Battleship Jones: 2015 Tacoma DCLB Build Thread

Started the backseat platform last Thursday. I'm using 3/4" Baltic Birch plywood for all of it and must say that it is very high quality, solid feeling material. Certainly of a much higher quality than what can be found at Home Depot or Lowes. I can now see why it is the material of choice for all of the fancy expedition drawers.

I don't profess to be a woodworker so some of my techniques and methods may be a bit unconventional. All of the work has and will be done with a circular saw, router, jig saw, random orbit sander, and a hand drill. The design will be similar to what was done in the Boden Build with the exception of a few details and dimensions. I will be using a full width two layer section along the back and will be taking the platform all the way to the back of the seats. Motivation behind doing so is to provide as much space as possible for gear and our two dogs.

Step 1: Rip the 60" x 60" sheet of plywood down to 54.5" long by 39.75" wide for the main body. Rip an additional 54.5" by 8" wide strip for second layer at the rear wall. Rip a third piece 4" wide by 53" long for the second layer under the other piece of L-track. Get something that looks like this.



Step 2: Route contour in the double layer to account for rear plastics still in place. Mess up when neighbor surprises you mid-router pass. Platform width now 53.75".



Step 3: Spend an hour fabricating a wood template using the belt sander and hand sanding to get the contour of the rear portion of the center console perfected. Spend two hours explaining to the wife that you are just making a template and that this will be discarded shortly thereafter. Trace cut line onto cardboard and flip template over to see that it is not a mirror image. Back to hand sanding.



Step 4: Measure once, measure twice, measure thrice and make a cardboard template to dial in proper positioning. Use newly acquired top bearing trim bit to cut contour into platform. Go inside to relax and get to thinking if all of the measurements were right. Run out to garage to verify that things are within 1/64 of symmetrical across the center line.



Step 5: Glue on back reinforcement section and use literally all clamps available to secure.

That's as far as I have gone at the present. I will be using the same sharpened bolt method as Mike did to locate the mounting points except I'm using the 6 M8 locations where the seats brackets bolted to the chassis. I would have to imagine that 9 total (6 at the back, 3 at the front of the seats) grade 8 M8 bolts should be able to withstand the forces in the event of collision.

Next installment of the platform build to come at the end of the weekend. I'm hoping to have it completed by then so I can start the stain/poly process. I will not be carpeting/rhino lining afterwards and will instead choose to revel in the glory of the wood finish.

Cubbies will come at some point to access the storage area under the seats and perhaps I will at some point do the same for the foot wells. For right now I will be leaving the sides of the platform off so you can tuck stuff underneath.

 

Spent quite a bit of time at the end of last week and over the weekend putting a bit more sweat equity into the platform and have it in a good place at the moment.

After routing the relief for the center console the platform was finally in a position to chuck it in the truck for a test fitting. It is a bit of a bear to get in there but I managed to manhandle it myself and get it set in there. It's a tight fit, but it was designed to be that way. It was quite a relief to drop it in and see that everything fit quite snugly and conformed to the contours.



I'll have to see if given the flex of the truck this is too little clearance. Things should be bolted down snug enough to minimize movement, but you never know.



And then came the nerve-wracking stuff; all of the surface operations that could potentially sink the project. First up was the rear mounting points. Without knowing the locations of those I couldn't locate the L-track, so they were highest on the list. I did the Boden method of cutting the heads off of some M8 bolts and screwing them into my mount points. I tried this a few ways, the first being the platform good side up but this was non-ideal as my intent was to counterbore the bolt holes and forstner bits, at least in a hand drill, don't like having a hole already there. So I flipped it over and put the good side down with the sharpened bolts at a height to simulate the piece of re-inforcement ply. This worked well with the only problem being I had a mirror image. After transferring the dimensions across the center line and checking three times I went at it with the 3/4" forstner and drilled my bore, then took the hole all the way through.



A post-drill test fit revealed that it was a great success! All bolts dropped in and bolted right up. Always a pleasant exercise when things work out like that.

And then came perhaps the most challenging aspect of the whole project, the L-track slots. While it would have been easier to cut a channel all the way across the platform I preferred to sink a pocket into it to completely capture the L-track. Wholly unnecessary and probably added a good 5 hours to the process given the tools I am working with but I managed to construct a wood jig to mimic the pocket profile. After carefully centering it and making sure it was square on all sides I went at it with a 1/2" bit with a bearing on top and followed my jig around cutting. It worked pretty okay except for the fact that the 3/4" thick wood wasn't tall enough to prevent taking a healthy depth of cut on the first pass. I took it slow and chugged through getting incrementally deeper over the next 2 passes.



Success! I had to get into the corners with a 1/4" bit to reduce the radius a bit so the tracks would sit in there and they are about 1/16" below the surface with 1/16" clearance around all sides. I am quite pleased with how they turned out.



That pretty much covers where I am up to at the moment. Next up on the list is:

1. Get aluminum edging on there, like so



2. Drill countersinks and through holes for aluminum edging
3. Fabricate brackets to attach to the front side of the platform
4. Drill dowel holes to make front supports knock down detachable.
5. Drill counterbores and through holes to attach L-tracks.
6. Stain
7. Poly

Guess I have a bit more work ahead...

 

The platform is done, installed, and we made great use of it this past weekend. I spent the last 2 weeks taking care of the last few details that included drilling the dowel connections for the front support pieces, gluing the aluminum edging on, finish sanding/buffing, painting the L-track recesses black, and getting 3 coats of polyurethane on everything. It all went off without a hitch and I managed to get things finished just in time. A few pictures of the finished product...



L-track details with tie downs:



Back corner details. The 5 miter cuts on the 4 different pieces were a real challenge to get everything to fit correctly and cleanly. I did a regimen of sanding with 400, 800, then wet sanding with 1000 grit, then 2000 grit, followed by the buffing wheel in my hand drill with some rouge compound. Turned out pretty nice I think.



Of course now I need to do something for the back wall to match. Thinking 1/2" baltic birch with accommodations to strap items to the back wall, like say a fire extinguisher, perhaps a few tools with quick fists, we'll see.

 

So in what appears to be a now annual tradition, the wife and I took off for Moab, UT over the Memorial Day weekend. The plan was to hop in the truck on Friday and head west towards Gateway, CO. I had read about another all dirt route from CO to UT (did the Kokopelli Trail last year) and was curious to check it out as it was supposed to dump you on the back side of the La Sals and descend down towards Moab.

We took off around 4:30 on Friday and after working our way through rush hour, torrential rains on the east side of the Eisenhower tunnel and then some snow on the west side of the Eisenhower we finally bunkered down in the access road to the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area at 11:30 at night. The next morning we were treated to daylight as we traversed the remaining portion of route 141 and ended up in Gateway, CO. Gateway was an amusing little town boasting a massive, world renowned resort but also being absolutely tiny. Making our way through town we ended up at the trailhead for the Gateway Road/John Brown Canyon. Knowing we had another 57 miles of dirt to go before we touched asphalt again I aired down for comfort.



The road itself wasn't difficult at all. You could navigate it in a Subaru in fact, but amazing sights and cool roads aren't limited to ones only navigable by full blown offroad vehicles. We made our way up out of the canyon bottom and into the high country. Not that long afterwards we hit the CO/UT border that was distinguished by a spray painted fence in what was perhaps the most shoddy state border crossing I have ever seen.



The La Sals continued to grow in size and still appeared to have a sizable snow pack up in the higher elevations which eliminated my plan of trying to cross over or through them. No matter, I had already mapped a route for us that brought us north of the mountain range. We reached the Polar Mesa/Thomson Canyon junction and turned right towards the Mesa. The first part of the journey was mellow and we were treated to watching a couple of women and cattle dogs drive a herd of cattle. It was pretty neat for them to split at the truck and we had cows on both sides of the truck. It was like a time traveling experience.

After that the trail turned vertical and we headed up the switchbacks that ascend the mesa. Once again, nothing too steep or difficult, just chugging up them. The mesa top is reached fairly quickly and we headed out to the little lollipop that gives you access to the views and mines. We wandered around that area for a little bit before pulling out the awning and getting some lunch.



At this point the camera went away for a bit as we re-traced our steps and took the cutoff towards Thomson Canyon. It proved to be a long descent off of the mesa top into a canyon bottom. Once again not that difficult but still provided enough challenge to make things interesting. We weaved our way through the canyon bottom and made our way up the very step shelf road exit. At this point we were at the termination point of the Onion Creek trail with the choice of either going up Rose Garden Hill or out towards highway 128. I decided not to push my luck and turned the truck towards Onion Creek road. We splish splashed through the dozen or so creek crossings along the way. It was a unique trail following the spine of a ridge with the creek running on either side. Video to come later. Anyway, I won't bore anyone with the details but we spent the rest of the day going into Moab for a few supplies then navigating the dispersed camping north of town with our 10 million other best friends.

Sunday we decided to head to Canyonlands National Park. The majority of the day was uneventful, just a mash-up of navigating through the hordes of rude and inconsiderate people while peeping pretty awe inspiring canyon views. Snapped a quick selfie of the wife and I up top.



And Mesa Arch. Pretty killer views, only marred by the fact that it's a mere 1/2 mile off of the main road.



I had the foresight to get a permit for the White Rim Road earlier in the day when we stopped at the visitor center. The conversation with the kind lady went something like this, "Do you have an appropriate vehicle for the trip?" Me "Yes." Her "With a high and low range transfer case?" Me "Yes" Her "And at least 8" of ground clearance?" Me "Yes." And so it was, we got a day permit for the trip. I did overhear one ranger lady with a finely tuned bullsh!t detector shut down a guy who was inquiring about the White Rim Road who clearly had no clue what was down there nor did he have the proper vehicle to do so. I giggled to myself listening to her refuse to give him any further information.

Anyway, we aired down and headed down the Shafer Switchbacks. They were narrow, steep, and exposed in places but nothing a little engine braking couldn't control.



Once at the bottom we were faced with the choice of heading out and back on the White Rim Road or heading north to Potash Road and back to town. I chose the later but made sure to stop at Gooseneck Point to check out how the Colorado River meandered through the park.



And turning around to see where we had come from.



The trip out was kind of a trip. Like being on a foreign planet at points as the salt formed giant white crusties and dried up salty rivers left their mark on the landscape. We passed by the huge open air ponds of the Moab Salt LLC before hitting the Potash company as the road turned to pavement. Such concluded the 4wd portion of the trip, however we still had a few more activities before we returned home.

Monday = Mountain bike day! I rented a bike at Poison Spider, gave my bike to the wife, then hit up the Klondike Bluff trails. We stuck to the easy/intermediate stuff as she is still learning and I didn't want to make that mistake again. We both had fun, the terrain there was very conducive to a beginner.



We returned the bike after making it all the way to the pavement before I realized I left the front wheel of the rental at the trailhead. Oopsies! With that in hand we returned the bike, grabbed some food and ice cream, then booked it out of town back towards Colorado. We came up with an impromptu plan to hike Hanging Lake on the way back. Things were in our favor as we snagged one of the 50 or so parking spaces shortly before 9am. It was a good hike, not terribly difficult but still pretty steep as you ascend over 1,000' in a bit over a mile. It was well worth it to see this CO gem.



Amazingly the Spouting Rock waterfall, only a mere 1/4 mile away, received way less than half the traffic but was no less spectacular. There were a grand total of 4 waterfalls, one coming off of the top then 3 progressively shorter ones coming out of the rock itself. We played around those for a while going behind them and taking pictures.



Then I got tired of typing so we hiked down and uneventfully drove back to Denver.

The end.

 

After a year and a half the rear suspension on my truck needed a bit of refreshing. The Dakar leaf pack was rusty, had settled a bit with all the weight, and the leafs would shift and make a creak noise. So I decided to rip it apart, do the

$81 D29XL Leaf Spring

D29XL add a leaf kit, and install the pinion angle correction shim to bring things back in line a bit.

So on Saturday I got up early and went to work ripping things apart. Everything came apart with no problem and within a few hours things were looking pretty empty back there.



Once the leaf packs were out it wasn't too much effort until they were disassembled. Look kinda gross eh?



I only wanted to do this job once so while I was at it I decided it was only appropriate to paint everything so I wouldn't be tackling this again in a few years. Along with rebuilding the pack I dumped the larger of the two overload leafs. A fresh coat of Chassis Saver and things looked quite a bit better!



Given the higher humidity and temperatures the paint was drying very quickly, so I let things sit for the night then re-assembled the packs the next morning. It was a bit of a bear to get the centering pin through the whole thing by myself but I managed to get them both back together and wrestled into the truck. Things bolted back up easily but given that I needed new u-bolts after all that time I decided to do the u-bolt flip at the same time. I went with the Timbren Active Off Road kit, at $170 shipped I thought it was a pretty good deal for that setup. I did have to strip the paint off of the kit right out of the box cause the paint was chipping off, a coat of Chassis Saver fixed things right up though.



I also scored a set of Icon 2.0 RR shocks off of the interwebz for a pretty penny so I jumped on it. Figure I can offset the cost by selling my current ones while scoring some shocks that will deliver better performance. If aesthetics are an indicator these things are sweet!

Angle shims did exactly what they were supposed to. My pinion angle was off before though I didn't notice any sort of adverse effects; the angle shims can't hurt as they should help with seal and u-joint life.



Anyway, long time no update! Been riding my mountain bike a lot recently, that was of course until some piece of sh!t stole it. But that is a story for another time.

 

And with that we are finally caught up to the present! I'll be updating more in the coming few weeks as I tie up a few odds and ends that have been on the list for a while now but just haven't taken priority.

 

Great read, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Thanks!

 

Sub'd for FTDCLBW mods

 

Sub'd awesome build thread!

 

Thanks fellas! I know it's a bit atypical for this site being that my build is thus far filled with lots of content with no BS.

 

Diggin it.

 

With all the things that are done there are still a slew of things that aren't done. My to-do list, in no particular order, is:

1. Install flush mount LED pods into the rear bumper
2. Install 4 LED pods on the roof rack to serve as camping lights
3. Clearance pinch weld for passenger side sliders
4. Relocate CB radio to the center console so I can put a 6-switch panel in that spot
5. Redo my electrical distribution system with a Bussman block
6. Install Tekonsha brake controller
7. Give the frame and all components I can reach a little bit of love with Frame Saver

 

Where did you get the iron L brackets

 

I made those from a bar of 3" x 3", 1/4" wall angle iron I had hanging around. Chop it up, drill some holes, paint it black and viola!

 

Awesome thread! Do you have any pics of your wire splices for the arb turn signal marker lights?

 

I actually don't have the turn signals on the ARB wired up. I didn't want to chop or splice into the stock harness, so I left that be.

 

Happy birthday to me!


And on the way down. Nice views I'd say.


Of course with our dogs any camping trip is a challenge. They are downright crazy about exploring whatever woods are around the campsite and will get up super duper early (like 4am) whining to go play. Solution was to make some Reflectix shades for all of the windows, it seems to trick them into sleeping another 2 or so hours. Then we wake up to this


They wore themselves out pretty good which is the only time the white/black one will snuggle. On the way home we had a couple of tired children.

 

A few weeks after that we headed to Crested Butte for the annual Wildflower Festival. It's kind of a neat place to be anyway, it was super cool with all of the flowers at their peak. It is a subtle show but majestic when you find the right pockets. Anyway, onto the pictures! And sorry for my love of panoramic, I felt they did a better job at capturing the scene.

We both love Crested Butte for it's homegrown mountain town feel. Being further away from Denver than the rest of the major ski towns it's a bit more organic and homegrown. In spite of the affluence of the area it remains relatively untarnished and there's a ton of exploring and things to do around there. Welcome to town!


We spent the day in town just hanging around before heading out along the Paradise Divide to find some camping. It's a pretty neat little trail, not difficult or anything, just scenic. Along the way we passed by Emerald Lake which I think is pretty aptly named.


We continued up the Paradise Divide before topping out at Schofield Pass. Schofield is the infamous route that a lot of GPS units will take you if you try and go from CB to Aspen, but you will quickly come to regret that advice when you hit the Devil's Punchbowl. That was not on the agenda for this trip and we continued onwards, through the woods and the river. Literally, stream crossing.


We ended up at the base of Cinnamon Mountain for the night in a secluded little spot. Great views and there was a nearby trail to hike.

IMG_1611 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

IMG_1615 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Nothing like relaxing by a nice fire to ward off the cold and usher in the stars.

20160715-IMG_3742 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

And what flower festival related photo story would be complete without a picture of at least one flower. The state flower of Colorado, the Columbine!

20160715-IMG_3735 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

We came down Washington Gulch road back into CB and got the line on a few more wildflower type hikes. No pictures but we enjoyed a nice stroll through a mountain meadow looking at the various specimens on display. That night we switched it up a bit and decided to find a campground outside of trail. We hopped on Pearl Pass and started heading up a bit. The trail got a bit rougher and necessitated dropping it into 4-low to crawl up a few sections which was good as it kept the crowds to a minimum. We lucked out and found a great little camp spot tucked into a grove of aspen trees.

IMG_1698 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

It was at least great on the surface but had a bazillion biting flies. It was still pretty nice in spite of that, the wife and I grilled up some steak and potatoes, dragged our chairs to the overlook right outside the site and watched the sun set.

IMG_1694 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

The next day was our departure day but we did our best to get in a little bit more exploring before heading out. We went up Kebler Pass and took the roundabout way back to Gunnison on Forest Road 730. This had a few offshoot trails that we took but were rather dismayed to find that the forest service roads were all closed off 5 or so miles in necessitating turning around. No matter however, taking the road less traveled sure beats the pavement way.

And that concludes the adventure to Crested Butte!

 

One thing that has struck me as a definite minus of the truck since the beginning has been the abysmal light output of the reverse lights when trying to back up at night. In urban settings they are mediocre, once I got away from any ambient light contributions they are pretty bad. Backing into spaces in the dark was a bit of a challenge and I've had to resort to making sure I stay on the brakes a little bit to allow the tail lights to throw a little bit more light on the situation. I took the first steps in remedying that this past weekend.

Went over to a friends house who was looking to perform the same mod and we meticulously laid out the areas that needed to be cut. Measure twice, independently verify position and orientation, then give er the ole eyeball check. Looks pretty okay to me.

IMG_9318-2 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Then came the point of no return. We popped holes at each of the corners of the cut to establish a radius before hogging out a hole large enough to fit a jig saw blade in there. The jig saw made surprisingly quick work of things and after a bit of finessing the holes were cut. No turning back!

IMG_9319 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

I intentionally cut all holes undersized as there's always an opportunity to remove more metal, not so much to put it back. The plan worked out pretty well as all that was left was a bit of file work before the lights slipped in.

IMG_9321-2 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Drilled all 4 mounting holes before pulling the lights for a quick coat of Frame Saver on the raw metal edges. Having lived on the East Coast for the majority of my life I have a healthy respect and fear of rust and the toll it can take on a vehicle. I let the paint dry overnight before plopping the lights in the next day.

IMG_1819 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

They aren't wired at the moment, I still need to track down a few supplies for that venture. The idea is to put them on on/off/on switches then tap into the reverse light circuit so I can have them come on with the reverse lights, turned off, or come on independently. With that in mind I have a feeling one of my next mods will be redoing my electrical system to something a bit cleaner than what the Blue Sea block offers.