Texascrane Build Thread

[TexasCrane]

It's not that I'm really trying to keep the heat in but more so trying to not let as much out. I have a mr heater propane heater that works pretty good but I'm my tent because it's so thin and has so much mesh that the wind goes right through it and pulls all the heat out along with it. So I guess mostly I need the fabric to be somewhat wind resistant. Which tent do you have. I have been looking at the RV5. We went to the overland expo east and was able to look at it there and size wise it would work for us.


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I think in that case it would be a good fit. The tents are very heavy duty and wind isn't coming through the fabric. I've got the RV-5. They all pack about the same size, so aside from cost, there really isn't much of a reason to go smaller. I had originally planned to get the awning sides and front, but so far I've been happy as is.

I think that if I do need more room in the future, I'll pick up the tagalong tent first and then add the side panels if I need even more enclosed space.

 

[TheWhiskeyWorks]

A Mr. Heater keeps my large 10x14 canvas kodiak tent nice and toasty. I think any good canvas tent will stay warm with a heater.

 

[redman333]

A Mr. Heater keeps my large 10x14 canvas kodiak tent nice and toasty. I think any good canvas tent will stay warm with a heater.

That's what I was thinking. I just happen to like the oztents design. Being that they setup quick is really nice too. Thanks for the info.

I think in that case it would be a good fit. The tents are very heavy duty and wind isn't coming through the fabric. I've got the RV-5. They all pack about the same size, so aside from cost, there really isn't much of a reason to go smaller. I had originally planned to get the awning sides and front, but so far I've been happy as is.

I think that if I do need more room in the future, I'll pick up the tagalong tent first and then add the side panels if I need even more enclosed space.

I'll probably get just the tent for now but I have an image in my head that I think would be nice which is the tent plus side and be able to have a screen room along with a mesh floor in the screen room. To start with though the tent first. Do a couple camp trips and see what I want next after actually using the tent as is first.


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[TexasCrane]

A warning for those of you using a hawse fairlead. Don't wind in your winch line and let your thimble do this:

Or you'll cause this to happen:

So that fairlead is toast. I was already splicing on a new safety thimble from TRE/4lowparts so I threw on the fairlead that came with my winch. My concern now is that the fairlead is positioned a bit too low. I may give slee a call in the next couple of days to order a new offset fairlead.

 

[hoser]

Doesn't look too bad in the pics. File, sand & polish?

 

[TexasCrane]

Doesn't look too bad in the pics. File, sand & polish?

It looks better in the pics than it does in person. The gouges on top aren't too bad, but the ones on the bottom are pretty deep and sharp. Considering my time, I decided it would probably be cheaper to just buy a new one for $47 than try to "save" the damaged one.

I've got a new one arriving from Slee today. I'll probably swap it out this weekend.

 

[redman333]

It looks better in the pics than it does in person. The gouges on top aren't too bad, but the ones on the bottom are pretty deep and sharp. Considering my time, I decided it would probably be cheaper to just buy a new one for $47 than try to "save" the damaged one.

I've got a new one arriving from Slee today. I'll probably swap it out this weekend.

I'll send the money for shipping if you want to send me the damaged one.


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[TexasCrane]

I finally had som
e time today to get my sPod installed. For those of you who aren't familiar with the sPod, it's basically a fuse/power distribution/switch system. It consists of the "source" which hooks up to your battery and has 6 40-amp bosch-style relays along with fuses (3 15-amp and 3 30-amp but you can swap these out to whatever you want). It also has an inline 50-amp circuit breaker and a low-voltage cut-off.

All of this is connected to a 6-switch panel via a single cable. The idea is that you run the cable for the switch panel once and then in the future you only have to run wiring to the sPod source system. It's not cheap, but from what I can tell it's about $100 or so more than buying similar components yourself, and it has the low-voltage cut-off which isn't something a "home brew" system is going to have.

As far as I know, I'm the first install in a 100-series. I used the Tacoma kit and had to tweak the mounting bracket a bit to make it fit. Toyota Tacoma sPOD Kit

I mounted the switch panel in my sunglasses holder. Sorry I forgot to take pics while I was doing this but basically I yanked it out of the car and used a dremel to cut a hole in the front for the switch panel (using the provided template from sPod) and then cut another hole in the back for the cabling. It just barely fits in there.

I ran the cable through the firewall from inside the cabin into the engine bay. I then ran the cabling up the A-pillar and across the top of the windshield, connecting to the switch panel. I removed the sun visor as well to make it a bit easier to tuck the cable up out of the way.

All back together:

I then mounted the source system in the engine bay up next to the break fluid reservoir. As you can see, I had to tweak the rear mounting bracket a bit so it would sit flush and clear the hood strut.

With the cover on:

It works!

All-in-all, this is a pretty slick system. Right now I only have my ARB twin compressor hooked into the sPod. I don't have lockers, but if you do, sPod has a super easy wiring kit for ARB compressors with front and rear lockers (using the first 3 switches of the panel).

If I have some time this week, I'm going to run the power for my fridge into it so that I can switch it on and off from up front. I'm also planning on adding some aux lighting so that will get wired in as well.

 

[Kabanstva]

That looks amazing. The more I see threads like this, the more I want to do this to our LX which looks like yours did when it was stock haha!

 

[TexasCrane]

Ordered a Eezi-awn K9 roof rack earlier this week. It should arrive on Tuesday.

 

[HLN A55]

I'm about to order an SPod for my LX as well. I was planning on getting the universal kit though. Why did you go for the Tacoma kit?

 

[SmoothLC]

Very clean install of the sPOD!

 

[TexasCrane]

I'm about to order an SPod for my LX as well. I was planning on getting the universal kit though. Why did you go for the Tacoma kit?

The universal kit is basically meant to mount to something underneath the "source" unit - usually the fuse box. That's not an option on the 100-series because the fuse box sits too tall. The Tacoma mount is meant to bolt to the side of the engine bay. The sPod guys and I actually went over and looked at BIOR's 100-series at Overland Expo and decided that the Tacoma kit was the way to go.

 

[TexasCrane]

I ran a dedicated power line for the fridge today from the #6 switch position. So now, I can control power to the fridge from the switch up front. I'd never pulled up the kick plates/carpet before so it was a learning experience as much as anything else. I cut up an adapter for the fridge and used an anderson connector to hook it up to the power line. Seems to work well.

What I may end up doing longer term is running the power to a fuse block instead of directly to the fridge. Then I can run several different power ports and have a "master power switch" up front to turn the ports on/off. I think I'd also then run a dedicated connection for my solar panel off the fuse block to make it easier to hook up.

 

[TexasCrane]

One of my new toys from Christmas was a Renogy suitcase 100w solar panel and controller. Now that I've got the fridge wired up with dedicated power, I took the opportunity to leave it running and see how the solar handles keeping the battery topped off. I was able to monitor how the output changed as the sun moved... I hadn't realized how quickly the amps will drop off as the sun moves off-axis.

But the important part is that the panel turns out a solid 5.8 amps at 13.5 volts when getting hit full blast with the sun... more than enough to keep the battery topped off while running the fridge 24/7. I like this renogy unit a lot. My next step with it will be to wire in a more permanent battery connection than the alligator clips it came with.

 

[TexasCrane]

As I mentioned previously, I ordered an Eezi-Awn K9 rack. The mounting kit and rails arrived at my house last night. I had the rack itself shipped to the cigar shop I hang out at (Home - En Fuego Tobacco Shop - Rockwall, Murphy and Frisco) since it shipped freight and needed to be sent to a commercial address. It arrived today so I decided to do what I could at home and then head over to the shop to finish the install in the parking lot.

I started by popping off the covers on the OEM rack:

Never one to be accused of not owning enough power tools, my 1/2 impact wrench made short work of the bolts:

It was pretty dirty underneath the factory rack mounts:

And it only got worse when I pulled off the gutter cover. I ended up sacrificing a cheap interior trim tool to pry off the rubber/metal gaskets. A few good wacks with a mallet popped them off:

I cleaned out the gutter channel - first with the shop vac and then with a soapy wet rag. Once that was done I mounted up the new K9 mounting channels. I had a couple of issues at this phase. The first was that each channel is drilled for 7 holes. The "single" hole between the forward 2 pairs on each side was off by about a 1/4". I ended up skipping it and Paul from Equipt confirmed that 6 bolts per side was more than enough to hold everything in place. I also had a bit of trouble getting the channel on the left hand side to seat properly. After fiddling with it a bunch I finally just grabbed my mallet and whacked it a few times where it was sticking. That did the trick.

At this point I was ready to start the rack install. I headed over to the shop and set up the mounting feet.

Then a few of the guys helped me lift the rack up into place. I'm really glad I ended up installing it at the shop. There were plenty of guys around to help and there was no way in hell I would have been able to lift that thing up by myself at home.

It took a bit of fiddling but we were able to get everything more or less square and level and so I spent a while tightening everything up and making a few more minor adjustments. Overall it wasn't a complicated install, but by the time I was finished, I was worn out and had to sit down for a cigar.

Here's what she looks like now:

 

[HLN A55]

Thanks for the note on the SPod. Very helpful.

The truck is looking great with the rack. Is that the 2.2M version?

 

[TexasCrane]

Thanks for the note on the SPod. Very helpful.

The truck is looking great with the rack. Is that the 2.2M version?

Thanks. Yes, it's the 2.2m version. It works out to about 87" long. The 2m version is about 79" long. That puts the front of the rack right over the top of the sunroof. I would be concerned about wind noise with the shorter rack. Also, if you're using a RTT with the shorter rack, you won 't have any rack space left when the tent is mounted.

 

[TexasCrane]

After sitting outside in the rain for the last few days, I noticed that the carpet on the drivers side near the B pillar, both next to the driver's seat and the 2nd row carpet was damp. I've got the trim and the edge of the carpet pulled up now and a box fan running on it overnight in the garage. I'm hoping to dry it out and keep it from getting smelly.

I'm not sure if the leak was coming from the door gasket (which I had pulled off and put back on when removing the trim to run power to the fridge) or if it was coming in from one of the roof rack bolt holes. I'll probably pull out the roof rack bolts and shoot some silicon in before reinstalling but if anybody has any other ideas I'm all ears.

I don't think it's coming from the sunroof drain as I think that would leak farther forward in the drivers footwell, not next to the seat near the B pillar.

 

[cainventure]

looks nice i'm about to instal my k9 today on my 06 land cruiser paul said to keep the rubber track on it and mount over it? any thoughts on that i thought it was a bit goofy!