Chris' 1794 Tundra

When I bought the bumper, they gave me a deal to where it was only $25 for a 36" light bar. I thru the light bar on the top of the bumper before a camping trip to Lost Maples state park. I wanted to see how I liked the location of the bar and I knew I would need it for the trip.

Side profile of the light bar

Set up at the camp site with my brother in law and family

Did some hiking to see Monkey rock

 

January 10th
A local detailing company was running a group buy for local Tundra Crew members, so I jumped on it and got the paint correction and R1 ceramic coating. 3 people work on my truck for over 5 hours, they cleaned the engine bay and interior as well. Truck looked better than it ever has. Almost 6 weeks later the engine bay is still shiny and very clean.

 

January cars and coffee meet for the San Antonio tundra crew. @SATX_ProRunner, @1UPPER , and @inferno_pro_satx we're all in attendance for this very cold meet

 

Met up with the Austin crew in Lockheart for some BBQ.



Inferno, white, and blue trucks with the Pro comp fender flares color matched

 

Back in earlyJanuary I started working on a custom grille by Enve Grilles.

Teaser photo he posted of my grille

On February 16th it showed up and I could not wait to leave work and install it


This thing was packaged extremely well, took half an hour to get thru the packaging paper,, tape and 4 separate layers of bubble wrap. I literally filled up both my recycle bins.

The install requires cutting the center section out and leaving just a little bit of the center section. My plan was to remove the center cention from the painted surround. But after an hour of trying and messaging @1UPPER for advise, I saidscrew it in cut it with the surround still on.
I hate these clips!


After 20 minutes of cutting with the dremel and setting off the smoke detector in my office (garage work bench was full) I was ready to mount the grille to the surround. Phone died, so no assembly photos.

Having the separate Bussmann fuse and relay box wired ready to easily add accessories I was able to make 2 quick wire harnesses to connect to the lights and install a switch. I immediately drove to the sunlight part of my neighborhood park to see the light output. The grille amber lights are not bright, so I may replace those one day with some more Baja Designs, but they are aesthetic lights Right now.

When I ordered the switch for the grille pods I ordered a few more switches for future mods....

 

Also in January I had worked with Keith @dirtydeeds to do the first ever group buy on the TRD replacement system. On February 8th this large 50+ pound box showed up at work. I had ordered the stainless steel setup with 20" mufflers and dumps. I went with dumps so there was not a tailpipe near the spare tire area so I could eventually mount a full size spare under there. The exhaust took about an hour to swap out.

 

February 10th, my wife and i bought a 26 foot Jayco 264BH camper for a great price. now we are planing our Road trip to the west this time. Right now it looks like it will be to denver area, salt lake city Utah and to phoenix. Little does the wife know, there are truck stores along the route (toytec and SDHQ)

 

Had to replace the factory battery this week. Got a deal on an Odyssey battery


Finally received my 16 piece RGBW rock lights. I hooked them all up and bench tested them before I mounted them all.


Mounted 2 lights the other night in the rear wheel well and tested them out

 

Have 14 RGBW lights installed so far, have 2 left to install (may need more). Still have to run the cables thru a grommet in the floor and to the control box and connect power, but after 3 nights of mounting lights and trying to keep the cabling neat, I was able to test the lights with my NOCO jump starter.

 

Took the camper out for its maiden voyage back on March 3rd. Did a short trip up to Kerrville and Ingram TX to see how the truck handles and what the mileage would be. Kerrville is about 90 miles away and was mostly all highway to get there. Pulling the trailer I was driving between 60-65 MPH, did not want to push it or risk having an accident. I-10 does have a bunch of up and down gradual hills, the truck downshifted to 4th to climb the hills. On occasion it would drop down to 3rd gear and be at 4000-4200RPM to maintain speed going up the hills. I did not want to push the truck harder than that and in 3rd gear I would be down to 55-60MPH. Re-gearing to 4.88s and an LSD is now in the on my list of wants. For the 180 miles of driving we did that weekend, I got 8MPG. The 26 gallon tank was on 'E' for 15-20 miles there at the end.
Visited the mini Stonehenge in Ingram




This one decided to jump in the cold lake and swim

 

Got a few things done today:
Mounted my new aluminum mounting plate I designed for a Bussmann RTMR waterproof fuse and relay box. This replaces the sheet metal one I made last year. I bought the RTMR from a tacomaworld member last year, it uses 100% waterproof automotive grade quick-connects rated at 30 Amps each. I mounted an 80A circuit breaker, grounding bar, heat shrink on all ring terminals. All wired with automotive GXL wire.





Also while I had the grille off to do the install, I also installed some LED headlights Igot in a trade a few months ago. Will see how I like them in the morning.

 

Did a few photo ops last night in Pigeon forge.

 

2018 Tundra Crew Tennessee takeover.

 

Photo Dump from Tennessee Tundra Takeover

 

Photo Dump continued

 

Photo dump of some of the stereo systems

 

Added 3 more lights to each side, I still have 2 more to install. I may have a problem...

 

May 2018 - Took the camper to Fredericksburg for a yearly crawfish broil a friend has been doing for 9 years now. As always, he cooked 3 bags of crawfish and 3 differentintensities - mild, medium, and hot.
I adjusted the WDH a little bit and it seemed to help. The rear of the truck was not bouncing as much and was overall a lot smoother of a drive. Ultimately I will add some airbags to the rear.

 

Here are some screen shots from the Rockford Fostgate DSR1. All is controlled from an app on my phone. I have really on imputed the timing settings, but I need to reduce them as I I inputted the wrong distances in the wrong boxes the other night.

 

June 10th
Truck build will be very slow for a while. Have a few inexpensive aesthetic items upcoming but an upcoming baby boy will be taking all truck mod funds for a while. And yes that is the baby's penis in the box!