The Build So Nice I Did Everything Twice

Well, I figured since I poke around the site enough and have posted a few times in the "What have you done..." thread I might as well start my own build thread. That and the 2.5 gen builds may become seriously out of fashion soon with those stupid "real 3rd gens" out now that are cooler, more powerful, and lots more gadgety but for some reason have mustaches.

Since I haven't been super active with posting over the last 3 years, there are a few things I've done so far on the truck, listed below, that I'll try to cover in detail in future posts. I intend on sharing what I've done so I can give back to the community that has helped me with my build and hopefully help others that are on the fence about anything. I'll be as honest as I can without doing any bashing or over inflating something just because it was expensive. Some stuff has worked really well, some stuff has hasn't, some stuff has barely been used enough to tell, and well, most all of it I did a couple of times since I changed my mind or things turned out to be not quite as advertised.

Along with documenting what I've already done, I'll add as the build continues. I'll also try to post about places I venture and how the build performs as it sees more of the real world.

Without any more droning, here's the list so far...

Suspension

• Fox 2.5 w/DSC Front & Rear (Accutuned)
• Total Chaos UCAs
• Total Chaos Shackles
• Deaver U748 Leaf Springs
• CB Carrier Bearing Drop
• BMC by Milo (cool guy)
• Alignment by Auto Innovations (best shop in the Bay Area)

Wheels and Tires

• Method 305 NV Matte Black, 18x9, with black bolt kit
• Toyo Open Country ATIII 295/70R-18

Armor

• RCI Sliders
• CBI Engine, Trans, and Transfer Case Skids

Bed Storage Management

• Leitner ACS Forged Rack
• Gear Pods and lots of Leitner Accessories
• Homemade Waterport Mount
• Random homemade brackets and mounts
• Pro/Eagle mount with homemade stabilizer bracket
• Gladiator Cargo Nets

Interior Cargo Accommodations

• Homemade Cargo Platform w/built in molle panel and charging station
• Locker Down Center Console Safe
• Hacked Up ISP Under Seat Storage

Electrical Stuff

• Odyssey 34R AGM Battery
• Wagan 1000W Inverter
• Victron SmartSolar MPPT 75/15 Solar Charge Controller (w/Bluetooth current/temp sensor)
• Renogy 100W Solar Panel
• Blue Sea Systems Fuse Blocks and Accessories
• CE Auto Electric - Cables, wires, connectors, and everything to make electrical work easier
• BlackVue DR750S-2CH-Truck DashCam
• Baja Design Dome Light (over tailgate)

Little Interior Things

• Rago Dash Plate
• Hondo Garage Cell Phone Mount
• 4Knines Split Folding Rear Seat Cover (the dog has to be comfortable)
• AJT Interior Trim Kit

Other Random Stuff

• ARB Diff Breather

Should've Been from the Factory Stuff

• TRD Pro Grill (of course)
• Body colored mirror caps
• Tailgate lock

The Truck...

After coming home from Longo Toyota (literally the largest Toyota Dealership in the world):

Shiny...


The Truck today (figuratively speaking, photo not taken today):

Not Shiny...


As I add posts, I'll likely spread them out as:

• Chapter 1: Sliders, it all started with sliders
• Chapter 2: How to make the best of a useless 5.5' Bed
• Chapter 3: A Battery and Lockdown (plus electrical stuff)
• Chapter 4: Suspension and Supply Chain
• Chapter 5: I started making stuff and got side tracked with a Cargo Platform
• Chapter 6: Armor
• Chpater 7: The Little Things that Worked Super Well

Before this gets too far of course, a big shout out goes to my support team: the Wife, the Lab (chocolate not test), and Amazon.


And of course, things to come:

Pending Projects (boxes of parts laying around)

• Rear Window Switch relocation
• RCI Rear Diff Skid
• Jerry Can Holder
• SDHQ Brake Lines

Big (pricey/painful) Future Projects

• Front Bumper and Winch - likely CBI
• Switch Management - Probably SPOD
• Lots of Lights
• Roof Rack - Maybe homemade
• Fridge - Dometic
• Dual Battery with better electrical management
• Roof Top Tent - Once I figure out how to get a 90lb lab in one
• Bigger Tires and a Regear

Hope you enjoy the thread as I add to it in an attempt to entertain the internet.

And yes, this thread will have more pics... many, many pics. Threads are worthless without pics...

 

Well, that is awesome. You should be an advisor.

 

Well, the caveat to all this is that I'm not a truck guy, I'm a guy with a truck. The Tundra is my first truck and before this I drove a series of small sporty cars. Out of necessity, to haul materials and random large things, I picked up a truck. I'd always been a fan of Tundras, and intended to get one years ago, but it wasn't all too practical living in southern CA. Guess this is all from the perspective of a newer truck owner and one that's just starting to get used to it being ok that things get scratched, beaten up, abused, and intentionally so!

 

Chapter 1: Sliders, it all started with sliders...

So when I first got the truck I didn't intend on it being a "build" and wanted to keep it as a general use vehicle. Maybe a level to pick the nose up, maybe some sort of bed cover to secure cargo, and perhaps some better ways to store things inside. The first thing the wife requested, of course, was side steps so she could actually get in the truck.

After hours of looking at pictures online and debating on brands and part quality, I ended up getting some decent steps from Westin that didn't look too obnoxious and stuck out just enough to help protect from door dings...


Then there was this jack-hole at work that proved me wrong. He parked way too close and swung his tall Subaru's door without a care and left a nice ding and chipped off some paint. Having a 3 month old vehicle assaulted in such a manner meant I needed to ensure nothing like that ever happened again. So the only rationale course of action was to start off the real modifications with sliders.

Again, more internet surfing, researching, and hunting around led to RCI for some bolt-ons as I really didn't want to drill into the frame of my new truck. There weren't a lot of other options back then for bolt-ons so the deliberating didn't take long, just had to stomach the $1k price tag. If I were to buy the sliders now, after adding the suspension upgrades and better off road capability like most logical people would do first, I might instead go with CBI or C4 or just drill some holes. In retrospect, I should have considered drilling holes and gotten over that fear as there are a few non-factory holes in the truck now.

When I picked up the sliders from the freight company, I was surprised at the size and heft of the weldments and even more surprised that they weren't damaged in shipping. There was one not so fun surprise in that one of the sliders seemed to jingle when tilted. It wasn't amusing at the time but kinda funny now but a piece of metal was inadvertently left inside one of the tubes before welding. RCI was really good about the situation and sent a new slider so I now have a 70lb piece of wall art in the garage.

Quality Control department giving there go ahead:

Installation was fairly straight forward, minus the really annoying bolt near the gas tank. RCI has since provided a fix for that situation, I believe, with a nut with a welded bent plate on it. Back then, I used a wrench with lots of blue tape to keep the nut on it as I threaded in the bolt. Dropping the plastic fuel tank skid was definitely needed for access.

The design of the RCI sliders is fairly solid and no doubt will suffer through a lot of abuse. There are a couple minor annoyances with the overall design but nothing that would compromise the functionality.

First, the d-shape backing plates are only really necessary in one or two spots, round plates would have been better and stronger. I think I only had to use one because of clearance issues. For all the other bolts, I made my own round plates out of stainless.



Second, the plate that wraps around the frame is completely straight. Normally, that's good but when the frame curves up and inward in the front of the truck it's not so good. This leaves a gap under the slider that can catch water and dirt. The curve of the frame inward also makes it so the front bolt doesn't completely press the slider plate to the side of the frame.


I was happy with the final result and to appease my paranoia I sprayed Fluid Film where I could between the slider and frame just for a little piece of mind concerning moisture and corrosion. I occasionally do it when working on the truck now as well.

So my first mod was sliders... I became that guy with a completely stock truck except for the 150lbs of completely unnecessary door ding protection. It did inspire me, however, to make the rest of the truck live up to the heft of its new steps.

 

Classic lab face! And nice truck!

 

Thanks!

It's the "I did something now can I have a snack?" face. He's quite good at it.

 

More dog with truck pic’s

truck looks good OP

 

Thanks! More dog pics coming for sure. Afterall, it's his truck anyway, I'm just the chauffeur

 

Chapter 2: How to make the best of a useless 5.5' Bed (1 of 2)

The truck's big and all but remarkably has very little storage and cargo room. It's funny that to get more usable interior space, and options in general, you have to go with the 5.5' bed that is adequate but annoyingly so. Even with the cavernous interior, however, you have almost no actual storage space. The 6.5' bed option, is better for hauling stuff in the bed but then the back seat is too cramped and the options aren't as great or as available. Ultimately, the 5.5' bed was better suited for me but just needed to be made more functional.

So, of course, the modifications started. Initially, I wanted to find a way to make the bed more of a secure cargo area. I also wanted a bit of flexibility in case I were to add on later. I looked at the flippy covers, the canvas covers, the garage door rolling covers, the super rugged diamond lustered covers, and checked out what kind of extra accessories and boxes you could add to each.

I ended up purchasing a Retrax Pro XR to allow for security, cargo weather protection, and the ability to mount a rack on the accessory rails. All of those features ended up falling a little short.



So the quality of the Retrax cover was really good, I'll give them that, and the installation was pretty easy. Plus, I ordered through CarID and got a 20% discount. (If you leave things in your cart on their website for a few days, they sometimes throw in coupons). But after installing and testing the cover, I found that despite how well made and stout it was, the locking mechanism was pretty weak. For the latch to be able to stop the retractable cover in any position, it just uses a pin to clamp onto the rail. This eventually creates all these small depressions underneath the rail and all you have to do is push hard on the end of the cover and it will give. A notched rail with positive locking would have been way better.

As for weather protection, this may just be a common problem on all covers, but the Retrax leaks. A lot. Unless you want to run a bead of silicon under the sealing area, it'll be very difficult to eliminate this especially considering the bed rail caps have a texture and raised pattern. Not a deal breaker, nor was the pseudo security.

What made me eventually get rid of the Retrax was Yakima. Oh, Yakima...

Those nifty accessory rails on the Retrax are meant to integrate with rack systems like the cool Yakima stuff. Since the truck's bed is only 5.5' and the Gazelle tent we take camping is just a bit longer, I decided to get the Yakima Overhaul HD Truck Rack. The rack could just slide right in and also has lots of neat, pricey little things you could add on. So I went shopping away and bought the rack, the cross supports, brackets, all sorts of stuff. When I got the parts and was reading through the installation instructions, I ran into an interesting little detail. The load rating that Yakima advertises for their rack, decreased of course because it was on the Retax, needs to be adjusted for the weight of the rack itself. I let that sink in and slowly added up the weight of all the Yakima parts and dropped my pencil. After deducting the weight of everything from the max load of the rack system I was left with 40lbs of cargo capacity?!?! Surely this wasn't right. So I spent days going back and forth with their tech support and eventually they confirmed this. They don't openly advertise this and it took quite a bit of coaxing to get a direct statement from their tech support.

Good thing REI has a lenient return policy.

 

Great thread OP. Following.

 

Chapter 2: How to make the best of a useless 5.5' Bed (2 of 2)

Try two, time to change mindset. Instead of a cover with a rack, let's just go with a rack. Sure, the security won't be as good but at least I'll be able to carry bigger/longer stuff easier. This led to the Leitner ACS Forged Rack. I looked at Leitner before this but wasn't a fan of the first generation tube rack. Then came the Forged. It looked awesome, had all sorts of options, and had a great load rating (higher than any other option at the time). I also considered a camper type cover but didn't want to make the truck into an SUV.

So... more exercise for the Visa and 2-4 weeks later the boxes started showing up. In case you haven't realized this yet, I'm picky. I'm also an engineer. Product design and quality are big factors for me. When I unboxed the Leitner rack, I was hugely impressed. If you're considering the Leitner rack even a little bit, just go ahead and buy it. Their customer service is also awesome. Yes, the products are pricey but you get what you pay for. Buy once, cry once. Don't do what I do and buy lots and cry lots.

I've played around with the configuration of my Leitner and added/removed things a few times but that's the beauty of this thing. You can configure it one way for one trip and another way for another trip. If you're like me, you can also make your own brackets or mounts and bolt them right on. No need for proprietary anything although the off the shelf accessories they have are great.




I originally configured the rack with a couple of extra load bars and ladder brackets to make the top essentially a basket.




The one thing I don't care for too much is the Leitner water tank. I prefer a portable tank so I stick with my Waterport. I didn't find many good options to securely hold the Waterport, and their bracket was bending and on the verge of breaking where I tried to originally mount it on the interior rail. To help with the load on the bracket, I made my own mount that holds it on the side of the rack but still within the overall perimeter so it doesn't get ripped off by a tree. Stupid trees.






I also ended up "making" my own axe and shovel mounts out of stage lighting clamps. I'm not a big fan of Quick Fists on the outside of the bed since I don't trust them that much and I wanted something unique. I made some HDPE inserts that I screwed into the clamps to better hold the axe and shovel (different contours for each) and replaced the knob with a security nut. I made a plastic knob for the security nut key to loosen and tighten them.






Installed a solar panel, which I'll get more into in a later post.





For the wife I added a tailgate dome light. I made a little bracket to angle it just enough to provide light when cooking, washing dishes, or doing anything else, at camp at night. The zig zag of the bracket keeps it away from the rail track so the ladder brackets can still slide behind it. Plus, since it's the Baja Designs Dome light it has a button to turn it on so no need to get in the truck to hit a switch. You can also see the MaxTrax mounts in the background that I threw together. Need to get those and the light brack powder coated.





I had to be a little creative in trying to mount my ProEagle Gigantor Jack. It's a super solid, recommended addition but it's not so portable. Their off the shelf mount is great but unless you have a tailgate swing there aren't many places to put it where you don't lose a lot of bed space. I took the vertical rail mount approach but fabbed up a support bracket to steady it and take a little of the weigh off the remaining Toyota Bed Rail.






Mounted the rear DashCam to the rack. Everyone should have a front and rear camera these days. Traffic's crazy everywhere.




Of course, I also got the small gear pods which perfectly hold recovery gear and my tire pump. If you haven't checked out the products rom Adventure Tool Company, you should. They make great bags and are US based. Great quality and great customer Service.






And now..... compulsory dog pic...

 

Thanks!

 

In for more dog pics. And I guess your truck too

 

Chapter 3: A Battery and Lockdown (plus electrical stuff)

When we came up with all of our wild ideas to go camping when the pandemic lockdown happened we decided to deck out our new Gazelle tent with a nice big double height air mattress to even out all those bumps on the ground and make camping comfortable enough so we (my wife) would keep doing it. The new air mattress came with an A/C powered pump. No problem, I've been wanting to get an inverter anyway. Maybe a 200W portable unit? Hmm... maybe something a little more powerful so can use it for more stuff? Yup, 1000W hard mounted inverter it is.

That 1000W inverter is probably going to draw a lot of power. That puny stock battery won't cut it on those multi-week offgrid overlanding trips we don't take. Gotta upgrade that too. AGM battery you say? Extra maintenance to keep it topped off? I'm in. Guess that means we're going to have to install a solar panel, charge controller, and remote voltage/temperature sensor to make sure the battery is happy.

Probably should've just gotten the air mattress with the battery powered pump


The upgrades...

Swapped out the battery for an AGM (mostly for less maintenance) and made a battery hold down bracket with integrated fuse holder. Went with the SDHQ battery terminals as well.




You'll notice some large cables in that picture. When I added the inverter and upgraded the battery, I went ahead and future-proofed a little by running 0 gauge positive and negative cables (I know, negative was overkill) from the battery, thru the firewall on the passenger side, and to the former ISP cubbie under the back seat. I figured this would be a good internal accessory power hub.


It was simple when I just had the inverter...




But then added the solar controller...




And then added the power hub...




I ended up liberating the ISP Underseat Storage cubbies from their larger carrier. I still use the other two cubbies but had to sacrifice one for the power hub. Which is fine because that seat is gone anyway and replaced with a cargo platform I'll get into in a later post. Also added a charging station to the platform so the passenger side door can be the main access point for food and charging when out camping. The power hub also connects to the dome light on the bed rack.




Outside of this portion of the electrical, I've also installed a Blackvue Front/Rear Dashcam that's specifically intended for trucks. Nothing exciting about that installation and it's just wired in through an add-a-fuse. It's constantly powered so the AGM battery and daily solar charging helps with that too.

For all the cable, wire, end terminations, etc., I sourced parts from CE Auto Electric. They have just about everything you could ever want and great quality. I went with Blue Sea Systems for fuse blocks and bus bars. They make great stuff as well.

The upgraded overall electrical system also came in handy this past year when our local community had a holiday light parade. It was easy to power everything off the inverter...







And for all those interested more in pup-pics, here's the dog on a recent exploration trip...

 

Done and done

 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the true def of "lighting it up like a Christmas tree"...
Alright, I will show myself out....

 

Chapter 4: Suspension and Supply Chain (1 of 2)

The pandemic was tragic. People were locked up, bored, and doing nothing but dreaming about their builds and ordering parts. Plus, no one was working making all those parts everyone was ordering. Tragic. I'm kidding of course, it actually was bad and my sympathies to those that were hit hard by it.

I started my suspension journey with the thoughts of Bilstein 6112's. I read the ridiculously long thread about them, found a great shop in SoCal to install them, was waiting for just the right time to order them, then moved to NorCal two months before the pandemic and forgot all about them.

That summer we did more camping, bought gear for that, did the truck rack thing, and didn't worry too much about suspension. That was, of course, until the one day we got a little lost on our way home from a camping trip as the wonderful Toyota navigation system led us down some sketchy trails where we were greeted by people on quads giving us that "rock on" bull head hand sign. We luckily made it out unscathed but the thrill of it made us want to actually get serious about off-roading.

The Bilsteins just weren't going to cut it if we were going to do stupid things like listen to the Toyota navigation. More research led to the endless Fox, King, Icon debates. Ridiculously long threads, some interesting tech articles from Accutune, and price comparisons ensued. The logical choice was Fox, of course, as they're the best and all the other options suck

In my infinite wisdom, I decided to source all the parts from the most reasonably priced retailers.
Mistake. Reasonable pricing tends to lead to parts that are DOA. That happened with the Fox 2.5 Coilovers with DSC, matching rears, and Deaver leaf springs. Months of waiting just led to more months of waiting.

The Fox stuff I ended up getting from Accutune, which is a great shop, and the leaf springs directly from Deaver. It ended up being more waiting but worth it. I got UCAs and Shackles from Camburg and did the bulk of the install ahead of the leaf springs arriving a few weekends (months) later.

Did the work myself which was a good learning experience. The UCA bolt is a PITA just like everyone else mentions but some maneuvering gets it out. Had to enlist the help of the wife at a couple of points to get things positioned but for the most part it was doable for a single person over a couple of days. A couple of long days with a healthy amount of cursing.

Some key take aways:

• Get a good jack (I like the ProEagle and it's double duty on/off road)
• Make sure to keep an impact wrench handy to liberate stubborn nuts (and also so you can be lazy)
  
• A very long 22mm is a must for the UCA bolt
• Superlube is your friend
• Leaf springs are much heavier than they look. If you're going to maneuver them by yourself then you may want to grab the furniture dolly that you almost forgot about that's under your cabinet

The results:

16 hours worth of work for a few measly pictures...

 

Chapter 4: Suspension and Supply Chain (2 of 2)

You may have noticed that the UCAs and shackles in the above pictures are Total Chaos. It's all about the doing it twice thing...

So the Camburg Shackles went on OK with the stock leaf springs before I got the Deavers. Had to grind down the teeth on the stock bushing sleeves as instructed but otherwise they fit. With the Deaver bushing sleeves not so much. I wasn't interested in cutting down the sleeves or cramming the bushings into the Camburg Shackles so I just decided to cut the shackles in half temporarily until new Total Chaos shackles could arrive.

The Camburg UCAs also didn't do too well. Initially the fit was fine but the alignment shop couldn't get any less than 6.5 degrees of caster. Sure, I thought, caster's good right? Not if it causes the tie-rod to bump into the bottom of the front coilover and create a shiny spot. Off those went too in favor of Total Chaos parts. The alignment now is pretty close to stock. It's at the other extreme of not having much caster but I prefer that over interfering suspension components.

Got my alignment done at Auto Innovations both times after the installs. I highly recommend them. They do great work and are good guys in general. Also had my BMC done by Milo a few doors down. Milpitas is where it's at for Tundras.

I didn't initially intend on getting a BMC and decided 295/70R-18's were the sweet spot in tire sizing (after lots of thread reading). Turns out that wasn't the case for me. Shoulda just gone 35's?

 

Almost forgot the most important part of the last update and he's not amused...

 

Very nice work, brother.

 

Thanks!

 

How dare you mention me like an afterthought! I demand two bones with beef on top and extra rub and toys and.......bark

 

PM sent to you..thanks.

 

Chapter 5: I started making stuff and got side tracked with a Cargo Platform (1 of 2)

Inevitably, as I'm working on a project, I think of 2 or 3 other projects and work on those rather than finishing the first project. About a year ago I bought a finger brake attachment for a Harbor Freight press and was playing around making brackets and little things, started working on a yet to be finished Jerry Can holder, and got the idea to yank out the rear passenger seat and replace it with a cargo platform.

It was more a desire to carry the cooler somewhere other than the bed for camping trips. Jumping in and out of the bed to grab things out of the cooler gets old fast. At some point I imagine upgrading to a Dometic and I think that would fair better out of the elements as well. Considering the weight of the cooler, potential for it to get or be a little wet, and just my over engineering tendency, I opted to build the platform frame out of aluminum and make the top out of HDPE. The frame places the platform a little higher than most of the DIY versions I've seen but I wanted to leave space for the power hub that's under the platform now. I also wanted to ensure that the frame was beefy enough so that I could use just the 4 seat mounting bolts.

The build was more of a fitting fabrication rather than a design and build project since I had a kinda vague idea of what I wanted but wasn't 100% sure how it would work out. Since I also have the inverter and solar controller up against the rear wall behind the platform, I wanted a way to cover that up, along with the back wall itself. That led to my homemade molle panel. Took quite a while to cut on my CNC and I had to go through trial and error sizing the grid on some sample pieces. If I were to make the back panel again, I'd probably make it out of plastic in a couple of sections and add more points to bolt them to the frame for rigidity. The aluminum panel is great and very stiff but machining one giant panel isn't something I'll do again.

 

Chapter 5: I started making stuff and got side tracked with a Cargo Platform (2 of 2)

The original build of the cargo platform was probably a year ago so naturally I decided to finally finish it a couple of weeks ago (triggered by the start of the build thread). I took the whole platform apart and got the frame powder coated along with a couple of other things from the bed rack that were still too shiny.

The finished product turned out pretty well although I kinda got used to the raw metal look and am now torn over which version I liked better. I left the molle panel with its brushed aluminum finish since I like the look and the powder coat probably would've ruined all the cut out dimensions.

Since the original version of the platform, I also added the Blue Sea Systems charging station, a fire extinguisher bracket to the top of the frame, and a handy cargo net to keep all those Amazon return packages from sliding around all the time.
















FYI... doggo refuses to take part in this post as the platform took away part of his sleeping area in the truck.

 

Other stuff that I also got powder coated to give them a less homemade look...


Dome light bracket:




MaxTrax brackets (these are just temporary until I figure out what to do about a roof rack):

 

Sent a couple of replies. Hope your build is progressing well!

 

Definitely subscribed to this, cool stuff! I like all the custom fab work. You mentioned a brake press and a CNC, do you mind sharing info on all your setup? Some point in life I'd like to get a little machine shop together just to mess around with DIY stuff, and have the ability to make something if needed. Also, for the inverter, is the output just regular wall plugs? Looks like there's 2 on the side.

For what it's worth I like the coated over raw look .

 

Thanks! I wish I had more space in the garage for more tools and equipment but I promised the wife I'd leave space for her future 4Runner whenever we end up finally finding the one she wants.

One side of the garage is mostly taken up by the CNC since I have it in a large enclosure to keep the noise and dust to tolerable levels. It's an older CNCRouterParts kit machine with a 4' x 2' cutting area and about 8" of Z-axis travel I believe. The company has since been renamed to Avid CNC and their machines have gotten more refined. They're a relatively affordable hobbyist option although with the cost of materials these days, the machines have gotten pricier. It's stiff enough to fly through wood and plastic and cut aluminum at slower speeds/feeds. I've made/added the e-chains, dust shoe, vacuum system, air blower nozzle, and a few other things to help it.



The finger brake is a model from Swag Off-road that was design to be used with a 20-ton Harbor Freight press. It's good for what it is. I opted for the pre-assembled version rather than weld it yourself, since I don't weld (yet), and it wasn't super well aligned when they put it together. Needs a few shims and extra angle iron to get decent bends. Beats spending thousands of dollars on a real finger break though.

 

For the inverter, yes, it has a couple of three prong plugs on the side. There are also screw terminals to extend the output to a remote panel or outlet. I haven't put in a remote outlet since I don't love the idea of an A/C short to the frame ground should anything go wrong.