Lefty's golden taco.

Got some more work done on the shell interior. This is turning out to be a bit harder to do than I thought. The assembly is easy enough. It's all of the planning of how things should go and how things wires will be routed and were suports should be ect. Also the flip-pac's has a huge overhang on the inside which is causing me to have to put it together in place instead of outside where it's easier to reach,poor planing on my part.

 

Nice work Chris!

I hear you on the planning part. I spent loads of time just standing at the camper and thinking.

It'll all be worth it once it's done.

 

hey Chris,,, awesome buy on the Flippac, i'll have to watch your build.

before you go to far with the 80/20 build you might think about some bracing of your front bed corners, mine have both torn. it seems the flip bolted to the bed sides lets enough movement happen separate from the bulkhead. an 1/8th" flat bar spacer on just the bulkead top would put weight on it maybe, but i built a cross brace from the cargo tie downs to the bedsides where the flip bolts on in the front, seems to have solved the problem. hope that makes sense.

front runner makes a couple great water solutions, i have two, one sits on the rear seat footwells and really just makes a great flat space for all my tools and spares to nest into, the other is a flat tank that stands up against the front bulkhead and spans the bed width with cutouts for the wheelwells, i dont even know either one is there.

 

I remember you mentioning that it was splitting your bed . I'm definitely going to look into bracing my bed is definitely spreading. I was musing of possibly using the 8020 to help make a brace.
I saw the front runner and Ironman has a similar tank for the rear bulkhead. I unfortunately don't have the second footwells like you. That is a awesome spot for water.

 

I'll try and do some catch up here.
So i had a trip coming up ,I was working a ton of OT and I had a bunch of maintenance to do. So I ended up doing a pivot on the rear build out. I had 4 days before my trip to get everything done.
@Milota95 was awesome and helped me lift the flippac with his forklift and I was able to get a good gasket on there . I used a 3 bulb ESI Super Cap Seal XL 20 FT (2 1/8" Width x 1/2" Height x 20' Length) EPDM Rubber for Caps Over 200 lbs

$36 ESI Super Cap Seal XL 20 FT (2 1/8" Width x 1/2" Height x 20' Length) EPDM Rubber for Caps Over 200 lbs

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NCCNUJQ and on the front bulkhead of the truck bed I used some foam for waterheater pipes to help fill the gap.
So i pulled the 8020 out as I just wasn't going to have time to get it put together correctly and I wanted to see what was needed and how things were going to work with the new camper so I put in some L-track to help hold down my totes and I pulled out my old bed toolbox ,I added a pice of plywood to the top to help spread the load out. And while trimming is the plywood wood I manage to cut a nice long slice in the toolbox lid while I was at it..

I removed the 12v plug as I have been having issues with it and added a bluesea fuse box that I had. I temporarily mounted it and a new 12v plug to the passenger side of the shell. This also allowed me to add a 12v pump too. I made a adapter for my septer water jug that I could hook upto the pump.
Maintenance..
Changed the oil.
My powere steering pump has been growning for a bit and I was still on the stock alternator. I didn't want any issues on this trip so I decided it would be best to replace both and put on some new belts as mine were starting to look a little worse for the wear.
I ordered a new power steering pump from Orillyes and a alternator for a grand vitadia. It was a remanufactered densoDenso First Time Fit Alternator -...

$166 Denso First Time Fit Alternator - 210-0461

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EQ94NO?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share And 3 new gates belts.
As always the pump fought me connecting the high pressure line. The new alternators power wire was in a different spot and my cable wouldn't reach so I made a new cable...later learning that apparently you can clock the back of the alternator. Thankfully I had extra cable and connectors.

 

So I made the trip and have been back home for about a week.it was awesome i had a great time and I have a ton of pictures and videos I'm working on. But I'd like to bring up some issues that I ran into during the trip.
1. So I may have over oiled my air filter. I kept getting a P0171 code. I cleared the code but it kept coming back.I cleaned the mas air sense a couple of times with break cleaner bit the code kept coming back and got worse. Eventually I had to spray down the filter with the break cleaner which helped with the codes for about a day and a half. It seemed to only come on when I was idling for a period of time .but highe rpm and speeds didn't seem to cause the code to show up.
2.the new power steering pump would make a squeal in the morning but was fine the rest of the day but didn't seam happy.
3. When I got off the freeway close to home the truck was smoking from the engine bay. Could have been some old oil but it had been smelling weird the whole trip and I couldn't figure out what it's from. I suspect the alternator.
4. I need new seats. My back hurt so bad after I got home I could barely move. I was good tell the long drive home.
5. Need to adjust my parking break.
6. I'm going to have to go through the motor and trans mounts looking for any loose bolts or cracks. My shifting was being difficult. Which is unusual for my truck especially after I installed the solid motor and trans mounts. I probably just need to go through the whole truck and re-toqure everything.
On some high notes. I got pretty good gas milage on the way there .I got 14mpg going up the mountain to flag and 16.5 from flag to Utah. And I was around 11mpg off-road but that one was hard to measure as I lost my odometer count due to a reset from a hard hit in the rocks. I lost all power tell I popped the hood. It was weird. I'll be doing some wire chasing.
7.I'm going to change out some of the clamps of the shell. The ones that hold onto the rail edge are not cutting it. I believe that allowed the shell to move around a bit.
8.i need to reevaluate my water tank ideas. While it works it only worked for one jug. And I'm not sure if it will work laying down like I originally planned . But I was able heat up water and pore it into the jug allowing me to take a nice warm shower wich was great. I do need a different nuzzle because I went through the water quickly.

 

Man I forgot to finish my pictures
Anyways the new alt was smoked..unable to return it.
The truck has pretty much been sitting since I got back. I did put the old alt back on. The map sensor had a wire that came out and was throwing codes like crazy. The company fixed it/ repined the map sensor and the truck is happy again.
I sold my 4runner.........
So the Tacoma's gonna pull DD for a sec while I do some work on my tundra . I decided to change the oil and filter , charge up the battery and I'm fixing the power wire for my amp. Wire ferrals were not the way to go, for the fuse , at least not in a truck that sees a lot of off-road driving.
Also I'm Looking into my parking break issue and going through the drive train. I also picked up a new stock style air box that I'll use when I'm going on trip with a group. It just has better filtering capabilities. And I'm calling it a night it's to cold to be wrenching.

 

Some other things that have come up.
I went on a easy trail ride in the tundra, it was a group ride so I grabbed my grms out of the tacoma, it's just velcrod on the dash and uses a 12v adapter plug for a easytransfer, just for this reason. Well as I was pulling the antenna and cord, I may have found out why ive had poor reception. .. not really I just can't talk correctly into the mic. I digress, check your cabels occasionally.

It still worked for th ride.

Tundras getting new upper control arms and new cv Axels and the shocks put at a higher lift. These big trucks ride so nice off-road.

So I've found a new water container to try out I'm not sure it's gonna be big enough but I can always carry extra and back fill it.

And I have a new antenna coming for the grms . I would like to permanently mount one with a remote mic and speaker. But I think that'll wait tell I pull the interior for some other work.

 

Official day one of the trip.

Lunch

This became a common theam for me on the trip.

 

Day one had same amazing scenery and we put down a fair amount of miles. There was a gate keeper to the river. I messed up the video. But "gotta look up their screen name "caught a shot of me going through.

While we were soaking our feet in the river, 2 air planes circled and landed on a remote runway just about the river. We got some early rain , and I got my ass kicked trying to put on my rain fly.
The second day was pretty short a small back track and then a little further down the river. The group split up for a bit , 3 trucks went on a canoneering adventure. The rest of us went to find camp and enjoy a eay day.
A wet morning.

On the move.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAPYwzXSAUu/?igsh=MXF1azFyZ2ozbzRydQ==
We had a great shared meal that was cooked over coals

 

Day 3. Started off with exploring the nearby uranium mines.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DARs4FwylPh/?igsh=MWp1MXZmYndrYWt2aw==
Then it was off to some big country and putting down miles. There were heards of wilde horses and i believe some dear too and almost no othere people.

We got to camp at a decent time, we were relatively close to a small town and with the next couple of days being remote two trucks ran into town for gas and supplies.

 

Day 4. Probably the longest and most technical day of the trip. It was a group effort to get everyone through and all the pics for the gram. Im going to break day 4 up

 

This was one of the tricky sections.

 

https://youtu.be/v-2dvhEB3ME?si=QJNmEJLHx61TWci0

https://youtu.be/AGXNm5xe1ts?si=8m3bcS2yMUaqjTjf

 

My phone and camera were dead after fixit pass. Here's a couple I stold frome others on the devils race track. This is going down at the end after the hard area. We got into camp super late taco Tuesday didn't happen.

 

Nice stuff!

I love the Swell. Glad to see there's still some challenge on the racetrack.

 

There definitely was ,I was to busy driving to take pictures. Our group was pretty spred out though a lot of it just trying to stay on track.