Builds Fixing up “The big Ox” (1 Viewer)

[on the rocks]

Inverter time.
AC Input top(as mentioned, plan is to do shore power to the Delta front bumper where they sent them out all cut out and ready to go with no cutting, I hope, I think intended for a block heater) and manager30 out on bottom. Both hardwired in. Dipswitches seem to be correct but hoping it plays well on the CAN interface with the Redarc so may need to switch them up a bit.

Inverter bolted in and Manager 30 back in place. All good minus the solar input.

What the hell did I get myself into!?!?!

Just kidding, this isn't my first low voltage rodeo... This reminds me tho, need to get a good fire extinguisher!!! Lots going on here... All packed in nice and tidy. I think I got most the basics in

Take note insurance company. All bolted in and part of the vehicle now. Just in case some crack head wants to get $10 in cable money...

Next up:
- cut in AC feed/ USB/ CIG DC accessory passenger side Goose panels.
- Hook up Redvision
- Mount/ wire solar
- Battery
- Shore power to bumper
- 1/0 feeds and 30 amp breaker to main battery
- do a test run and hope no smoke!!!

 

[on the rocks]

Prepped the weBoost antenna mount, I went with fold down RAM mounting on the rear side of the Bowfin to keep it tucked away until needed, along with the MC4 solar panel feeds. I also test fit the Redarc 200W panel on the roof rack and actually have a great fit (panel is huge).
Final decision for roof feeds is to use a Scanstrut to pass through the plastic molding louver vent I have seen a few others here do. Great option with no exposed holes drilled in the body. I may drill the body under the panel but may just pass the cables through the rubber flaps if it routs in ok.

I had a new louver 62906-60020 LH I had forever because I didn't slide the top of the unit up to release it when I removed it last year and broke the mounts. It got all scuffed up so I sanded it down and gave a few coats of SEM texture coat. Well see how the flat texture holds up... and match the other side when the Gullwings go in.

 

[on the rocks]

Little progress on the fat pig:
weBoost antenna with adjustable RAM mount, this is Colorado and there are a few trees left, coax feed and solar DC wiring into the cab. 95% of the time this will be down in the garage,
A bit of home brew kayak load/ mount in the background.

200W Redarc solar. Big but fits just right in kayak slider/ mount. Expecting big power from this thing if I can keep it in the sun.

Ignition trigger right rear taillight area. several feeds off this plug to trigger the AccuAir and redarc systems, I opted to not mess with ebrake and light trigger

Ford inverter 110 plug, lots of write-ups and cheap. includes 400W ac and 12v access.

Trying out the accessory mounts on vinyl wraped factory plastic. Wanted black, got grey. Holding up in the cold great and should resist scratches well. Hit up @suprarx7nut with the Gear up air down guys here locally ??? for a 3D vent to fill the hole I cut out on the old vent, to get better adhesion with the wrap. No word back yet. Local and I believe they have a solid 3D printer. Hoping we can team up as I have more things coming for the old wore out interior.
Got to start somewhere, even if with the smalls

First trip out to the trailhead with the Quick access rear yodaTEQ gull wing setup and new OEM seal. This really opens up the access and options in the rear with the added swingout bumper in the way now. Lots to come here, eventually...First impression, well built. Soon to come MTB gear quick access and much more.

on the bench, pre mount and better look at the Molle panel mount.

Redarc redvision accessory access driver side, weBoost power for now and a few more accessory feeds. Also added a temp feed from here to battery/ compressor compartment to watch temps. Have a second I will feed out somewhere. 6 water level feeds lol wtf,
Next up I throw in the battery and fire it up, finish the passenger side gull wing, add AC shore power up front and air feeds and helper bags, the pig is sagging in the rear a bit now.

 

[on the rocks]

Battery in, need to strap it down, doing several load tests on it. Have had it many years and not the best at keeping a charge on it. Guaranteed 12 year's and 117 lbs but also not $2000+ for lithium. Cost $0.
Temped in the shore power due to it being 4 degrees F. White wire a temp temperature probe to watch the compressor temps from the Redarc. Screen shot later shows 29 degrees, in cab. This was running about 4 degrees F most the day in cab. 1300W space heater and 160W heating pad(some from pass thru inverter, most from house feed) and this was as warm as it got.

50 AMP Redarc breaker on
150 AMP inverter breaker on
no sparks
Display hooked up and programming done, temping in RJ45 feeds for now. The unit is a POE(power over ENET) so this is good as I was thinking I wanted to move it around as needed on the 80, inside and out, but the phone APP works well with a low draw so I may rethink this. Also have to make sure it doesn't reset to default after unplugged with no battery backup. May just pull the head unit and put in the dash for now. The radio and speakers are starting to be removed. Seeing much less use for one now. Phone and Bluetooth speakers looking much more appealing every day.
2W solar charge was about it but cloudy and indirect sun all day so expected. As the battery dropped % I was seeing +-30 amp charge, this is great as these batteries like a high amp charge.

Ran a Bose speaker and 160W AC heating pad for 5 hours+ and the battery did well. I wired the manager 30 thru the inverter input and may need to change this, I thought this was a passthru feed but hope I can reconfigure the inverter. I noticed the manager 30 sensed the AC input feed and triggered the AC charger to pump DC back to the house batt to charge. A very efficient inverter but not what you want. I will look into the inverter more and can hopefully bypass this. Only an issue when inverter on and no shore feed. May be a non issue when starter/ ALT hooked up and solar hitting it's stride, Still not ideal.
Plugged in the 1600W space heater @ 60% battery in a 400W rated AC plug and it ran about 10 minutes off the house battery, no shore ac and started throwing low battery alarm. A good high draw test as I go.

The little led in the plug can probably be wired to the CAN RJ45 on the inverter eventually to show a hot ac plug but on a DC feed for now. Pretty sure there is a low volt out on one of the pins and easy to draw the hot feed.
Need to figure out how to rotate these damn pictures...

A few APP screenshots AC feed later on post sun down, 7WH from the solar all day in the shade and cloudy, few DC feeds set up and showing a small draw from a fuse fault lights.
AccuAir test coming next and I linked the inverter to the Redarc and got display AND phone control! Great news, complete on/ off control for the inverter. Needing to fuse a couple accessory feeds and need to think about what to amp at. The ability to disable is there until needed.

 

[on the rocks]

Battery strapped in and system working great. I had to temp in a ground to the old seat belt bolt until I get the engine compartment +/-12v run in. Temps were holding well and I hope to not have to put in heat sinks between the pump and battery. So far looking good there.

ECU alive and working well. Not sure I like the APP interaction and may hardwire their touchpad but holding for now.

Tank unwrapped and leak tested. bolted it in and finally putting the Goose lid on. The internal valves are a great space saver and blast air through quick with the 3/8" lines.

Temp labeled the high output breaker feeds. Noticed I labeled the Redarc feed as inverter... Pump 1 and pump 2 direct lockout of necessary. These will stay on as the system now controls through the Redarc and pressure switch.

Accuair system fired up and working great. The twins set to fire up at 110 and pressurize and shut down at 150PSI per ARB. They fill the 3 gallon tank pretty quick. the twin pumps are a little loud yet so may add some Dynamat to the interior of the seat delete. Next up is run 4 feeds out, get rear bags in and I'll likely assign the top right and left feeds to F/R chucks to fill tires/ whatever and the bottom L/R to the rear bags.

The thought is to deflate and inflate all 4 corners with the system using the pressure sensors by simply hooking up a dual hose to each chuck and clip on the tire valve stems. No need for a tire gauge or babysitting each wheel.

For the bags, I will mostly have a standard set pressure height but when loading up I likely have to manually adjust the level as I went pressure instead of height sensors. I can preset loads once I get gear figured out as well as boat/ no boat and so on I suppose. I should also now have a bed leveler at camp that doesn't involve large rocks under the tires.

Since I have both controller and pumps on the house battery I may ditch the ignition switch feed. Seems unnecessary and a way to leave the ignition on for no reason and possibly kill the starter. I think I might be able to bypass this in the setting tho.

 

[on the rocks]

4 feeds from tank/ internal valves ran to exterior. 3 capped for now to calibrate the system and test the rear feed. Unfortunately the F/R feeds will not work as planned. The Accuair system only opens short bursts of air and I was hoping it would open the valve to air or release pressure until the system can balance to the desired PSI, 30 vs ~10, to air up/ down the tires.
Giving this some thought I will have to check voltages to the valves and possibly use the spare ARB exterior 3 way switches to hardwire each F/R valve to force open the air up/ down to get achieve pressure then manually switch off. Accuair customer service has been pretty good to respond so I may see if a setup issue or a simple program can solve this. The system(auto up/ down) allows me to bypass 2 valves so this seems possible.

I do know I'm already not a fan of the bluetooth link so if this works well I will get their touchpad to hardwire the system in.
Bulkhead pass through

Decided to route to the tire carrier on the Delta bumper.

Interior arm routing pretty easy to achieve. Minor grinding to pass through the existing gaps.

 

[on the rocks]

On to a rear bike mount until it warms a bit and can work the rear assist bags.
Fusion 360 adaptor actually converted to step file and sent to a local shop. It worked.... Love this program. Big chunk of aluminum adaptor overthought, overpaid and fabed up to adapt a 1up mount to the Delta swingarm.

before mounting plate. Only one hole on the bottom drilled out. could have used the existing 3 but wanted to lower the mount as much as possible.

Adaptor mounted up. This also allows the rack to clear the spare and quick mount/ dismount.

Used their wall mount rack stash. I'm a bit concerned about the 4 small what looks to be #12 or 1/4"-20 size screws holding. I may add 4 more between the existing but will test a bit first. Held my weight with no issues.

Mounted up! More pics with bike loaded and the arm open coming.

 

[on the rocks]

Going to throw the headliner back in for the summer as I bailed on the black out interior for now. Lined the lower rear interior with vinyl wrap to see how it holds up. Time to get back in this things and see what all goes wrong. Old insulation stripped and in with dynamat extreme. Dynoliner in order and coming next. Deep clean of the headliner, you can tell I like to drive with the drivers window down. Thing was pretty nasty all along the drivers side. A local shop recommended Sprayaway fabric cleaner.

Then the 1/2” dynaliner to top it off

 

[on the rocks]

Had to throw things back together including the headliner and interior panels to get out and test some things. It's summer! time to get the fat pig out... Didn't get progress pictures but going to throw out a few notes on this quick trip so I can go back and change up a few things. Just got out and enjoyed the mountains, the 80 was just the point A-B reliable old tank, no 80 off road fun this trip.
I have to say with all the crazy vehicles out there roaming around Colorado, the 80 constantly gets the "bro wave" and streams of people stopping and asking questions, taking pictures and just wanting to talk about the vehicle. Come on Toyota, just get the solid axle back already.... I mean I don't need 2 solid axle Toyotas but I might just dive in and get another if you would just remember what got you here and get it right. Can’t be that hard.

First thing, all the Dynamat on the roof and back end is well worth the time spent. Not only quiet but sleeping in the back with full on sun is much cooler. Add in the Aussie import window screens(little bulky but well worth it) and we got good results. I was a little worried about the Delta storage but overall it was usable space and I will start accessorizing a quick kitchen and shower area off each side.

Couple screenshots of the redarc system. It passed the first test wonderful. The compartment is staying nice and cool, plugged in everything in site I could and just dropped below 85% at the lowest. Ran a Dometic 3 days straight, 2 phones, a Bose speaker system, charges DC LED lights, ran the ARB twins and Aucuair. Did a long death ride on the MTB for 3+ hours and came back, full sun and system was fully charged. Pulling 30+ amps and feeding the inverter and a few DC feeds without breaking a sweat. Eventually wanting to start charging a 72V 52AH E-moto battery between rides and feeling good about it. I can slide the kayak out and get full on sun when needed.
Still need to tie the system to the starter battery/ alternator, complete the AC shore power on the front Delta bumper mount and a few other things.

Quick view of docking to an eazy up/ cube setup and safari hatch tent we use on long hauls. Dump everything in the concealed cube and go adventure. Completely sealed and a quick easy setup.

 

[on the rocks]

Finally testing the home brew kayak mount. Worked flawlessly. Need to work on a safety strap for the front just for the hell of it, clears the solar panel and everything else.One person operation.

Hard to see in the picture but I can slide the entire kayak out and open up the panel. I had to ditch the shower enclosure but actually looking to incorporate a shower/ toilet enclosure with the rail system now. Next project... along with a DC/ air pressure water system.
Accuair rear bags leveled out the 80 really well ac camp. I Just need to figure out the front. Nothing a few rocks won't solve for now.

test

 

[on the rocks]

I didn’t get many glamor shots with the fat pig but did get a lot sorted out. One high temp moment going up I-70 and ac shutdown I do need to look into.
Otherwise got out and was able to play a bit.

 

[baldilocks]

Your bike makes me want another one. Is that a GT?

 

[on the rocks]

Your bike makes me want another one. Is that a GT?

Yeti SB150. They are local to me so I went with them. If it has been a while since you've been on a bike, the full suspension bikes have come along a long way last 10 years or so. Unfortunately so has the price. So much fun once you get past the pain lol.

 

[Rouleur]

Yeti SB150. They are local to me so I went with them. If it has been a while since you've been on a bike, the full suspension bikes have come along a long way last 10 years or so. Unfortunately so has the price. So much fun once you get past the pain lol.

Nice. If you ask most mountain bikers these days who Missy Giove is, they'll ask "Who's that?" I like the new Progressive geometries. Slacker HT steeper ST. Less travel.

 

[on the rocks]

Nice. If you ask most mountain bikers these days who Missy Giove is, they'll ask "Who's that?" I like the new Progressive geometries. Slacker HT steeper ST. Less travel.

LOL, I'm pretty old but I had to look that up even, just a bit before my time. I'm surprised they don't have any history and past racers posted on their walls at HQ in Golden. Pretty small storefront there. I would really like to get behind the scenes and check the good stuff out some day.

 

[Rouleur]

Well, when you checked her out, you probably found out she did some wild stuff, so.
I think they have a couple of her bikes there.
A bit before my time as well.
I worked in the industry for 20 years.