Tundy, house and beetle build thread...and exploring.

Nice views and close to town, and with power and water ready, a good easy option vs dealing with a well ($15k). If it's IREA i think my power hookup was $1800, which included a pole and tap off existing transformer. If you need a transformer i think they said that was $4-5k.

And you'll have sun. Not sure what the water tap fee is, I'd check on that (and you can usually only tap during warmer months).

Not sure when that road gets plowed by the county, guessing they do, just don't rely on it.

But just check how steep it is and what type of building site you'll have since excavation could be expensive.

 

Awesome thanks for all that info, now could you give me a map to the closest money tree!

 

I need to buy land! Bozeman is stupid.

 

Alright, still undecided given uncompleted kitchen remodel/ job situation but want to look into this further.

You have any recommendation or Don't use this Real Estate Agents up there?

 

I pulled a Subaru out of a situation like this by attaching their back end across the trail to one anchor with a static rope (could be a truck behind it with good traction), then pulling them forward with another line. Not sure if that's what you meant by having a tree behind and above, but this worked and kept them from sliding further downhill. In rescue class they taught us to drive anchors into the ground (long metal stakes driven in at angles with sledgehammers) if nothing was available. Major PITA, and for a vehicle it might have to be multiple anchors working together.

Maxtrax sounds better, but if I were hanging off a slope like this I still would want a safety line regardless, as the pull line on its own will still let the vehicle slide further down.

If you set up a recovery like this, you want the angle between the two lines to be as acute as possible. Even better would be running the pull line through a snatch block on the vehicle-to-be-recovered then to the rear anchor, if the vehicle-to-be-recovered can accommodate that. Without a snatch block that can be positioned in the right place I'd be tempted to use even an uphill rock slider as a snatch block, if available.

 

Sorry to go with an old thread, any more details on how you built this? How long of sleeping space do you get, is it more than just sleeping across the back seats?

 

Might have more details somewhere in the thread but it was a few pieces of plywood that were mounted to the stock seat locations. I'm 6ft and i had room to sleep lying straight, can't do that in the back seat.

 

may have....sort of quoted all the posts I could find, for easy reference in the future BUT I did also have another question:

Related to this:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/front-passenger-seat-removal.559102/

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/removing-front-seats.583041/

Did you run into anything with sensors, airbags, etc etc?

Did you build it with any effort to make it "modular" in that you can "easily" take the passenger front seat in and out again? I am looking to do this instead of RTT, but one thing would be if it can be a, ballpark, 15 minute job to get the seat back in. MAYBE happy to do it in 20 minutes, just curious if you took that into consideration or decided "Sod it, it's staying out".

Thanks in advance, this is legit and if it works I think this will be what I do for next year at least!

 

Didn't mind about quickly putting the seat back in but it wouldn't be difficult.

I believe the Airbag light was on, supposedly ways to fool it into turning off but i didn't want to risk messing with that.

 

Did you ever end up putting the seat back in? I’m finding a few things that say when installing it again you need to recalibrate the sensor with a weight and tech stream. Wondering if that’s legit or I can just take the seat in/out and only have a warning light when it’s out.

thanks in advance! If it works out I might be doing similar to my truck in the next few weeks.

 

It’s a touchy subject talking about seats with him.

 

went through more posts just found some stuff about the platform to quote.

my dumb ass didn’t look, you have (had) a second gen. I’m sure it’s similar concept but I have a 3rd gen so I’m not sure about the airbag/etc being different. The hardware and platform stuff will be the same (or moderately different just for some random things). I’ll have to look more are a 3rd gen side of it.

now I’m curious.

 

Oh, his truck only burnt to the ground due to a faulty seat heater.

 

I guess I missed that part of the thread

edit: searched, found it, holy shit.

Roger that - was planning to potentially do some sort of heated seats in my truck, that ain't happening now!

 

Stock seats were replaced, and as far as I've been informed, similar inexpensive seat heaters now have more built in fail safes... Either cycling on and off automatically, and/or temperature/electrically controlled. Mine were basic, on as long as the switch was on; snow and seat covers may have played a part as well as the Chinese shit itself but don't know for sure.

Very expensive mistake...

 

Sorry to bump/notify you again. I need to save this one as a picture to show people (who I may be married to) as material to convince them that this isn't a hair brained idea.

Still need to do some research into the airbag situation. Unfortunately I went in the other day, the seat doesn't go back far enough to work with that installed (at least the stock seats). There's a potential I do something with the seat installed, see if I can remove the back stop or find a seat that will fold all the way down and build a platform over that somehow. TBD. But, I may take a road trip the last week of this month, so there's a potential I have a fast paced figure this $%&# out build next week/week after.

 

Hey Stig, I'm back! Done a lot more research into the airbag stuff, and now I'm all set ready to pop the bolts and pull the seat out. The drivers airbags will still function, and the passenger reset isn't terrible.

ANYWAY I'm going to use your thread as basic inspiration. I noticed in this picture it almost looks like there's a lip between the platform and the storage bin from under the rear seat. Is that my eyes playing tricks on me or did you have a lip and the mattress absorbed it?

 

Hey @Stig got another question for you. Did you just sleep with the windows cracked? How did you handle condensation on the interior when you slept in there?

thanks again!

 

I did it

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-road-trips-build.712648/page-2#post-26178916

Looks like you had a different setup than I did - I built that PVC frame, so you might have that lip that it looks like you just built over.

I bought these things:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/slredirec...30438278&id=501910058976464&widgetName=sp_atf

and one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/slredirec...678577460332540&widgetName=sp_search_thematic

(or similar for each) and use those. I DID have the rain deflectors on my windows, so I would be able to crack the windows even in the rain and not worry about it - I took those off since I hardly used them on the road, I always kind of forgot they existed, so I pulled them off. I just crack the windows, or if it's nice out, I'll roll the windows all the way down and have those over the doors.