El Taco Sucio Build

I needed a thinner clamshell style tent so I could still fit in my garage. After lots of different options I decided on the CVT Mt Triumph. I needed to figure out a better way to mount the tent rather than adding crossbars between the cap rails and tent rails. I need to be as low as possible and crossbars would not be ideal. Also I would hate the look. I ended up drilling new mounting holes in the bottom of the tent that would line up with the cap rails. I then designed stainless steel, slip in, brackets for the rails which I ordered from sendcutsend.com. They had an option to add a press in nut but since they weren't weld in, I was a bit wary and passed. Access to the nuts it very tight so I ended up using square nuts held in place by fixtures that I designed and 3D printed. This worked great! I can tighten or loosen each bolt from above without need to secure the nut below.





Tent on:

 

Next was adding the lights inside the cap. I decided on 2 center lights and one on each door with a master switch to control whether just the door lights are on, all are on, or all are off. The individual lights all have switches as well. I added pin switches to each door that turn the lights on when they are opened (unless the master switch is off). The pin switches also let me tie into my alarm, because people suck.

Master light switch, water pump switch. charger with voltage display, and extra 12V socket in a housing that I 3D printed.


All lights on.

 

I drilled out the rivets on one door and removed the weird slot plate that nothing seems to easily bolt to. I then mounted my Rotopax using the Rotopax universal mounting plate. It's sturdy enough to double stack them when I need diesel for my heater.

 

After looking at the short roof rack options, I decided to just get a full size Prinsu and cut it down myself.

 

For chase lights I went with Diode Dynamics C1 amber using a Scanstrut cable gland. I do a lot of Death Valley and Mojave runs, which get super dusty, very bright yellow or amber chase lights are needed.

 

The 14WA brake swap was great for 4 years but I started to get grooves on one of the rotor faces, after contemplating just getting new pads and rotors, I decided to upgrade to the Wilwood 6 Piston Direct Mount Aero6 Kit.