Wildlife Research Work Build "Safety Inferno"

Well, here is my build thread where I hope to keep track of things I do to the truck. It's a 2015 TRD Pro Crew Cab.

This is a platform for my work as a biologist. Moving up from a Honda CRV with an overlanding style setup for field biology to a full sized vehicle. This truck will spend a lot of time on both paved and soft roads, and see some fire road use. The plan is to have a cover on the bed, allowing an overlanding style power distribution setup to be concealed underneath. Slide out drawers will be a must and some way to get my ARB Fridge freezer to slide will be essential.

Most up to date photo first!









Here's the plan:


In the second post (below) I'll list my take off parts that I have sitting around. I'll try to keep it current so if you see something you need, PM me.

As purchased:

 

In this post I list my take-off parts that are sitting around collecting dust. Sometimes forum members need these. I have a small shipping discount through FedEx.

Right now I have:

Full set of interior stock bulbs.

Found a new home:
TRD PRO blacked out headlights


Tail lights

Black Hood Bulge Mesh 46"x6"x5" Pack size, 8lbs

 

The very first thing I did to it was pull out a non-functioning cheapo train horn and reconnect the factory horns.

Then I replaced the headlights with the Morimotos and added the NSV light bar. This truck has to be obnoxiously visible at night and eventually will have wig-wag style lighting.


Then I replaced the tails with LED, did the interior bulbs and replaced the bent up antenna. I need to get the plastic trim piece that fits in the fender that looks nice and keeps everything from moving.

Took it for a spin, the native Azaleas were blooming.





The pollen has been so bad here this spring.


Sunset!

 

very nice looking set up. Good year, good color.

 

So, I wanted 295 70 R18 KO2s for this truck, but after talking on the phone with BF Goodrich, that size isn't expected to actually ship until 2022. Yes, they will take your money online for them, but that's the expected release. Wow.

Discount would not put 305 65 R18 on because of the rim width, but wanted to test fit 305 70 R18. They had to convince me that would work. Part of the convincing was getting the price down to what I would have paid for the smaller size. I'm not sure exactly what has been done to this truck in the past but so far there's no rubbing, except for full lock in reverse. It rubs the front control arm lightly.




Still a little worried after reading the forums and people having trouble making this fit stock but so far so good. Keep your fingers crossed for me. In for an alignment tomorrow I hope.

 

Both my tundra and my Land cruiser run the LT305/65R18LR E KO2. On the stock rims, the tundra had aftermarket 20" Fuel rims with 33" Nitto Grapplers. Since the tundra is not a daily driver I noticed that the Nitto's would have flat spots after sitting for the week, and the flats would not come out in the shorter drives I was taking. So I pushed to get back to OEM rims and since Rims are the same as my Land cruiser I opted to get the same tires, so that in the event I needed to I could have 2 spare along. I do have some rubbing at full tilt in reverse but it is easily manageable. Shortly after I had those rims and tires installed and aligned, I took a 4000 mile road trip into Wyoming and Montana with 2 buddies and more stuff than we would have ever needed, and I had zero issues.

I have been really pleased with the performance and as a bonus think it looks nice.

 

Love Inferno. Those Morimoto's look great. I had to run spacers for my 295's. Those 305's look right at home to me.

 

Alignment today! Tires are cool but still worried about rubbing. I have a squeak in my front left corner that I need to figure out. I wish I knew if it was from the new tires or existed before and I just couldn't hear it over the hum of the worn out muds.



Then a quick drive through the forest on the way home!

 

I got my antenna shroud in today and put it on. Much better.

2014-2020 Toyota TUNDRA Antenna ORNAMENT BEZEL Part #

$15 86392-0C030 Genuine Genuine Toyota Tundra Antenna Bezel/Ornament 86392-0C030

86392-0C030

 

Speedo calibration via Hypertech.

 

Some pics from speedo work. I left the USB easy to access in the wire bundle of the left side kick panel. I thought about fishing it over to the OBDII port but this felt like it would be easier to get back into and more out of the way.

 

Speedo works perfectly now. Found a little Pygmy Rattlesnake Sistrurus miliarius. These guys are very cool snakes - little lizard eaters found in the Southeastern US.

 

Nope! No such thing as a cool snake. Sorry.
Ryan

 

Less general animosity towards turtles I think; found this one today out looking for the easter bunny.

 

Diode Dynamics SS3 Max installed (thanks Hotshot Offroad!), and finally found my rub point. Passenger side only.

 

So you're running 305 70s on there? spacers? I have the same truck and those tires look great

 

Yep. No spacers - rub you see is rub I get. Previous owner removed mud flaps material but there's no cab mount chop or anything. I haven't had an opportunity to really stuff the tires yet though - that's not something I really am in the habit of doing.

 

Nice, I wonder is spacers would fix that rub issue at all

 

I think that they might fix that specific issue and get them off the UCA a little bit, but I worry that there isn't clearance with the fender liner / cab mount if I did that. I want to do the coachbuilder PRO lift but... worried about spending all that, plus spacers, just to then have to do cutting for the tires. I hope to replace the front bumper with an ARB summit bumper eventually so maybe that will open up the front clearance.

The tires are a bit "tucked" for my liking at the moment so it's not a bad idea.

 

Summer work on the truck. FRAC Harness, ESP Long box, Front Camera, REDARC Manager30, 202ah Lithium ion battery. Hardwired a fan and freezer. Battery terminals, tiedown, anytime fog lights. Got the airbags aired up.

https://imgur.com/a/C17DKzk

 

Additional Work. Dobinson air intake, LP4 ditch lights on Rago brackets. Starting to mock up how the solar will run.



https://imgur.com/a/Tbn7XhC

 

Just before Xmas a vehicle struck the truck coming around stopped traffic in a left turn lane. They say build back better, so here we are. Summit bar arrived at the body shop today for early Feb work. Initial estimate is ~$4200 which is ridiculous but I see exactly how it adds up.

https://imgur.com/a/jOhcQov

 

I absolutely love this truck! You could almost create your own solar with all that lighting, but I understand your need for it. Have you installed or thought about a high output alternator to help charge the lithium batteries while underway?

As a reptile lover, I also love what you will use the truck for. I love the snakes, but me and the venomous don't get along...

 

Thanks! Haha, yeah that's a lot of light. In my previous rig I had dual batteries hooked directly to the charging system so I did a high output alternator and it was pretty awesome. Went from no charge at idle with ac and lights to full charge amperage. Insane problems fitting it though. Had to reclock it, then build a cage for it to get it to stay in. It was a huge, huge hassle. For this build the redarc system is limited to 30 amps charging. I haven't seen the available amps dip ever so I don't think I'd benefit from the extra juice.

 

Accident damage and bumper at the body shop

 

Body shop called today. There's frame damage to the corner but they are confident they can pull it back to spec. They are going to subcontract the bumper install to a local accessory shop. They spent quite a while figuring out what parts they did and didn't need.

 

Body shop called today. The subcontractor for the bumper gave up working on the truck because there "were a lot of wires and they don't know where they go". I went over to subcontractor and showed them that they plugged in to the back of the headlight- the close, matching plugs to the harness.

Between this and waiting for two weeks for parts because they didn't look in the bed, I'm not sure I'll ever get this truck back.

 

Something to be aware of with the harbor freight 12k is the controller has a different mount point pattern than warn. Just took a flat piece of metal to make a new mounting plate.

My bumper is supposed to be done today! They say they did everything but wire up the winch.

 

Lordy lordy. The subcontractor billed 35 hours shop time for the arb bumper. It was certainly there long enough (5 weeks).

Timeline:
Dec 21st collision
Feb 7th In at body shop (first available)
Mar X subcontractor for bumper
Apr 19th back to body shop
Apr 20th done

The good:
it's done!!
body lines are better than they were before the accident.
Fender flares are on better and aligned with the snorkel properly.
They wired in the backlight of the fogs to the turn signals so everything is "switchback" including the ditch lights.
They didn't blend clear

The bad:
some paint spots didn't get full coverage (I can live with it)
Passenger side sequential turn signal not working (I think they probably missed the small connector)
Fender flares done with self trappers rather than aligning bolts nicely (will replace with nicer headed screws)
Winch is clocked in a way that makes the freespool inaccessible. (need to ask subcontractor if they did it for a reason)

 

Uh oh



Don't believe it when you read online that a matched set of cells doesn't need a dedicated top balancer as part of the bms. I knew this might be an issue and I deferred to the opinion I wanted to hear - wishful thinking.

Expensive mistake =(