0210 Crawls Starbucks

Guessing rivnuts to hold it down? Or possibly attaching it to the total chaos stiffeners? hmm

 

Yup. That original hole had to be trimmed quite a bit. It's an insanely tight fit right now, but work well.

 

What did you use to trim it? Reason I am asking is mine should be in here in a week or two and I thought it would fit right into the existing hole. Not an issue, just want to make sure i have everything I need to do the dual battery setup when everything starts arriving in a few weeks time. Then once that is in, start getting the new roof rack/light bar setup and installed.

 

It has been a while since I did it, but I'm fairly sure I used a rotary tool (Dremel) with a cutoff disk & a sanding bit, as well as a utility knife.

 

oh, so we are talking quite a bit larger of a hole then. Probably best if I remove the panel and do this outside the truck. I thought it would be more of a slight trim, not that involved. Any particular way that switch installs? Presuming it is completely different then the toyota button install, probably self explanatory once i get it in my hands.

Anyways, back to the tonneau/rack combination.

 

Yeah, the panel definitely has to come out. It is very easy to remove.

There's quite a bit of trimming, but it's not hard to do. Slow and steady, taking off just enough. I can't recall 100%, I think I may have even epoxied the switch after installing it. The switch has little tabs on the underside of it that are meant to clip-in to whatever surface you're working with, but I vaguely recall that not being possible with the switch panel being what it is.

If you'll be around the lower mainland when you get the BlueSea, you're welcome to pop by my place on an evening or weekend and we can do your panel.

 

I'd love to swing by and get your help, unfortunately, I am going to be in northern AB (GP area), for the foreseeable future and probably relocating there with my truck and stuff until the job is over in 15 months time. Nothing like spring break up in Northern AB, your site will go from perfect one day to 3 feet of slop overnight. As I mentioned before the taco eats up mud, just not when it is scraping along the bottom of the truck. think i am going to be in need of some skid plates shortly.

 

That sounds... interesting. Yeah, I'd get some skids for sure.

 

if you're making new bed rails, would it be worth replacing the front rail and tailgate cover while you're at it? make everything 1/2"-1" higher. possibly you might be able to make the front rail tie into the side rails to improve waterproofing?
also reusing drawer slides? or buying new? you can save some space by getting a lower profile slide that mounts to the bottom of the drawer or have an L bracket that mounts to the slide and under the drawer?

 

I think raising the sides will be more hassle than it's worth.

I was thinking about this last night and I think I now have a solution in mind. I'll get a set of locking Orr and Orr slides, and have the same fabrication shop that's doing all the work for me make a sliding tray for me. The sketch above will be used as the main base of the plate, and the frame/bottom support will sit in the "valley" ridges of the bed, netting me another 1/4" or so. Using steel will make it possible to use fairly thin (hoping for 1/8") material, so I think everything should fit fine.

The other consideration is making sure the sliding platform clears the tailgate and doesn't "sag" under load. I think we'll be able to have it sit a full 1/2" above the "mountain" ridges of the bed, which will ensure sagging and tailgate clearance won't be a problem.

 

What's wrong with this picture?





~Two month old leaf springs. FML.

 

Shit man, under warranty?

 

Yeah. Will call em on Monday.

 

Damn, I got those same springs...

 

Any idea what caused it?

 

Not a clue

 

I have one


Canadian winters lol

 

The t-case skid place is now installed. Turns out I had the crossmember in backwards, and that's why it was "conflicting" with my sliders. No problems once that got sorted out.

And the bed stiffeners are in place, too. There was no hardware in the box, so had to use our own for the install. Interestingly, I just received notification of an unexpected parcel, and it's from Total Chaos. Probably the missing hardware...

More or less figured out how the bed rack will work. New, 1/8" steel bed caps will sit on top of OEM plastic bed caps and secure to the truck's bed rails. The tonneau will sit on top of these new bed caps (which will actually give me that bit of extra room underneath it for fridge clearance). Tubular feet will be welded to the new bed caps, and will extend up and in to support my FrontRunner rack from the bottom. The tent will end up sitting slightly above the cab's roof line - possibly as high as the shark fin.

 

Shitty news on the leaf springs, those are ALL-pros are they not? Damn, I'd be super pissed, I'm still canopy less on my end, no idea when my replacement windows are going to come in.

Interesting idea on the tent install, I may be going the same route, as I realized this weekend in the heavy rains here on Vancouver Island over the past four days, that having a ground tent sucks and really limits where one can camp for the night, with decent views. Still had a great time being out, just realized that my options were limited. Suppose there are pro's/cons to both systems.

Did your new RTT come in yet? Eager to see pictures of that puppy installed and in use.

 

Yup. All Pro Expedition leafs. I briefly chatted w/ All Pro today and sent them photos. Waiting to hear back.

I hear you on ground tents. Even just eliminating the factor of needing to find a place to set the tent up should be a huge relief. I'm really looking forward to it.

The RTT is ready to ship pretty much any time I give the go ahead, but I'm holding off until the rack is ready to receive it (probably in a month or so), otherwise I don't have a good way to transport it home, nor a place to store it. Will be anxiously waiting for everything to come together.

I'm going to have less space under the rack than I anticipated, so I'm not sure the idea of mounting a drawer underneath the rack will pan out, but we'll see. I may end up having to make custom drawers that are slimmer than available commercial offerings. Really hoping to avoid that, but it may be the only option.

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If they can't give you a reasonable estimate on the window replacement, I'd push hard for a full refund. You paid for a product that you didn't receive. Or at a minimum a full replacement. There's no way they don't have an identical canopy sitting in a warehouse somewhere.