More little things have been getting done. Just little projects as I can fit them in. We have been using the truck a lot!
First I added LED strips under the bed. It was always dark trying to find things down there. Its bright now!
LED strips under the bed.
Made a new switch mount for the inverter and lights. Which somehow I have backwards…. Just remember on=off….
Inverter and light switches
Then I installed a 12v compressor. This is for being able to air up the bags, the tires as needed and blow up floaty toys etc. Its a 100% duty cycle Puma, with a small one gallon tank.
Strapped in place by the back door.
I wires it with marine tinned wire, and a resetable circuit breaker.
The rear axle has helper air bags, they are great for heavy trucks! I generally run about 70 psi in them, this helps keep the rear end higher, and also off the overload springs. Makes for a better ride with a heavy rear end.
Here you can see the overload springs are not touching the perches with air in the bags.
With ~60 psi in them.
And here is what it looks like with 0 psi in them.
Zero psi, look at the upper spring.
But when they were installed, the fillers (the air valve like your tires) were installed right on top of the air bags. This meant climbing under the truck and sitting by the rear axle to fill or even just check pressures.
Lazy installer’s filler location
The fittings used are quick connect, so I deflated the bags, and went to work taking the valves off. I used DOT 1/4″ air line to extend them back to the back bumper. Much nicer to be able to check pressures and fill now!
Skifari is a trip lead by a good friend of mine each year. We camp in a ski area parking lot, ski there during the day, then drive to the next one. Repeat for a week. It’s a great time and we had amazing snow all trip this year! We had 10 people in 6 rigs. We started at Mt Baker, then headed to Sasquatch BC, followed by two days at Whistler.
Heading up to Baker after work for the first night got very interesting. It was dumping snow, and they had not run the upper area at all that day. 6-8″ of snow were on the road. Once we were ~1/2 a mile from the upper lot, we came across a small slide that was covering the road to a ski area. I stopped to see how deep and packed it was to see if we could cross. As soon as I got back in the car and touched the gas the truck followed the crown of the road sliding right into the snow bank. We were stuck, right in an avalanche Chute. I dug the side of the truck out and used the maxtrax under one front and one rear wheel. I was able to pull forward a bit, but it still was sliding along the snow bank. Luckily we were traveling with friends who were able to winch us back to the center of the road. But we were still slipping all over trying to move. I started to put on chains and a second slide released and hit the truck. Luckily we had a lookout watching the hill and took off running when it let go. Scary as hell bit we made it out ok minus a few buried tools…. We got very lucky that it was a small slide.
StuckFeverishly working to get out of the slide area
That’s all we got for pictures, we were working as fast as possible, and once the second slide let go I just hit the gas back down the hill, one chain halfway on…
But we made it back down to the main lot and parked, it was almost midnight at that point. We had a tiny fire, a couple beers and crashed.
Baker had good snow, 10-12 ish inches overnight, pretty damn light, but not compared to the upcoming days.
Family ski day at Baker!
After skiing Baker we headed North, crossing the border up into BC and parking at Sasquatch mountain. Its a little 3 chair place, but there was no one there and the snow was the lightest fluffy pow you can imagine. It was great for the kid, she usually has trouble in pow, as shes ~55lbs, she just gets stopped, but it was so light she could keep moving relatively easily!
The whole Skifari gang parked at SasquatchIts going to be a good day.Sasquatch Pow
Nice terrain for a little place
Next we headed to Whistler. Long drive day, but not too bad. There are always a couple on skifari. We stayed at the Riverside RV park. Whistler is VERY anti camping in their lots, so this was the next best thing. Close to the upper village and parking at blackcomb mid station worked awesome. We would roll out at 7 and have breakfast up there.
Parking lot lunch!Whistler Camp site
Some fun trees at whistler.
A normal Skifari evening, a nice little fire, a few beers and great friends to chat with. Such a great time.
Time to replace the front shocks to match the rear. Over big whoops in the road the front end would bounce a little so they are getting tired. I went with Bilstien 5100’s just like the rear end.
Old Vs New
Getting them out wasn’t too bad, getting the new ones in was harder…. Trying to collapse them enough to fit and hold them with zip ties.
New and shiny
No its not rusty, its red grit that Oregon DOT spreads everywhere in the winter. it works well and is very grippy, but man it makes a red mess.
Not enough miles on it to report how they work yet, but I will update it after a few thousand miles.
Let me start with Mt Bachelor is awesome for ski bumming! They park you right in front of the parking lot, close to the lifts, have a 24 hour bathroom, and showers! You have to pay for the showers, but still they are nice. Its $20 a night to stay there.
Parked right up front!
Ski conditions weren’t great, but we made the best of our time. Went to town, did some climbing and a day of tubing too. Bend is great for visiting lots of breweries!
Tubing! Can you see the big blue truck?
Freezing rain made for short evenings outside, and icy days of skiing, but its still better than working!
Icy tire in the morning.
The drive down and back was uneventful, I try to keep the truck at 68 or less. It will go faster, but 68 is ~2250 RPM’s, which is getting up there, and it sucks down more gas the faster you go. Two passes past Mt Hood had some snow, but nothing terrible and we made the drive in a day.
I have been putting off trimming and skiing the back door for a while….. But now that its good and cold, the door and frame sweat, a lot.
So I got a dry day and got to work. First a layer of foam board was spray glued to the door. Its 1″ thick and R 5.
Insulation glued on.
Next layer was a sheet of 1/4″ ply glued to the insulation. The glue was supposed to be temporary, but it holding well so far, I may add a few screws later.
Plywood Skin
This left me with covering the metal frame that goes around the back door. Its steel, and goes all the way through to the outside, so its cold and it sweats. I look a couple of scraps of the 1″ foam and cut it down to 1/2″ thick. This was glued to the steel to create a thermal break. Plywood is not very insulating, so a gap between the wood and metal is needed.
Thermal Break insulation1/2″ gap between ply and metal.
aNext I cut a piece of 1/2″ ply to cover the frame, and overlap the door. I am putting a gasket on it to keep the moisture vapor from getting behind it and sealing the space.
Gasket and overlapInterior
All done
Really cleaned up the inside, its not just an aluminum door anymore. And no more dripping on the bed! That’s the last big wall piece that was left to do.
What a weekend! 28″ in 48 hours, light and fluffy and everything!
We headed up Friday night, there was a storm rolling through that was dumping snow up north. So naturally we chased it!
Heading up at night the LED driving lights are a life saver. Missed a family of deer…. glad I could see them. It was absolutely dumping snow.
Entering hyperspace
We made it in time to get up to white salmon before the gates closed. Its nice to be able to be so much closer to the lift. We backed into the snowbank and settled in for some dinner.
Home for the weekend.Friday night snow.
It was really coming down Friday night, we walked around outside for a bit, but went to bed pretty early. The morning brought lots of fresh snow. About 8″ overnight.
Lovely Morning sight.
It was a good day for big sticks! Soft and deep everywhere and just continued to come down all day. A great day of skiing. We all crashed early.
The weather cleared up after a few more inches over night. Woke up to clearing sky’s. The snow was so good we decided to ski Sunday too.
Digging out Sunday
Dug out the plow berm that was in front of the truck, and headed for home Sunday afternoon. It was a great weekend of skiing and the truck worked awesome.
A couple little things have been done. I ordered some cushions online, they finally came in! They look great! They are 3″ thick, and Sunbrella outdoor fabric, made to my sizes. Glad I just had them made.
Dinette Cushions
Also put new marker light bulbs in the truck. One was out, and they always seem to follow each other so the others were probably close behind. I used some LED ones.
Marker Light’s new bulb
Also stopped by my local Air Harbor to pick up some Jet A, I am going to try running the furnace on it, it should be nearly the same kerosense. Much much cheaper, and you get to see the cool planes when they are filling you.
Took a quick overnight to play in the snow. Truck did great! 4×4 worked great, just had to manually lock in the hubs, which meant I couldn’t drive in mu slippers….. Life is hard.
We headed up Smithbrook road near Stevens pass again, lots more snow this time!
But first a quick stop at Stevens Pass ski area, they were letting people sled! Not kicking people out, which is unheard of in my experience. So we stopped and had lunch and did some sledding.
Lunch at StevensSledding!
After lunch and some fun we headed up Smithbrook road. We had to push a couple cars up the road to a wide spot to get turned around and headed back down so we could sneak past them.
Camp spot!
Snow was pretty deep where we stopped to camp. Pretty spot and fluffy, but polished really slick from traffic up the road.
Nice little trip, it got cold, we had a nice fire, and enjoyed a lot of sledding!
I don’t generally like to leave the big bright porch light on, I know a lot of RV people do, but in the middle of nowhere when its really damn dark, that is too bright.
I wanted just a little light to help find the stairs, or just see a little light around the truck. So I came up with a plan. I bought some trailer marker lights, they are small LED’s 60 lumens ish, and mount in a 3/4″ hole. This was important, the flange around the bottom on the box is ~1 1/4″. My idea is to mount them to just shine on the ground around the bottom edge of the box. They are cheap and waterproof, can be found here.
LED Marker light
So the first step is to drill a hole, A step bit was used to do this.
3/4″ hole in the bottom flange
The lights work by removing the rubber, slipping that into the hole, then slipping the light into that. Its pretty secure in there actually.
Light in place
Then the wiring. I had run a circuit to the passenger side tool box area when I was wiring the truck. I figured it would be handy for something in the future to have power out there. I used a light up push button switch, and an old antenna mount to hold it. It had to be spaced away from the corner a bit to clear the door for the propane access.
Switch in the tool box.
And the final result! Its awesome! Just a nice little bit of light around the truck. The camera makes it look a little brighter than it is, its just a subtle bit of light.
