0210 Crawls Starbucks

Dual battery setup is just about done.

I made this bracket to hold my aux battery in place and provide a panel to mount the solar controller + circuit breaker. This mounts to original holes with longer hardware.



And installed:



The red cable w/ black stripes is input from the solenoid.
The red cable w/o black stripes goes from the circuit breaker to one of the fuse panels in the canopy.
Ground goes to a nice spot I found on the frame.
Solar panel wires go to the solar panel.

All wires are mounted through a single part of the original air vent behind the seat, and I've sealed the opening/pass-through as much as possible to prevent anything from getting in.

The metal bracket I made fits into the battery's "slots" on either side (these are normally used for the carrying handle, which I've removed, but kept). I cut off the front "hook" as it didn't fit the way I wanted it to (had to make several revisions to the bracket after measurements/bends were done, which altered angles and final dimensions). Not a problem as the battery is a very tight fit to begin with; it's going nowhere.

Under the hood is a new revision of the bracket I showed earlier, this time w/ three circuit breakers, and painted:





I ran out of properly-sized shrink wrap as I was finishing this part off, so I used massively-oversized shrink wrap as that was the only thing I had left. Will pick up proper shrink wrap and apply it overtop of these terminals soon.

I can hardly believe how much time and effort this has taken. Making all these brackets, drilling holes in stainless steel, painting, revising and doing it all over again, cutting materials, routing wires, checking for problems and figuring out what was wrong, taking things in and out, etc. etc.... I'm easily 30 hours into this task. Probably closer to 50.

-

All that's left is to mount & wire the switch. And I'm thinking that I'll put another BlueSea fuse box & circuit breaker for the main battery, too.

 

any plan on adding a winch for some self recovery?
or do you usually go out with someone else?

 

Yup. Down the line, though. I'll eventually get one of the hybrid front bumpers, and then a winch for that. Probably a year or two away. I'll almost certainly get some traction boards in the next few months, though.

My self-recovery usually consists of "don't be an idiot" - generally works well. Generally.

A higher (bumper) priority is a rear bumper that a) retains all BSM functionality, b) moves the hitch to behind the plate and c) allows plate to be mounted vertically, with proper lighting, to not attract attention of local caps. Some options are slowly coming to market, but so far none that I'm overly thrilled about. Hoping C4 Fab will come up w/ a hybrid rear bumper that just replaces the middle/black part of the rear and allows the side covers, BSM sensors, etc. to remain OEM.

 

When you're in the market for boards. If you're looking for maxxtrax let me know. The group I'm with here in Ontario has group buys for them every year

 

Nice. Realistically, I'm okay to place an order pretty much any time, so if any sort of deal pops up, please do let me know. At normal prices, I'd probably get one of the cheaper clones.

Just today I put in a vacation request for four weeks in March (want to head down to Death Valley), as well as eight weeks in October/November of next year (for Baja). So I'm fairly certain I'll be getting a set of traction boards before March...

The must-have list before March includes:
- traction boards
- new air compressor
- some sort of pressurized water/shower setup (a few options available)
- Worthington 6L propane tank
- new tent to camp in; probably OZ-Tent RV1.

My PrInSu shell rack should be arriving in a few weeks, along with All Pro Expedition leafs, so these items must get installed before March, too. (Realistically, I'll have both installed within a few weeks of getting them.)

 

Couldn't resist @RelentlessFab 's 20% off sale. Ordered the hybrid front bumper w/ loop. Will decide on a winch when the bumper arrives!

Also ordered a Viair 400P-RV compressor.

 

So no group buy going right now. But if you're interested local shop has those bubba rope shackles on sale for $50.

 

Thanks, but I think I'll hold off on that for a while. I do have a couple steel shackles that will work for the time being. Those bubba rope ones sure look nice, but I don't really need them.

 

I am looking to add a battery in my 2016 TRD double cab and I noticed that you put a battery in the back behind your bench seat I have JBL speaker so on the left hand side which is behind the passenger seat is where my sub and amplifier is so the only spot that I have left is on the right hand side behind the driver and it seems like if I cut the plastic I'll be able to fit a 31m Battery. Just trying to confirm what battery size your using and is that battery on the left or the right hand side. Did you have to cut anything to make it fit.

 

Missed this post.

I used a group 24. It barely fits and the plastic is a bit "pushed out" with the battery in place, but I didn't have to do any cutting.

 

Installed my FrontRunner canopy roof rack today!





Spent three hours getting this thing assembled and mounted... outside, in freezing cold at -3C, in the parking lot of a Home Depot. The rack is freaking awesome, but I never want to assemble one of these things again. Although my end result is crooked, so I'll have to redo it sooner than later anyways. In hind sight, it can be done better and easier than the way I did it, but considering I lost feeling in my fingers at about 1.5 hours into the job, I'm just happy that it's on.

 

Looks beefy!

 

It is pretty sturdy. There are a few assembly points that I couldn't get properly fitting/tight enough, but I'll take care of that and get it perfect eventually. I also mounted this to my Thule rails rather than getting the rails from FrontRunner, so I had to find different hardware to act as a "nut" inside the rail for foot-mounts, and the stuff I used isn't all that great. I'll need to source something better fitting before I really start to trust this rack.

Oh, the packaging was some of the best I've ever seen. FrontRunner went to town on separate inner boxes, sturdy zip-lock bags, etc. Great stuff.

I didn't install the wind-deflector that came with the rack because I was borderline dying, but I'll get that on pretty soon, too. As it is the rack makes quite a bit of noise between 120 and 130kph.

 

Installed HIDs: Hylux 35W ballasts, CNLight 4300k lights, Diode Dynamics harness.

The light output is insane. Don't think I've ever had such powerful headlights before.

There's a pretty distinct blue line at the cut-off, and these lights have "highlighted" the OEM projector's uneven cutoff line. Not too crazy about that, but it should be okay.

A few quick photos:

 

Sub'd. Great build so far! Always nice to see guy's taking time with the important stuff. Nice work

 

With the recent addition of the FrontRunner roof rack on the canopy, the solar panel I had previously mounted there had to go. Today it has come back in style.













Everything is either aluminum or stainless steel, so rust shouldn't be an issue. The drawer slides will likely accumulate dust and dirt, but they're $25 at Home Depot, so even if I have to swap them once per year, it's not a problem. I used soft-closing slides because they take some force to open and close, thereby preventing the panel from sliding out during movement. I added the bungee cords as a "just in case" measure. The panel isn't currently hooked up (need to re-attach Renology connectors to the other - receiving - wiring), but the tough stuff is done.

The FrontRunner rack normally has three "feet" per side. To make my setup work I had to use only two feet on the driver's side, and stagger them further apart than the Thule tracks allowed. The plastic end-caps on the tracks lost some weight in the process .

// edit - reviewing the photos, I see I forgot an extra nut on the canopy. lol

 

Awesome work, looks great. Only thing to keep in mind with using two different metal types is dissimilar(Galvanic) metal corrosion. It is a huge issue in marine environments, but not as much on dry land, however being on the coast with the moisture and salt in the air it may be an issue. Something to be aware of as I had issues with a lot of my diving gear, and we have to constantly replace the zincs on the boat for the same reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion

 

Thanks, @aaen. Metal corrosion is definitely a possibility, but hopefully one that won't be much of an issue. I could have made everything from stainless (to match the drawer slides), but I don't have a workshop/garage, so I do everything in my condo and that's enough of a pain in the ass with soft aluminum. Drilling and cutting stainless is not something I enjoy. Need a proper drill press and workshop!

 

Let me know when you guys do the group buy, might be cheaper for me to go with you. It sucks being on the moon

 

I hear ya. I am so use to doing all my own servicing and not having access to areas to do oil changes/general service/etc is driving me nuts. Dislike bringing it into a garage to have them do the work, when I can generally do it for cheaper if not the same and know it is done correctly.

I hated living in a condo, nothing like living with a bunch of people whom all they do is rat other people out for violating the condo rules, not to mention nobody talks to anyone. When I said hi to people in the elevator/lobby they would just stare at ya like your were crazy. Mind you it didn't help the GF and i were usually covered in mud from hiking/mtb'ing or dragging metric shit load of diving gear in and out all the time of the condo. Never again.