Cuda's Photography Overland Truck Build & Portfolio & BS

New side profile shot showing the lift and the moderate rake. Just need to throw some new rubber on in a month or two.

 

Brains of the wiring project arrived today from @Yotamac / TacomaPros.com, along with the BlueSea battery disconnect switch. haven't decided exactly where the disconnect is going to be mounted, either it'll go on the end of the plate (photo 1) or I'm going to mount it up in front of the battery on a piece of square aluminum that @xJuice sourced for me (photo 2). Will have to get under the hood early next week to get a plan in place and then start getting the rest of the wiring run to/from the fuse panel.

 

Looking good!!! ​

 

Switch wiring complete. This weekend I'll be building the runs down to the dash/firewall so I can get this all installed soon. Huge shout out to @Naveronski for the use of his wire stripping and crimping tools, without which I'd have used a lot more four letter words thus far.


In related news, got the call from Billy that my Brute Force Fab rear bumper is complete and ready for shipping. Anyone want to put bets on who gets their bumper installed first, me or @ChadsPride, he's only had about a 3 week head start and I haven't heard anything about it being installed yet.

 

Thats awesome man!!

I went ahead and ordered Rigid diffused pods for mine today.

Acetone, primer, and paint sitting in the cave with the bumper

Figuring out a way to make some of my carport a make shift paint booth with clear plastic sheets

Should be interesting lol

 

Spent the entire weekend working on wiring. Wow does doing it right take time!

First setback was Saturday late afternoon when I realized I had installed the connection pins for the molex plugs in the wrong end piece, making it impossible to get a successful connection. So that ended Saturday's efforts on the truck and began Saturday's efforts on the whiskey. Sunday got that fixed and moved the party out to the truck to start installing everything. Realized that my two extra trips to Lowes for bolts to attach the fuse panel to the fender were not necessary as TacomaPros had supplied the needed hardware

Good news is that running the wiring through the headliner and down the A-pillar was way easier than I'd feared, and aside from WAY over estimating the necessary length of the wire run, most all that went to plan. Getting the fat wire lead from the fuse box through the firewall grommet was even easier than feared as I was able to tape it to the existing switch wire from the PIAA lights and force it through the same hole. It's a **tight** fit now.

Wiring under the hood needs to be cleaned up, got them sort of laying up top so I could test / check connections, need to route them better along the fender well and probably encase it all in a split loom where possible. Also still need to get the winch power switch installed on the plate, but that's also going to require installing my crudely made support arm out of a piece of aluminum bar I bent (all to hell). Before THAT can go in however, I need a longer bolt for the fuse box that I'm using as the lower attachment point. And probably a universal joint for the socket wrench.

 

Rear bumper comes back from powder coat this week, just in time to get blazing F'in hot here in Dallas. Will need to figure out a plan other than the promise of beer to get people over early enough to give me a hand with it come next weekend...

 

Brute Force Fab in the house, all ready for install after powder coat with @usoffroad to match the front bumper.

 

Bumper installation went quite smoothly with one extra set of hands (thanks again @SuperBad). I did have to pull the bumper off once after realizing that the plastic corner pieces had to come off the truck, but other than that install went smoothly. I would recommend trying to install the licence plate light pods, licence plate flip down holder and trailer wiring harness while the bumper is off the truck if possible, or dropping the spare tire. Would have made getting everything bolted up a bit easier than after install.

 

looking good man!!! how was the fitment on that sucker?

Did you do a test fit at all?

 

Slid on no problem once we removed the plastic pieces on the corners (3 plastic clips on each side, the third one is behind the tail gate, just lower the tail gate to get to them). There's a bit more of an overlap on the driver side of the bumper beyond the fender, but it's maybe a quarter inch or so?

 

Turned out very nice!

 

Thanks Brad. I got your voicemail last week but never got a chance to return your call. Powder came out quite nicely, very happy with the job.

 

Looks good! Happy to help.

 

Took the truck on a little mid-week road trip to Fort Griffin State Historic Site.


The good news - awesome photos taken, loving the easy access of the new switch panel for running the auxiliary lights on those late night drives home on empty back roads.
The bad news - seems I've got the dreaded needle bearing vibe, was quite strong on the drive out, but didn't notice it on the drive home. Not sure if that was because I was half asleep, or if it's intermittent.

 

Love that photo!

 

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Still haven't gotten a new Milky Way shot with the truck after the recent mods and such, but Lightning works pretty well as a stand in...

 

Whoa!!!! I need to take a camera class or something

Im obviously doing it wrong haha
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Such a bad ass photo!!!!! ​

 

Last weekend I got my CB wired up and with the assistance of a friend's SWR meter got the antenna dialed in. For it's location a 1.5 at the top and bottom of the range isn't bad at all. Still debating getting a shorter antenna for trail use, but the 4' Firefly will be good to have on the open road later this year. Need to order a Panavise mount for the CB to hang on as I can't find a location on the dash I'm willing to drill/screw into for the holder. I'll get photos of that up once it's all done.

Also got the single LED pod light on the opposite bed corner bracket wired into the relay block. Switch still says 'Rock Lights' in the cab because there's no way I'm spending more on shipping than for a single rocker cover from OTRATTW. Aside from maybe trying to wire in an aux 12v / USB power port somewhere and the bedside decals going on, the truck is pretty much done (for now).