Build/overland/4x4 stuff: 1989 Raider, 2010 Sequoia, and other projects

[irish44j]

So part 2 of the new mini-hitch is that it's for a bike rack right now. I just got a killer hookup on a Thule X2 Pro hitch-mounted rack from a friend, which I plan to mostly use on the Sequoia, but decided to test it out on the swing-out hitch. Fits pretty well, though can't totally fold up due to the spare tire clearance. But the concept works, so I'm happy about that:

...but that's not the end plan. The X2 Pro mounting rails are individually-attached, and it's a pretty heavy rack that sticks out a good ways (especially on a short rig like this). So for the Raider, the plan is to build my own "stinger" from the hitch (without the heavy fold-up mechanism and other stuff) and just have one rail bolted to it, since I'm generally solo when in the Raider. That'll save a good amount of weight and give me better clearance. So that's the next project, but it's for another day.

Today's little project: exhaust stuff. The exhaust pipe on this has always been too short and dumps right under the bumper. Not a HUGE deal, but when sitting still, the exhaust tends to go up and get through the rear door seal on occasion, which is pretty annnoying. Plus the underside of the bumper and rear door get a lot of oil soot (this is a Mitsubishi after all....). So I picked up an elbow extension, cut the old pipe off right behind the hanger, welded the elbow on , and angle-cut the tip, and now it dumps off to the side NOT under the bumper. Hooray for small victories.

 

[irish44j]

With the hitch-mount rack there, it basically blocks my third brake light which is low-mounted on the bottom of the back door. And it somewhat blocks the regular taillights too. So I ordered some low-profile LED lights and mounted one of them up on the top of the door, which has better rear-view over the bike. So for 9 bucks, this'll do. Only fun part was running the wiring through the frame of the door, but got it done eventually.

Looks a bit funny right underneath my rear camp light, but whatever. This whole truck looks a little funny...

Hard to see in daylight, but it's bright AF at night - like 5x brighter than the stock brake lights.

On a side note, I was driving along with an Ineos Grenadier on the way home from work. Not the first one I've seen in this area (like a dozen), but the more I see them the more I like them. And they do look a good bit like a "modern" Raider/Pajero - almost moreso than a Land Rover, I think...

 

[irish44j]

Time for some cleaning and fixing stuff. I built the roof rack about 5 years ago now and it hasn't been off the truck in that time. I've added things, drilled holes, drilled more holes, welded on it up there, touched up rusty spots, and done some half-assed brackets to mount things. Plus the beige roof underneath is pretty grungy and has some welding spatter and overspray. Time to fix all that.

So off with the rack (after unbolting all the heavy crap on it).

Even after washing it, the roof looks terrible.

So first order of business is a quick sand and repaint. Threw up the awning so the annoying tree over my driveway doesn't drop sap or stuff on it, and got to painting. I used Rustoleum "Sand" color (brush-on) originally, with a bit of black mixed in to dull down the color a bit, so did that again and it matched about right and looks a lot better now.

I also put a strip of black vinyl on the front edge of the roof - so the rack fairing doesn't wear down the paint and also because the strip of "sand" between the windshield and the rack has always annoyed me for some reason lol.

Now on to the rack. Man, I probably had about a dozen holes in the bars where I drilled into mount various things that I later moved or un-mounted, and just taped over them with gorilla tape. So first order of business was to get the welder out and fill all those holes in. I also cut off the L-brackets I put on for the shower curtain enclosure. I mounted those on pretty janky and didn't like where it held the assembly, so wanted to make something a bit bettter and more "snug" to the rack. I also cut off the old front "horns" left over from the early rack version. I only kept them for all this time because my branch risers attach there, but gonna alter that as well.

So yeah, I cut off the "horns" and capped the tubes, then added the riser eyes onto the steel fairing instead. I don't use the risers much, but good to have if I'm somewhere they'd be useful. Raider windshields aren't exactly easy to find so don't want it smashed by a rando branch.

The roof boxes I've had attached with U-bolts around the bars, but decided it was time to make things easier to take on/off if needed, so welded in some weld nuts instead.

Did a few other things that aren't very interesting, including adding new brackets for the shower curtain and a few support and tiedown pieces, nothing too notable though. And got my neighbor to help lift the rack back on .

Oh, did I mention I weighed it all when it was off the truck. The rack itself weighs 60lbs (including the four flood lights and fairings). The two awnings + shower curtain weigh 46lbs. The Pelican cases weigh 18lbs each, and forgot to weigh the other box but it's a bit lighter, so say 15 lbs. So around 160lbs on the roof there, plus two traction boards in the front box (maybe 10lbs), and I usually carry lightweight stuff in the Pelican cases (chair, tarps, tent, etc.). So figure I'm usually around 200lbs on the roof when fully geared up, which I guess isn't too bad all things considered. Not that I have much choice - in a truck this small I need the roof storage rather than jamming it all inside....

I also raised the front box up. You may recall it was indented down below the fairing, but that made it VERY hard to get to the latches and the lid only opened about 30 degrees. So this solves both those problems.

Oh, I did cut all the handles off all three roof boxes, since I don't need to carry them around. So figure I saved a few pounds there haha....

So, that was a productive day from my POV, though from your POV it all probably looks about the same as before haha....

 

[irish44j]

Well, let's keep going with some more projects. First one is an easy one, because I've done it already on this truck: Limb risers. You'll recall the old ones went from the rack "horns" to the front of the fenders (though I only used them a few times). With the horns gone and new mount locations, those are the wrong length - plus I wanted to make ones that used slightly lighter cable and were fully detachable. The old ones only detached on one end and I had to string them outside the rack. So the new set will be totally removable and I can stash them inside the rig instead. I also switched the spring to the topside and left the turnbuckle at the base for easier adjusting/tightening. And used a screw-type caribiner to attach on the fender.

They coil up pretty small and fit in my gear pouch (with winch remote and other stuff).

After that, finally got around to installing a new GMRS antennal. My original one snapped off halfway up at some point (it's a 2-piece design apparently) and my reception was pretty lousy for the last few trips. So I got my hands on a slightly taller (1-piece) Midland antenna and replaced it up there - so hopefully that will improve reception.

Oh, while I'm thinking of it - checked RockAuto last week and as is often the case with old vehicles of which few still exist, they had some maintenance items for almost nothing (manufacturer's closeout). So I picked up 6 of the cone-style air filters for 3 bucks each, and 4 or 5 oil filters for 1.50 each. These aren't as nice filters as the Mann one I have in there now (which has more elements), but for 3 bucks each I figure I'll just replace it after every trip or two and still do fine. The boxes for the filters were all mis-matched, falling apart...like they've been in the back shelves of Joe's Auto Parts for 30 years and he finally unloaded them lol...

Now, the next project. I'll admit this one was a bit impulsive since I got a bonus at work last month (pretty rare for federal employees these days....) and put most of it in savings, but wanted to buy myself something nice (and yes, SWMBO got something too, don't worry...). You'll recall that for a couple years I've had a Badlands Apex 5500 winch on the front of this thing. My viewpoint was that I don't winch often, and on a small truck with not that much horsepower unnecessary weight is to be avoided. I used it a couple times and found it "sufficient" but not exactly confidence-inspiring. A buddy just got a new trailer and asked me about installing a winch, so I sold him the 5500 and got busy finding a replacement with a bit more capability. After a lot of researching and a lot of deciding how much I wanted to spend, found one that should suit my purposes (9500lb), with synthetic line, and at a place that had it a good bit cheaper than other places (with free shipping). And surprisingly (from the cheapest seller) it showed up 2 days early (Saturday morning).

This is the Superwinch Tigershark 9500. Superwinch has a pretty good reputation historically (though they've been bought and sold a few times over the years) and the reviews seemed generally very good. No, it's not a Warn Zeon 10, but that wastn' in my budget. It should be a good step-up from the Badlands ones (plus they only make a 9.5k in they lower ZXR line, not the Apex, IIRC). There were a few other choices out there but this one was the right size, price, and I like the control box on the side rather than over the reel, personally.

So, let's get to work. First things first. The old Badlands one was mounted on a UTV plate that I basically welded directly onto my "custom" crossmember under the bumper (if you're following this thread, it's an old Chevy Suburban junkyard trailer hitch, which is BEEFY). So out came the grinders and spent an hour getting that thing off and cleaning up the crossmember.

As you can see, there's a raised plate that's part of the original hitch assembly, which is great reinforcement (and ties it all together). However, it's higher than the rest so thought about various options as to how to make a larger plate fit "over it."

I ran down to harbor freight and bought their large winch mount plate, which is WAY too long for my uses, but just the right width/depth. So first I cut it down to 20" in length (I think it's 36"). I'll note that this thing is some thick metal, not cheap. I got it for $45 I think - which is far less than I'd spend to just buy raw steel and build one myself (and it's nicer than my work anyhow).

Plus I have leftover metal for future projects :)

Anyhow, I decided to chop out the center and basically fit it OVER the raised crossbeam section. This would allow me a lot of weldign contact points (including the ends) and keep it as low as possible as well (by like 1/2" but whatever...). That was a good bit of cutting...

but it fit up pretty well, and just barely left me clearance for the rear winch bolt holes.

Also if you don't remember, the OEM bumper was cut down in the middle for clearance. The bigger tray meant I had to cut it down a bit more.

And then out with the welder, which is a Hobart Handler and still took care of this thick metal with a good bit of slow work and multi-passes...

So with that done, I cleaned it all up, painted it, and put on a couple coats of bedliner. So let's install the winch now. It was pretty straightforward (other than cutting the too-long bolts for the fairlead)

As planned, just a bit of clearance between it and the grille to tuck it in as close as possible without any major cutting of the truck itself.

The winch came with a buss-bar for circuit breaker, but I couldn't find a good way to make it fit on the battery, and frankly don't want power to the winch when I'm not winching anyhow. So I re-used the Badlands on-off power switch (which is rated plenty high for the load of this winch), and didn't install the buss bar (though I may at some point, just as an extra safety step).

I also had to relocate my yellow fog/flood lights since they can't go where they were with this wider winch. In the end just stuck them upside-down below the winch plate, which actually worked out pretty well. We'll see if they get damaged down there but I think they'll be ok since the bumper over-riders stick out a bit further anyhow.

Note that the winch hook on this is massive...almost kind of funny how big it is ;)

So yeah, that's my self-congratulations for working my ass off at my job: A winch I'll use once or twice a year, and a full weekend of cutting, grinding, sweating, and welding lol.

 

[irish44j]

We have a weekend trip coming up in a couple weekends, so have been doing some maintenance and also wanted to address the steering system. It has a few issues: 1) it's sloppy as hell, and I've adjusted all the remaining lash out of the gears/box but still, so much slop. 2) the box is leaking even more than it was - appears to be from the input seal from the steering shaft, but who knows. The whole things is coated with a muddy/greasy mix. 3) the idler arm is crunchy and noisy. I've always thought the one I got was a crappy design and figured it wouldn't last too long, and that's the case.

So, since I don't have time to do any real projects in the next week, for the moment I'll just settle for replacing the idler arm before this trip (and top off the PS fluid...)

So exciting. But at the same time, I ordered up some other stuff for the next stage of this project after I get back. One option was just to get a new/rebuilt steering box, but if I'm doing that I'm going to upgrade. A fairly common swap by the more hardcore Gen1 Pajero guys is to upgrade to the Gen2 steering stuff (Model year 93-99, IIRC). The main part of this is the beefier steering box, which basically bolts directly up in the same place/position as the Gen1 box (you have to open up one mount hole), and it has a bigger shaft as well, I think. It also has a quicker ratio and is known to be "touchy" compared to the Gen1 box - probably because the Gen2 uses a lower-pressure PS pump (which I cannot easily retrofit). So the word is you end up with a much more twitchy steering. We'll see - I'm used to the super-twitchy/light steering on the Sequoia, which is lightyears different from the Raider. Some guys say it's very twitchy, others say it's a more mild change.

So I ordered up one (seems like they're all the same made-in-China unit no matter where you look, but whatever, it seems fine quality)

Along with that, I'll need a new Pittman arm, for the different shaft/splines. The Gen2 pittman arm is a tad longer and a slightly different angle from the Gen1 but still clears everything fine. Some guy just run that and use the Gen1 idler arm. This messes up the geometry a bit but most guys don't seem to care. But why bother with that? The Gen2 idler arm assembly is basically a direct bolt-up as well. It has four bolts vs. three on the gen1 mount, but you basically just ignore the 4th one. Like the rest of teh stuff, it's way beefier than the Gen1 idler assembly/arm and looks a LOT stronger. I may actually weld a plate onto the frame for the 4th bolt as well, but we'll see. The guys who have made this change didn't, so it's probably fine without.

So there's the Gen2 on the left, and Gen1 on the right

So yeah, I'll tackle that in the next few weeks and see how it is. I'd do it after work this week, but don't like to make major changes so close to a trip.

 

[irish44j]

Ok, time for another trip. This one is our annual jaunt out to Wolf Den Run and Big Run State Park in western MD, with a group of about a dozen people going. Wolf Den is great wheeling and scenery, and some other cool places around. But first, while packing I found that my spare bottle of gear oil had cracked and poured it all over my rear carpet....gross. So had to rip all that out and dump a bunch of baking soda all over the place smh...

Got all packed up, in the usual "how can I make stuff fit" style.

But eventually got packed up and no more gear oil smell.

So, moving on to the trip itself. First I headed up to Frederick to meet up with Jim around noon. He said he could use some help finishing up a few things.....well, it was a bit more than that, but nothing too bad. Had to do some wiring, make a panel, and reattach his GFC shell. Jim and his wife go on some serious long-distance overland trips (recently were out in Montana, etc.) so he's always upgrading the camping setup, equipment, power, etc.

In any case, we got on the road, and about halfway there. going up the LONG Sidling Hill upgrade I got boxed in by a car behind a truck coming up fast, had to jam the brakes and then did a hard downshift to try to regain speed in the next lane over......didn't think much of it until I cleared the crest, and then found my clutch on the floor. Pulled it back up with my toe, and for the rest of the trip there is was spongy and engagement wasn't great. Tried a few local (western MD) auto parts stores and of course nobody had a master cylinder, so pressed on. I still could clutch/shift but the feel was really bad and the engagement constantly changed. Typical MC problem (probably blew out a seal or something), but not gonna let that stop a weekend camping trip.

We got to the campsite at Big Run state park and a few folks were already there, and everyone got down to cooking and hanging out, setting up, etc.

Mike showed up in the XJ, and it reeked of gas. Old car stuff, right? Everyone sat down and ate/drank aorund the fire

I walked by his rig again and was like "damn it smells like gas" so looked underneath to see gas dripping from his tailpipe. Flowing down from a tiny hole in the side of his tank about halfway up ,which had been rubbing on something (possibly exhaust) and worn away. Mike got down to try to figure it out...

We couldn't figure anything out so just put a bucket down to catch the gas. The hole was around half a tank level so figured it would drain down. In the morning Mike backed up onto a rock to slosh the gas to the other side of the tank, and was able to dry off the area and use some JB Weld to plug the hole, which actually worked...

So we packed up and hit the road heading to Wolf Den Run, one of our favorite local wheeling areas - fun trails, some tough stuff, lots of water/mud, and great views. Some people had flats, a lot of people had to spray out their radiators from too much mud in them making cooling not go too well (I had 6 gallons in my pressurized tank, so that was useful). The clutch made some of the most difficult areas that I'd usually try...really difficult. I actually took a couple bypasses for the first time in memory since wasn't confident I had enough clutch feel to do a couple very long, very steep, very rocky sections that would be hard for a truck on 31s even in perfect shape. A couple of the more stock-ish Toyotas passed them too, so I didn't feel too bad. The bigger boys did them anyhow.

(stuff never looks as steep or rocky in photos lol, but even the XJ on 37s had a tough time through this area)

At some point stopped to wash out the radiator again and noticed.....my oil cap missing (!!!!). This being a Mitsubishi, I check the oil pretty often and did that morning and must have left the cap sitting on the IM and not on the filler. Luckily, the filler has an S-shaped hose to the valve cover so very little actually sprayed out from the valvetrain. And it's high enough on the engine that it was one of the only areas that DIDN'T have mud on it (whew). So had to improvise a cap on trail....

Good enough, we kept on keeping on. Here's some random pics from the day

Started out clean....

Didn't stay that way

Also got a chance to do some flexing. Car actually teetered over when I got out to take the pic lol

---

Another night of camping, and enjoyed my morning coffee on the nearby stream

oh look, there's a spare oil cap buried in my spare parts kit...hooray

On Day 2 we took a more leisurely route to show some of the folks Dan's Rock (we went there last year, but it's always cool)

The guys were continuing on north, but with my clutch still wonky, A/C blowing warm, and running short on time I hit a gas station and headed home.

Spent the next day after work powerwashing everything for the upcoming steering project....skids need a bit of attention too lol

Anyhow, great weather and a fun trip. I'm pretty happy with the current camping setup (camped in the truck again this time) and my storage arrangement, so I don't have a ton of projects of that sort coming up for the moment, but who knows. Next post will be this week's project.

 

[irish44j]

So, with the trip recap ^^^ out of the way, let's do steering. The original steering box is sloppy AF, and i've tightened the lash as much as possible to no avail. Plus, it leaks badly. One option would be to get a rebuilt box, replace, and call it a day. But I prefer an upgrade, and many over the years have swapped in the steering box and gear from the Gen2 Montero, which is bigger, beefier, and easier to find. It also has a quicker ratio and is said to be even a bit too responsive for many guys who do it (most on bigger tires than me). But I drive a GTI daily, and a Porsche so I like tight steering. So let's do that.

I posted pics of the new stuff a couple posts up, but mostly it looks like beefed up version of the original Gen1 stuff.

Getting the old box out was messy - lots of fluid, lots of muddy mess (even after powerwashing), and lots of figuring out the right angle to get it out

yum

Install of the new one wasn't much fun. It's a tight fit to get the old box out and the new one in, especially with the cruise control module there. But managed with a lot of cursing. The high and low pressure stock hoses fit perfectly, and are in the same place. The lower mount holes line up, but you have to substantially bore out/widen the upper holes to fit. Other guys say "a little" but it was more like 1/4" on each one, which took a while in the much thicker flanges on the new box..

But, eventually I got the box installed, along with new Pittman arm and a new idler arm on the other side (both from Gen2, which are way more stout than the Gen1 stuff, but have the same size balljoint tapers, so they fit perfectly. Getting the Pittman arm onto the new box's splines took a good deal of ugga-dugga from the impact (after cleaning/lightly filing some rough areas with a tiny file).

So, there it is (sorry about the blurriness)

Idler arm as you can see has four mount holes, but the original only had three (same spots though). The other guys who have done this just run with three bolts on the Gen2 idler, but I may add a steel plate up top for peace of mind, since I"m gonna be welding on a different vehicle tomorrow anyhow.

Went for a quick test drive and wow.....very responsive steering, like my cars. It's heavy-ish on center, which is good for staying in your lane, but you do have to be a bit more careful now since it turns quicker off-center and is lighter. Short-wheelbase 4x4 isn't a thing to do unintentional "too-rapid" lane changes in lol. But overall very happy with the feel. It's not twitchy like guys have said, but feels more like my Sequioa's steering (but heavier). Just what I was hoping for. So overall very pleased with this mod.

 

[irish44j]

Headed out for another weekend trip with some of the usual crew to GWNF, up to Flagpole Knob and Reddish Knob. Done this trip several times, nothing too challenging but some nice views, good camping spots, and such. This was the first long drive with the new steering and after I got used to it I really enjoy the upgrade. Still have to pay a bit more attention on the road and not do anything "too quickly" but it's really great off the paved. Wheeling with actual steering response is way better than the 10 degrees of nothingness the old setup had. Overall, the Raider did fine for the trip other than the hard-start issue when it's cold (which apparently I will never solve, since I've run out of ideas on what could be causing it), but I think I do have a sticking injector. It's the 2nd one back on the passenger side, I know that, and it's not a spark issue. The injector is clicking/firing, but especially at idle I'm not sure any fuel is getting through. Seems to be okay when on heavier throttle, but I'll have to deal with it sooner or later.

On Saturday we met up with some new people, and some old friends and did an easy run down Peter's Mill so the Jeep guy could get his badge of honor thing. They've graded that run, so even the formerly kinda-tricky spots are pretty easy now, it's almost a 2wd trail entirely at this point, but whatever. RJ was working at the beginning doing promo for OnX and joined us later (damn that is a pretty cool wrap...)

There was also a guy with a Rivian in our group, who I followed for a while. Not that it was a hard trail, but it looked plenty capable from what I could see. In any case, neat to see one on the trail. The guy driving said he's frequently offroad and camping and stuff, so that's cool.

I also swapped vehicles with Eric for a few miles. He wanted to try out the Raider, so I cruised in his Touareg and took pics of my own rig

Later in the day as we were heading up to Reddish Knob on a rockier trail, there was some traffic....

IDK if this was a lost Uber Eats/Door Dash or what, but we followed him for a few miles (he didn't offer to move over) and he tackled some fairly sketchy areas (for a FWD stock Hyundai...). This is the trail that I towed Andy's Celica across three river crossings last spring that were about 2-3 ft. deep. Luckily for the Hyundai, it hasn't rained in forever and those crossings were just little tiny creeks this time.

Also crossed through a cow pasture, they seemed annoyed. But all the juveniles were excited and were running next to the cars as we went by. Mom wasn't happy.

Headed up to find a campsite in the dark, and appreciated my good lighting. The site had a couple big fallen trees right in the middle of it, so we had to do some winch-dragging and chainsawing to get situated (sorry, no pics)

After fires, beers, food, etc we crashed out and in the morning it was typically scenic while I drank my coffee

Then we headed out and immediately got hung up with another group coming the other way on a fairly narrow trail

These guys stopped for a sec to talk about how they used to have a Raider and had seen mine on a forum here or there. Obvs they have a hella nice rig as well....

We messed around while waiting for the other guys to get past the traffic. Who flexed better haha....

And Eric played in the one water spot we found...

We headed up to Reddish Knob to see some sights before rolling out home

Heading down the mountain I was annoyed at a big rock in my tire tread. Eventually once near Harrisonburg I pulled off and checked, and it was a roofing nail with a flat washer piece, through the thickest part of the tread block.

...but not thick enough. I pulled it out and listened to the air come out. So time to change tires in a business parking lot on a sunday morning with people coming from Brunch strolling by....lol

That also reminded me how inconvenient my jack/tool access is, as I had to pull a bunch of stuff out of the rig to get to it. Need to fix that problem.

On the way home on dreadful I-81, did catch up to a few guys coming back from a Range Rover meet (MARS?), with some nice rigs.

So, a pretty good trip overall. Only damage was a broken exhaust hangar, annoyingly, but secured it with some wire NBD. I did take some notes about things I want to fix / improve, including:
- the exhaust hangar
- GMRS mic mount (kept on falling out of the moutn in rough areas)
- jack/tool storage improvement (and continued refinement of storage overall)
- clean up some janky wiring and stuff
..and a few other things.

Since I'm a government employee and currently furloughed thanks to dumb politicians being dumb, I guess I'll have some time this week to do some projects :/

 

[irish44j]

...and to follow on to that last post, this morning I drove to work, signed my furlough paperwork (yeah, have to do it in person, annoyingly), and headed home to do some projects in the perfect weather.

First up, something I've been meaning to do for a while. My Sequoia has an 8-foot awning on one side and a 55" or so Ironman awning on the other (along with shower enclosure). I don't use the short one often on the rig, but it's about 5" longer than the ARB awning on the back of the Raider, which I use constantly. A bit more coverage is aways good, and frankly I like the Ironman awnings slightly better than the ARB. They're pretty similar, but the IM ones have a few little features I appreciate (and easier zippers). So spent and hour swapping them. Plus, the gray cover on the ARB always annoyed me from a color standpoint, didn't match the rest of the rig haha....so small victory there.

Also got Amazon package of something to solve the GMRS mic issue, trucker-style. Note: I really like this thing, it's well-made and super-convenient.

On to interior. First, time to get rid of the janky plastic interior panels. They were once tan, painted black, chipped and scratched, and look ugly. They have no insualtion or anything, and make wiring inconvenient. Goodbye:

Underneath, the metal is actually gray so I'm going to cover it all in matte black vinyl later this week.

Also looks like whatever cover goes over the rear vents is missing, so will have to fab up something for that...

With that done, next project is storage. First, need better access to my tool box. It's heavy with the big bottle jack in it and hard as hell to get out when the truck is packed. So with a few hinges added, now access is better!

The area over the passenger wheel well is mostly dead space with the fridge there (as you can see in the previous pic). It's not very flat, and anything you put there falls down into the fridge slider track. So out with the saw, and some scrap wood (from my old sleeping platform)

Basically, made a "container" of sorts (along with a front partition). And lookie-lookie, it fits my two large tool rolls, and a big Fkin hammer and prybar, and some other stuff just perfectly. Now I don't have to keep these elsewhere, where they were hard to get to and/or not stowed well. So really happy with this setup.

I do have a few other things ongoing, but will update those once I'm done.

 

[irish44j]

Finishing up the interior updates today. First off, needed to make something to cover that rear corner vent. A decade ago when we took out our gas fireplace I saved the front screen of it, which is nice mesh, so I dug that out of the shed and cut myself a piece

A little shaping and some screws, and that's taken care of. The edges are pretty sharp so just wrapped them in some monster tape for now

As noted yesterday, the interior steel is painted gray, which looks a bit bare, so I basically did an "interior wrap" with some Oracal 651 matte black vinyl. Pretty easy job on this truck since almost everything is square and flat, with just a few curves. Once done with that, I added my new storage solution - a side corner molle panel. Now, you can't buy one that "fits" a Raider, so after some searching I found one meant for a Jeep JK that was about the right size on Amazon, and I cut off a couple "squares" on one corner to fit where I wanted it. The top mount I just used the upper rear seatbelt bolt, which is pretty hefty. On the bottom I put two weld-nuts into the steel under the window and used some screws and some 2" plastic spacer tubes I had sitting around to space it off the window. All in all, pretty happy with how it turned out:

Also in that photo you can see the black vinyl wrap - gives it a bit of a military/utilitarian look I think lol. Also I had to deal with the various wires that had been behind the plastic panels (mostly for roof lights and antennas and such). For those I wrapped them all in mesh sleeving, which is way nicer than the old-style plastic ridged sleeves, and then tried to run them to look fairly nice using a bunch of tubing holders (drilled holes to mount). All in all, came out pretty well I think.

I relocated a bunch of my molle bags to there (plus the first-aid kit) for easier access. I found that having them on the panel behind the driver's seat made them hard to get to when loaded with gear, so this should make for better access. Then moved the trash bag to the back of that panel as well as my hatchet, since I don't use it very mcuh. Also moved the paper towel holder to the new panel, which gets it more out of the way.

Overall, just more maximization of minimal space to make this little rig more liveable..

 

[irish44j]

Well, I'm back on the "essential" list at my agency so I've been going to the office for a few hours a day to do "the most essential" work (but still not getting paid, like all the other gov workers...) so plenty of time to do more projects. So getting to a few things I've had in the planning stages.

Ordered up this cheap $85 UTV cargo basket off Amazon. It's only 46" wide and 18" deep, so not as big as ones for cars/SUVs.

I didn't want the "high sides" it's supposed to be, so I basically just doubled up the edges, welded/bolted stuff together, and did some hacking on the hitch section to get it at an angle that's better for my purposes. Like so:

A fellow rallycrosser gave me an old construction sign, so did some cutting....

And now I have a table for cooking/eating and also something to carry firewood or other gear if I want to. So no more carrying the fold-up plastic table inside the rig (more space!). It's also pretty high off the ground so pretty much zero chance of any clearance problems compared to if it were on the actual tow hitch of the truck.

The best part is that it swings out wide, so it will be just under the edge of my awning (so I can cook when it's raining, etc.).

kitchen!

--

So from the rally car, I have a very nice (and $$) Diode Dynamics light bar that I don't use for rally any more. It's infinitely better than most of the more affordable LED lights (including the Auxbeam ones I have). So decided I'd add it to the Raider, since my lighting on recent night trips hasn't really impressed me compared to some of the other guys in our group. This bar is a bit wider than the winch platform, but I still have the pieces I cut off the winch platform when I installed it. So hacked them up and welded some "extensions" on the ends.

Then installed the Diode Dynamics bar, and put the two smaller yellow lights outboard of it, which all ended up fitting pretty well I think.

Wired it all up (the Raider lights have the same plug types as the rally car, so it was pretty easy).

So that came out pretty good, and should improve my visibility at night, on the trail or on empty country roads, even if I don't use the roof lights (which I keep covered on public roads for legal reasons).

 

[eroyar23]

Ok, time for another trip. This one is our annual jaunt out to Wolf Den Run and Big Run State Park in western MD, with a group of about a dozen people going. Wolf Den is great wheeling and scenery, and some other cool places around. But first, while packing I found that my spare bottle of gear oil had cracked and poured it all over my rear carpet....gross. So had to rip all that out and dump a bunch of baking soda all over the place smh...

Got all packed up, in the usual "how can I make stuff fit" style.

But eventually got packed up and no more gear oil smell.

So, moving on to the trip itself. First I headed up to Frederick to meet up with Jim around noon. He said he could use some help finishing up a few things.....well, it was a bit more than that, but nothing too bad. Had to do some wiring, make a panel, and reattach his GFC shell. Jim and his wife go on some serious long-distance overland trips (recently were out in Montana, etc.) so he's always upgrading the camping setup, equipment, power, etc.

In any case, we got on the road, and about halfway there. going up the LONG Sidling Hill upgrade I got boxed in by a car behind a truck coming up fast, had to jam the brakes and then did a hard downshift to try to regain speed in the next lane over......didn't think much of it until I cleared the crest, and then found my clutch on the floor. Pulled it back up with my toe, and for the rest of the trip there is was spongy and engagement wasn't great. Tried a few local (western MD) auto parts stores and of course nobody had a master cylinder, so pressed on. I still could clutch/shift but the feel was really bad and the engagement constantly changed. Typical MC problem (probably blew out a seal or something), but not gonna let that stop a weekend camping trip.

We got to the campsite at Big Run state park and a few folks were already there, and everyone got down to cooking and hanging out, setting up, etc.

Mike showed up in the XJ, and it reeked of gas. Old car stuff, right? Everyone sat down and ate/drank aorund the fire

I walked by his rig again and was like "damn it smells like gas" so looked underneath to see gas dripping from his tailpipe. Flowing down from a tiny hole in the side of his tank about halfway up ,which had been rubbing on something (possibly exhaust) and worn away. Mike got down to try to figure it out...

We couldn't figure anything out so just put a bucket down to catch the gas. The hole was around half a tank level so figured it would drain down. In the morning Mike backed up onto a rock to slosh the gas to the other side of the tank, and was able to dry off the area and use some JB Weld to plug the hole, which actually worked...

So we packed up and hit the road heading to Wolf Den Run, one of our favorite local wheeling areas - fun trails, some tough stuff, lots of water/mud, and great views. Some people had flats, a lot of people had to spray out their radiators from too much mud in them making cooling not go too well (I had 6 gallons in my pressurized tank, so that was useful). The clutch made some of the most difficult areas that I'd usually try...really difficult. I actually took a couple bypasses for the first time in memory since wasn't confident I had enough clutch feel to do a couple very long, very steep, very rocky sections that would be hard for a truck on 31s even in perfect shape. A couple of the more stock-ish Toyotas passed them too, so I didn't feel too bad. The bigger boys did them anyhow.

(stuff never looks as steep or rocky in photos lol, but even the XJ on 37s had a tough time through this area)

At some point stopped to wash out the radiator again and noticed.....my oil cap missing (!!!!). This being a Mitsubishi, I check the oil pretty often and did that morning and must have left the cap sitting on the IM and not on the filler. Luckily, the filler has an S-shaped hose to the valve cover so very little actually sprayed out from the valvetrain. And it's high enough on the engine that it was one of the only areas that DIDN'T have mud on it (whew). So had to improvise a cap on trail....

Good enough, we kept on keeping on. Here's some random pics from the day

Started out clean....

Didn't stay that way

Also got a chance to do some flexing. Car actually teetered over when I got out to take the pic lol

---

Another night of camping, and enjoyed my morning coffee on the nearby stream

oh look, there's a spare oil cap buried in my spare parts kit...hooray

On Day 2 we took a more leisurely route to show some of the folks Dan's Rock (we went there last year, but it's always cool)

The guys were continuing on north, but with my clutch still wonky, A/C blowing warm, and running short on time I hit a gas station and headed home.

Spent the next day after work powerwashing everything for the upcoming steering project....skids need a bit of attention too lol

Anyhow, great weather and a fun trip. I'm pretty happy with the current camping setup (camped in the truck again this time) and my storage arrangement, so I don't have a ton of projects of that sort coming up for the moment, but who knows. Next post will be this week's project.

Love wolfs den havent been able to get down there for a while

 

[irish44j]

Allright, let's go local tripping again. This is our annual trip up through Dolly Sodds, Canaan Valley, and Blackwater State Park in W. Virginia. Bigger group than usual with about a dozen rigs, but as always Andy had it all planned out for us. We met up with about half the group out near Wardenville W. VA and did some leisurely camping in decent weather for this time of year.

Then a quick teardown in the morning to meet everyone else in Moorefield befoer shooting out to Dolly Sodds. It had snowed 14" earlier in the week but sadly had already melted so was just wet. Still, the typical nice views and such. Some of the other rigs, including a twin-turbo diesel land cruiser that's pretty amazing...

Then headed off down the trail

And a bunch of pics from the day that I like

So at this point ^^ my driveshaft (I think) started to make a lot of clinking noises when under any heavy load (climbing, leaving stops, etc.), so that was pretty annoyings. It's done it occasionally all summer but figured it was just a creaking bushing or something, but now it's doing it repeatedly and consistently under load, and got worse when climbing that rock step that the Touareg is hung up on there....

No other choice but to push on (with the music up to drown out the noise). We got down into the valley and shortcutted across the river to get to our campsite

Once we got there, it was a great spot along the river, so camp was spread out and everyone got out the awnings and such with rain overnight expected.

My new kitchen setup getting to work, plus my new LED lights.

In the morning people went their separate ways, and I headed over Mount Storm with 50mph crosswinds, which is loads of fun in a vehicle with the aerodynamics of a box truck....

So overall a good trip. I have to fix the driveshaft, and I have a few other little projects/improvements in my never-ending quest to make things "work better" for camping and wheeling, so more on those later!

 

[irish44j]

Ok, time to tackle those projects. First off, replace the U-joints on the main driveshaft. I don't do U-joints very often and find it takes me 3x as long as it should and I always buy a spare one because I'll likely mess one up, crack a joint top, or something. In this case, lucky I did since someone at Moog (or RockAuto) wasn't paying attention when assembling parts...

Yeah, someone put ONE of the wrong caps on the bearing (one with an outside C-clip, when the rest are inner). So that's annoying, happy that's not one of my trail spares (guess I should check those).

In any case, new front and rear U-joints on the main DS (no pics, not that exciting), so hopefully that takes care of the drivetrain noise. Let's move on to something more fun. More reconfiguring of the rear end of the truck.

In the never-ending quest to find more places to put stuff in this little truck, it's always annoyed me to have "outside stuff" inside the truck - including my air compressor, which I usually have to dig out from one of my rack shelves and unload other stuff in the way to do so. I have another matching box to the one on my left-side swing out and decided to mount it as well. This did require removing the 5lb propane tank holder at the top of the swing-out, and blocks the factory license plate, but I planned for those things.

So, after welding on some mount brackets, that part is done:

I also have a bunch of steel ski boot shelves (I worked for 20 years at a ski shop) that I use for all kinds of little projects, and for this one I literally just used one "as-is" via the box mount bolts so I have an upper section shelf. Also note the Burton snowboard binding baggies, which most customers didn't want, but they're actually great for small storage (I have four of them in various places on this rig).

So pretty happy with how all that fits. Next order of business is to relocate the propane tank. Not a lot of options here so decided to just mount the holder on the lower box itself. These boxes are pretty beefy (made for shipping $$ photography equipment, and arguably stronger than most Pelican cases), but I also cut out a piece of road sign (aluminum) and put it on the inside of the door to get rid of any flex of the plastic. No pics of that, but here's the mount:

For securing the tank, took some thought. I have to be able to open it (my recovery gear is inside) so rigged up a couple Titan Straps to hold the tank when the door is opened.

For those who follow this build, you know I tend to overkill all my mounts. No different here. When I'm not at camp (or the very occasional need for recovery gear), I added a supplemental ratchet strap to really secure things, using the steel swing-out posts themselves as a safety in case that plastic case can't deal with constant minor flex over time. Also a bit paranoid about a 5lb propane tank falling off the back of the truck, better safe than sorry. To do my envisioned setup I cut some U-channel and welded some low-profile "ears" on each side of the upright to use as strap guides.

So the "on the trail" setup looks like this (and it takes like 5 seconds to loose it to open the box door):

I stood on top of the tank (175 lbs) and bounced and nothing went anywhere, so hopefully I'm safe lol.

--
This setup change also let me re-orient my fold-down table so it's vertically long and doesn't overlap with the right-side swing-out (last trip it was annoying to have to open them "together" rather than individually, I found out). I also beefed up the support arms to give it more rigidity.

Just barely tucks in behind. I have about 2mm clearance with the rear wiper (why do I even HAVE a rear wiper at this point, anyhow?)

-
The last order of business on this new setup is a license plate relocate. I could either mount it ON the boxes, or use the one "empty" spot I have left on the back of the vehicle. I went with the latter because it's an easier position to run lighting to, to keep this all legal and such. So using ANOTHER ski boot shelf, fabbed up a mount and welded it to the right-side swingout behind the rotopax.

And that fits nicely, though it's odd to see the place actually centered on this vehicle lol

I still have to run some wire for lighting - I got some nifty little LED lights that double as the license plate mount bolts, so will do that tomorrow.

 

[irish44j]

Just to wrap that up, added the LED license plate lights, which also act as the bolts to hold the plate on. From eLED, nicer than the ones I tried from Amazon previously (hopefully)

 

[irish44j]

I assume it will be no surprise if I'm doing more storage refinement. You may recall I have a zip-up cargo net on the rear door (a repurposed overhead roof net), but the zipper broke on it - it's not made to hold much weight in that direction. Overall, it just turned into a catch all for "stuff" of various categories that didn't fit elsewhere anyhow, and I didn't really like it as much. So I took that off, and got a cheap amazon molle piece (made for the inside sides of some pickup truck, I forget what). I basically just searched for the cheapest thing that was in the right size range. But needed a way to mount it, so added on some flat steel arms to use for that.

(I'll admit, I thought these were steel molle panels like my other ones, and actually started to tack-weld the arms on before I realized lol....). After that, I just used some rivets and bolts. Didn't need to be pretty since nobody will see that part. Anyhow, looks like this:

For the moment it's mounted with some big self-tapping screws, but I'll put some rivnuts in there after Christmas (one of my expected gifts from my wife that I can't believe I don't already own).

And after looking around at measurements, I got some "molle tactical pouches" for cheap that seemed like they'd do the trick for better storage volume and ease of access. And as it turns out, they're just about right:

and with the door shut, from the inside

So, that turned out pretty good.

In other news, I didn't own almost ANY camping or overlanding gear 4-5 years ago. Now I'm at the point where I had to build a new shelving unit today just to fit it all lol....

 

[irish44j]

So for a while I've meant to finish my upholstery. Much of the truck I did in VW Westphalia upholstery fabric, which was pretty $$ as cloth goes. But my rear platform looks ratty, and the front one has black fuzzy carpet on it that I can never get clean...

So I ordered some more of the fabric, which comes from Turkey and gets slapped with a hefty tariff now.....smh. But it finally got here so got right to work and recovered the rear platform. Much better :)

I'll do the front platform at some point as well, just had other projects to work on .

So my birthday was this week, my parents sent me a check (which they insist on doing even though it's not necessary, and they always want me to "spend it on something I want, not something I need." So I did just that, and got a diesel heater. I don't really need one for camping, in general. I have a buddy heater that works ok on really cold trips, but I did want it to heat my garage in the winter, so kills two birds with one stone. After some research and talking to folks, went for this one, which is the "right size" for my packing needs and gets good reviews from ice fishing friends.

Seems to work great in garage heating so far (made a small exhaust hole in my garage door), and I'll figure out how I want to set this up in the event I use it for camping (I'm sure I'll try it at least once). I want to set it up outside the truck if I'm sleeping inside (my aunt's boyfriend literally died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a heater in his house, so I'm paranoid about that), so I'll figure out a good pass-through location (and have a fitting to make it work). In the meantime, it fits PERFECTLY on my shelf when not in use:

...Held in place by my recently-acquired kitchen/gear box that I got specifically because it fits snugly in this spot with no strapping down. My intent is to put all my kitchen stuff in here when I don't have the "box" replacing the passenger seat (i.e. when I'm sleeping outside the truck or have a passenger).

My folks also sent an early Christmas present since I wont see them until January (they're out adventuring on their own), which is a "picnic bag" of sorts off Amazon. So this gets rid of packing food in random containers and stashing it wherever - also large enough to hold my pots and pans. All in all, should be good for multi-day trips and let me more easily carry a better selection of food and extra drinks. It's also expandable (extra few inches of height if needed) and folds flat when not in use. Seems like decent quality so hopefully will hold up.

Ok, next little project. Figured I can add more crap on the outside so fitted up a small harbor freight case on top of the two rear boxes, which I had sitting around.

I do need to grind down the front feet so it sits more flush, but will wait for another warm day for that. Anyhow, good place to stash my hose and sprayer on summer trips. And whatever else on winter trips. I drilled some holes in the bottom of it so it drains.

I also bought myself a little present. I use the Jackery for my fridge, but had a few thoughts: First, it's overkill for a small fridge, and rarely goes below about 70% even in the summer. Second, it's bulky (since it has an inverter and multiple plugs) so doesn't pack up that well. I will take it for winter trips (or especially long trips) so I have more power for the diesel heater, etc. But wanted something more compact so picked up Iceco's magnetic 250WH power bank, which was pretty reasonably priced and is very compact. No inverter but I just need it to run the fridge and stow away in a small place (TBD). Also useful for when I take the fridge in other vehicles (especially my "road trip" Porsche, which has pretty limited storage space, comparatively).

You can see the size relative to my hands and/or the Jackery. It also has a nice "ballistic" case with storage for the cords and stuff, which is a nice touch. Overall, a pretty good deal for $130 I think.

My *one* complaint is that the magnetic backing doesn't work with my fridge, which is the ONE Iceco model that has aluminum skin. So I'll either stash it near the fridge (I have room on the slide itself) and maybe just use some 3M tape to attach it. TBD. Obviously, I already knew this would be the case so it's a very minor complaint lol.

You may ask why I have two power banks and don't just do a built-in setup with LiPo. I have room under the hood to do it, so maybe I will someday. But since I use my power-needing gear in multiple vehicles (Raider, Sequoia, wife's Minivan on family trips, and occasionally the Porsche), it's more convenient just to have power banks that I can move from vehicle to vehicle without any hassle.

 

[irish44j]

And let's do some more stuff. But first, my birthday was a couple days ago so my wife/kids/in-laws got me some stuff:

1. a gaudy yellow Rotopax for diesel. I'll just replace the white water tank on winter trips (frozen water isn't useful anyhow) if I"m using the diesel heater. Otherwise, it'll just be for home use.

2. some badass scissors. Because you can never have too many heavy-duty scissors in the garage lol

3. and this. Though I have several heating implements, wanted something simple/basic/quick for coffee at lunch in the winter or whatever (or when traveling in a regular vehicle without all my gear) I did get the adaptor to use it with the 1lb propane cans rather than the white gas, since I don't want to carry multiple different fuel canisters. Overall, pretty cool design that all packs into itself - only downside is that the "feet" to make it less tippy are for white gas canisters rather than the propane cans, but maybe I'll build/fab some solution to that.

And yes, it's pretty much the same thing as the Jetboil Flash. Like, I can't see much in the way of differences at all (materially or functionally) other than some minor cosmetic changes. The Jetboil one is around $150. This one was $60. When my mother-in-law asked what I wanted I sent here this one since I don't want her spending too much). I can't compare side-by-side, but for almost 1/3 the price, IDK what the Jetboil would give me additionallly....

All right, time to get dirty and stinky. With a warm-ish December day, trying to address a couple drivetrain annoyances.

First off (no pics), I pulled off the intake manifold and replaced the #5 fuel injector (all of which I replaced last year). Over the last few trips noticed a misfire and that injector was sticking at idle in particular. I just put one of the old ones back in, which were working fine when I replaced them searching for my hard-start issue. So now no more misfire.

Second, this truck has always been a bit "vibrate-y" at higher speeds due to all-terrain tires, bad NVH insulation, and just generally being old. More recently there's been a somewhat more noticeable high-frequency vibration (well, high-speed, actually pretty low-frequency audibly) at 55mph+ that I tried to fix earlier by replacing the driveshaft u-joints. At first I thought it had improved, but I actually don't think so, still there. Thought it might be the almost-new tires I swapped to the rear of the truck, so messed with air pressures, etc....no change. Then reading a thread, someone noted that the "collar" in side the transfer case output shaft housing wears down over time, allowing lateral play at the front end of the driveshaft. Mine definitely had that, so perhaps that's the issue. Basically, the housing has an inner collar that's "white metal" or something (like a crank bearing) that locates the smooth outer bore of the driveshaft end (which has internal splines). It looks like this:

You can see the oil reliefs cut into it. Also it was visually apparent that there was wear in there allowing the play. 250,000 miles on this piece will do that. So off to search for another one. As luck would(n't) have it, my spare transfer case was missing that piece. Probably sent it to the scrapper with the old blue Raider (grr). There is no replacement bearing material/collar piece, so you have to buy the whole tailshaft housing.....and you can't get it in this country. So, ordered it from Japan (paying another hefty tariff, since this piece is about $300).

So there's the old and the new

and the inner bearing, with un-worn reliefs (and I had a spare oil seal in my kit for it). Keep this photo in mind, there's something wrong here....

Anyhow, put it all together, bolted it back onto the transfer case, and put the driveshaft back in place

While I was under there, also replaced the input shaft seal on the diff, which had been leaking a bit.

Then filled up the diff with fresh gear oil (LSD additive) and the transfer case with regular GL-4. I'll note that it's almost impossible to find straight GL-4 gear oil these days at an auto parts store - but Mitsu guys are adament not to use GL-5 in this old manual transmission that has brass stuff in it. So hunted down the only GL-4 I could find locally ($70 for a gallon!), which is the same stuff everyone else on the Mitsu pages seems to use - probably because there aren't many options.

Got it all buttoned up and went for a drive. Everything felt.....exactly the same. Still have the vibration around 55mph, so now I wonder if the driveshaft needs to be rebalanced or something (???). But that's not all. After 10-15 minutes of driving around I got home and got out and.....there's oil all over the place under the truck! And to the point it's hard to tell where it came from since it clearly sprayed all over the entire underside behind the transfer case and literally pouring from the central crossmember

Drain/fill plugs are all snug, and the way it sprayed it couldn't have come from the diff seal. Oddly , the DS front U-joint was still covered with dry dirt but it HAD to be coming from the new housing, and the only possibility was that I damaged the seal when I put the DS in (it did seem to take a bit of effort to get it in, but wrote that off to it being a new seal).

So, pulled the driveshaft again and.....the seal is literally pulled out of the housing and just around the driveshaft outer bore (no pics, too messy) So basically there was no seal at all. Now, why did this happen? I installed just like a hundred other oil seals I've done, seated fine, etc. Well, go back to the photos of the old and new housings above and does the new seal look thicker? Sure does. So I dig out the box from the trash to check the part number and right there on the back, in my own handwriting:

FRONT. Shit. I could have sworn the front and rear seals were the same part number (and clearly it physically fit in the place it goes), but that's not the case - the rear seal is a different part - same outer diameter but slightly thinner (so larger inner diameter). Dug through my parts boxes and found that one and reinstalled, topped off the gear oil, etc.....went for a drive and no leak now. So the lesson there is to pay attention to the thing you wrote yourself on the damn box a few years ago....:/

So yeah. didn't fix the problem I was aiming to fix, but at very least I have fresh seals and fluids in the drivetrain now so the vibration would seemingly either be the driveshaft out of balance (IDK how, no weights are missing), or something internal in the diff. I can't see how it could be in the T/C, since it's literally just a through-shaft in 2WD and the word in the Mitsu world is that "if something goes bad in a Gen1 Montero transfer case, then you did something really, really, really wrong" (e.g. they're supposedly "bulletproof" to the maximum extent).

 

[irish44j]

Well I hope you all had a good Christmas or whatever holidays you're celebrating this time of year. I had some free time on Christmas eve and the weather was nice, so time to get a bit more past the point of no return. After thinking on it I decided the only practical way to bring hot air from the diesel heater inside the vehicle is to cut a hole, so first off I tracked down a pretty nice 3D-printed setup off Etsy to suit my purposes.

I like this setup because it has three key things:
1. A quick-lock connection for the heater air tubing
2. A sturdy weatherproof cap for when not in use
3. A turnable inner vent

Once it arrived, needed to figure out where to use it. Initially I had considered making a blanking panel for one of the sliding windows, but the "cabinet" is in the way on the driver's side where I'd want the heater to be (and didn't want the heat dumping directly into my lap when sleeping, so passenger side window is out (plus the shower is on that side). So fuck it, time to cut some sheet metal. There was really only one single place I could do this where the exterior metal was relatively flat and not dual-sheeted. Basically, this location dumps into the storage cubby area behind my shelving.....exactly where the heater is stowed (but wouldn't be when in use).

So out with the hole saw and drill....

Everything fit up well, except I had to shave a corner of the outer plate due to it slightly overlapping on the wheelwell flare. But otherwise, an easy install, all the included hardware aligned and bolted up fine, and used a generous amount of black sililcone to seal it all good.

Outer plate in place:

Here it is with the hose quick-connect locked in:

And with the cap on it. The cap threads on (not the three-luck lock the quick-connect uses) and has some ridges on the inner bore so it "locks" snugly into place and won't come loose.

I kind of hate the cosmetic location of it - not centered nicely on a panel or over the wheel, but it's the only place it would work so that's where it is. Oh well.

On the inside there's a swiveling vent so you can "aim" the heat to some degree, which is nifty. Overall a well-thought-out design:

So yeah, that should work out well I think.

A couple other little projects in my free time between dinners and presents and such with my kids:

First, found a place for the Iceco battery bank. It's magnetic, as mentioned before, so I stuck it on the molle panel right over the platform (moved the first aid kit to the rear door to fit it). And added a Titan strap to fully secure it. Also right next to my "always-on"power plug right above it, which I use for the fridge when driving. I'll probably add a double-outlet there so I can also recharge the battery at the same time, since my other ports are on the driver's side of the truck.

And I got around to reupholstering my front platform with the plaid, which is so much nicer than the cheapo black furry fabric that attracts dirt and crap...

 

[irish44j]

Taking a little break from the Raider for the moment (I do have one smallish thing lined up, but we'll see if it works out), so let's go back to the Sequoia. As much as I love the Raider, I would eventually like to do some longer-distance (poss. cross-country) trips in the coming years. And while the Raider is certainly capable of doing it, it's not really something I want to spend weeks operating out of. Plus, it's relatively slow and not great for long-distance highway jaunts and as much as I've done to it, there's still a lot of limitations for extended trips (especially if I'm not solo). So over the next year or two I'm going to spend some more time working on getting the Sequoia set up for things like that (while still using it for racecar towing and utility stuff). Obviously it already has some stuff done to it, but the focus going forward is on better gear storage/livability for a long trip with a lot of camping. Right now it basically just has a platform with hidden underneath storage and the little stand I made for the fridge, plus a roof box. I have some ideas for interior modifications, but it's cold and I don't want to spend a lot of hours messing around inside the truck. So the first project is one i've been thinking about for a while: external rear storage.

So the obvious options are hitch-mounted cargo baskets, hitch-mounted cargo boxes (Thule, Yakima, etc.), or spend a bunch of money on an aftermarket bumper with swing-outs. I know there are also hitch-mounted swingouts, but none of them does what I want them to do (and they cost more than building something myself). I don't need the spare tire on a swingout. My slightly-larger-than-stock spare still fits in the factory location, and it's fine there since this vehicle isn't for any particularly hardcore offroad stuff where it would be a clearance issue. What I want it GEAR storage. Recovery gear, air compressor, camping gear, rotopaxes, propane tank(s), etc.

After building the Raider swing-outs, I have some ideas for improvements, but I'm not going to hack up the rear bumper to install pivots (though I did consider it for a while). Instead, I want something that's removable since swing-outs are a problem when I'm towing the racecar trailer (with clearance, etc.). And no need to have all that crap on the truck when not doing something. So the bottom line is that I'm going to build a double swing-out, hitch-mounted, for carrying STUFF (not tire(s)). Unlike the Raider, where pretty much went all-in, on this build i want to make it pretty much plug-and-play. So no license plate relocation, no back-up camera relocation, no blocking my entire rearview. And the Sequoia's tallights also are much larger, and the hatch opens upward. So definitely have to set it all up differently. Also would like to build something I can use if I get a different truck down the road.

Anyhow, I've sketched out some ideas (and have more in my head), but like all my projects I'll mostly just figure it out as I go along and think of ideas. But before any of that, I do need a base to work off of, so let's start with the actual platform.

It has to mount from the hitch, and I still want a receiver (for rear recovery, towing the little trailer, and "just in case"), so first off I hacked up some 2" 3/16 square tube, and an already-hacked-up 2" receiver end, and put them together. This will be my base:

Then off to the steel place to get 20 feet of 2" tube. On the Raider I built the swing out with 1/8" wall (with a lot of reinforcements and doubling-up), but the Sequoia can deal with a bit more weight so going to use 3/16" - plus that gives me the option of adding a tire mount down the road if I ever want/need to. Also I want more strength since it's all mounting to one central spot. Anyhow, one cut and two 10 foot sticks fit inside the sequioa (who needs a pickup??)

I initially mocked it up with a 5-foot base bar, but didn't like how "straight" it was since the bumper curves. Looks goofy and sticks out further than I like. So notched it out and made a couple light angles at the ends to more follow the bumper contour

I also decided I wanted the whole thing a bit higher so added a 3-4" upward tube. So here's the basic weld-up:

I'm going to add some gussets, but as it sits I can jump up and down on one end (I'm 170lb) and there's very little movement/deflection so that's good. The idea will be to put pivots at the far ends (or close to) for the mounts. So more on that at as I progress. This is all for now.