Everything is still going as planned. Our leave date of Nov. 1st is still in grasp, as long as we can get the rear bumper finished, A/C/Heat running, and a few other bits ironed out on Monday. Our gracious landlords have offered to let us stay as long as necessary to get everything taken care of, but we want to leave on the 1st damn it!
I am having issues with my power inverter crapping out after a few minutes, It seems to work fine for a bit then all of the sudden start beeping and cut out even with no load on it. Voltage from the battery looks to be fine, Bao used #4 AWG cable from the battery to the inverter, the run is only 1-2ft. I am thinking it may be a bad inverter. Not sure yet, will have to research further.
I also managed to kill our main starting battery, It was a junk battery from the start, new one swapped in and everything is back in action. We did learn that our rear battery can easily take over and start then truck when the main one dies! Score!
I picked up the truck from the shop this weekend to put some miles on the fresh motor. We have to put 500 miles on it under 3K RPM, then an oil change, another 1500 miles, then another change and we should be golden. Drove her out to Yosemite and back, was tough pulling up some hills under 3K but she made it just fine, Ran like a top!
The OME suspension kit is installed, all new front end bits are installed. We ended up leaving the 3″ bodylift on there due to time constraints and the bumper needing to be modified if we wanted it to fit. It looks a bit goofy but we will live with it. ARB ended up shipping me 2 pairs of front shocks, called up trdparts4u.com in dallas and they were able to overnight me the correct parts, need to install them on Monday. In the meantime I am driving around with no rear shocks and fresh OME springs. BOUNCY! haha
Heres a shot with the bumper and Smittybuilt winch installed
OME lift kit
Rear Swingout getting fabbed up, Decided to build a big loop to mount the jerry cans and leave plenty of room to strap whatever other random bits we end up wanting back there. Im thinking table/chairs/highlift
We went to Walmart today to pick up some curtains and more storage stuff. Lauren is rigging up some wooden dowels into curtain rods so we can block out some of the bright morning light shining into the rear of the 4runner. Waking up early is for people who have jobs!
Coming down to the wire. Less than 2 weeks to go till we hit the road! Our entire lives are up on craigslist right now. Everything that can’t fit in the truck, gots to go!
Happy Halloween!
Got the truck back from the guys at AudioMobile. They did a great job putting my ideas into action. Check out all the modifications after the jump. These little touches will go a long way when we’re living in the back of this badboy.
Carpeted the sleeping platform. Looks alot nicer than the raw plywood.
Added a rear-work light for camp setup/cooking on the tailgate
Added a secondary battery to run all our accessories off of and allow us to jump ourselves if the main battery dies. Beefy Diehard Marine battery, thing weighs at least 70Lbs
Added some interior LED lighting. Well you can go to this web-site for tips on buying festoon lights. Bao even put in a dimmer switch so we can dial-in the perfect mood. Oo la la.
Added a 2000w inverter so we can run regular 110v outlets. Lauren says she wants to bring a popcorn maker??? Good for charging phones/laptops/cameras/etc.
Bao fabbed me up this awesome control panel to run everything. Also have 5 additional 12v outlets, USB outlet, Rear Up/Down window switch (This is so money!), and switches/dimmers for the interior/exterior lighting.
Action Shot! Should be plenty of light to setup camp and cook on the tailgate
Truck is now at the Any7 4×4 Shop getting the motor swapped out, rear swing-out bumper fabbed up, and the suspension bits installed.
Everything is coming together!!