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I settled on the front runner boxes for the same reason, easy to unpac the truck and repack. Box weights are light.In between coats of paint on the frame(there are 3 complete coats) I was in the garage working one of the 1200 remaining tasks in the build. My 97 LS450 has had J springs the entire time I have owned it, and while I initially liked the 3+ inches of lift, I have grown tired of wearing out u-joints in record time. I will take ownership of this as a 400hp LS and a grins from the right foot are largely to blame, there is a good bit of blame to cast on the change in pinion angle resulting from the J springs. I threw the catalogue at my LS build, and have since learned a few key lessons on why Toyota spec'd details the wat they did on the 80 Series. To ensure the pinion angle is set properly on the diesel build, I am trying out a set of Slee weld-in upper link adjusters. The pic here shows the prep work ahead of the welding. I'll post up the finished result. It is worth noting that I am only running 2" lift springs on this build, but also using a 1" body lift to clear the NV4500. That should give plenty of room to flex the 35s without much rubbing.
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I have also been rethinking my storage plan for both rigs. I have built three different drawers systems for the LX, and none of them have been the end all. I find that I do more day trips or single night trips than I do longer trips. This leads me to want a reconfigurable setup that keeps weight to a minimum. When I have headed out for long trips in the LX I have tipped the scales at about 100lbs under GVW. While we don't have the strict laws banning being overweight here in the US that many of our counterparts across the globe have, I still like to stay within specified limits. My last set of drawers weighted in around 150lbs, and that weight is there 100% of the time they are there whether I need all the kit or not. My new approach is to use the Milwaukee Pack Out system in order to build boxes that can be swapped in and out or moved from rig to rig depending on the trip needs. I have started with an XL and L box with 2 open top crates, all of which lock together. The wood on the floor is the base plate from my last set of drawers. The last set was designed in CREO and I laid it out to built of modular drawer units that could be rearranged as needed. This was a great learning exercise, and in the end showed me that wood and heavy drawer slides were never going to deliver on my goals of a lightweight and reconfigurable setup. I resisted joining the Red Army for quite some time, mainly out of frugalness in that my DeWalt tools are still running strong 7 years after purchase. After using so many of the Milwaukee M12/M18 tools in the field and seeing that our dealer techs beat the hell out of them and rarely ever see a failure, I acquiesced and bought my first bit of red. I am sold on them and am seeing value in the more of the Milwaukee line of solutions. So far I have built a must-have kit in the XL box. That contains my recovery gear, spares, tools, and repair manual. While not a one handed operation, I can swap that box from my '97 to my '96 in seconds. I don't have to have 2 sets of everything. I just make sure that what I need to cover both rigs is in the one kit and that it is in the rig I am heading off in. I also picked up the platform with castors that allows me to pull the Pack Outs out of the rigs, stack them together and roll them off to a corner of the garage. The L box is my kitchen stuff. I have plates, flatware, spices, and all the other kitchen related stuff. The crates will be used for toss and go items. I am optimistic interlocking design will eliminate the need for straps to secure it all, but also realistic that this may still have some key flaws yet to be discovered. Stay tuned for more thoughts.
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Steve, those are what I started planning around after seeing your’s and Richard’s setups on the last run I was on. It opened up my thinking on flexibility in packing.I settled on the front runner boxes for the same reason, easy to unpac the truck and repack. Box weights are light.