Philrab’s 2015 camping truck/road warrior

Scored some low mileage 2020 TRD OR shocks and springs to replace my aging SR5 parts. Much better damping over bumps and a little less than an inch lift in the front.

 

Almost forgot. Annual trip to Prepper Camp in North Carolina. Always have a blast seeing my cohost and good friends.

Rain or shine, we came to have fun.

Even after the sun sets.

My buddy found the cure for wet campfires.

 

Just got my cheap Amazon awning mounted to my roof basket. Getting ready for a weekend camping trip.

 

Haven’t done squat in a while, but just got through ordering the last pieces for a car audio makeover. Pulling my Kicker Key 180.4 to relocate from behind the radio to under the driver’s seat along with a 500.1 to drive a Sundown SD4 8” sub in a Mr Marv box. I’ll be able to reuse the distribution block and some wire leftover from a previous system, and I have plenty of speaker wire. Going to try and make this install neat and tidy, and focus on SQ over just being loud.

 

Matt Gecko bed light kit installed.

 

Buccaneer State Park for the weekend with the fam. We’re trying a lot of new gear and enjoying being neighbors to my parents in their 30’ camper.

 

Had a nice time this weekend.

Got to spend some time working with our Jackery 1000, and being able to run a box fan to keep the fam cool in the tent all night minimized grumbling.

Alps Mountaineering Meramac 6 ZF went on its maiden voyage, and it’s what I’ve come to expect from Alps Mountaineering.

Also tried my hand at roasting and grinding my own coffee this weekend. I know the owner at https://www.disastercoffee.com/ and had a five pound bag of green coffee beans on hand with a small pan and hand grinder. Freshest cup of coffee you’ll ever get if you don’t mind a little work.

 

Work in progress, putting together an under seat amp rack for my two Kicker Keys. Got to make a couple short power and ground cables to go from the amps to the distribution blocks, extend my T harness about 8 feet to go between the head unit and amps, and cut in the inputs for the 500.1 into the input side from the 180.4.

 

Making a little progress, recuperating from whatever the Hell virus I caught a couple days ago. Power and ground are run from the 500.1 to the distribution blocks, and I started all of the soldering to extend the harness. Hopefully knock the soldering out tomorrow, then I have to tear out the interior and get things put in place, run the master ground, run power, cross my fingers and hit the button.

 

Install day fast approaching. Saturday forecast looks dry and sunny, going to toss this in.
Had a second thought and made a guard for the amp rack to keep kid’s feet from kicking the wiring.

 

The Keys have landed!!!
Harnesses routed through the dash from behind the radio.
Overshot the length a little bit easier to route at least.

 

Mr Marv box getting prepped for a Friday install.

 

Finished today. It’s in and playing. Needs some more tuning, and for the sub to break in. Anyone curious can browse here for the whole install. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/philrab’s-audio-otherwise-known-as-mission-creep.725511/

 

Old “cross bed” toolbox was sold. Dropped in a 39” chest style to replace it. Almost sits level with the top of the wheel wells and fits between them.

That cleared up space for a new Softopper. Hoping next time we go camping we can avoid a roof basket stacked with gear making extra wind noise and killing gas mileage.


Truck makes 20 mpg on the highway, 19 with the roof rack on. Dropped to 17 mpg with three people worth of camping gear and a well packed roof.

On the way home we were loading up in a thunderstorm, and did not pack the roof nearly as tightly. The extra bulk dropped gas mileage to 14 mpg with a noticeable increase in wind noise. Lesson learned.

 

Finally caught up on a few projects.
Got a third brake light added to my Softopper. LED has neo magnets epoxied to the back, more magnets on the inside of the top to hold it in place. Wiring is tapped to the brake light via a weatherproof Deutsch connector so I can pull one plug and fold the top down.


Also finally got my Blue Sea Systems panel installed in the bed and power run so I can run the Iceco fridge while driving and not crowd my daughter in the back seat.