Stu’s UTE

Damn it was hot today. After working on some siding repair all morning in the sun I had to retreat to the garage for the afternoon and finish up the air system.

I pulled out the rear cab panel and removed the headrests. I had some left over sound dampening mat knocking around. So slapped that on the back wall and stuffed with insulation.







I fed the compressor filter tube through a grommet into the cab.



Drilled a hole through the plastic paneling and screwed the air filter on from the backside.









This allows the compressor to draw air from a relatively dust free area.

Finally I hooked up to the battery.



It works!

 

How does the truck feel and handle compared to when it was stock/new now that it’s way over weight?

 

Handles great. Still plenty of power. Feels stable, not top heavy. I was expecting worse, but I still love driving it.

 

And today the tank was empty, so I’ve got a leak somewhere.

 

It turns out the one outlet in the tank that I plugged with a stop, was leaking. It sure looked like the right thread, but when I replaced it with one from the the auto parts store it solved the problem. Thank God it wasn’t the compression fittings, they are a pain to reach.

Did a test fill and it works great.

Discount tire is having a sale right now so I ordered some 275/70 R17 E rated General Grabber ATX

 

Tapped into the panel lights through the purple wire to light up the pressure gauge.

 

New tires, no rub!



Spare tire just fits!

 

Just realized I’m building my dream truck from 1981

 

We bought the Four Wheel Camper used, and the grey interior was almost a deal breaker for the wife. I wasn’t super excited about it either, but the saving we’re worth it over buying new.



We found a guy on line who wrapped furniture with 3M vinyl and bought some wrap from him.

I spent the last couple of days taking as much of the cabinets apart as I could and wrapped them myself. No previous experience and it went pretty well.













We’re really happy with how it turned out. Now we’re working on the cushions and curtains.

 

As part of our efforts to brighten up the camper, I used Elmer’s glue to paste up some maps over these oppressive black boards. I may have to put a couple of coats of Urethane over them to keep the damp out. I’m not convinced, at this point Elmer’s was the right choice.

 

Those are incredibly nice kitchen cabinets. What kind of wood is that?

 

I ripped up the old clear fir studs from when we took out the walls, and some fir ply. The molding around the tops is cherry.

 

Went to Kent and met up with Randy Cryer from Ute Ltd and cracked open a new shipment from Australia. I was super excited to get the new under tray storage boxes. Can never have enough storage.





Did you spot the wildlife?



Now if only I can find the 120v outlet that used to be in the bed! It has to be somewhere in my garage! I plan to install it in the passenger side box.



I like how these boxes fit the lines of the bumper.

 

Derped one of the doors black to see if I prefer it over silver.

 

This is as good of a build as I've seen on TW. I'm in WA so maybe I'll be fortunate enough to see it in-person someday. Well done!

 

I finally found a reasonable piece of rubber to line the other side of the boards behind the seats in the access cad. The boards have black carpet on one side and I wanted rubber on the other side. So they are reversible.





I used cove base adhesive as it was what I had knocking around.

 

Southern Style Off-road Slimline bumper in the works. I better start thinking about winches!

 

We were getting some small dings on the front of the camper from gravel being thrown up from the front tires.



I used double sided tape and some of the trim screws to fix some diamond plate over the exposed area.

 

They also make these things called mudflaps to help stop that.

 

Yup. Mud flaps had to come off for the cab mount chop and bigger tires.