Lord Humongous Gigahorse Tow-coma Build

So I dropped off my truck at the dealer on Monday to have the hood adhesive repaired that degraded after about 2000 miles. It should be done tomorrow but I'll be heading in to work tomorrow morning and I work 48 hour shifts. I'm planning on having my father pick it up for me while I'm working. We'll also be picking that camper up from prescott sat morning when I get home from work.

In the mean time I have a Tekonsha P3 brake controller, Curt weight distribution system sitting here and the tuffy bed box I ordered a month ago just showed up. I got moding anxiety bad right now!!! I can't do anything with this stuff

The dry to tounge weight of that trailer is only about 240 lbs and I do have airbags so I'm comfortable bringing it home the 90 mile drive without the weight distribution. The dealer wanted 650 bucks to install a WDH so declined. I found better Curt system on Amazon that included WDH, friction sway controll and adjustable height ball for a little over 200 with free shipping. I'll be slapping that on Sunday and hopefully get to the break controller and re-mounting my compressor in the tuffy box as well.

 

Was the hood adhesive issue causing a rattling at all? I am having an annoying rattle on the driver corner when hitting bumps or pot holes.

 

It wasn't rattling but at highway speeds it looked like a flag flapping in the wind. I just read about how somebody having rattle issues due to front body mounts. Maybe look into that?

 

Got my truck back today after having the hood adhesive repaired under warranty. They did a great job and no more hood vibrations. It's obvious the techs take pride in their work.

I've been to a few toyota dealers in phoenix and Scottsdale and must say Big 2 is miles ahead of their competition. I have no affiliation with them I just believe in voting with my dollars.

 

Lord Humongous and Imperator Furiosa drove the war rig home from gas town with a load of aqua cola and mothers milk. Pole cats and the bullet farmers behind us the whole way! luckily the KAMIKRAZY war boys has our back!

In reality we picked up our new jayco 195 rb baja. It was about a 100 mile drive home and the little taco handled it great! I forgot to fill the ride-rites when we left the dealer so we stopped at a rest stop and put 20psi in them. You can see the squat before and after (we were excited and took pics lol). Pretty good controll downhill, getting passed by semi trucks with no WDH. I'll be putting a WDH in tomorrow since the dealer wanted 700 bucks to do it. She weighs about 3k dry with dry tounge weight of 280lbs. Walk through will be coming soon.

 

I also installed the Tekansha P3 trailer brake controller. Very nice piece of equipment and easy install. Most difficult part was finding a place where it's not in the way of my knees and can still operate gain and the manual lever if need be. I still may move it but it's seems to be ok there.

 

I had the ability to air up my bags in my 81 CJ 7. I enjoyed the firm ride so much that I used to drive her that way without towing. I could find a sweet spot that actually improved handling and acceleration. Very noticeable difference in the pictures you posted. How many pregnant women do you have hidden in there?

 

They are nice! They really improve handling while carrying a load. I didn't bring it home with a weight distribution hitch because the dealers price was ridiculous. It went from a taco to a full size pickup with about 20 psi.

Oh and we had 4 breeders hidden under the tonneau but Rictus Erectus boarded us and took 2 of them lol

 

So did you get the sway command??? On my first gen total it states in manual no wdh as damage to frame is possible.. how was hills????

 

I did get sway command. It towed pretty straight the whole trip so I don't think it activated. The hills went better than expected. My first time towing with this truck so I didn't want push it. I was able to maintain 60 mph at about 4500 RPM at some pretty big grades. It was a little strange hearing the motor rev like that since the third gens rarely run above 2k at cruising speed. I never felt out of controll on the steep downhill grades either. I was using the second boost setting and had the gain turned up to 8.2 on the tekansha. I hardly knew it was behind me when stopping. It's a relatively light tow vehicle travel trailer combo so I did feel a little vacuum getting past by 18 wheelers but nothing unmanageable.
I am kinda questioning the necessity of the WDH. The setup I have weighs about a hundred pounds which about a third of the tounge weight lol. I'm gonna put it on today and see if it makes a noticeable difference.
The airbags made a nice difference so I'd recommend either them or the sumosprings.

 

Found this in your manual...

 

I've seen that, I don't know if it was legal but I was counting the sway command system as my sway controll. I have a curt friction sway bar as well as the the hitch. 5000lbs is allot but I'm still going to run it due to the 50 percent vehicle weight recommendation.

Actually gonna head out side and get started now

 

Just remember the tongue weight has to weigh between 9-15 percent of trailer weight as it will cause more sway as your placing all the weight to the rear of the trailer or your front axle which will. Cause ALOT of sway...

 

Thanks for the heads up. This coach is right about 10 percent tounge dry and fresh water and storage are located at the front wich should increase my tounge weight proportionally.

 

Curt weight distribution hitch and friction sway controll bar installed. Heading out for a test right now.

Done for about 30 percent of what the dealer cost was and super super easy install!!!

 

Nice rig good luck with it! I also had the Tekonsha P3 in my 11 4Runner towing aprox 4500lbs it's a great controller!

I've also been eyeing that slimline bumper it looks pretty sweet. They now have it on their site but now C4Fab also makes one. What to do, what to do??

C4FAB
Southernstyle Offroad

 

So how did it go???

 

Thanks Brother!! That tekansha is really nice on these smaller rigs. The boost controll is amazing on the downgrades!
I've been looking at both of those bumpers and am leaning towards the SSO version. The design is amazing and follows factory styling very well.
C4 makes awesome stuff and their bumper gets rid of the "lower fat lip" but requires more cutting.
There will be a group buy on TW very soon for the SSO version. Let me know if your interested and I'll pull the link for the thread and send it to you!

Stay safe brother!

 

It went well but honestly need more testing before I can say "buy this". The stiffening of the rear suspension with the airbags made the most noticeable difference thus fare as far as tow control. After the WDH it did ride level with 0psi in the bags.

Next week I'll be loading everything up for our first trip. Generator, cooler, rokon ect in the bed. I'll level it up with the bags then connect the WDH. I'll definately post updates.

Payload will definitely be under 1100.

 

Agreed they are both nice and both do get rid of the "fat lip"! I'm just not keen on how the SSO has the bumper cover cut outside of their bumper then finishes it of with what looks to be some kind of stick-on door edge moulding. On the C4Fab the cut is nicely hidden behind the bumper which imo looks much cleaner. What would be really nice would be having the install instructions for both on their respective web sites so that we could see exactly what is involved in installing these and to see exactly how they finish off the cuts.

Thanks man you too, stay low, stay safe!!