Otis24's Otisbound Outdoors Bodonkadonk Supercharged Twin Locked Micro Camper Build (OOBSTLMC)

Mostly this - http://www.expeditionswest.com/research/white_papers/tire_selection_rev1.html

Also, changed the oil on the moto yesterday.

 

I bought some new headlight housings for my truck last summer and figured since I've had them for about 8 months I should probably put them in.

While I was at I did a write up on the dual battery system since I have to take all that out anyway.

The old ones looked like this -


First I took out the batteries and the battery tray and removed the grill and the aux lights on the bumper.
I didn't take any pictures of swapping out the head lights. It's not very exticing. So, we're gonna skip to the dual battery system bit. In the picture you
can see where I hammered the piss out of the brackets under the stock battery tray to make it flattish. I also cut off the gusset on the fuse block thing in the upper left of the corner.


This is a close up of where the hammering took place and the cutting off of the gusset thing. For the gusset I started with a dremmel and discovered a sharp utility knife actually works better.

This is where I cut a big ass hole in my radiotor shroud to get the batteries and tray to fit. Again a utility knife works very well. Just take your time, don't cut off any fingers. Oh yeah, You'll have to remove your radiator overflow bottle to make all this work too.




What a mess!

I really need to get in here and redo all the wiring so it's nice and tidy.



That's better...you don't even see the mess anymore!



Which reminds me - Check out this sweet belt with belt buckle bottle opener I got at REI today. Being a chef I can open beer bottles with anything so this is kinda waisted (see what I did there, plus I've had like 4 beeers) on me. I needed a belt that isn't 3/16 thick leather and doesn't weigh 3 pounds and this one fit the bill.



I've been using a ratchet strap to hold the battery tray and batteries in place for awhile. It's been working pretty well. However, I wanted something a little better. I had some rivnuts and screws I bought for my new sleeping platform lying around so I decided to us a couple on the battery tray/box.



I almost forgot..this is how the battery box fits into the hole cut into the radiator shroud.



All put back together. I put the ratchet strap back on because it's there. I still need to go back and shrink wrap some of the cable ends and get rubber covers for the battery terminals.



And this how the headlights came out. I'd take it for a test drive but I've had like 5 IPA's so probably not such a good idea.

 

Edit from December 2023 - This platform acutally worked out really well. Most of it has been used in my current camper set up. In fact, I'm using some of the 1" tube for a new door in the camper this weekend.

I finally took the truck out for a drive at night a couple weeks ago. The driver head light points at the sky. The driver headlight adjuster screw is blocked by the aux battery so I had to pull the everything apart, I got dissinterested about halfway through and left everything apart. As a result I rode the moto in the rain every day, which sucked. I need to remember to keep the truck going.

Anyway, I got it sorta aimed.

More importantly I started to build a new sleeping platform. I chopped up the old one yesterday and advanced it to platform stage 3....campfire wood...stage 4 is actual campfire. I weighed the old one at 122 pounds. HOLY SHIT WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?

The new one is made out of 1"x .062 6061 aluminum square tubing, brackets, .05 aluminum sheet metal and about 400 5/32 riviets. I used 3/8 plywood for the deck. Total wieght so far is 55 pounds..not too bad. About 67 pounds lighter and more storage.

 

Alrighty. I got to work on the platform some more over the weekend. Looking good!

I can't cut straight with a jig saw. The stainless bolts go into the platform and are secured with rivnuts


Rivnut tool I got on Amazon. Anyone in the bay area need to borrow it? No problem.


Detail of one of the corner brackets I got from Vex Robotics

I had to drill out the bolts that hold the D rings down. They were all in the exact wrong location for the platform to work.

Also, my bike broke down and had to get towed from Dublin. Got it working again though. Stupid easy fix.

 

I've had that Riv nut tool saved on my Amazon wishlist for a while now. How does it work? Do you like it?

 

So far it works pretty well. I put in about 8 riv nuts in just a couple of minutes. It's fairly easy to use. It also happened to come with the M8 piece already installed in the tool so I haven't had a chance or need to find out how easy it is swap those in and out.

 

I added some access ports to the spaces in front of the wheel wells in the bed. This will make it easier to get to the anchors as well.


Also added stainless eye bolts. These are held in place by M8 Rivet Nuts.

 

@BudMan You know how we were talking about how when you order a bumper and things that take forever you sorta forget you ordered it and it takes so long for delivery that when it finally does show up you're surprised?

I have an ever better method. Accidentally order an ARB bumper on Amazon and cancel the order. Well...I thought I cancelled the order....pretty sure I cancelled the order...there may have been beer involved. A few days later I get a phone call. It's a shipping company asking me when they can deliver the 150 pound package they have for me.
Now that is a surprise.

 

Haha most of my big purchases involve IPA

 

My truck has had a nasty vibration for a pretty long time and it's been getting worse. My carrier bearing was cooked so I replaced it..no change. Passenger inner tie rod had some play in it so I replaced it along with the driver inner tie rod....no change. I get alignments and rotate my tires on a regular basis. That never changes anything. I got new tires and had them balanced...also no change. The original CV's boots were cooked so being that they had 200,000 miles on them I went ahead and replaced them with CVJ axles...also no change in the vibrations.

I was about to take it to a driveline shop when I took a close look at the drive CV axle. It seemed to have some play in it so I took it to a shop and they told me that's normal. Eventually I put a camera on it. It shakes...a lot.

So, on Saturday I replaced the driver diff bearing with the east coast gear supply bushing.

SUCCESS....2 of 3 vibrations are gone!

Getting there....

Broken mount for the skids...that'll need to get fixed at some point.

I stuffed some plastic in there so I don't drop the tool into the diff.

After 2 hours of fiddling with it an filing it I finally got the tool past the bearing.





Driver tool I rented.

Driver Tool Extension (Hi Lift Handle)



And to celebrate...Pie and Beer!

 

Back to the ARB Bull Bar.

I took the bumper off my truck and started to put the ARB parts on it.

AND THAT'S WHEN I FOUND OUT THE PASSENGER CRUSH CAN IS WELDED IMPROPERLY AND IS DEFECTIVE...SUPER PISSED!!!
Allegedly ARB is sending me a new one.

 

ARB sent me the new part # 3758081R (the R indicating Right side, correct). However when I opened the package I discovered it's actually a left side bracket assembly.
In the attached picture the bracket on the right is the defective one I got with my bumper.
The middle bracket is the one I got today to replace the defective one.
The one on the left came with the bumper.
I now have two left side brackets and one right side bracket that is defective.

At this point I'm beginning to seriously question ARB's quality control. How does this happen?

 

And I spilled gear oil all over my new sleeping platform.

 

I love the smell of gear oil in the morning

 

Instead of taking my bumper on and off each time ARB sends me the wrong thing I just zipped tied my turn signals on.

While there's no bumper I'm going to the car wash to pressure wash my radiator. It's pretty caked with mud. That would explain the over heating it does when going slow up long steep grades in the heat.

 

Made nice little wiring diagram.

 

I finally got the ARB bumper installed with the WARN HID's Eddo gave me. These lights are bright! I'd say they're almost brighter than my lightbar!


I had some over heating issues last weekend. I did some tests and determined it was my fan clutch. I got a new one on Amazon and installed it yesterday. When you start the truck there is way more air coming off the fan.


Also found another use for the headlight hoops on my bumper. There's no shade where I work on my truck.


Next up...fixing the AC. The compressor seized. I'm going to replace just about everything. I think I can almost all the work and have a shop finish off vacuuming the system and charging with new coolant.

 

Last weekend me and friend Dima replaced all the AC compents...Compressor, Condensor, Evaporator, Drier/Accumulator, Expansion Valve and High Pressure switch. We also replaced the timing belt, thermostat, lower radiator hose, water pump, coolant and water. We also found the radiator to be horribly dirty.

The week before I took my truck to Firestone and had the refrigerant evacuated. I returned there this week to have a vacuump put on the AC System and charged with new refrigerant. The AC blows nice and cold again.

All the Parts


Super clogged radiator -


Removing the AC condensor and radiator made getting at the AC compressor and timing belt a lot easier.

Also you can see in this pic we let most the air out of the tires to lower the truck to make it easier to work on.



Also having a big TV in the garage made watching tutorial videos like Safety Dang TV a lot easier.



Our repurposed tool for breaking the crank pully loose.


Getting there -




Torquing the crank pully to 181 foot pounds with our home made tool. I happened to have a piece of flat stock that did the job. I also red lock tighted the shit outta the crank pully bolt.



We kinda worked from the front of the truck to the back. Once we got the AC compressor out we turned toward finishing the timing belt. After the timing belt we returned to the AC system. Here we're moving some parts from the old compressor to the new one.



At this point we stopped taking pictures. We just wanted to get done.

 

Awesome work. How bad was doing the ac stuff? I never thought to remove the grill to make it easier to get at stuff for the timing belt.

 

It wasn't so bad. Yeah, removing the bumper and grill, airing down the tires, removing the condensor and radiotor made everything a lot easier.

I did a lot of research. The single best source of info for me was this thread -

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1st-gen-a-c-system-replacement-how-to-seized-compressor.293204/