
Martin Offroad Foundation rack
Thule mounts for Kayaks
Tuff Stuff Trailhead Rooftop tent
Tacomabeast low profile bed bars
Diy shovel and axe/hatchet mount
Bluetti EB55

Interior:
Pioneer DMH-1500NEX
Amazon dash kit

$165 Midland MXT275 MicroMobile GMRS Radio - 15 watts Two-Way Radio with Integrated Control Microphone - Overland Caravanning Tractors - Detachable External Magnetic Mount Antenna - 8 Repeater Channels

Midland MXT275
VanTop H612 Dash cam and reverse camera(3D printed bracket)
Radio mic and tablet mount in the works
3D printed cup holder for my bigger bottle
DIY Front seat spacers

Electrical:
Smittybilt 2781 under the hood
Diy aux electrical panel with 5 switches in cab
24V charger for EB55
HF Apex

Major DIY Maintenance/repairs:
Rear diff actuator
WW
New control arms
All new front brake lines
New front caliapers

 

3D printed cupholder and trailer plug relocate
When looking at the truck at the dealer I saw how low the trailer plug stuck down just asking to be torn off. I designed up this bracket and printed it out of PETG.

After I removed the ladder racks that came with the truck I immediately noticed the annoying cupholders. I designed one up and printed it out of PETG. It doesn't fit quite perfectly but it is good enough so it has been in my truck ever sense. I tried the tree supports in Cura for whatever reason.

 

DIY Electrical System

I wanted to be able to add in accessories pretty easily without having to do lots of wiring and taking apart the interior. I started off by selecting a fuse/relay box off of Amazon. The one I selected was waterproof and when it came in it all seemed to be decently constructed for the price. I also put a quality 100A circuit breaker between al the electrical work I did and the battery. There are 5 switches prewired that I put into the sunglass holder and ran the wires down the drivers A pillar and through convenient hole in the firewall.

Next I made a cardboard template and make it fit well then made the part out of 16 guage steel sheet. I do not have a sheet metal brake so the bends where made in a simple woodworking vise and some leverage.

I mounted everything using rivnuts so there would be no hardware that could fall off the back, great application for these fasteners.

I later added a smittybuilt 2781 under the hood (writeup to come) and I connected that to the circuit breaker also.

 

Carplay headunit and fog light install

For the headunit it was pretty straightforward, just order the headunit, dash kit, and wiring adapter off of Amazon then just put it all together. There are plenty of writeups on this.


I greatly prefer amber fogs so I put some amazon cheapies down there. I 3D printed some bezzles that are still holding up great. I used black PETG and left it without any additional finish.

 

Good write-ups. I am also a fellow Mech Eng. Would love a to see a turbo diesel swap, rest of my vehicles are diesels and I would love the fuel efficiency and torque that could be had compared to the stock powerplant in our Tacos.

 

Thanks, these ones don't have that much detail because I am writing them all after the fact, but they'll improve once I catch up to current times. Yeah I had a 2011 Jetta Tdi before this and my uncle has a Q7 tdi and its crazy both cars have 600-700 miles of range stock. Plus paired with a manual makes a perfect combo for crawling up things. But yeah the tdi wont happen anytime in the near future but I hope it does someday.

 

Retrofit Headlights
Most of our trips we get off the pavement after dark on Friday nights and we immediately noticed more light was needed. I purchased parts from theretrofitsource.com and got a second set of faded headlights to use while I retrofitted my stock ones. As long as you have some mechanical skill this is not an extremely difficult process, there are much better writeups and videos that you can reference.

 

Bed setup
In order to get my girlfriend camping she wouldnt sleep on the ground due to animals in the area, and with a 5ft bed the only option was a rooftop tent. We got a Tuffstuff trailhead tent and low profile bars from tacomapocolapse. I also threw together a shovel/axe mount that mounts on the inside rail. Instead of paying way too much for a small "overland" shovel I went to home depot and got a normal shovel which is much easier to use.

 

Roofrack and kayaks
Most of our trips now involve bringing the kayaks. The foundation of this is the Marin Offroad rack which has been great. Great rack, powder coating, and customer service. The used kayaks she bought came with some j bar racks. I attached these to some 1/4 aluminum plates and used some drop in t bolt studs and nylock nuts to go from the aluminum extrusion to the kayak rack. Using nylocks and drop in studs I believe is the best way to attach things to aluminum extrusion racks because the hardware always stays with your accessory your trying to attach. I also am attempting to design a better way to deal with the kayaks while on the road.

 

Suspension

When I got the truck it was on the original suspension so I went looking for 3rd gen trd offroad takeoff suspension. In a local group someone offered 2015 trd pro suspension to me that had 20k miles on it for a price that was too good. A few weeks later, before the install I broke a leafspring in the back so it was time to replace all the suspension. The install was pretty straightforward using the complete trd pro suspension, U bolt flip, add a leaf, and wheelers superbumps.


Before

After with more weight

 

Skids and Sliders
For Black Friday wheelers had a good sale on skidplates. I ordered an Aluminum IFS skid and a steel transmission skid from them. For Sliders a local guy on here was selling a set of used BAMF sliders for a pretty good price.

I sanded these down with a flapdisk and then put a coat of rust reformer then roll on truck bed liner. (All rustoleoum products)

 

Ditch lights and hidden lightbar
When I first got ditch lights I ordered the Nilight 4 Inch pods and when they came in they were much bigger than expected so I ran them for a while but also searched for replacements. I settled on

$32 Nilight 2PCS 3" Motorcycle Led Pods 1300LM Built-in EMC Driving Light Super Spotlight Offroad Fog Auxiliary Lamp for Motorbike SUV ATV Truck Boat Tractor Forklift

these, also cheap Nilights but much smaller. I wired these into my electrical system and I will see the output tonight.

Before


After


I also put in a hidden lightbar in the lower grill up front using the parts below. The brackets were surprisingly good quality but they were meant for a lightbar with a 32" width and to put the lightbar flush with the bumper. The lightbar I got has a 31" mounting width and I wanted it behind the bumper completely (stealthy). I cut the brackets I think 3" back and I also had to bend them in 1/2" each. For the license plate I just lowered it drilling holes in the bumper.

$54 Nilight - 40005C-A 31" 150W Spot & Flood Combo Single Row 14500LM Off Road LED Fog & Driving Roof Bumper Light Bars for Jeep Ford Trucks Boat, 2 Years Warranty

Lightbar

AUXMART Bumper Mounting Brackets for 30" Straight Single or Dual Row LED Light Bar Replacement for Toyota Tacoma 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Black (1 Pair)

Brackets

Finished product

 

Nice build brother!

 

Thanks, I'm graduating in May so I should have more time to get stuff done on it soon.

 

Fridge and Battery setup
With 12v refrigerators being about the same price as a good cooler there was really no reason to keep buying ice on camping trips. This setup isn't done, I still need to put sound deadening and probably a carpeted MDF panel on the back wall.

With the drivers side, back seat and plastic removed the refrigerator and battery fit absolutely perfectly. Now I just need to get power in the back to charge the battery.

I printed an enclosure for two cigarette lighter plugs one for the battery charger, one for the 6 usb ports for drone and camera battery charging. It is simply velcro'd to the carpet.

The power comes from my homemade panel under the hood which one relay is powered on with ignition power. The hot wire goes to this terminal block, with printed mount, that is in the center console that splits the power to the two outlets and my

$165 Midland mxt275 MicroMobile GMRS Radio - 15 watts Two-Way Radio with Integrated Control Microphone - Overland Caravanning Tractors - Detachable External Magnetic Mount Antenna - 8 Repeater Channels

Midland mxt275 which is mounted in the console.

 

You've got a good build going there. I feel like I've seen that license plate around somewhere. Where are you based out of?

 

Thanks, it should hopefully be getting better this summer when I have more time. I am out of Lowell as of right now. Are you local to there?

 

Same, gotta wait for more time and better weather to get work done, lol.

I'm from Brookline, but typically stay just North of Boston.

 

I'll keep an eye out, I am in NH alot and try not to go anywhere near Boston

 

Seat spacers

I took one look at the desert does it spacers and to me $100 is way too much for a chunk of aluminum. I am also not confident in aluminum threads holding in the case of a crash but wanted to make the seats more comfortable.

Here was my first attempt made out of a piece of 1x2 box tube with about a .10 wall I would guess.


The issue with these were that the bottom bolt could not be tightened due to the box tube being too narrow. I changed the design to this.




No issues yet and I would trust welded steel and grade 8 nuts well before aluminum threads.