Diet Taco... trying to keep things light

Basin and Range National Monument
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Back to civilization (sadly) with a little bit of rest and a fair bit of work on the truck too. Trip report forthcoming in a few days once I can process a few more photos.

 

Alignment Woes
May 2017

Earlier I reported that when rotating the tires I discovered what appeared to be horrible camber wear on the front tires. Tires had worn just fine and then right after the lift I got an alignment. This was the first rotation since the lift and the alignment. One cam had been knocked a bit off-roading (drivers rear cam) and then put back in place during that period but it seemed odd to get such severe wear on both tires from having just one cam moved a bit. I suspected a bad alignment had been done after the lift.

I had the alignment done after the lift by Firestone and picked up a "lifetime" alignment contract. Based on a lot of TW opinions Firestone was so-so for alignments but if off-roading and having the truck for a long time the lifetime alignment could be a good deal for "quick and dirty" alignments as necessary. Since I suspected they screwed up the initial alignment I decided to go elsewhere this time. The LV local BS thread recommended A Arrow Alignment where I scheduled an appointment for just after getting off the plane.

When I had Firestone do my alignment back then I asked for the standard 3/0/0 recommended here on TW and looking back at that post they claimed to nail it. Well, maybe not. Here is what Arrow measured:

Caster 4.87* 4.74*
Camber 0.02* -0.42*
Toe -14/32" -15/32"

Yikes! Almost a full inch of toe!!! Well that explains the horrible wear. The tech said the camber numbers were fine and that up to -0.50* of camber wouldn't be a problem and often a lift forces you into that camber territory. He also said a lot of Tacoma drivers that came into their shop wanted as much caster as possible and that he wasn't sure he'd be able to dial it down to 3* depending on the UCA and amount of lift. I told him anything between 3* and 5* on caster was fine and to optimize for the other parameters instead.

After about 1.5 hours he was all done and the truck had been test driven. The final results were:

Caster 4.29* 4.50*
Camber -0.02* -0.37*
Toe 1/32" 0"

I'm pretty happy with that and the truck handles great. I'll monitor tire wear more closely now and make sure things are behaving.

For reference, this is how dramatically things changed after Arrow was done. Blue witness marks are from the Firestone alignment and pink are current:

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I`m glad Arrow got that handled for you.

 

Camo Net Shade
May 2017

Usually I move camp every day and so setting up shade in camp isn't necessary. We do use the Fiamma awning for lunches on the go and it works great at midday since the sun is directly overhead. Even for a late or early lunch I can orient the truck to maximize the effectiveness of the relatively small footprint of the awning. For a full day in camp though the sun angle will change too much for the awning to be effective on its own and so creating a more effective shade footprint is desirable.

One option would be to attach side panels to the Fiamma. Even a single panel could just be moved at mid-day to the other side. This would also be a useful addition for lunch stops. I'll definitely make a detachable shade panel one of these days.

The other option would be to create a much larger shade footprint using the Fiamma as a base to help support the shade material. Useful features would be:

• Dropped/angled sides to handle low sun angles in the morning and afternoon
• Low wind drag
• Permits breezes to pass through
  
• Minimal noise in wind
• Easy to setup and support
• Flexible deployment options
• Easy to pack

So called camo netting fits the bill well with the trade off being that it doesn't not provide true deep shade. The theory is that you can still scoot around into the deeper shade provided by the awning or the truck/flip-pac itself but be surrounded by a comfortably large patch of light shade. In the desert reflected heat and UV from the ground surrounding a tiny patch of deep shade is quite significant and the net would cut down on that. It also allows more space to have camp gear out of direct sunlight.

Last summer I purchased a

CamoSystems Mesh Reinforced Camo Netting Camouflage Net - Premium & Specialist Series 10'x20' (Desert, 10'x20')

10'x20' Tan Camo Net. I was looking in particular for a durable one that include true netting separate from the shade material itself. This needs to hold up in desert winds. A true net with strong side cords also allows for securing at any point along the edge without the need for a grommet hole like in a tarp. In an earlier post I mentioned a failed attempt at acquiring a spreader to help hold it up which proved to be ridiculously large and heavy. Instead I acquired a metal pie pan and drilled a hole in it to place on top of a single adjustable tarp pole.

This trip I finally got to try setting it up for a day working on the truck out in Basin and Range National Monument. It all worked quite well. Setup the first time was quite easy solo starting with the Fiamma already setup. Along one edge I attached it to the truck in three places using elastic ball straps. Along the far edge I only secured it in two places one of which was shared with the Fiamma. The tent pole and pie pan held up the outside corner at the front of the truck.

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In the above photos you can see the whole setup from the outside and the inside as well as details of the attachment points. The pie pan on top of the tent pole worked perfectly. Note the detail of the "Figure-9" device used on the orange line in the upper right corner. These little things are wonderous little gizmos that I highly recommend. You never need to tie a knot and can leave a lot of excess on any tent/tarp line using the Figure-9 to cinch to the proper length. In the second from the left photo you can see it can also be used to secure one line to a second as I've attached the corner of the net to the existing line for one corner of the Fiamma. Allows for very flexible and adaptable setup.

Everything worked almost perfectly the whole day. There were some stiff breezes and the net did nothing more than rustle a bit like leaves - no snapping or crinkling sounds. The extra shade was very welcome. Even sitting under the awning itself all that extra shade was easier on the body and the eyes. I quite enjoyed it and it made working on the truck through the day much more pleasant.

The only problem was where I was camped - right on granite. As a result I could only use cairns to anchor and I knew that would be insufficient for strong winds. In the afternoon a mild thundershower came through and despite probably 40 mph winds everything held with a little bit of monitoring from me when a cairn started to slip. In this storm the net was mostly in the lee of the truck. I was impressed everything held together despite the crappy anchors - a testament to the reduced wind load of the netting compared to a solid tarp.

Later another storm came through and again I decide to just watch. This time the winds were fierce but worse they suddenly changed direction making the net the windward side. That was too much for the cairns and they broke free. In the end though the net did just fine! It never became particularly airborne and being literally a net tended to quickly hang on things and not blow around so much.

The awning itself though was another matter. I had to physically hold it down and drop its legs to keep it under control. In the process a rivet popped on one of the support legs and the leg dropped to the ground. In a testament to the ease of setup and tear down of the Fiamma I managed to actually get it stowed mid-storm solo while being wrapped in the surrounding camo net. It was a bit of a chore but no damage beyond the lost rivet.

Post storm it was getting near sunset and there wasn't going to be any more sun due to cloud cover. Packing up the net was a breeze as there is no need to fold it at all - just stuff it into a stuff sack. It lives under my raised floor in the back along with my roll up camp table and folding chairs. I likely won't use it that often due to my camping style but now I know it is really easy to setup and take down. I'll just restrict it to sites where I can actually drive stakes into the ground!

 

OK, so I'm just now getting around to ordering, because it turns out I need a few Tap Bolts (threaded the full length of the bolt) for another (Tacoma-related) project. That got me thinking - is there a reason you choose Hex Bolts for your kit, rather than Tap Bolts? Seems like Tap Bolts would be more flexible, since you could utilize any length of a Tap Bolt, but are restricted in usable length to the "end" of a Hex Bolt.

 

Tap bolts are a great idea. I ended up using hex bolts primarily because I wanted JIS bolts so I wouldn't have to fish around for odd sized sockets while working in the field and I couldn't find any JIS tap bolts from the vendors I was looking at. I've seen plenty of US metric tap bolts though (though fewer in the fine/super-fine thread pitches). I actually thought for a moment of just getting long tap bolts and then trimming them to size as needed but quickly realized that "trimming" 12mm bolts would be rather exciting. So in the end it seemed that since I was going to get a variety of lengths anyway that hex bolts would be just fine. I made sure to order lengths spaced by less than the threaded length. I also have plenty of washers which allows a bit of fine-tuning if the threaded portion stops just a tad too early.

So anyway tap bolts seem like a fine idea to me, don't know a good reason not to go that route. But still be sure to get a variety of lengths for the thicker bolts as I suspect they'd be hard to cut to size in the field.

 

Makes sense, thanks.

 

The camo shade net is very cool looking! I may have to figure out something for my set up using it.

+1 for the Figure 9s. I've got them in a couple sizes and materials. Amazon had the silver aluminum ones on sale for quite a while as an add-on item.

 

Word of warning to those who might purchase Figure 9s that some of the tarp line kits that have Figure 9s and cord together have plastic Figure 9s. I prefer metal given the strength of Mojave winds! Good tip on Amazon.

And I'm fussy about my line too - I like high vis line and the orange stuff in the photos also has reflective threads in it which are a life saver at night!

 

Hi vis orange lines and orange poles. The stakes for the guy lines have glow in the dark plastic pieces and I try to keep a solar light there too. I still trip over the damn lines at night.

 

Red/White Flip-Pac LED Lighting
March 2016ish

This was actually done sometime ago but I never wrote up or took photos. I wanted to be able to switch between either red or white lighting in the Flip-Pac. The light housings that FRP installs are pretty cheap and have a simple slide switch on them for on/off. There are two of them and their wiring is glassed into the Flip-Pac and emerges at the rear drivers side interior. In a previous post wiring power to this point was shown.

Previously I showed installing a white bulb in one and a red bulb in another in order to be able to select white or red. In this mod I've installed red and white in both housings. Color is selected by reversing the polarity to the power going to the housings. Right now this is done by just swapping the spade connectors at my power connection but in the future I want to put a DPDT throw switch in to do that along with a dimmer.

I didn't want to add a second bulb socket to the housing so instead I added two red stick on LEDs on either side of a white bulb in the socket. The diodes and wiring are hidden behind the inner cover panel in the housing. The basic circuit is:

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S1 is just the on/off switch at the light housing. There are actually two lights in the Flip-Pac so this circuit exists twice connected to the same pair of power wires that emerge at the rear of the Flip-Pac.

Realize that D3 and D4 are actually more than just a diode in reality. The white one is a bulb which includes either a current driver or current limiting resistor. The red one is actually two different stick on red diodes again with integrated current limiters.

The point to D1 and D2 are to prevent reverse current flow through D3 or D4. Recall that LEDs typically have a low reverse breakdown potential (i.e. they will conduct current when connected in reverse if the reverse voltage is is more than a few volts). Also some bulbs are already designed to be independent of polarity - they will illuminate regardless of the applied polarity.

D1 and D2 are rectifying diodes with a high reverse breakdown voltage (50V in this case). So if power is connected in one direction current will only flow through the white bulb and if power is connected in the other direction current will only flow through the red bulb.

I think if I add any additional lighting to the Flip-Pac I'll just follow the same scheme and route just a pair of wires with polarity based color. That will allow me to have a master red/white switch for all the lighting.

Here are photos with the covers off showing white, red and off for one of the fixtures:

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Baja Designs Squadron Pro "Fogs"
May 2017

As discussed earlier in the thread I picked up a pair of BD Squadron Pros with "driving combo" lenses - which means half spot lenses and half wide beam lenses. These will replace the factory fog lights in lieu of a light bar. The pair together puts out an honest 9800 lumens putting them in the output range of smaller light bars that might claim as much as 20,000 bogo-lumens. I installed them in a pitch black night during my Basin and Range trip while using a single dim red headlamp to avoid being overrun by bugs.

Installation easy and didn't require removing anything to access the fogs though it was a little awkward. A mini right angle ratcheting screw driver was the key to making this install painless without having to remove anything else to gain more access. The brackets provided by BD work for multiple vehicles though for the 2012-15 Tacomas they only pick up one of two mounting screws on the outside (the inside is held by tabs). This is called out clearly in the instructions and seems to be plenty of retention.

Electrical is easy as BD provides plug and play wire harnesses to fit the factory fog connectors. BD provides these with the pins not clicked into the housings because there seems to be some variation in the wiring (the factory incandescent bulbs of course don't care about polarity). You need to check the polarity of the factory connector and then insert the the wire harness pins into the plastic housing to match. In my case the factory white with black stripe wire was the ground. The factory fogs have the connector directly on the light housing. The BDs have about a 6 inch cable on the lamps themselves and then the adapter harness adds another few inches so I zip tied the excess. I probably need to examine that again since I think I may have zip tied in away that will make it annoying to remove the lower bumper cover in the future should I need to.

After installing it was time to give them a test. Prior to installation I setup a camera on a tripod in the cab and took photos of the stock lighting for comparison. Camera was placed at about head height and back about the same distance as the driver but was centered in the cab rather than on the driver's seat itself (so basically above the center console). Since this was in a campsite the truck is not oriented along a road and the terrain in front of the vehicle is slightly rising. For that reason the shots aren't great for evaluating the light pattern when actually driving but they do allow a direct comparison of the factory configuration and the BDs. For the series of four shots below camera was set for daylight white balance and the exposure for all three shots is identical.

Brights only, Brights+Fogs, Brights+BDs, BDs only
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The top pair of images already show how useful the fog lights anytime mod is just with the factory lighting. The factory fogs fill in the foreground and provide very wide light for cornering. The lights appear yellow/gold because they are incandescents and the WB of the camera is set for daylight.

The third shot is after the factory fogs have been replaced with the BDs and with the brights still on for easy comparison with the second shot. Obviously things have gotten a lot brighter. Most importantly to me you can now see distant features to the sides of the "road". The fourth shot is the BDs only without the brights on. You can see in the third shot the brights do a good job of providing some fill light where the BDs were blocked by bushes in the foreground because they are mounted so low. I consider the low mounted BDs to be an advantage as they will hopefully show road texture and dips better but that evaluation will have to be for another day when I actually use them on a road.

Notice that with daylight WB that the BDs appear slightly green. This is because the LEDs used and at the power they are used have rather low CRI. Cameras show minor shifts in white balance with ease but in reality our eyes correct for white balance. The fluorescent lights in many businesses are far more horribly green than the BDs and we just don't notice it since our eyes adapt. The following two shots show brights+fogs and brights+BDs with both corrected to the same white balance for easier comparison to how things would look to our eyes:

White Balance Corrected Brights+Fogs, Brights+BDs
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Because I installed these in camp and there was slightly rising terrain I have no idea if they are pointed optimally. I will need to test on a flat road at a later date and I may have to nudge them up a bit to minimize any foreground hot spot from the spot lenses.

So far with this one test I quite like them. They seem like they have achieved my goals of more off axis light up high along with just a whole lot more light in general. The fogs anytime mod already provided a very good free solution though the limitation was that the off axis light was kept very low angle as that is how fogs are designed to not blind other drivers. I wonder if a more economical solution would be to replace the factory fog bulbs with brighter LED bulbs. The LED bulbs in the factory fogs will not focus properly in the reflectors and would throw light all over the place. Normally that is a bad thing making the fogs not road legal (or polite) but for my uses that is in fact exactly what I'm trying to achieve. Maybe something for someone else to try on their build.

The acid test though will be actually driving at night which I had no need to do on this trip. Come December I hope to be making my typical run in the dark out to Saline Valley and so they will definitely get a work out then and I'll update with my opinions based on driving experience.

As to how they look on the truck, well they look pretty clean. They do sit back from the shroud in the bumper a little bit so if you bend down and look at them from the side you can see some of the mounting hardware. Doesn't really bother me but BD is presently prototyping a shroud for a cleaner looking install. I've also included the obligatory but useless "look at my bright lights" shot.

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Great pics and feedback! The Squadron-R Pros look great on there!
-Bailey, Baja Designs

 

Those fogs look, and make things look, great!
I'll be checking them out since they replace the stock ones so well. Hopefully they have a solution for the 2004-2011 range Tacomas.

 

We sure do for the 05-11 Tacomas!
https://www.bajadesigns.com/product...a-Tundra-07-13-Tacoma-05-11-Fog-Light-Kit.asp

 

Shock Reliability Tweaks
May 2017

Ah TW, the land of truly epic threads of flaming and butt hurt. Buried in the insanity though is occasionally good and important information. Two of those crazy but informative threads came up recently and I took note and finally some action too.

First in an epic 14 page thread it was brought up that the Icon top hat design is not a full ring and that in certain catastrophic cases it can fracture and also damage the front upper shock mount on the truck. It seems debatable whether this is a symptom of improper bump stops or a likely failure mode, but in between all the butt hurt was a great post by @EDDO showing how to cleverly reinforce the setup using a spacer ring placed above the shock mount. I have now shamelessly copied this:

Reinforced Top Hat
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Install was pretty trivial if annoying. Access to the rear bolt especially is annoying and none of them really have access for a standard socket. So I was using a standard combo wrench instead with tiny little turns. Couldn't get enough torque with the little 14mm wrench to break the bolts free so I ended up using another wrench on the end as a cheater - a trick which surprisingly I didn't know about until recently. If you haven't seen before it is like this:

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The second fix was motivated by another 45 page epic thread where I learned that Icon had revised its install instructions for the rear shocks with RRs because in some installations the hose fitting was contacting the top shock mount. Icon was now recommending the top mount be ground a bit to ensure clearance when the suspension cycles. They said this wasn't strictly necessary on every truck but there was plenty of variation in trucks as well as where the installer chose to locate the RR which meant in some cases there could be contact between the fitting and the mount. That eventually leads to a leak.

I gave Jason who did the install a heads up that Icon was now recommending this (they weren't when mine were installed) and he said he's always been aware that was a tight point and was careful of the orientation on install. I checked mine in photos from the install and there looked to be plenty of clearance but I also knew I had removed and reinstalled my passenger side shock when I lost the bolt on the lower mount. I probably wasn't as careful with orientation.

Indeed there were minor signs of interference because I hadn't oriented the shock optimally. So on this past trip I corrected that and while I was at it went ahead and ground the mount a little bit to be extra sure. I used a flap wheel in the hand drill I keep in the truck. For now I covered the bare metal with a paint pen I have in the truck and will return with more durable black paint at a later date. The driver side had plenty of clearance so I didn't remove or grind it.

The other thing that came up in the thread was Icon said to be careful not to over tighten the upper stem nut. It is a nyloc nut so it doesn't need to be tightened any more than flush with the top of the stem. Tightening more pulls the shock higher and increases the likelihood of contact with the mount. Both sides were tightened down a bit too far so I brought new nyloc nuts with me and installed them flush with the top of the stem.

Hopefully I won't be playing with the shocks again until it is time for a rebuild around 30K miles!

Improper orientation and signs of rubbing on hose fitting


Proper orientation, ground for more clearance and nut flush with stem​

 

Seeing as I actually printed out your pictures of your exhaust relocate to give to a local exhaust shop to show them how I wanted mine done...

If anyone is wondering, these are the rings.
And the longer bolts I used.

 

Any trips lately? Missing updates from this thread. Holy hell death valley is HOT right now. Did you see those two backpackers that died in the new Mexico desert. Pretty sad. Apparently they were experienced too. Sometimes you gotta just say no and cancel the trip.

 

I've got a half written trip report from Basin and Range National Monument I need to finish. Next trip is end of August for the total solar eclipse!

Me too! Been buried at work and had family travel take up the rest of the time. Hopefully done with a crunch middle of next week and can get the thread caught back up again. Have the trip report to post, my cool OEM jacking system and more on GVWR.

Yeah. Women got 3rd degree burns walking barefoot on the dunes the other day. Link

No I hadn't seen that. Link to the story? You definitely need to know when to say no.

 

Nice. And yeah those threads are painful, but informative. Being out in a frying pan in the middle of nowhere with your family, you can't afford those types of failures. @EDDO 's fix is awesome.

Two notes:

1. I remember the three top bolts being a PITA on my first gen too, especially for torqueing or using a breaker bar. That added height from the ring would only make it worse. That's when I got these, which allowed just enough room and offset to get the half-inch torque wrench in there. Crow's feet could be another option, I think.
The 19mm was for the driver side front hanger bolt on the leaf spring.


2. I'd like to see a few threads exposed on those nylocs. Despite what Icon may say, they are trying to resolve their design problem, and IMHO, recommending a not-to-sound practice that most mechanics would find unacceptable. If you've you've got enough bucket clearance now to avoid contact even during compression of the bushing, I'd suggest putting a couple more turns on those nuts. Or, more accurately, I'd bother to buy another set of new nylocs and run them down a few threads farther. I'm sure a rocket scientist like you can appreciate this.

Eternally yours, The Guy Who Never Works On His Truck Anymore.