Land Pirate's Side Chick SR5 DCSB 4x4 screed

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Details on the mat mount brackets.

 

Difference between the black 550 cord and the red 750 cord. I like the red better, I think it will stand out and accent the truck and rack. The 750 cord is a little thicker/stiffer than the 550 and by using this I'm thinking it should be ok without the safety wire used in the normal install. I've ordered another set of grabbies for the front of the Bravo. I really like having the rear pair when I step up on the sliders, and I think the front pair is just about perfectly placed to hold onto while I'm driving.
After this I'm thinking about a hidden winch mount and pulling the winch of my TJ and moving it to the Taco.

 

I wasn't real thrilled with my first paracord wrap on the grabbies. And the safety wires were something of a pain, and I didn't care for that either. So I decided that I wanted to redo them, and while I was at it use a stronger paracord and a different color to make them stand out a little bit. So I ordered the Imperial Red 750 cord, cut the old cord off, and restrung the grabbies.
With the removal of the safety wire, I wanted something that was going to be more substantial than the 550 cord. The 750 cord has more internal runners, and is noticeably heavier/stiffer than the 550. I also made the run of the cord all the way through the assembly process first without cinching down the final knots, then went back with needle nose pliers and pulled each loop/pass of the cord through all of the holes. Once I got to the locking knot on the back, I cinched the hell out of the whole thing, then cut and melted the cord to lock on itself. I'll keep an eye on the cord and knotting just to be sure, but they are rather secure at this point with just the 750 cord.

After I did the rear set, and after having used the grabbies some, I decided to go ahead and order a second pair for the front of the rack. When I originally ordered the Bravo I wasn't sure how much I would like/use the grabbies and they aren't cheap. So I thought I could try out a pair and see how well I liked them. If I didn't like them, I could take them off and sell them or whatever. After using the grabbies to get stuff onto and off of the rack, messing around with the RTT, and trying them out I decided I wanted the front pair. So I ordered those and used the 750 cord on those as well.
While I was mounting these I decided I wanted to slide my Rago Fab Waterport mount back from the edge just a little bit. So I loosened the mount up and slid it back maybe 1/4" and retightened it.
I also added 4 wing nuts to the traction mat mounting bolts. I used these as jam nuts to the knurled knobs. The knobs haven't loosened up for the time I've had them on there, but I wanted something to add a little peace of mind while driving that two or three of the knobs didn't vibrate loose and all of the sudden I have a giant orange air brake deploying from my roof rack. You can just make out one of these in the pic.

Finally, I had one more thing that I wanted to work out. I mounted the HiLift on the roof rack to see how it rides, any issues with the knobs coming loose, wind noise, handle issues, whatever. The handle I had already secured early with the rubber puck that fits over the handle and main frame of the jack. There was still some wobble, which cause rattling, which is why I added the QuickFist to hold the handle in close. But there was still the rattle from the baseplate that made it sound like the entire roof rack was coming apart or the baseplate came detached and was banging down the back of the cab. I had been playing around with some ideas on how I could solve that and even though of removing the baseplate when I had it stowed on the rack. Earlier this week I had used some bungees, and I had left them out to dry after they go wet. As I was putting those back in the sponson, I decided to see if I could rig a bungee so that it could maybe work to hold the baseplate in place. It worked better than I though.
Running the cord back over the handle stay and under the main frame with both ends secured through the baseplate, I have completely eliminated any movement unless I push it by hand, or mitigated the inertia/momentum of the baseplate so that it doesn't clang and bang. On the test drive into work this morning, there was practically no noise from the baseplate even on crappy roads, through chuckholes, and on the short bit of off-road travel I was able to get in. Very happy with this very simple but very effective fix.

 

Look at all that gear. How's it do on camping trips?

 

It's nice to be able to pull up somewhere and have a campsite in 10 minutes with basically what I have just on the truck. If I feel like getting more involved or have more time to plan and load, then it can be quite comfortable. That was the goal, and this lets me do just that.

 

OME heavies, and Bilstein 5100s all around. Much, much better ride now. Smoothes everything out on the drive home. Hoping to get in some dirt soon to see how that does.

ETA: the Air Lift Ride Controls came out.

 

Looks great

 

Thanks. Feels unbelievable. Significant improvement over stock.

 

Quite a few things to update, most of them small/minor.
The lift continues to be worth it. Very happy with how the ride is, and the small amount of lift is great.
I took the front bumper beard off. Had intended on mounting a Warn hidden bumper but that turned into a nightmare as I discovered on the night before Thanksgiving that while Warn says it fits all models of Tacoma, it apparently does not fit the SR5 without LED fogs. So I'm looking at a few other hidden winch mounts, and will probably go with one that sits behind all the plastic and has the hawser cut in the lower valence.
Here's how the truck currently sits.


Added an aux fuse panel and cutoff. The cutoff is rated at 50A, but this is way too much for what I plan on running. I'm going to replace this with a 30A model and even that is probably going to have a good safety margin.
Also got in on the Black Friday group buy for the Weboost cell phone booster. I run through a lot of areas that have poor reception, so this has really helped. I mounted the external antenna on the Bravo rack, and routed the antenna wire down the front passenger side of the windshield, down into the engine bay, and then up through the floor grommet under the passenger seat where I have the amp. I originally farbed up the included mount just to see how I liked it and to work out a long-term solution. Mounts were all running like $90+ and would have to modified, or they were more in line with surface mounts. I wasn't happy with any of them really. So very quickly I used LLOD's idea of mounting the antenna with a RAM mount ball base, knuckle, and 9mm ring.

The internal antenna was run up under the center console and out the top of the dash around the DMM, then mounted to the top with the included Velcro.
When I first mounted it, there was a tendency to rotate in the slipstream. It also appeared that the antenna was pulling on the antenna cable. I replaced the bolt with a carriage bolt and indexed it into the bungee slot of the Bravo, and that helped a lot. I also moved the antenna to the next forward-most bungee slot. I routed the cable back over the load bar to provide some slack to the re-positioned mount.There's now a little more slack in the cable, which I pulled through the floor grommet to allow a little more access to the amp if needed.
Mountain Hatch had a Black Friday deal, so I picked up one of those. I looked at the aluminum and steel replacements, but I didn't want metal. While the cover is food-grade, I don't know that I plan on using it as a cutting board. I like the polymer material, and for what I use my tailgate for this is better. I didn't want to sit on a skillet in the summer. I use the tailgate to work on and clean firearms and other things, so the softer material is better for that as well. The deep cupholders on some models were interesting, but then I began to think about how those could become grunge-pits. I'm not so much worried about my beer falling over while the truck is sitting still, and the smaller "cup holder" cutouts on this one are better suited to holding small pins, springs, or other parts that I could really use some help in managing.
While I had seen reports of the 4 center screws not being able to secure the panel and pulling the plastic clips out of the tailgate, I was prepared to buy some longer screws. Surprisingly, there was a small bag with 4 screws taped to the back of the panel. I thought they were meant to replace the short OEM screws, and emailed MH at about 730p. Having also seen reports of bad response/no response from MH, I was surprised again to get a response in about 4 minutes. MH confirmed that these were for the 4 screws at the bottom of the gate. Installing these, there was no issue with securing the panel.

Another Black Friday deal came from CaliRaised. I ordered ditch lights and mounts, the rear bed accessory mount, a 20W flood, wiring harnesses, the switch panel cubby replacement, and some OEM style switches.
Install of all of these was easy. Wiring was no problem, and I mounted the relays to the CaliRaised relay holder that I installed a long time ago.

The mounts are super low. I would not have wanted to have mounted the bases and then go back to actually mount the lights. It would take a -very- thin wrench to get between the hood and the mount to tighten the hardware up. Also, I noticed on pretty much every install video I watched, the passenger side mount install showed some movement of the hood when the lower bolts were removed. Because I didn't want to have my hood shift out of alignment I traced around the hinge plates and the underside of the hood panel with a Sharpie. I then made an index mark on the side of the hood and the hinge so I could make sure that if there was a shift I could re-index the hood to the hinge. Just like in the videos, when I removed the lower nut, the hood shifted slightly and I was able to quickly re-index the hood with good reliability.

The switch panel went in easily. I still need to clean up where I had my dual band radio mic holder mounted. I plan on using the other tall OEM blank for rock lights when I get around to mounting those.

The rear flood mount went on easily. I tried out the light last night smoking some chicken and a pork loin, and it works great.

I am seeing some minor scuffing from the outside of the tailgate on the interior of the light mount. There are some small blue traces showing on the mount. I'm not too worried about it at this point, and I may try to flex the mount a little outboard. Because of where I have the light mounted I'm running the wires over the profile of the tailgate cap and then to the bedside cap, then along the bedrail in a KC Hilites wire router. The wiring sticks up going over the tailgate, so I may try to figure out a cleaner way to run that. It's not problematic, just something I'm not totally happy with.
The last Black Friday purchase was upTOP scene pods and MESO mounts for the Bravo. I'm still waiting for those to come in, but while I was doing all the other wiring I ran the wiring harness for that. This one tucks up along the outside of the hinge on the driver side and up the driver's side of the windshield, tucked under the weather seal. It's then zip tied to the Bravo, with one terminus at the driver's side cutout. The other leg of the harness runs under my traction mat mount, and through the central channel of the load bar to the passenger side. There it's zip tied again, with the terminus at the light cutout. Just waiting on the lights and mounts to get here now.

Another small mod was a 3D printed rock light mount that I picked up from tamer on TW. I used a step-bit to bore out two of the holes in the ribs in the underside of the hood, and mounted the light mounts with nutserts. I used two Amazon rock lights, and routed the wiring through another section of KC Hilites wire conduit, and then through the reinforcement rib to the lower corner of the hood, and then around the hinge.
I used a waterproof switch in an existing hole in the front of the engine bay. I routed power from my aux fuse block to one leg of the switch, then from the other leg to the wire harness at the hinge. I grounded the harness to the negative bus on my aux panel. Very easy.
Lights work great, now I can see in the engine bay in the dark without getting a big job light.
So at this point, on the short list is a hidden winch mount. I've got the winch off of my TJ, and I was greatly disappointed that the Warn mount did not match up with their advertising that it fit all Tacoma models (shout out to Summit Racing, who took the mount back with absolutely zero hassle). So I've got a few mounts I'm considering, and I hope to have that on by the end of the year.
Once my upTOP lights and mounts get in, those will go on. Really looking forward to having those. I can really only run the front pair, because my awning blocks a lot of the rear passenger mount so that would probably be a wasted location. Once I get this pair in, I'll see how the actual throw angle is on the light. If it will clear my awning, I'll get another pair and mount them up.
I got two additional pairs of the 3D printed rock light mounts, and I am going to try to figure out a way to mount those to the bed rack so that they will throw light into the bed when I need to work at the tailgate, and also to the side for when I have the awning out.
Rock lights are on the short list. I'm not interested at all in the color change/music pulse/Bluetooth controlled suspension lights. I'm just going with white LEDs that actually point at the ground and illuminate well, rocks and stuff. Controlled by a switch, and mounted underneath.
I've got a dual battery kit that I'll be mounting as well. I haven't had time to get into that yet, but that should be coming up soon. I'll be adding a NOCO battery maintainer to the kit since the SR5 doesn't have the higher alternator charge voltage and the ECU won't let me add one of the diodes.
I've got the parts for the rear diff breather relocation and I'll be doing that too shortly.
Lots of mods done, quite a few left to do.

 

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Dang you been busy. Looks great

 

The truck is my decompression. And I hadn't done an update for a while so it was a lot to go over on this last post.
Should have my winch mount in this week, and then I have the diff breather and dual battery to put in. From what I understand, upTOP may not be sending out the lights until almost Christmas or possibly right after, so it looks like I will stay busy for a while longer.

 

FINALLY got the winch in. After a huge disappointment in not being able to mount the Warn hidden mount, I went with a Bulldog hidden mount. And again, although this is supposed to work with any model of Tacoma, there are apparently some differences in the SR5 trim line. Nothing major, outside of the loss of the OEM recovery point. Otherwise, the mount went in for the most part as expected.
I bought the mount from Etrailer, at a reasonable price. Shipping was pretty quick. That said, it arrived in a mangled mess. UPS must have dropped this from the cargo hold of the plane directly onto the hardtop.


The mounting hardware was completely missing, and several places on the mount had some good gouges/dings in them, and there were some chips in the powder coat. The instructions were still there, as was the bumper cutout template. So I had to go to ACE and pick up the replacement hardware, which fortunately was all listed in the instructions. All that said, Etrailer stepped up and they actually are handling this to make it right. No complaints on them really.

The instructions called for removing the bumper and fender flares. I'm not doing that. It's a pain, and the clips and fender liners are a PITA to pull out. So I went the same route as the Warn and some other mounts call for: I pulled the grille, hood release support, crossbeam support, and the bumper valence. I then removed the aluminum crunch bar and the support brackets. Doing this, I was able to insert the bumper mount through the space the bumper valence occupied. Once that was in place, I installed the fairlead/hawser but didn't tighten all the way. I wasn't sure how far forward I needed it to be, and I wasn't sure what I was going to need on the vertical spacing of the actual hawser hole.

With the mount locked down, I took the Smitty XCR9500 and dropped the right side down, then slid it over to the right a little and eased the left side down. I had mounted the control unit on the motor side as I knew there would not be room for it over the spool. It was a tight fit, and I lost some parts of my knuckles getting it in there, but I got it secured. I had taped the nuts for the winch mounting into the feet of the winch, and got the bolts tightened down so that the winch was almost all the way forward in the tray. This was as far as I could get it forward without pushing the outer surface of the bumper out of place, while still allowing a very small amount of clearance between the winch and the cooling fins behind it.

Once this was done, I hooked the power up from the winch to my cutoff switch and grounded the winch. I powered up the winch to make sure everything operated, and then I started spooling the synthetic rope onto the spool. To secure the rope, I used the Bubba Rope winch line attachment. You can use duct tape/Gorilla tape, but this made it pretty easy and I was seeing good reviews on this and similar products, such as the Red Winch model. This part was fairly tedious, but not really hard. Got the rope spooled up, although I will have to do this again with some weight on the rope to properly have the rope lay on the spool. Once it was close up to the hawser, I started cutting the bumper valence.

Bulldog includes a template, and the really nice thing is it is done as a letter-sized sticker. You simply index a center mark on the template to the top of the bumper valence at the centerline. I used a Dremel with a cutoff wheel. I made the hole slightly oversized, and didn't follow the exact contour of the hawser. This was the most unnerving part as there was going to be a giant ugly scar if it was done carefully. I mean to get some auto trim stripping, but forgot when I was AutoZone. I'm not too worried about, but I may go back and do that later. I took it slow, with multiple trips between the truck and my work bench as I test fit the valence many, many, many times. Once I was good with the cut, I cleaned up the cut edges and made the final tightening of the hawser tray and set the hawser hole for the needed height. Then I reinstalled the bumper valence. After that, I spooled the rope out a little bit and installed the Factor 55 flat link. Then I put the grille back together and buttoned it all up.



The winch mount is low profile. It maintains a fairly OEM look. I will be getting one of the flip-up license plate hawser covers, so with that on it will be a little more like an OEM look.

I do NOT like how the control unit is mounted. The way it is positioned, the port for the remote is very difficult to access. I can blindly get the remote plugged it, but getting it out requires using a small screwdriver to reach in through the lower grille and pushing against the release with my left hand from the outside while I pull the remote plug out from the inside of the grille with my right. I will be getting a piece of steel to fashion a vertical support that will stretch from the lower to the upper crossbeams in front of the radiator. I will mount the control unit to that with the remote port orient up. I may also get a second winch remote socket and have that mounted to the front of the grille so that I can access it without opening the hood. I'm also considering patching a Harbor Freight Badlands winch remote unit to the control unit so I can run the winch from the cab wirelessly.

The clutch is reached from inside the grille, but I may cut the crosspiece in the lower grille to allow access from outside the truck. Not sure about this yet.

I need to figure out a way to mount a recover point on the truck now. I can probably take a grinder to the underside of the mount ears that very slightly overlap the bolt holes. I also need to get some longer bolts and washers for the underside of the mount where the sliders would go. The OEM bolts are not long enough.

Another possible addition is the BAMF mount and frame reinforcement brackets. I think these would supply a little extra support.

Most of this install was done late afternoon and into the evening. I was trying to get it done before the rain and cold moved in, so there aren't a lot of pics of that process. I'll post some pics of the mods that I'll be doing with the control unit and license plate.

Driving around with it, there is no noticeable nose dive when braking and the rake is not really any different. I'll be adding some OME front springs soon to handle the increased winch weight and the eventual install of the dual battery.

 

Did you do an AAL with the Heavies? Looking at getting the Heavies for my truck.
Nice build!

 

Thanks dude. No, I didn't put an AAL in. With the Decked, rack, and tent I still have a little bit of rake. I may do that down the road but right now I'm happy with it.

 

What did you end up doing with the airbag system you pulled out? I've got a camper shell and am running an AAL in a new/take off 3rd gen leaf pack. All is well until I add any weight at all in the bed. I'll end up going to Dakars, but for now I'm looking for other options.

 

After trashing two of the airbags I tossed them. One developed a small tear/leak in the body and it was replaced. Then the other one did the exact same thing and at that point I went ahead and did the leafs. I have no idea what led to the leaks. One of them was just enough to get low enough that it needed to be aired back up about once a week or so. The other one was a little more aggressive and leaked to the point that it was a daily air up. I got tired of dealing with that.

 

Good feedback. I wonder if the Firestone bags are more durable...