A new hope.

[Matthew Reed]

In other news I scored some Rotopax from a coworker today for a pretty decent price. One of the water containers is missing the cap and they came with an assortment of mounting hardware. I’ll have to dig into them a little more to figure out where I’m going to mount them.

 

[Matthew Reed]

Starting to consider my next step with this rig. I’m going to be moving back to the Northeast this fall/winter and while I’d really like to invest in a winch bumper, rock sliders, and skid plates, I just don’t think they’ll get any use up north. If I was heading west they would definitely be a priority but up north I don’t really worry about rocks so much. Mud is definitely a concern though.

Right now I’m looking into a hidden winch mount from WAM. It bolts onto the frame rails and adds some tow points. It’s also 1/3 the price of a full winch bumper.

 

[Matthew Reed]

I also started looking into adding an aux fuel tank. Carrying Jerry cans everywhere works but it’s frustrating to use them to fill up, and it doesn’t really help with range unless you’re filling up at the campsite to drive out the following day or top off after running the engine in the morning to recharge electronics. I would ideally like to add a tank where the spare tire normally sits under the truck. With the new drawer setup I have plenty of room to store the tire in the bed so that’s not an issue. If I really had to I could add some kind of tire carrier as well to get the extra room back if needed. I’d like to try and use an OEM style tank with the pump and everything from another vehicle. Maybe the tank out of a Nissan Versa/Sentra? I may need to go crawl around the junk yard and drag tanks from other vehicles to see if they’ll fit between the frame rails.

 

[zanethan]

I also started looking into adding an aux fuel tank. Carrying Jerry cans everywhere works but it’s frustrating to use them to fill up, and it doesn’t really help with range unless you’re filling up at the campsite to drive out the following day or top off after running the engine in the morning to recharge electronics. I would ideally like to add a tank where the spare tire normally sits under the truck. With the new drawer setup I have plenty of room to store the tire in the bed so that’s not an issue. If I really had to I could add some kind of tire carrier as well to get the extra room back if needed. I’d like to try and use an OEM style tank with the pump and everything from another vehicle. Maybe the tank out of a Nissan Versa/Sentra? I may need to go crawl around the junk yard and drag tanks from other vehicles to see if they’ll fit between the frame rails.

Ask and you shall receive! This is on an Xterra but the frame and spare tire space should be the same on the Frontier.

Auxiliary Gas Tank Install: Completed

www.thenewx.org

 

[Matthew Reed]

I also started looking into adding an aux fuel tank. Carrying Jerry cans everywhere works but it’s frustrating to use them to fill up, and it doesn’t really help with range unless you’re filling up at the campsite to drive out the following day or top off after running the engine in the morning to recharge electronics. I would ideally like to add a tank where the spare tire normally sits under the truck. With the new drawer setup I have plenty of room to store the tire in the bed so that’s not an issue. If I really had to I could add some kind of tire carrier as well to get the extra room back if needed. I’d like to try and use an OEM style tank with the pump and everything from another vehicle. Maybe the tank out of a Nissan Versa/Sentra? I may need to go crawl around the junk yard and drag tanks from other vehicles to see if they’ll fit between the frame rails.

Ask and you shall receive! This is on an Xterra but the frame and spare tire space should be the same on the Frontier.

Auxiliary Gas Tank Install: Completed

www.thenewx.org

Read through that post a little while back and that’s basically what I have in mind although I was thinking about doing a separate filler instead of a y like he did. For my purposes, I only really want to use the aux tank on long trips on when out at a campsite. The rest of the time I don’t need it filled and I’d rather not carry around the extra weight all the time. I was thinking I would put the additional filler neck in the bed. Easily accessible and I don’t have to cut holes in the side of the truck. That would also allow me to just run the Evap and everything like it’s setup from the factory. I already have a tank from a Cherokee sitting in my garage (17 gal) but it’s a little older and I don’t have any of the other parts needed to go with it, which is why I was considering just crawling around the junkyard and pulling some random tanks to see what fits.

 

[Matthew Reed]

Now that I think of it, grand cherokees came with a steel gas tank “skid plate” from the factory. It’s not gonna stop a big rock or anything, but it would definitely make mounting pretty simple. Grand cherokees from like 99-04 mount really simply and they have a 20.5 gallon capacity which would double my fuel range. Right now I can only go around 250-300 miles on a tank. That’s fine for driving to work and stuff, but on long trips it’s a pain because I have to fill up every 4 hours or so. If I’m going up to the mountains here in GA that means filling up at least 3 times per trip. Sometimes 4. doubling my fuel tank capacity would give me a lot of options.

 

[Matthew Reed]

I think I’m going to be putting the truck on hold for awhile. Covid cancelled any chances I had for camping/overlanding this year and I’m going to be moving back to the northeast in a few months. I might make one trip up to the mountains this fall but that’ll be pretty much it until next spring. With my active duty career coming to a close, my recent marriage, trying to pack, sell the house, wife starting grad school, moving back home, etc there’s just too much going on right now. Hopefully once I’m back in Maine and things settle down a bit I can get back to working on the truck and finish up the last few things I really want to do. As a recap:

-Aux fuel tank to extend range
-Winch carrier/bumper and winch
-Better sleeping setup (teardrop, RTT, slide in camper?)

These are the last big “wants” for the truck. I can get by without any of them, but they would certainly make my life better. Wife still won’t camp with me without a bathroom so not sure what I’m gonna do there.

 

[Matthew Reed]

Well it’s been a little while since my last update. I’ve actually been able to take a few short trips over the last few weeks which has been great for my sanity! Colored some new trails and spent a couple nights camping. Going on one last trip next weekend before I hear back up north. Looking forward to trying out some winter camping up there.

Couple of updates:
Changed around my Battery setup. My stock battery gave out on me so I swapped it for an optima yellow top and I added a second battery to the rear of the truck that can be charged up while going down the road. I have the camper shell lights, water pump for my sink, and a small inverter powered off of it so I can charge my devices and not worry about draining down the starting battery. Also gives me the ability to self jump start if needed which is handy. I also added a small roof basket I picked up at a yard sale. My old roof basket gave me the capability to store some firewood up on the roof and keep it out of the truck itself and I really missed that going to this new diy platform rack. This basket only takes up about half of my rack so there’s still plenty of room for my hi lift, shovel, and Rotopax when I eventually get them mounted up there.

 

[Matthew Reed]

Picked this guy up today. I’ve been on the lookout for one of these military storage bins for awhile. Sometimes being in a big military town pays off. The matches on these things are excellent and it has a rubber gasket to prevent water/dust intrusion. Measurements are 18”x50”x9”. Low profile enough to keep up on my roof rack and fits snuggly in between the roof basket I added the other day and my hi lift jack.

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

I think I’m going to be putting the truck on hold for awhile. Covid cancelled any chances I had for camping/overlanding this year and I’m going to be moving back to the northeast in a few months. I might make one trip up to the mountains this fall but that’ll be pretty much it until next spring. With my active duty career coming to a close, my recent marriage, trying to pack, sell the house, wife starting grad school, moving back home, etc there’s just too much going on right now. Hopefully once I’m back in Maine and things settle down a bit I can get back to working on the truck and finish up the last few things I really want to do. As a recap:

-Aux fuel tank to extend range
-Winch carrier/bumper and winch
-Better sleeping setup (teardrop, RTT, slide in camper?)

These are the last big “wants” for the truck. I can get by without any of them, but they would certainly make my life better. Wife still won’t camp with me without a bathroom so not sure what I’m gonna do there.

Things sometime just must be put off. Sounds like that is where you are. Sorry about the uncooperative wife. I had one too and is why I'm just now trying to hit the road. My advise, dont let it stop you from overlanding. Life is give and take equally.

 

[iamsuperdan]

Wife still won’t camp with me without a bathroom so not sure what I’m gonna do there.

I hear you. My son and I enjoy tenting, but my wife and daughter will not camp unless there's a bathroom and creature comforts. So we ended up with a compromise/solution.




So when it's a family trip, we take that. When we want to enjoy the outdoors, the boy and I go in the Tahoe and tent.


Just read through your thread. Lots of great ideas here.

 

[Matthew Reed]

Wife still won’t camp with me without a bathroom so not sure what I’m gonna do there.

I hear you. My son and I enjoy tenting, but my wife and daughter will not camp unless there's a bathroom and creature comforts. So we ended up with a compromise/solution.

View attachment 173031


So when it's a family trip, we take that. When we want to enjoy the outdoors, the boy and I go in the Tahoe and tent.


Just read through your thread. Lots of great ideas here.

Thanks! Sometimes I wonder if all the extra work is worth saving the money to just buy an off the shelf part.

 

[Matthew Reed]

Picked up an essential bit of gear today for the upcoming winter. I figured this should be sufficient to keep my little 8x6 awning room warm. I’m thinking about trying to make some insulation panels to hang on the walls and roof to help keep some of the heat in but I don’t know if it will even be necessary because Im actually a little worried this thing is gonna put out too much heat and sweat me out! I can’t wait to do some winter camping in Maine this year.

I thought about just getting the little buddy but the larger heater on it’s low setting has a similar output to the little buddy and on it’s high setting I could potentially use it to heat large room during a power outage which is always a chance during the winter in the northeast.