Rotw....bman

[BMAN]

A little update since April…

I’ve changed out the shoddy fabbed t-case shifter and linkage for a revised 2 stick version. The inner stick being for Hi-Neutral-Low and the outer for 2wd-4wd. The 2-4 stick is over bent and sticks into the passenger foot well a little more than I’d like so that will be changed when I pull it all out for paint and final welding. The throw on both shifters is VERY short which means they don’t need a lot of room for engagement, and I’m happy with that.

I also added a pair of rear storage boxes. I started with the passenger side box. It’s made entirely from 5/8 MDF and the front ½ is a sealed enclosure for my 10” Kicker sub which replaces the realestate hogging floor mounted 12” box that a PO had installed.

And the rear ½ is all storage. I have my bottle jack and siphon along with my air hose and fittings and a bunch of other crap hanging out in there. I attached a big sheet of Velcro to the back and used a couple strips to secure my tire spoons and another prybar. While I like this idea, the execution isn’t perfect and the tools located there will likely change over time

I plan to add a lid eventually. On top of that I used some Garage clips from Home Depot to secure my large prybar. I bought a stack of these and plan on relocating my short prybar and probably my breaker bar to the top also.

The Geneva tool box is mounted to the 1/4panel box and houses some of my tools.

 

[BMAN]

I built the driver side box a few weeks later and changed the design quite a bit. While the overall concept is similar, this time I didn’t put a floor in it and used the truck floor and inner fenderwell instead as the bottom of the box.

I also opened up the backside to give me access to the inside of the rear ¼ panel and all of that unused space. I’ve got a bunch of junk in there also but haven’t yet decided on the proper order of organization in either of these boxes.

And I also decided to incorporate some rings for tie downs and 3 auxilary 12v outlets, 1 at the front near the rear seat, and 2 at the back below the extinguisher. At the front panel I built in a little cubby for a 12 circuit Blue Sea fuse panel. Nothing is wired through this yet but eventually all of the accessories and add-ons will run through here.

At the same time that I built the speaker/storage box I pulled the old barely working Alpine deck and slapped in a cheap Jensen in-dash DVD player.

Kind of a gamble on the brand but for the price it’s been worth it so far. I plan to add a 2nd screen in the overhead console once I move forward on that project. This will become the primary “movie viewing screen” for the kids and will allow me to close the front screen for driving so that I’m not lighting up the whole front seat.

Last week I buttoned up my last storage project for now. I built the center console out of the same materials as the other two boxes but added a lock and a padded lid.

The front lower flat area, near the shifter, still needs to be cut out for 2 cup holders and the rear face will get a slot near the drivers seat, under the little pop-out, creating a convenient place to store maps and magazines and such.

 

[BMAN]

All of this was painted with some indoor/outdoor latex on a roller that I had colormatched to the original 1/4 panel vinyl. The rolled on heavy nap application gives a texture similar to the original elephant skin and I'm quite happy with all of it.

Let me know if you've got any more questions!

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Those boxes look excellent. How difficult is it to access the quarter panel cavity through the DS box?

I especially like your center console. When I first glanced at it I thought it was a Tuffy.

Can you show some more details about your 'case shifter design? I really like the twin stick design and might do that conversion this summer.

 

[BMAN]

You have to get up in the rig to get down in there but that's all good by me. I plan to store non essential spares down there. Stuff that I don't plan on needing very often. I haven't got my rig completely kitted out with all the essentials and non-essentials yet either so for now nothing's really "in it's place" yet.

When I pull it all out for final welding and paint I'll be sure to get some good pics of the twin sticks. It was all neccessary because I pushed the whole assembly back so far when I did the swap and I didn't get the proper bracket when I bought the Splitcase to 700r4 adapter. I had to fab up a whole new bracket for the shifter and tried to use the stock tcase shifter the first time... FAIL.