Tacomarin’s Chubby Unicorn Build

Jesus, $4k is a steal

 

I know you're dreading building out your OVRLND camper. You could just do this instead!

 

Back on the grind...

The Tradesman and the drawers now have happy new homes and Chubbs is looking lean!

I spent pretty much all of Saturday wiring and re-wiring the bed in preparation for the new camper. Trying to think through where we'll need outlets and with what power source. I ended up running 10 gauge hot and ground from the starter battery to both back corners of the bed, and also ran 12 gauge hot and ground from the back passenger corner of the bed all the way into the cab and into the center console to a 12V outlet at the back of the console. This will be the power source for our fridge, which will stay in the cab, from the "solar generator" that will live in the bed to power the camper. And of course I already decided to change where it's going into the bed to take advantage of the passenger side cubby. Annnd I wired in the S1 lights in the rear bumper from some existing wiring that I was using for my reverse lights on the top of the Tradesman. But I didn't take any pictures because it's just fucking wiring and I hated every second of it.

Sunday @RangerComa and I added a leaf to my Dakar HD leaf pack. Probably a band aid for a while until I can justify Deavers and HD shackles. The leaf packs are flat, if not W'd, but I've got like a 6" lift now so ??? One of these days I need to go for a ride with someone with Deavers to see if I can feel a difference. Regardless, Chubbs is super stink buggy now! Picking up the new to me Drifter on Friday!

 

I vote for a name change

 

Dude... I kid you not, Jessie said the same thing last night. She said we need to name it after some kind of cool beetle. Y'all had a mind meld going on!

 

Scarab…

 

The Drifter is on and it's awesome! Super happy with it. It's in great condition, very well spec'd and looks great on Chubbs. The additional leaf in the leaf pack is handling the weight perfectly and I'm sitting with about a 2 inch rake dry, which seems like it will be perfect when it's fully loaded.



I've been putting in lots of work to get things set up. It's a great baseline but it's going to take a lot to get everything situated just right. After 5 years with our previous configuration, everything was so dialed and now we're starting from scratch. So I took the opportunity to clean up some wiring, seal up the rear cubbies as best I could, and put new tail gate seals in. I also traded the install fee of the Drifter for the previous owner's Mountain Hatch tailgate table, which is wayyyy nicer on the knees.



Dust sealing the cubbies. I ended up using gorilla tape to seal up the slots (bottom and top), and weather stripping behind the cubby and in the doors. I did the same on both sides.


I redid the wiring for the bed as well. The driver side rear is wired for the on board water (switch is now on top of the cabinet rail... need a pic of that). The passenger side is pre-wired for solar and the camper lights/outlets with the intent that it is used with a power station. So I'm going to park my goal zero in the corner, which means I got to run wiring from the back cubby into the cab center console for the fridge.


Lots more to come. I need to do a better job taking pictures too...

 

Been spending quite a bit of time organizing our bin cabinets and getting things situated.

First thing I did is cut a window to access the goal zero interface panel.



I put in quick release water hook ups that are attached to the previous quick release hook ups in the bed side. This will allow us to easily pull the cabinets out when needed. I wired up the switch to the small strip behind the cabinet.


I put in plywood dividers in both cabinets that I just mounted to the bed floor plywood using 5x7” right angle brackets. The driver side bin will have all our camp and recovery gear. The huge passenger side bin will have our clothes.



I found a truck organizer on Amazon that fits our open cabinet really well. So that will have all our every day cook things. The stove is strapped to the top of the cabinet which fits really well.


Underneath the cook caddy is a removable panel. Under that is where our big camp pot and less commonly used camp cooking things. Usually only needed for camp fire cooking.



And under that panel is where our goal zero and makita charger will live. They are both strapped to the plywood bed floor.

It’s all coming together. I’m really impressed with how much storage we have back here now.

 

It was a bit of a bummer when I realized the awning mounts that are installed on the camper weren’t going to work with our OVS 270 awning.


After an email to vagabond confirmed they do make awning brackets for bigger awnings, but didn't have any in stock nor an eta on when they would, I decided to make my own. I talked with some friends that have OVRLND campers and got some information about their awning mounts to use for inspiration. I got some 2x2x.25” aluminum U Channel and cut out a small section so that it would be able to be mounted to the existing awning holes and not hit the side of the camper where it angles out. I definitely didn’t need to remove that much material but it has plenty of clearance. I kept a biggish radius on the cut out piece and decided to mount the brackets pointing down so that the awning wouldn’t be trying to rip off the cut off section. After getting all the holes drilled I cleaned them up and rattle canned them black.


I mounted them through the camper wall using the existing holes and some M8 hardware I already had for the awning with some RTV around all the holes for weather proofing. New holes were needed for the third bracket between the existing ones.


My preference would have been to have them spaced out a little more but since the holes were already there, I elected not to put any more in.

I also had to move the side mounted latch to the back of the camper. Similarly, I decided not to move the passenger side latch. I used RTV under the latch and rivets here as well.


Finally the awning was ready to mount. We wrangled it up there, then had to take it off and reposition it and wrangle it up there again. What fun!


Everything feels super solid and the hatch still opens almost all the way, so I’m pleased!




First voyage will be in about a week! A couple more things to button up but we are looking pretty good!

 

Getting lots of little things done in preparation for our upcoming adventures. We've decided to both leave our jobs for a while and go travel around this beautiful country. So we're trying to button up our setup in time for a departure at the beginning of August.

Kinda shitty pics, but I finally fully deleted the rear driver seat to get the fridge positioned better. I took the path of mounting the bottom plywood to the forward seat brackets, and removing the plastics to replace with plywood. I used 3/4” plywood all around, but it basically rests on the floor so I’m confident it could be 1/2” plywood if needed. Roughly 20” wide for the bottom with some notches to clear the back rear brackets. I did it out of a 48” long piece of plywood which worked fine. The bottom piece is about 26” long but doesn’t quite reach the back piece, but it’s long enough to fully support the fridge. I sprayed bed liner on it instead of carpeting and attached foam sound deadened on the back rest piece.

I’m so happy with this little project. It's not the best build quality, maybe not up to my typical standards but it's totally fine. We have had our fridge on the back of our folded down seat for years and it’s kept us from being able to position the driver seat ideally and from being able to fully open the fridge. I can’t believe this took me so long to do!


Here's how it was positioned before for reference. It's a CFX55.

 

I mounted up a 5lb propane mount from BAMF to the swing out. Jerry also fabbed up this sweet new bike hitch mount to put the bike on the swing out instead of in the hitch. I mounted it to the tire side, because surprisingly it's about the same weight or even lighter than the Jerry can side when fully loaded (80lb wheel and tire + tire mount vs 80lbs of water + jerry can holder + propane tank). It's definitely a lot of weight to have on the swing out so time will tell if I run into any issues. In my mind, it's not all that different than the Rig'd Ultraswing setup that people also run with bike racks so hopefully I won't have any issues either!








I also installed these new swingout bump stops that Jerry made to keep the swing outs from rattling around. They're awesome and work really well. I also replaced the latches because one of them wasn't reliably catching anymore. With everything working just right now I really am enjoying this bumper!

 

Waaaaaay overdue for an update. Where to begin?

With the help of a good friend, we built and installed some drawers in the back bed. The kitchen bin was a fine temporary solution, but it was just a pain to get in and out of. The drawers don't have as much storage, but they are way more user friendly and by far the best drawers I have ever had in this truck, no thanks to me! I used bottom mount drawer slides for the first time, mostly because they attach pretty easily to 80/20 but they're also really nice. The slam latches I got off of Amazon and they are surprisingly really nice. I ended up staining them all satin black with a urethane stain, and it came out okay, but maybe in the future I'll raptor line the faces too.



Side note, I will also say that 80/20 builds are a pain to modify. They are great for weight saving, but it took FOREVER to re-work the framing to accomodate these drawers, and they are way less space efficient because you lose an inch on all sides every time you look at it. I think if I were building this from scratch I'd be hard pressed not to do it all out of wood, just for the ease of assembly and modification.

Putting the drawers there meant moving the battery. That was actually a good thing as it was kind of a pain to access and interact with. So it moved up into the cubby, and I added another vertical divider to store taller items (cutting board, collapsible sink and bucket, plates) that didn't fit in the drawers. The Bedouri has now been demoted to a special occasion cooking appliance since we got these great pans off amazon that have a removable handle.

$44 Pots and Pans with Removable Handle, Cookware Set with Ceramic Nonstick Coating, Suitble for Camping | RV, Dishwasher Safe | Ovens Safe | PFAS Free | PFOA Free, Orange

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09DKC5QVM?ie=UTF8&th=1



I needed something better than that cam strap to hold everything in place, so I commissioned our friend to make a mesh velcro panel. Some double sided velcro on the frame holds it in place, and it works great!



A while back when I first got the camper, I swung by Mom's place and we started scheming on bug screens and windoor covers. She whipped these up in the meantime. They use magnets to attach to the window seal, which has a steel inner layer. Thank goodness since pretty much everything else on the camper is plastic or aluminum!



We also upgraded the shitty VO mattress to a Hest mattress. The hype is real, this is soooo much more comfortable. Yeah it's pretty damn expensive but we absolutely love it and sleep so much better. And it actually folds up really well, better than the VO one in fact because it just rolls up instead of having to fold in half.



What else... lots of other small modifications that I don't have pictures of at the moment. But we did get away for 3 weeks up north, with the ultimate destination being Vancouver Island. We had a blast! A couple of ferry rides with the truck, amazing coast lines and forests, and warm fresh water lakes. An absolute dream!



It was a great shakedown run with fortunately not a lot of big changes coming out of it. I knocked out a couple smaller projects when we got back. First was insulating the front wall of the camper. I used 1" foam board and some leftover outdoor carpeting. It came out super good enough if I do say so myself. I also had ordered some insulated window and fan covers from Strawfoot, and they are really exceptional. I'm a huge fan! www.strawfoothandmade.com



The biggest change was the decision to upgrade the Goal Zero Yeti 500x to a big ol' Bluetti AC180. It has more than 1,000 Watt hours and can charge at 1,000W from an AC outlet or 500W from DC. The Goal Zero was fine for weekend trips, especially with good sun, but in the dense forests of the PNW it was just a lot to manage. So the bigger battery will be nice, and the Bluetti is really nice because not only is it a great pricepoint, but it uses LiFePO4 which can endure about 3,500+ cycles vs the Goal Zero's Li ion which can take maybe 500. So here's hoping it works out!

In preparation for our next leg in our journey, I also test ran the portable diesel heater setup I got off a friend. It fits perfectly in this Rigid tool bin, which keeps the truck from stinking like diesel! I've got a long vent tube for it that we port in through the rear window of the tent. I don't think we'll end up running this that much, but it's going to be nice when we do need it!



The last update, which was pretty low on the list, was adding some molle panels to the insides of the camper doors. I found some generic seatback panels that are aluminum, and were way cheaper than any other aluminum panels I could find. And they almost fit out of the box. I had to open up the four closest mounting holes, and then swapped out the factory hardware for some 35mm long button heads and added 3/4" spacers to the back. But they are a great addition and will definitely be helpful to have some quick access storage.


I think that's it for now. We're mostly packed up and heading out tomorrow. The plan is to be gone for ~6 months, traveling across the country seeing beautiful places and beautiful faces! I'll be posting to the Instagram page so follow along there if you're curious. Thanks for reading, or skimming, or whatever. Cheers!