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!
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.
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.
Sooo we needed a backup camera. I had an old phone I figured I would try use as a screen. So I ordered a Wifi transmitter and a camera. Good in theory, not so good behind a huge metal box.
But anyway, the camera and transmitter seem decent, the license plate light was tapped for power, and the camera is powered off the transmitter.
Camera and Transmitter
It was all installed in a tupperware for water proofness, and attached to the back bumper panel with VHB tape.
Now it works, if your behind the truck, not exactly ideal….. As soon as you move past the the back and down the side the signal just drops. Oh well, I guess I need to run wires….
Also a cell booster was installed. This works better! Definitely get better signal, but its still slow if the signal is weak. Also there is some interference with FM radio if its signal is weak also. The external antenna is close, but far enough per the install guide, but moving it further away may help. The unit is a WeBoost 4G-x, its in the glove box, and the internal antenna is above the rear view mirror.
While washing your hair in the sink does work, yes we tried it!, an outdoor shower has always been in the plan. I was originally going to use a standard “RV” shower, but the cutout needed was huge, and it really wasn’t very nicely made.
So I had seen a “shower port” before at some point so I went googling. The one I wanted was a Bullfinch unit. Its really slick, the hose plugs into the unit, and then it is used to adjust the temperature as well. It only requires a 2 3/8″ hole, and has a tiny mixing valve built in. The shower head is also a dish washer style where when you release the button the water stops. Should help with water usage!
Bullfinch Shower point
The shower was installed right above the intake/exhaust for the water heater, not ideal location, but it was about the only spot it fit nicely. With the cover closed it sticks out about 1/2″, the cover has a gasket to keep road grime out too.
Shower installed and closed
When you hook the hose up, the water is automatically connected. just adjust the temperature and its ready to go.
Hooked up
And it works! It actually shoots water a long ways….
It works!
I teed into the water lines near the sink, it is supplied both hot and cold. Eventually I will likely add valves to be able to turn it off and drain it for the winter. I’m still a little worried it might freeze, the valve is in the wall basically. One thing to note is that the Bullfinch uses metric fittings! They are Whale fittings, a common push to connect fitting used in Europe. I found them locally at a marine supply store, not hard to find.
Interior connections.
And that’s it for the shower! I need to make a mat to stand on, but it should work nicely for upcoming trips.
Well as we are packing up in the rain for a long weekend, I see what looks like a window leaking…. Its dripping from inside the frame. I looked at the caulk all around the window, nothing seems out of place. Maybe it was running down the body lines, so I smeared more goop on those spots. Didn’t seem to do much but nothing else I could find.
So off we went, we spent the weekend at the Northwest Overland Rally, great fun, lots of friends we don’t see too often and a nice weekend away. Even if camping in a grass field with 1500 other people isn’t our norm.
Our spotFriday morning before all the people showed up.
It rained a bit thursday night and Friday morning, but no real leaks.
After we got home I climbed on the roof to look up there. Sure enough the factory sealant had cracked right along the joint from the corner extrusion to the roof sheet metal. Damn. It was actually leaking down inside the body channels and just coming out where it hit the window!
Cracks!
You can just see the dark colored straight lines in the picture above, those are the cracks. They are all the way around…. Luckily there is some butyl in between the corner and roof that has seemed to keep it sealed in most places.
Bad.
It was cracked very badly across the front, luckily there is a large strip of butyl here, so no leaks I could find. But it was not adhered at all, this whole section peeled up.
Peeled and sanded.
I ended up taking a grinder and going all the way around, grinding the middle of the existing sealant to expose fresh stuff to bond to, and to get the cracks out.
Ground down
I will be adding a second layer of polyurethane caulking, Sikaflex 1a specifically, over the existing stuff. It doesn’t bond well to bare aluminum, so a coat of Sika 260 primer was brushed over it. Before that, a scrub brush, acetone and lots of rags were used to get everything as clean as possible.
Not many pics, its sticky messy work, but 8 tubes were used to cover the seams. It was troweled and finger smooshed around. Hopefully sealing and thick and flexible enough to last a few more years.
Sika smeared on
This will take a few days to cure, but I think it should work well. Hopefully it bonds to the existing stuff and gives me a long life flexible seal.
We had been thinking of a live edge slab for our table, but coming up wiht small pieces was difficult. We went to a local guy a couple weekends ago, and found a piece that should work!
Its a cedar or Lebanon, a local 98 year old tree that was taken out when the opera house was remodeled.
Raw slab
It will be finished with a satin polyurethane, lots of coats and lots of sanding…..
I made a leg out of a piece of steel, this will be at the outside edge. A piece of aluminum angle iron is attached to the wall to support that side. I drilled and tapped the floor for the table leg.
Supports
Then the top gets set in place and screwed in! It turned out very nice. It’s a little skinny, but makes getting in and out of the benches easier.
Finished
I will give it a couple coats of paste wax once the poly has set for awhile. That will give it a good wear layer.
Electrical never ends. So many little things that take soooooo much time.
But I got to installing the inverter/charger. Its a 1250w inverter and a 55 amp charger. The inverter is a little smaller than I would have liked, but it was cheap and used, and the charge is well size for my generator and keeping wire size down. The charger should only draw about 5 amps at 120V Ac, so that means I can use a standard 15amp cord and plug, easy.
The inverter charger gets installed. It will have a 1/0 cable running through a 200 amp breaker and then to the battery bank. Making 120V AC takes a ton of amps at 12V DC.
Inverter charger installed.
For my shore power connection, I had planned to use the drivers side tool box. So I needed to run a power cable from there to the inverter. I used flextite electrical conduit for this. It protects the wire and keeps it dry.
Conduit for the wire
I ran the power cable through the conduit, its the male end of the same extension cord I used to wire the truck, I have about 25′ left, that should be enough to hook up to most hookups or get the generator a ways away. I also pulled a pair of 8 gauge wires for my solar connection.
Inside the tool box
It all rolls up nicely inside the tool box.
Solar! Yes I am excited. I have two panels and a PWM charger on the roof of our old truck. They always topped the batteries up a little, but never charged all the way. They were always dirty too…
For the new truck I am going to try a portable panel. I can park in the shade and have the panels in the sun, throw it on the hood etc. I went with a folding 100W panel, its very thin and light weight, it should be easy to store, this was one of my concerns with a portable one.
Thin!Opened
I opted to spend the little extra money for the MPPT controller, I went with a Victron, having only the one panel I wanted the extra efficiency I could get using it. I will do some tests to see how the panel actually puts out compared to its ratings.
Now that we are using the truck, we really should have a way to monitor the batteries. Now I know most people just use voltage gauges, but it’s really not a very good gauge of whats really happening. A much better solution is to use a shunt.
A shunt is basically a large bus bar, with a known voltage drop across it. You connect all the negative sides of your loads and charger to one side, and your battery negative to the other, and it can measure the amps drawn into and out of the batteries because of the tiny voltage drop across the shunt. They use the negative side simply because its safe to have exposed negative posts, the exact same could be done with the positive side.
Shunt is the big brass piece
I had to make up some cables, I am using 2/0 marine cabling, its tinned thin stranded wire, crimp lugs on the ends and adhesive heat shrink tubing. It makes for very nice cables!
Battery cable
Meter Head
The meter is quite nice. You tell it how many amp hours your battery bank is and it tells you your percentage left. It can also show current amp draw, high lowest, deepest discharge etc. Its a nice unit. It all hook up with a piece of cat5 cable and RJ 45 jacks.
Installed
I installed it in the end of our tall cabinet, next to the thermostat. I’m really happy with this product. I originally was going to use a Xantrex unit, but this one is far simpler to set up and was less money as well!
After a few trips of driving the truck, it was obvious the rear shocks were not doing what they were supposed to. It bounced after every whoop and bump in the road, even just on pavement. To the point of launching things off horizontal surfaces. The truck does have 107k on it now, and the shocks do look original.
So a new set was ordered. I settled on Bilstein 5100 series shocks. They are a good quality monotube, that don’t cost a fortune.
I crawled under, wiggled my way into a sitting position and got to work. Luckily the old ones came right out (one upside of having an oil leak I guess, not much rust). They collapsed completely by hand and didn’t rebound at all. Definitely garbage at this point.
Dead ShocksNew goodies!
The new ones went in fine, they were much harder to get in place, as what do you know they had a gas charge and wanted to extend themselves with much force! But with a little help from my wife and a floor jack both sides were in place.
Driving is MUCH better, so much so I want to do the fronts too, as you can feel them bounce a little now that the rear end is controlled. A good upgrade, especially to old worn out shocks.
