Painted and bolted down. Seems great. And no squeaks or rattles on the daily drive. So I’m calling this one done. Just need to add some d-rings tie downs once I figure out where.
And here’s the daily driver mode, with bag of emergency stuff…
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With the back seats folded flat, the surface is level all the way to the front seats. Not sure it’ll ever be needed, but potentially good to have?
In order to fold/tumble the rear seat, you have to pull a lever which is now inaccessible behind the drawers, so I added a strap to it, which you can reach on the left hand side. Just in case.
And the whole baseplate/drawer/top can still be removed by hand in about 30 seconds via three knobs.
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That’s super slick, dude. I like how it’s nice and tight but still modular. Everything bring the same height when folded down is probably a good idea too. Leaves you with a nice bit of usable space for things you maybe weren’t planning on loading up.
Pulled the ashtray today and put a small CB in its place. So if someone says it’s useless, I can argue that it replaced something even less useless?
Very little cutting was necessary. The space itself was exactly the right size. Only had to enlarge the skeleton work behind…
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Camp Chef Sherpa fits perfectly on top of the drawers and allows me to go vertical with storage, without getting too high. Also gets me a table. Plan is for quick stops, leave it in situ. If I need a table, I haul it out and extend the legs.
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Ooh. I like the colored bags. What’s the story there?
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All my kitchen gear can stay in there. Grab the handles, yank it out, and the whole thing fits in the tall cabinet in my garage. With table on top!
Oh, so that’s the Camp Sherpa. I like it! Sure beats a clear plastic bin with stuff sliding all over the place.
Can we see what’s in the bags? How you organize your camp kitchen?
For sure. But it’s not finished yet. This is a recent addition. Soon though…
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Okay, time to cover my recent maintenance. Much of this was covered in my recent story of “While you’re in there”. https://www.thegearheadproject.com/2020/while-youre-in-there/
But in the interest of documentation, here’s what I’ve accomplished lately…
@109 915kms (because mileage stamping is sooooo American bahahah)
Pulled the intercooler to replace the glow plugs.
They were getting kinda weak, being 20 years old, and truck was a little stumbly first starting on cold mornings. No biggie. 45 min job if I dragged my feet. But then I got to thinking… starter occasionally sounded a little cllickety. Why not dive in and get it? This required pulling the airbox. But since that’s off? Well… I went from this:
To this
pretty quickly, since I wanted to pull intake, throttle body, EGR and along with intercooler and head, clean all that EGR/PCV carbon sludge out. Its the bane of the modern diesel’s existence, and can continue building up until it completely chokes off the engine’s air supply (common on the VW TDI according to a buddy’s shop).
So… I put the whole business in soak, and then got to scrubbing.
It was nasty stuff, and took many many many shop towels, PURPLE POWER and lots of other stuff to clean it up. Then I began to put it all back together.
Also, I pulled the starter, and replaced the plunger and the copper contacts, which were pretty worn down. A universal Denso style kit cost me $28. Not a bad spend for newly rejuved starter motor.
Much better. I do want to do a catch can to lessen the effect of the egr going forward, but I need to gather the bits first. I don’t plan to block the EGR this time around. Deleting something that reduces N0X seems irresponsible in an already diesel-phobic society, and with pollution (pre pandemic) at record levels.
Last thing I had to do was get any residual air out of the injectors and fuel lines. This saw me cracking the injectors yesterday and listening to the idle drop as aerated fuel sprayed all over my clean engine compartment. I did this a few times, so I’m hoping I evacuated any trapped air that was left. Started it again tonight (cold) and it seemed to start quickly and with little smoke.
All that’s left to do is put the intercooler back on, and hook up a few sensors. Then I’ll be able to move on to the next thing on my list.
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Honestly? I’d prefer the metric system. It’s easier. More precise. But you know how we roll down here…
Looks like we’re all going to come out of this isolation thing with finely tuned machines.
Curious, with the carbon build-up, is that “re-gen” and/or DEF is supposed to help with on the modern diesels? I really don’t know much about them other than, something, something lifter pump and the gas pedal actually controls the flow of fuel, not air.
Keep swimming!
Well mine doesn’t have DEF obviously, being a 99, but no, from what I’ve seen the modern ones possibly suffer from coking up even worse. DEF continues to reduce emissions, but not buildup.
For all diesel’s merits, it really is having a hard time with these modern emissions standards. EURO ENCAP et al may just be the death knell for the oil burner. I did see something promising a while back with a new tech fuel injector that promotes a way cleaner burn, and lowers emissions. I guess we’ll see how much innovation can happen before it’s too late?
Meanwhile, back to my build thread…
Next up is adding legs to my platform rack. I started with 4 but always knew I’d want to add more. The rack has accomodation for 8 altogether, and I’ve decided there’s no such thing as too much security when it comes to securing things up top. So i’ve ordered 4 more clamps. 4WP has been “processing” my order for a week now, so I’m not sure how long I’ll be waiting.
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DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) is used to further reduce NOX emissions in addition to EGR. Becuase diesel engines run on compression ignition they have extreme temperatures in the combustion chamber and that leads to high NOX emissions. Re-gen is used to help remove the particulate matter from the particulate filter in the exhaust system. Pretty soon we’ll start to see gas powered cars with something similar to DEF on them.
Can confirm, the carbon build up in the intake on VW products, spent some time cleaning those manifolds. It gets pretty bad, had on come in for reduced power and the opening in the throttle body was about the size of a 50 cent piece.
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4WP has been “processing” my order for a week now, so I’m not sure how long I’ll be waiting.
Right after I wrote this, a box showed up at my door. Lol. 4wp delivered my roof rack legs, and an arm for my ARB awning that got damaged last year in the rain storm of the decade.
And no, before you ask, it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg. Hehehe. Almost though.
So, after I finished work today (might’ve stepped out of my home office a smidge early? Let’s call it a perk?) I came out and installed them. This thing is now so solid I’d have no qualms about walking around on my roof.
That’s eight gutter mounts on a roofline that’s 6 feet long. I’d call that solid. Smittybilt “solid”? Eehhh. I know it’s not Frontrunner, but I’m guessing their stuff runs the gamut in quality from poor to good. This one, imho, is on the positive side.
Edit: I had four on there already. Today I added four more in case that wasn’t clear.
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That’s a damn fine looking rack, Phil. I’m very jealous. Haven’t needed to put anything on my roof other than Xmas trees in the five years I’ve owned it, but damn that’s a nice rack.
What’s the max roof load on that truck?
I have been slacking on following this. The whole thing in the back, awe inspiring. I will follow suit when I get my Raider out here for sure.
At the risk of sounding like I wasn’t paying attention. When are you planning on travelling south?
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I’m not sure what the roof load max is. I guess I should know but my intent is not to be near it in any case. Those that have wheeled with me know I love off camber so extra weight up top is not conducive to this. My intent is either RTT, or kayaks, but that’ll be it. Max 130# but usually less.
@BradD my intent was next month. But now? I have no idea. Possibly next year at this point. The can/us border is closed for the first time in history, AFAIK… So I don’t really have a choice.
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Well I just did some digging and found out my roof’s capacity, because well… it’s a good stat to know. The roof capacity is 100kg, or 220#. It’s higher than I had expected, but it doesn’t change what I’ll put up there. It might change how I feel about it as I barrel down the highway though. 
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Yeah, dude! I was being sneaky when I asked. A while back I caught an episode of the Overland Journal podcast where they were talking about GVWR. After joking about how iPhones used to autocorrect “overlanding” to “overloading” (my pixel just autocorrected it to “overindulging”, lol), they mentioned something about a specific generation of Land Cruiser had a crazy roof load rating.