Watson, the Bespoke Pig Hauler

This is Mycroft.



She enjoys
, , , and .

She needs a ride to adventures (short legs), so this is Watson, the bespoke pig hauler. She does let us wrench on it and occasionally drive. Build to follow, with slightly more truck and still a whole lot of pig.

 

Mods:·
Suspension

o Current:
§ Front Suspension: 2.5” Kings with 700 lbs coils, Superbumps, Dirt King UCAs
§ Rear Suspension: Chevy 63 swap, 2200 lbs springs, Redneck™ rear shock hoops, 14” Fox 2.5" dual bypass, 2" x 2" Locked bump stops
§ Wheels/Rims: 5 x 255/85 ST Maxx on SCS Stealth 6
§ Bison Alignment cams
§ MF-1050 compressor
§ Apex deflators

o In progress:

o Future:
§ Extended front brake lines
§ Onboard air

· Armor

o Current:
§ RCI front, mid, trans, and diff skids
§ US Offroad front winch mount bumper
§ Warfab dual rear swingout
§ Marlin Crawler LCA gussets
§ Gas tank skid

o In progress:

o Future
§ Raise front crossmember
§ Rear compressor/storage compartment
§ Flat belly, with custom skids

· Powertrain

o Current:
§ Airflow snorkel
§ Unifilter mod
§ Fumato Drain
§ 3 degree exhaust retard gears
§ 4.88s
§ Front locker
§ Magnusson Supercharger
§ 2.5" Pulley
§ URD equal length headers
§ Custom exhaust (full factory cats, 2.25" to 3")
§ 455 FICs

o In progress:
§ Block Heater
§ Oil heater
§ Billet fuel rail
§ 650 cc FICs?

o Future:
§ Atlas 4

 

· Interior/Comfort

o Current
§ Wet Okole seat covers (fronts heated)
§ Shift knob
§ Flyz eyez design lights
§ Repaint console
§ Selectable cameras
§ Redneck™ pig platform v3
§ DocLoco rear Molle panel
§ OG Fab Trail Vents

o Future
§ Custom console cover
§ Birds eye camera system
§ Overhead powered interior rack

· Glamping

o Current:
§ RTT with Annex
§ Batwing awning with Annex
§ Portable Toilet
§ Fire Pit
§ Loveseat
§ Persian-style truck rug
§ Shower tent
§ Diesel air heater

o In Progress
§ Air conditioner for the pigs

o Future
§ Courtesy lights tent annex

· Racks

o Current
§ Redneck™ roof rack v2
§ Solar panel roof panels
§ Redneck™ bed rack
§ Redneck™ storage system: V2: metal frame, roller slides

o In progress

 

· Electrical

o Current

§ 800A LiFePO4 house array
§ Blue Sea ACR
§ 3000/6000W PSW inverter
§ Additional USB in front
§ Bluetooth house battery voltage monitor
§ Solar
· 2 x HQST 150 W roof mounted panel
· Renogy 50 amp MPPT/DCDC charger
· Charger bypass
· Portable/flexible panels - 2 x Renogy 160 W
§ Victron BMV712 amp hr meter
§ Side power panel

o In Progress
§ Heating/Cooling for house batteries
§ Wiring refresh
· Front and rear relay panels
· Big 3 upgrade
· Prewire switches
· 30 A shore line


o Future

§ Hard wired outlets
§ Hard wired seat heaters
§ Onboard battery charger
§ Charger drawers

· Lighting

o Current

§ Ebay lights front, sides, rear
§ Rock lights
§ Front amber lightbar

o Future

§ Actual quality lights?



Navigation/Comms

o Current:

§ GPS enabled iPad with Gaia (and misc other nav apps)
§ Garmin inReach GPSMap 66i
§ Wife mod – installed 9/9/20
§ DMM
§ Cell booster
§ Handheld UV-5

o In Progress

§ Ram Mounts
§ TYT TH-9800 (Yaseu 8900 clone)

o Future

 

Misc Trip Pictures

Hardcore Overlanding:
Mycroft trying to graze in Boston Commons - the locals were slightly confused:
Cadillac Ranch:
Christmas camping:

 

Also reserved, because I can

 

Sub’d for the pig!

 

Did a few things and took a quick trip down to Alstrom Point.

Added custom trail vents from @Yo_Hec Ended up looking way better than I expected and help keep the truck temps down in the Utah desert; very happy with them.


Added side power panel to accept the new flexible solar panels. Wired up solar inputs, still need to wire the AC side and air as well as securing it to the truck a little better.


Other than being stupidly hot, it was a great chance to play, hang out in a portable slice of heaven, and take in the views.

 

Hysterical, i didnt know you had a pig!!! I was wondering what hooves those were cause they didnt look like deer to me.

 

where did you mount your renogy dcdc mppt?

 

Reminds me of this:

 

Behind passenger's rear seatback.



Most of the big electrical items for the house electrical (DCC50S, house battery, fuse, bypass solenoid) are behind or under (inverter) the rear passenger's side seat (60% split). Once you pull the cubbies there's a lot of room back there: can replace with a molle panel and sound deadening or simply a plywood backer panel. Most external wiring is run through an existing hole under the seat midline ~10" from the rear wall.

Air flow could be improved, but the only times I routinely see system temps in the 110F range is with ambients >100F.

Driver's side currently has the AC battery charger and will contain the AC subsystem as I build that out.

 

awesome, thanks for the info!

 

Came here to check out Mycroft's adventures

Nice build!

 

Few changes since last update. First, the thing everyone cares about: introducing Sherlock!

And on a few trips with his big sister Mycroft

 

On the build side: first iteration of a heated water tank.


The tank itself is a Frontrunner foot well tank (WTAN022). This holds ~10 gallons and fits in the footwell of the rear seat. With the pig platform this space was hard to access, so it was an easy choice to fill it.

Living in the desert, we have 2 water issues. In the summer, we need to carry a lot of water. In the winter, overnights are in the single digits and, when water tanks live on the truck, they will (and have) frozen solid. Because of this we added insulation and heating pads to the bottom of the tanks.

Prepping the tank surface.

Installing the heater pads.

Wrapped in neoprene.

The four 15W heating elements are run through a W1209 thermostat module controller ($10 for 2 on Amazon) which kicks the heaters on when the temp is below 3 C and turns them off when it reaches 6 C.

This iteration has a simple cross-over with tubing and a ball valve.


The good:
- Main tank no longer freezes.

The bad:
- The uninsulated crossover tubing freezes.
- Because of the tank design, I can run out of water on the passenger side while there is still water on the driver's side.
- Currently fill is manual pour from the driver's side. Not a huge inconvenience, but I'm clumsy and high spill potential and multiple trips.

Future changes:
- Insulated and heated lines. Ultimately there will be lines run to the front and rear of the vehicle as well. We'll be running multiple temperature inputs through an Arduino to control multiple heating zones (we've been looking for an excuse to play with Arduino for a while).
- Crossover improvements. 1 way valve to prevent losing the siphon on the line, +/- a pump to make sure we get full capacity
- Pump and filter. Pump to allow pressurized water supply and drafting to fill. Filter both to allow filling from questionable water and, more practically, to improve water taste.

 

we need more of the piglet. haha