Battleship Jones: 2015 Tacoma DCLB Build Thread

Have you found an autobody shop yet? I am currently searching for a good one and was wondering what you found. thanks!

 

Nope! Given that my repair will involve paint as well as cutting out and replacing the roof, I'm a bit pickier about the shop I'm taking it to as opposed to if it just needed PDR. At the moment I'm targeting Ramsey Auto Body, Northglenn Automotive or Apex Autobody. Unfortunately when I spoke with Ramsey on Monday they said they were booked until October, so whatever the resolution on my truck is it won't be happening anytime soon.

What kind of damages did you sustain?

 

The resolution to my rear end collision in January has finally come. Well, it came about a month ago, but life got in the way so I am only writing about it now. Anyway, skip to the bottom if you want to see pictures, otherwise you are welcome to read about my experience with Billy at Bruteforce Fab.

My desires:
Standard rear bumper
light cutouts
integrated hitch
dual swingsouts

I contacted Billy in mid-January through his website on Wednesday 1/18 to inquire about a dual swingout bumper. He called me that evening and spent 15 minutes on the phone answering my questions and talking pros/cons for dual swingout vs. single swingout. We talked about the various options, his construction techniques, and design philosophy. He was very personable to talk to on the phone and never once seemed less than genuine or tried to cut the call short.

I took a few days afterwards to ponder my options before contacting him via text message to place an order. He emailed over the invoice on 1/23 for a deposit in the amount of half of the bumper cost. Lead time was quoted as 8-10 weeks.

I followed up with him after 8 weeks to see how things were coming along. Once again, he was very responsive via text and let me know things were coming along and that it was on track to be completed within the 10 week quoted time frame. I checked in again at week 9.5 as I was going on vacation in a few weeks time and he was apologetic and let me know that the spindle cages that were on backorder had just shipped and would delay completion of my bumper by about a week. Completely understandable and he was transparent about why things were delayed and assured me that my bumper would be completed on time. As promised it was completed the following week on-schedule and he contacted me to arrange shipping. He ran a few different shipping scenarios for me, shipped it out on time with no BS, and it was in my possession a few days later.

Initial impressions:

Qualifier, I am an engineer who is detail oriented and has experience in fab shops, so my expectations were high. When it showed up it was beautiful. All welds are meticulous and high quality. The design of the bumper is solid and very well thought out. It is very well gusseted all around and the embodiment of a conscientious craftsman. All parts for assembly were present and I appreciate the time spent to design a camera relocation.

Here are some pictures of the bumper after it arrived on my doorstep.

20170412-DSC_2240 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170412-DSC_2241 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170412-DSC_2238 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170412-DSC_2237 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

As is good practice for a fabricated component I test fit it multiple times prior to painting and had to remove some materials in the corners under the tail lights. Not a huge deal with some files, an angle grinder, and a dremel; certainly nothing out of the realm of expectation when considering the varying tolerances between trucks. It was more time consuming wrestling it on and off solo.

Spot in question.
BFF Bumper by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Assembly:

Before you can assemble you must disassemble! It's pretty easy on the Tacoma. 5 bolts per side, a swift blow and it will literally fall off. Watch your toes!

The 5 bolts in question are the unpainted ones in grey. Note that the side of the bumper plate has a pin on it that slides into a notch in the end of the Tacoma frame.
20170412-DSC_2243 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Make sure you disconnect your license plate lights and 7 pin tow connector before you drop the bumper or you will be fixing those. The truck looks awfully naked now.

20170412-DSC_2245 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Everything went together as it should. Period. Bolt holes lined up, no issues with buggered threads, warped components, or anything of the matter. It's hard to ask for a more straightforward installation and once again his attention to detail is evident when you see how well designed something as simple as the spare tire carrier is. The only issue I encountered was due to my powdercoater not masking off the holes in the spring pin sleeves well enough and having paint clog up the threads. For reference, it is a 3/4-16 tap.

As with any rear bumper with a swingout the handy little backup camera on the tailgate has its new view obscured by the spare tire. It was fairly easy to relocate it, once you take off the tailgate skin it simply unbolts from the tailgate handle. After unplugging the wiring harness from the camera itself you can snake it out through a hole in the bottom of the tailgate. The majority of the harness is already loomed, so it was easy enough to run it along the passenger side swingout about as far as the OEM harness will allow for. The BFF bumper included a nice little camera bracket that I secured the camera into and then zip tied it to the rectangular tube. Eventually I will drill and tap or do a nutsert into that portion of the bumper to give the camera a little bit more solid of an attachment point.

Customer Service:

I had several questions after installation that I asked via text and once again he was prompt and helpful. We worked through the problems which were due to the powdercoater getting overspray in several holes. Again, stellar customer service in my opinion.

Overall Experience:

10/10

I don't personally know Billy and am receiving nothing from leaving this. I thought it was important to give credit where it's due and I must say it is well warranted in this situation. I would not hesitate to purchase from him again and strongly encourage others to give him the opportunity to earn your business. I will upload pictures of my bumper at a later date.

And the goods!

20170520-DSC_2361 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170520-DSC_2356 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170520-DSC_2351 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170520-DSC_2349 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170520-DSC_2348 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Side Note: I'm trying to solve how to get my 4 gallon Rotopax cans to mount to the second swingout. May just say screw it and get some Scepter cans and not bother screwing around with rigging something up. Unless of course someone knows of a ready made solution.

 

Bumper looks great!

It's nice to hear about small shops with great customer service.

 

After 5 years of living in CO our time here is growing shorter. Not because of a lack of desire persay (the Front Range has grown noticeably more crowded over that time period however), more because both of our families are back on the East Coast and there is always the desire to spend quality time with our parents as they grow older. That said, neither of us are 100% sold on the prospect of moving back. What does this have to do with this post?

My Tacoma is my primary vehicle that needs to serve more duties than just Expo rig. I have been mindful to retain it's utility when carrying lumber, sheet goods, mountain bikes, and the likes, I have added a new duty to that roster, the duty of tow rig.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Dude, why would you do that?! It looks dumb as hell! If you want to tow you should buy a full size! That's just not in the cards, nor do I want the size that comes along with a full size. To clarify, the travel trailer we acquired is well within the total weight and tongue weight range specified by Toyota. Why a travel trailer you may ask? The idea is that we will sell our house next year and use a part of the proceeds to fund an extended road trip. While I would have preferred to take just the truck, or the truck and a tear drop trailer, our 3 dogs will be coming along with us. I can imagine that after several months it would get a bit cramped, so I made the concession to get a travel trailer to drag in exchange for more time out and about.

With that in mind I decided that safety was paramount and I should equip the truck properly to pull the trailer. My truck came spec'd with the towing package, so I already have the necessary coolers in place as well as wiring for the 7-pin trailer harness. This meant I really only needed to add 3 things, a brake controller, some form of engine/transmission monitoring, and provisions for towing mirrors.

Up first was the engine/transmission monitoring. Scan gauges are cool and all, but I decided to go the Torque Pro/OBD2 adapter route. At some point down the road I will upgrade to a tablet which will contain maps, maintenance documents for truck + trailer, music, and of course the Torque app. For now I'm just running Torque through an old cell phone. I have it mounted to a Techdeck, which I was pleasantly surprised by. It is quite a bit more rigid than I expected and will have no problems holding a tablet even over rough terrain. I won't get into the installation because their site does a great job with installation instructions, so here's a picture of the final configuration as visible from the driver's and passenger's perspective.

20170520-DSC_2363 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170520-DSC_2364 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

I programmed a custom PID into Torque to read the transmission temperature. Details of how to do so are well documented on Tacomaworld, so I won't get into that here either other than to say I set an alarm temperature of 220F. My research so far tells me that I shouldn't go too much above this without fear of transmission fluid degradation and the resultant grenading of the transmission. I'll be vigilant about watching it this summer towing up I70 to the tunnel, if it stays within range through that I'll have reasonable confidence the current setup will suffice. If not, I will add a secondary transmission cooler.

Next up was the brake controller. It's too bad the truck doesn't have an integrated, but given that I rarely if ever see a Tacoma dragging anything I can understand why Toyota felt it was unnecessary. There are plenty of choices on the market but Tekonsha kept popping up as being tops for handling trailer braking duties. I found a gently used P3 model on craigslist for $75 and happily took it off the PO's hands. One big upside to the Tekonsha stuff is their vehicle specific wiring harnesses which are plug-n-play. I wish I had a picture of where the connector is by the driver's side kick panel but I was already doing gymnastics to reach it and didn't feel like stopping to document that part of the installation. Trust me, it's up there and it's hidden well.

The mount that came with the P3 was a bit clunky. It is a two piece deal that looks like such:



I'm sure this is fine if you have the space for it or the need to regularly disconnect the controller, but I had neither the space nor the desire to regularly disconnect it. I went off in search of another option and wasn't turning up much. Tekonsha doesn't offer another mount for the P3 and I started exploring making my own before stumbling upon a Tekonsha mount advertised for the Voyager series controllers. It mostly fits the P3 with a few strategically placed washers, but most importantly, it satisfied my desire to have it tucked up and out of the way. After mulling over it a bunch the best place to mount turned out to be under the steering wheel. It is out of sight while driving, doesn't consume one of the storage compartments, and I have yet to boot it getting in and out.

Mount used:



Final:
20170522-DSC_2378 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170522-DSC_2379 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

The last piece of the puzzle was the towing mirrors. There are two main options, stick on mirrors that extend off of your current ones or replacing the OEM units with an aftermarket assembly. All of the stick-on options were rated okay with the main complaints being vibration and lack of adequate view with the main advantage being low cost. These would suffice for occasional towing duties, but given that I anticipate being hooked up to a trailer for 6+ months I thought replacement mirrors would be the better option.

I went with Spec-D mirrors for the Tacoma. There are a few companies on the market, but they satisfied my desires for a power adjust mirror in black with the heated mirror provisions. The wiring is there to hook up into the OEM mirror wiring, however, the heat will require a bit more work as the Tacoma did not come with provisions for heated mirrors. Bear with me as time was with me last night to take adequate pictures of the process.

Step 1: Pull the triangular trim piece inside the door (simply pulls off) and remove the plastic pop rivet in that corner. Depress the button in the center of the rivet to loosen it then you can get your fingernail or small flathead screwdriver behind it to wiggle it out.

20170522-DSC_2368 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Step 2: Pull both screws holding the door skin on. One is behind a hatch near the door release, the other is behind a hatch near the door grab handle. With these removed you can give the door skin a solid yank at points along the perimeter to pop it away from the sheet metal. You don't have to remove the entire skin to get to the mirror apparatus but it helps. If you do remove the whole thing be aware you'll have to disconnect the harness to the window and lock controls.

20170522-DSC_2369 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170522-DSC_2370 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Step 3: Unplug the mirror. Remove 3 10mm nuts and viola! You can pull the mirror off the vehicle. Simple as that.

20170522-DSC_2372 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Here's a side by side comparison of the two to show relative size, the addition of the smaller more convex vision mirror, and the difference in length between the two. Also pictured is the inside of the mounting flange. Both have a rubber inner panel that should compress against the door to adequately seal it off from the elements.

20170522-DSC_2365 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170522-DSC_2373 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Installation is straightforward and the opposite of the disassembly phase. I couldn't find torque specs for the mirror bolts so I used my calibrated touch to get them just right.

Pictured is the installed product. Pictured is Spec-D on the driver's side vs. OEM on the passenger, both towing mirrors installed, then both in the towing configuration.

20170522-DSC_2367 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170522-DSC_2374 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170522-DSC_2375 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

And fit at the door, since this is where most aftermarket mirrors seem to show their weakness.

20170522-DSC_2382 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170522-DSC_2381 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Pretty damn good! After my morning commute I can say that they accomplish what I was seeking in providing a better view of what is behind me. I haven't towed the trailer so I cannot comment on their performance there, but I can only imagine I'll be able to dial them in to see properly. Bringing the travel trailer home with the stock mirrors was a bit of a mental chore noting when windows would open up to pass since it was tough to see anything within say 15 car lengths off the back of the trailer. As is common with any towing mirrors, OEM included, there is increased vibration that is noticeable. It does not inhibit my ability to see, but it is there none the less.

I won't get into the towing aspects much more than this. The travel trailer could have it's own build dedicated to it as it needed some TLC after water damage that turned out to be more severe than expected and the hitch is something of personal preference though I chose to go with a weight distributing sway control model. I may change out gears in the future to account for the larger tires I have plus the added weight to get some pep back, but for the time being I'll stick with the 3.73s and see how it does.

 

This winter I decided to tackle a makeover of my auxiliary electrical system. Why? Two reasons. One, I have 3 accessories that run off of relays. I didn't like having to find space in the engine bay to securely mount three relays and run all of the associated wiring to and from it for power, ground, and signal. Secondly, with the addition of the winch I had another item that needed to be wired in. It took me so long to get that wired up because I couldn't reconcile running a cable straight to the battery without a fusible link somewhere in there.

So those were the goals. Clean up the wiring I had going on (Blue Sea panel worked fine, it was just a little messier than I wanted), consolidate relays, and add provisions to fuse the winch circuit.

In the end the Bussmann blocks worked out the best for my needs. 5 relayed circuits, 5 fused circuits, it should be plenty to handle my current and future needs. I didn't take any pictures while building it because, honestly, the tutorial put together by Bodenzord does a FAR better job than I would have been willing to dedicate the time to.

Backside of the block showing where the magic happens. Each circuit has a pig tail that you simply plug into a wiring harness that feeds power and ground to your accessory. Relay circuits have a signal wire coming out which has been consolidated into a single signal harness to run into the cab. Power and ground feeds to the switches have also been consolidated into their own harness as well, so there are only two total wire bundles running into the cab.

IMG_2217 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

IMG_2214 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

I used an Iggy switch panel to tuck the switches in the cubby in front of the cup holders. This meant dumping the CB radio, but given that I usually wheel alone, that was no big loss. 4 SPST switches from OTTRATW to control the roof light bar, the bumper light bar, the right camp lights and the left camp lights. I have one SPDT switch for the rear bumper lights that still needs to be hooked up which is why you'll see a free terminal. The second wiring harness with the white wires runs the switch illumination and independent ground.

IMG_2216 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

IMG_2215 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Here's the finished product installed in the engine bay. A while back I had cleaned up the corrosion on my battery terminals only to have it come back again a few months afterwards. Not cool, I needed to do something before the infection spread into the wiring and compromised it. I went ahead and brought my truck to Matt at Offgrid Engineering who cut off the OEM terminals and crimped on some ring terminals. At the same time he installed some mil-spec terminals to make wiring in my additional power and ground cables easier. The other thing to note is the jumper wire coming off of the Blue Sea 100A breaker. The breaker protects the Bussmann block with the jumper feeding a 400A ANL fuse for the winch. Figured the shorter the lead before the fuse the better. I preferred the winch to a disconnect only because I would hate to get into the death spiral of the winch pulling more current than it should, the wires heating up and losing conductivity leading to the winch pulling more current and melting the whole thing with the only stop being me manually flipping the disconnect. Might be overkill, might not be, better safe than sorry. Anyway, all wires loomed and tucked away as to look as OEM as possible.

20170525-DSC_2528 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

 

At some point earlier in the thread I had referred to the wife and I purchasing a travel trailer in anticipation of spending several months on the road next year. I had an opportunity to take it out for a week and ~1,000 miles this past week all over CO. Verdict: I can't express how much I hated the experience. I was apprehensive when purchasing it initially, my apprehension was validated, and I the wife is 100% on board now too (she wanted this one in the first place).

The setup:

IMG_2484 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Fleetwood Wilderness 19' trailer
3,400 lbs dry weight (from the factory), probably 3,100 or so after our renovation
Reese weight distribution hitch

Why?

Expectations: Not a big deal to tow. Any inconvenience I might encounter would be an afterthought once I experienced the comfort of a great indoor space at camp.

Reality: Mentally taxing to tow through the mountains of CO. Pegged at 30 mph up the mountain passes and sitting at 25 mph on the downs to keep things in control. The indoor space was nice, especially whereas it rained a pile during our trip. The size proved a bit too unwieldy for my likings and I didn't feel comfortable attempting to take it down mild forest service roads to get to some good boon docking type campsites.

While all specs are well within the 6,500 lb towing capacity of my Tacoma it was pure misery. Maybe sea level mostly flat towing wouldn't be a big deal but 10,000'+ mountain passes were less than pleasant. I was monitoring transmission temperatures and the max I saw was 247 with an average somewhere in the neighborhood of 225, both of which are well above where I'd like them to be. It wasn't all terrible however, I did get some time in backing up a trailer which should prove useful in the future.

So where do I go from here? Despite my best efforts I can't convince the wife that months on the road with our 3 dogs and sleeping in the bed of the truck is a good solution. So instead we will downsize to a built out cargo trailer, either a 6x8 with a v-nose or a 6x10. This will work out to be half the footprint and half the weight of the travel trailer with the upside being I'll build it to drag it out to those boondocking sites without fear of ripping something expensive off (almost tore a stabilizer jack and the rear bumper off this one). It will most certainly be a more rudimentary solution but that was my desire in the first place. After months refurbing this one it shall move on to a new home. Lesson learned, you win some and you lose some. I lost this round.

And a few pictures from the trip so the whole experience wasn't a complete waste of time!

Exploring the woods near Telluride on the way up to a lake that was surprisingly gated off after miles of forest road driving.

IMG_2514 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

On the plus side we got to see a field of wildflowers CO is known for.

IMG_2511 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

And lastly, my favorite one from the trip, a gorgeous sunset over the Animas Forks ghost town. Totally worth driving back in the dark.

IMG_2492 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

 

In preparation for this trip I needed to source a better solution for the fire extinguisher. Previously it has kind of gone wherever I could stuff it which isn't exactly conducive to deploying it in the event of a fire which is the whole purpose in the first place.

I used this:

$60 Car Fire Extinguisher Bracket | Fits Most Vehicles

https://www.amazon.com/Extinguisher...srs=13177821011&ie=UTF8&qid=1501004976&sr=8-1
along with this: https://www.amazon.com/KID21006287-...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=SMXAQ0R3HPSH6K4FGAS6

to put together this:

IMG_2485 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

The Bracketeer is a pretty solid product that offers enough adjustment to satisfy almost everyone's desires. In the Tacoma the limitation is really with shorter drivers who put the seat up quite far. In this case the fire extinguisher will limit that range of motion. I did my best to tuck it into the seat while retaining enough ROM to allow the wife to drive the truck as well. The Kidde is a regular old off the shelf model that came with the plastic bracket. It will eventually find it's way into the wife's car while I source a better BC rated extinguisher and bracket. But it will suffice for the time being.

 

Those who have ARB Dakar leaf packs are more than likely familiar with all of their squeaks and clunks and various other noises. Indications in paint on the leaf springs indicate that this is primarily a function of them shifting from side to side. This was unacceptable to me and I set out to find a solution. That solution, isolator pads.

Now I'll admit that this was one of the worst jobs I have had to do my truck thus far. Pulling the leaf packs, disassembling them, drilling 12 7/16" holes in spring steel then painting, reassembling, and re-installing all within the span of a weekend meant I had to get stuff done and get it done quickly.

Materials Used:
Leaf spring isolators - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Leaf-Spring...ash=item2a5b249257:g:m~gAAOSwM4xXbWNV&vxp=mtr
Wheeler's replacement u-bolts - Replacement OME poly bushing - Now I have no pictures documenting the process mainly because it was pure misery. I started off trying to drill the holes in a drill press which didn't work so well as mine only goes down to 300 rpm which was just too fast. I ended up drilling all 12 with my corded Milwaukee hand drill making sure to use plenty of oil and spinning these things almost as slowly as I could manage. The key was to start with a really small bit, something on the order of 3/32" and gently step up from there. Be sure you either have plenty of bits on hand or a Drill Doctor as they will get dull and they will explode on you. That said, once you have your 12 holes you can press the isolator pads in, they won't want to seat fully but once the weight of the truck is on them it'll finish the job so close enough is good enough. My leaf pack is currently an 8 leaf pack, 2 overload + 5 standard + 1 add a leaf. The bottom two standard leafs come with isolators already so I was simply adding them to the other 2 standard plus the 1 add a leaf.

While the leaf pack was apart I also decided to replace the front eyelet bushing with a poly bushing. I've always hated the one that comes in the front of the Dakar and was convinced it would shift laterally on me. No more! Again, the install was pretty straightforward so long as you can use a hammer. While putting everything back together I did add the second overload leaf that I had taken out before back in while retaining the add a leaf. This was all done in anticipation of the camper tongue weight.

Everything got a fresh coat of rusty metal primer then gloss black enamel before reassembly, then they were installed back on the truck. Finished picture of one of the spring ends:

IMG_2530 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Now that I've had them on for a few months I can happily report that the Dakars are for the most part squeak free! There's still a little something but its certainly a small fraction of the cacophony that was the rear end of my truck before. Is it worth it? Only you can decide, the squeaks don't bother some people but for me it did. There was also a perceptible change in suspension dynamics post isolator installation. There seemed to be less force required to overcome the stiction and small bump compliance increased as well as the overall suspension action feeling smoother. Could be making that up to justify doing the work in the first place, but I'm happy I did it and I guess that's what matters.

 

Small update, I finally found an acceptable way to carry my Escaper Buddy traction mats around. Maxtrax come with a fancy harness thinger that loops over the spare tire and has ratchets and hooks and stuff. I took the easy way out and fed some 4' NRS straps through the holes in the spare tire rim then through the handles on the traction boards. Snugged them down good and tight, they aren't going anywhere. I like it!

IMG_2541 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Also installed a dual jerry can holder on the driver's side swing out. I'll use it to carry the water jugs and maybe fuel. It will be nice to get those out of the cab or bed so I don't have to worry about all of the jostling emptying the water jug all over our stuff.

 

After years of contemplation and searching I finally pulled the trigger and acquired a set of TruckVault drawers for the bed of my truck. I've always had the intention of adding some drawer system to the bed of the truck, but have vacillated between building some or buying some. There are a number of good systems on the market and the price certainly reflects that.

Truck Vault

20170811-DSC_2547 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

I picked this up lightly used off of a guy on Craigslist. It is intended for the bed of a 5' long Tacoma, however, the 5' bed and the 6' bed are the same from the wheel well to the back (6' adds space in front of the wheel well). so the 5' would leave a gap at the front. This actually was kind of ideal for me as I needed a good place to carry a Hi-Lift or add a second battery/water tank. Having that protected space up front would make an ideal home for some of the larger more awkward items that I didn't want rattling around in the bed of the truck or ping ponging around in the drawers. I don't have a measured weight for the system, but he and I were able to hoist it into the bed of my truck by ourselves so I can't imagine it weighs any more than 200 lbs.

The one I got was the Magnum edition, so it adds a bit more height over the standard drawers. The Truck Vaults are more geared towards transporting firearms than camping gear and the dividers reflect that, so I will have to source or build some dividers to better separate and 5S our camping gear.

20170811-DSC_2548 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

The drawers were equipped with Simplex locks which help keep things very secure; the bolt on this thing is almost as big as the deadbolt on my front door. It also has a push button lock for those times when you don't have the key on you. Drawer construction is also fairly straightforward, marine grade 5 ply plywood, vinyl outer layer on exposed sides, carpet on touchable surfaces, with edges routed for T- molding. They don't use drawer slides, rather some HDPE (I'm assuming) angle pieces are staple onto the bottom edges with a simple roller wheel on the upper back corner. Only time will tell how well this combination does once the drawers are loaded down, but it seems to be pretty okay just pulling the drawers in and out. Obviously not as smooth as drawer slides or bearings, though I'm not sure if that was a measured choice due to the weight of the drawers cause these things are heavy.

20170811-DSC_2553 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Here's a good shot of the surface height.

20170811-DSC_2549 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

A little bit taller than my previous platform setup but the long term plan has always been to get a thinner mattress so those changes should offset each other. I was a bit surprised to see that the drawers didn't come with any provisions to tie them down. I'll be adding some turnbuckles to keep everything in place, despite them staying put solely due to the weight I much prefer the additional security in the event of a crash.

Despite the top platform extending from bedside to bedside the storage space on either side is still preserved through magnetic wings that can pull off. Good thing too cause there's some decent space down in there for miscellaneous items. The areas over the wheel wells would be a great place to store my snatch strap and tree strap. Easily accessed yet out of harm's way.

20170811-DSC_2552 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

20170811-DSC_2550 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

And lastly here's now much space is left up front.

20170811-DSC_2551 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

A good foot or so that spans the width of the bed. I'll have to build a piece to span this void but thought this would make a good space for those bulky items or as a secure area for valuables if I have to leave the truck somewhere. Provided I build it right nobody would know it's there.

In summary, I would have preferred to make a set as I think I could have made some cheaper and better than what I purchased, however, that does not include my time in the equation. If I had a table saw at my disposal it would be a different story, but I don't, and judging by how much time it took to make that back seat platform a set of drawers would have been quite the undertaking. The Truck Vault offers a convenient, ready to go solution that is plug and play. Very much looking forward to getting this all partitioned and ready to go.

 

Every time I drive with the windows down I hear the jingle jangle from the zippers on the awning like a pair of automotive wind chimes. I very much value peace and quiet, noises mean something is wrong. So I went to Home Depot and grabbed a can of Plastidip for tool handles and dipped the pulls. Much better now.

IMG_2545 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

 

Who makes that dual jerry can holder?

 

Nice rig!

 

That would be BruteForce Fab. So far it does what's advertised, holds two jerry cans and does so without being noticed.

 

Great write ups!
I really like and appreciate the time you take to document all the work on your truck, great build

 

About to take on this project in the near future. Did you build out the Bussmann or ordered it from somewhere? May have to pick your brain down the road when I pull the trigger. In the Denver area.

 

I originally ordered my Bussman from Sandman, but I ended up more or less tearing it apart and building it back up to suit my needs. Feel free to PM me if you'd like, at this point I think I possess the tools and the knowledge to give some guidance. Also take a look at this tutorial: http://www.bodenzord.com/archives/473 if you are tempted to build your own.

 

Sounds good thanks. Yeah that tutorial is intense. Spending a lot of time learning from it but I feel I might have to buy one already wired, Amazon has one at $130. I think once I purchase it and can see it up close it might make more sense. Right now just figuring out a new wiring harness and relay for my fogs. With those, and some Rigids I need to mount, could use the clean up and extra safety.

 

Pretty much what led me down the road as well. I think I had 3 or 4 accessories that were using relays and they were randomly distributed throughout the engine bay with hot wires running to everything from a Blue Sea fuse block. Without dropping the coin for something like a Switch Pro, the Bussman block represented a good way to get 5 relayed and 5 fused circuits in a compact, weatherproof package. I've been very pleased with mine so far.