Rad Rally (Dodge) Raider (akaMonteroakaPajero) Build

Continuing on with my "master plan" for making this little truck more convenient for camping and fitting stuff correctly. For the last year I've been using two footlockers for various gear, and a mix-match of different storage bins, toolboxes, etc. that never quite fit. FItting stuff in a truck this small is basically Tetris, so things need to fit better to maximize space. 

So usually I have a box with some small spare suspension parts, my big bottle jack (I hate hi-lifts), spare belts, and some other stuff. This box is about 3-4" wider than it needs to be to fit well, and just too tall to stack my nuts+bolts+small parts bin on it and get it under the sleepign platform. So after measuring and scouring Amazon, I got this pretty cheap DeWalt box that was the right dimensions for both factors. It came in today, and I'm a bit annoyed that it has a different stacking/lockdown tabs than my other DeWalt bins and stuff - WTF Dewalt, why do you need two different systems when the old one worked great?? Well, improv'ing a bit, I just stacked it and used a ratchet strap to hold the other one on top, fk it.  More importantly, together they're a perfect fit in the space i want them to go, at the forward end of the sleeping platform, since I don't need to regularly access this stuff (hopefully)

So that leaves all this space under the other platform (uncarpeted). 

I've been stuffing various things in here over the last year, but as I've refined my roof/side storage it's not as useful any more. So I think it's finally time to invest in something that fits that space better:

:)

Most of the guys I camp/wheel with have gotten fridges this year, and while I generally don't have the budget for them I've gotten more and more annoyed to have to get ice, lose a lot of space filling the cooler with ice, and ending up with cold food and drinks sloshing around by day 2 or 3. This is also the case on long road/towing trips in the Sequoia and family trips. So figured I'd pick up a small fridge (this one is 20L) that can do triple-duty. I'm going to run it off car power and also use  a Jackery 500 for overnights, etc. The Jackery is expected as a Christmas present, so fingers crossed my wife gets the right one , though if she gets the 600 or 1000 that would be ok too lol. 

Obviously with my limited space, I had to do a lot of measuring. So this thing + the Jackery should perfectly fit just behind the tool bin earlier in this post, with about 3" overhead to spare. But dragging this pretty thing in and out seems barbaric, so I ordered a Setpower slider off Amazon. It's slightly larger than this cooler, so I can mount the Jackery on it and slide them in/out together, hopefully. That won't be here until next week, and I'm going to have to figure out the mounting sine the floor of this truck is "ribbed" like a pickup bed, but shouldn't be too hard.  So, hopefully this all works out as imagined, and in the space required. I *may* have to chop off the left-side rear leg of my platform for clearance for the slider tray (I can move it outward about 2" by my measurements), but I'll have to wait until I get it to know for sure if my measurements are precise. Unfortuantely the wheel-well side of the rear floor isn't totally straight, so it's hard to tell exactly what the best orientation will be. To be continued......
 

How does the build on the fridge seem? I am eyeing one now.

Sean

Nice! I have an older small Dometic 12v fridge in my van. It's a toss up between that and the vent fan being my favorite accessory. 

smokeysevin said:

How does the build on the fridge seem? I am eyeing one now.

 

Sean

Seems fine. Iceco lists it as "light duty" so probably would get dented up a bit if it's handled too roughly, but it doesn't feel "cheap" or anything... I'm not all that concerned if it happens to pick up a dent here or there (not that I'm saying it will). I expect the ones with plastic/urethane/ABS exteriors are probably more "heavy duty" in terms of fending off damage. In any case, this one should be pretty well-protected where it's going, and the way it's built certainly keeps it lightweight (22lb empty, I think). 

Otherwise, I ran it through a full cycle on home power and it went from 77 degrees to 0 degrees (freezer setting) in about 25 minutes, and it has a phone app to control it which doesn't seem all that necessary, but it's nice to have anyhow. For trips I may pre-cool it on a home plug before putting it in the truck with food/drinks just to save battery power. TBD if that's actually necessary though (somehow I doubt it). 

Motojunky said:

Nice! I have an older small Dometic 12v fridge in my van. It's a toss up between that and the vent fan being my favorite accessory. 

Yeah, I think it'll come in useful for various things (rallycross too).

{OT} So today I got the opportunity to get aboard the NS Savannah, which was the first (and only) nuclear-powered commercial ship ever built in the US. It's been sitting at the old coal piers in the Baltimore port alongside an old Liberty Ship from WW2 for many years, and it's almost never open to get aboard, but today it was so I shot up to B-More to take a look. I had a model of this ship when I was a kid in the 80s :)

Anyhow, the ship's nuclear reactor isn't there any more, but otherwise it's literally a time capsule from 1960, with basically nothing remodeled or upgraded since it was decommissioned by 1971 or so. It's a cool picture of what people in 1960 thought "the future" would look like, and in truth it looks a lot like original Star Trek. So, before I get on with truck-building, figured I'd share a few pics

Here's the bar in the lounge, which served "Atomic Cocktails" back in the day

Old-school radio room. There were some HAM guys aboard using the ship's giant antennas for some long-range stuff, so that was interesting as well. 

I don't think it was on the "self-guided tour" route, but I snuck into the forward cargo hold, which was pretty cool

The dining room was straight retro, with every overhead light set up with an "Atomic" symbol. Little touches.

The reactor is gone, but still some low-level radiation around, so can't go in

Yeah, so that was cool

--- break ---

Now back to the regularly-scheduled stuff: When I got home, my fridge slider had arrived. And as usual when FedEx delivers things, it looked like it went through WW2 to get here....SMH.

It turns out my measurements were good, and the tray fit under the sleeping platform....well, almost. I had to cut out a notch in the leg to make it fit. Also because the gas tank is right under the floor back here in the truck, I had to get a bit creative to mount a couple of the bolts for the slider. This one I just put a weld-nut in since I couldn't access the bottom to put a nut on. The rest I drilled through and got big washers/nuts under the floor, working around the exahust/suspension, etc. So in this pic you can see the notch in the platform leg on the left, and the shoddy weldnut in the floor.

To clear a couple bolts that mount other stuff in the floor, and to better level it on the "ribbed" pickup-truck-like floor, I used some leftover pieces of hardwood from a table I disassembled a while ago (I always keep good wood!), so the whole thing is about 1" off the actual floor:

The other reason for this is that the slider overlaps the fuel tank/pump access cover and I want to be able to get that off without taking the whole slider out. So this gives enough clearance to get to the two middle bolts and slide the cover out to the other side. There's one of the rusty-looking bolts...

So with that done, everything got bolted down (3 per side plus a sideways bolt through the wheel arch) and it's in, with the perfect clearance to the gearbox just forward of it.

And mounted up the fridge

So, that worked out great and fit just as envisioned. It would be cool to have a bigger fridge, but this is a small truck, so gotta work with the space I have. I have to do two things as follow-up to this:
I don't love using the power outlet on the other side of the cargo area (right below the new "door" from the previous project) since the wire would have to go across things. So I'll definitely put in a separate, dedicated power outlet on the right side behind the fridge (also to plug the Jackery into). And speaking of that, 2. I want to figure out a good place to mount the Jackery. I don't think there will be space on the slider (but maybe....), so I may fab something up so it fits in between the fridge and that black footlocker in the photo above. Will have to see how much space it takes up, once I actually get it. 

Forgot, another small project.  I put some light tint on the truck during the original build, but for the sake of security and of sleeping inside the rig, figured I'd do some real dark stuff.  I really, really suck at tint. So I did a pretty half-assed job, but it looks fine I guess. I also put some vinyl trim tape on the edges of the sliding windows (since I can't slide the tint under there so its discolored) and I actually like the look - almost makes it look like it's framed now. Anyhow, nice and dark now (5%). I also did a 4-5" strip at the top of the windshield since these sun visors suck bad and don't pivot down easily, and this huge windshield always seems to face into the sun, exacerbated by 280,000 miles of rock chips and a bit of welding spatter :/

Nothing really new, but finally got the trailer back from the racetrack (we were using it to stash our rallycross gear) and did a little run through the countryside. Thing pulls great, even at 70+ mph. :)

So my birthday is in a few weeks. And as 40-something couples tend to do, my wife and I basically just get presents for each other of "whatever we ask for"." In any case, my gift arrived the other day and my wife was like "I'm not using a whole roll of wrapping paper on this, and I don't have anyplace to hide it, so just have it now. And so early birthday....

This is the same as the other one on the roof, except in tan (which is the color I wanted for the other one, and they sent me black and I just kept it because who really cares?). But hey, black and tan is pretty much the theme with this rig, and I like a bit of asymmetry.  But before putting it on the truck, need to add a lid restraint. Because the other one always flops back against my roof antenna if I don't hold it, and that's annoying. So a bit of light chain and a couple small bolts and that's not an issue any more..

(I also did it on the black one already on the roof). Anyhow, found a few U-bolts and put it on. Very exciting :) But this was the final roof storage setup - this will let me put almost all my camping gear up top (except the big sleeping pad), which is always a plus in a truck this small. 

I feel like I did something else interesting on the truck recently, but it's slipping my mind and clearly I didn't document it, so moving on to the next project. I haven't started yet but it's time for brake upgrades. Now, there are two notable/easy-ish brake upgrades for these things. The first one is to get the Gen2 Montero SR rear axle, which not only has a factory locker, but also has disc brakes rather than the drums on mine. The junkyards around here rarely have a Montero that old, and shipping an axle from the places where all the parted-out Montys are isn't really in the budget at the moment. Plus the LSD on this thing is pretty great. Combine that with the fact that this truck is pretty light out back and the drums are well-adjusted and in great shape, so I can lock the rears up about the same time as the fronts, if not before. Anyhow, I'm going to do the front upgrade. It's not that the stock brakes are bad (they're bigger than the early Montys already), but when we're out and about, there tend to be a lot of high-speed runs down fire roads, sometimes with miles-long downhillls. I got some fade last time we did this, which was  a bit sketch. Plus the stock brakes have pretty "meh" feel to them,honestly. So figured I'd give a try to the 2-piston calipers from the Gen2 4-door Montero. I've had this idea on the shelf for a while with other prioirties, but happend to see the calipers on a Wholesaler Closeout on RockAuto (one set only!) for $19 each, so how do I turn that down.  They're A-1 Cardone rebuilds, so those are hit-or-miss on occasion, in my experience, but we'll see. 

Anyhow, they arrived today and at least visually look good (though the two calipers are actually different castings so aren't totally identical, but who cares....can't see them under my wheels anyhow). And got some pads that seemed worth trying out and were also on closeout. I guess RA isn't selling much 1980s Montero stuff these days and wanted to get rid of some stuff. The advantages of old 80s cars (I find these deals for my e30 and Porsche on occasion too).

It's cold and dark, so this will be a weekend project. It should be pretty easy - the "word" is that they're direct bolt-on fit with the factory rotors, though that seems oft-repeated and I haven't actually found any videos or pics of anyone having done it already - though I've seen people SAY they have, so I guess that's good enough. Apparently you have to trim the gravel shields from behind the rotor, and that's it. TBD.
 

sticking this here just to remind myself. Almost nothing I do is truly original, most of it is just "my version" of whatever someone else already did. So I was reading someone else's build and saw this little parcel shelf he put up over the sunvisors, and it looks like I have about 4-5" height available in that area of mine. The Raider is REALLY short of places to put small stuff and/or stuff you want when driving, so usually my passenger seat is littered with wallet, glasses, and other random stuff. So I'm saving this pic to remind myself to build something like this when I get a chance. I also like the idea of a switch panel up there - my lighting switches and comms switches are stuck in like 4 different places, wherever I could fit them. Probably a project for when it's warmer though, since wiring stuff in the cold is no fun at all.

Cred to Grit City Paul on Overland Bound forum.

Pretty chilly this morning, but figured I'd do these brakes.  Here's a comparison of the Gen1 and Gen2 pads - a lot more surface area for sure

As has been noted in other forums, the caliper assembly and mount bracket are direct bolt-on with the correct rotor offset, so no issues at all there. You do have to trim the dust shield (top and bottom) to make the extra space, and the bracket on the caliper where the brake soft line and hard line connect doesn't fit correctly on the new caliper (I guess if you get a junkyard Gen2 caliper, it might have one that's more correct). I just chopped off part of it and rotated it 90 degrees to the appropriate orientation and it fits (not perfectly, but good enough).

Bled it with some help from my daughter and went out for a test drive. I can't say that pedal feel is any better, but it definitely clamps down well and it's not too tough to screech the tires on braking (though it might be the rears, since there wasn't any gear in the back of the truck). The extra braking force defintely exacerbates the "nose-dive" of the front of the truck when braking, but not much I can do about that short of some really stiff torsion bars. All in all, seems like a good upgrade, especially for $60 total cost, give or take.

So let's get going on the little front parcel shelf, stealing the idea from Grit City Paul here on Overland Bound. He used a semi-off-the-shelf piece and linked me to one similar on Amazon, but didn't really love it, and didn't want to drop $120 or whatever, because making something myself is more fun. So started out with some cardboard template action, and then built some mount brackets:

So those go right here:

There are two more smaller ones in the middle, mounted to the sun visor inner "clamp" thing, since I'll go a different direction on sun visors (eventually).

Then I went to home depot and browsed around the wood. I wanted something about 5.5"-6" depth, and fairly thin. It doesn't have to be terribly strong, since not much weight will be on it, so I got some profiled wall baseboard, which isn't all that exciting but is about the right thickness/weight/price (cheap). I can always get something nicer if it doesn't hold up but I think it'll be fine. Then a bit of cutting and a test-fit:

I want a lip on the front so stuff doesn't slide off it into my face when the Raider's high-G acceleration kicks in (hah), so attached some quarter round to the front edge up top

I got one of the cheapo switch gangs off Amazon -similar to the one I have in the back for the aux lighting. I don't love these, and the look definitely doesn't go with the old Raider, but they'll be fine for the moment, maybe I'll upgrade them someday (or not, if they work fine).

I like having the USB plugs up there too, since I plan to stash things like my LED head light there, and it can charge without wires hanging all over the place like I currently have to deal with lol. Anyhow, spent the rest of the evening making a wiring loom. Because this gang box only has like a 20-30 amp max on the single power input, I cut that and put a second power input wire, so one for each of three switches. Most of these are just to relays anyhow, and few will be on at the same time so probably not an issue, but I like some backup.

Fast forward to today, with the glue dry I sanded the shelf and painted it (some beige rattle can that kinda-matches the headliner), notched the quarter-round to fit the nice aluminum surround that comes with this switch gang (actually, quite nice), and put a couple bolts through to secure it. Fit-wise it's almost perfect, like 2-3mm from the angled part of the forward inner roof, so exactly as planned (and a bit lucky)

I also put some outdoor carpet on the top with gorilla glue, to keep things from sliding/rattling as much as possible.

And installed. I have to get some better hardware, but used what I had sitting around for the moment. Those black bolts in particular are going to annoy me for sure if I leave them!

For the wiring, broke it down into two looms, one for each set of three switches and also so it's small enough to fit through the holes I drilled in the right-side support bracket

I underestimated the gap, though, and couldn't get the wires around the end/back of the shelf, so got the hole saw out and put a hole there. I'll get some kind of grommet to make it look better, eventually, but it works as needed.

And then combined the looms into one to run down the A-pillar. Still need to figure out routing to get behind the dash, and then spend a lot of time re-routing all the other wires I ran all over the place to the current switches, and move them to meet these, but it's supposed to be 60 degrees tomorrow, so maybe I can get some of that done.

Overall, a fun little project that wasn't too hard or expensive (maybe $60-70 into it all told). 

So spent this late afternoon (65 degrees!!) doing all the wiring, which cleaned things up since all these accessories were a rat's nest of random wiring. So now they're all nicely run and organized. Everything works, so pretty pleased with the setup!

Next order of business is to find some sun visors that fit. The Raider visors are too long (since I have the larger video rearview) and are crap anyhow, but I think my measurements (on my DD GTI) show that the GTI visors are pretty much perfect fit if I can figure out how to mount them (they don't screw in, they use some kind of clip, so I'll have to improv somehow if I go that route. Or I'll just hit the junkyard and see what I can find with an "old school" attachment. 

Switch box looks great! I hate that everything is blue these days though, kills my eyes at night.

In reply to java230 :

They sell it in red, I just ordered the wrong one. I mostly darked out the lights anyhow with stickers over them, so they're not very bright at night now. Just looks that way in the photos because my camera takes good low-light shots lol. 

Two smallish projects this week. First, adding the overhead shelf eliminated my factory sun visors. They were crap anyhow, took two hands just to fold down, and whatever structure they one had just had turned into a mush foam bag of sorts. I spent a lot of time measuring and almost all aftermarket and OEM visors were too wide, and would have to be cut or altered. Then I had a thought, and shot a message to Chris Nonack (for those of you who follow my rally stuff, he and his wife rally a Subaru BRZ) and asked him to measure the sunvisors from that car, which is pretty small at the roof. He sent the measurements, which sounded promising, and since they were off the car permanently (since it has a cage), he mailed them to me. They got here today:

Side note: what's up Subaru/Toyota? these are some cheap-ass feeling sun visors with a dreadful mirror. Side note 2: I also noticed my own DD VW GTI visors were the right size, but the bracket for them has no screws or bolts, just a clip and I couldn't figure out a good way to make that work with the wooden shelf (maybe a metal shelf would have worked...) So the BRZ visors it is!

The mount bracket has two screw holes and of course the main "peg" of the visor arm, which is angled.

So basically I drilled an angled hole for the peg, and two slightly countersunk holes for the screw bracket (which is extruded)

And made up a little backing plate with a random bracket that was on my workbench, leftover from building my deck...

So yeah, that worked well

Chris didn't send the small end brackets (which use clips and wouldn't work for me anyhow) so I just got a metal cable loop (or whatever these are called, I forget) and used that. Ignore the wrongly-drilled hole. I had it flipped the other way but then it interfered with the visor. MEASURE TWICE, DRILL ONCE, dammit....:/

crappy mirror

So yeah, that worked out well. I'll do the other side later when it's not 25 degrees outside. I couldn't feel my fingers by the time I was done...

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Other little project (well, Part 1 of a larger one). I dislike that there's nothing blocking my heavy gear box from sliding into the back of the driver's seat when I brake hard (or god forbid, an accident). I strap it down, but that's not too helpful for sliding, really.  So figured I'd just build a little stopper bar out of some angle. It's not a roll cage, and it's bolted on to the sleeping platform and shelving frames, so I can take this stuff out if I need to. But I think it will be sufficient in anythign but the largest automotive disaster (hopefully will not find out).

Hope you all had a festive Christmas or whatever else you may or may not be celebrating this time of year.  As has been the case recently, most of my gifts (aside from socks and other small stuff my kids get me) have been related to camping/vehicle stuff.  So anyhow, basically got the stuff I asked for, which is not a ton. A month or two ago I got myself a decent cold-weather sleeping bag (Marmot Never Summer) and for xmas my wife got me the 3-season version (the Never WInter). So, no more cheapo crappy bags and/or my decent REI bag that's way too long for my height.....

dog wasn't impressed though

and yeah, I'm out of garage storage so my bags live in my Porsche project when not in use

She also got me some nifty microfiber towels that she said she read about in some camping site, so we'll see how those are. Way less bulky than my regular towels, so could be good for this little rig.

So Mike G. who I camp with a lot has a Light Ranger, which we mostly really use when we're racing (for dark paddocks) but it's nice for camp setup on dark nights since we never seem to get to camp until after dark, especially in the fall/winter. Anyhow, the rig has enough light for the most part, but I was thinking about making some kind of "tower light" for when needed. Yeah I know, some camping purists will yell "light pollution" or whatever, but we don't camp near other people, almost ever.  And we're not the kind that just leaves lighting on all night anyhow - so don't worry about that. 

Anyhow,  you'll be disappointed to know that I didn't build anything, because my in-laws always like to buy something nice for my birthday/Xmas (a week apart) and my wife asked for something to tell them, so I told them to get a Light Ranger.  So it'll be useful for camping (I like that it's dimmable and they got the filter set too), but I'll probably use it more for racing weekends, where we actually DO need good lighting to fix crap on the car, etc. 

Quick review of it: the tripod is nice quality and extends to about 9 feet or so, and folds up fairly compact. The light itself is pretty nice, and feels like good quality. You can set it to light all four sides, or two sides, or just one side, and you can dim it to about half the full brightness (and more with the filter). The top light part also unhooks from the post and has a hook on the top so you can hang it if you want it inside a tent or under the hood of the car or whatever. Anyhow, I'm sure people here know what it is.

On my very dark deck with no other lights around, at full power with the red filter on:

And with only one side on, full power:

And in my totally dark garage (looks more red in person)

And took a minute to figure out where to put it in the raider, and decided it fits fine in the rear door net. I added some foam padding at the bottom so it won't bang against the door. And I still need to put a legitimate support strap in the center there (I have an idea that will be a little less janky than the current...)

So yeah, have a good New Year's next. Looking forward to getting out for some camping/wheeling soon, so we'll see. 

A couple little things today. For a while my fuel pump has been kind of loud and whiney, and more recently the truck feels like it's not getting fuel immediately on cold starts - I have to crank a bit and then it stumbles for a few seconds before running fine. Those things may or may not be related. The latter probably means I'm losing a bit of pressure when sitting - either drainback through the pump, drainback through the FPS, or a leaky injector. Figured I'd deal with the easiest one first.  So I got a full pump assembly off ebay,  since mine is the original and its pretty beat-up and possibly leaky. This is a pretty nice quality unit it seems (TBD if the pump itself lasts)

Unfortunately, when it arrived the pre-filter was broken off at the plastic (white) tab, which of course is just out of the picture. I messaged the seller and they just sent me another one. Then I fixed the first one with some plastic epoxy - so now I have a good spare as well :) Only downside is the tube for the fuel return is a bit smaller than the OEM one, which meant my return hose wasn't snug. I built it up with a smaller inner hose and moved one. 

Anyhow, I installed it (happy I left access to the hatch under the fridge slider!) no problem, and then went to start the car and......i didn't start. Clearly no fuel. So figuring the system was just empty I jumped the pump and got full pressure and ......still no start/no fuel. So then I'm checking fuses, relays, wiring going a bit crazy -- why wouldn't it work, since I jumped the pump just fine. After much banging my head on the wall, finally figured out I put the hoses on backwards (they're the same size) so I was pumping into the return line :/ swapped them and now it works fine. However, still has the same "latent fuel" issue on starting. So the next order of business will be to change out the fuel pressure reg before doing injectors. I guess the other things is my coil could be weak and not giving good spark, but that seems less likely. Coils are super-cheap for these things, so I'll just change it out anyhow when I do distributor cap/rotor next week and we'll see. 

--

Also starting to set things up for a bigger screen in the rig for maps, etc. My phone is small and my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, so i picked up a refurb'd Galaxy A7 LIte, on suggestion from another thread here, for about $100. And a cheap case for it. I have a RamMount holder on the way as well. Needed to set up an arm to hold it though. Wasn't sure what would work best so I ordered the much cheaper double-arm knockoff version of the RAM on Amazon to see if that setup will work. It's actually pretty nice quality and comes with like 5 different ball mounts, which is handy. I decided to mount one of the round bases to the metal part of the dash next to the glove box (this dash has a lot of metal, so mounting stuff is easy). I cut off one side of the circle so it would fit and through -bolted it

So here's the arm. We'll see how to best orient it when the RAM holder comes in, and whether I like it.  In the meantime, gotta load up my mapping stuff and other things on the tablet that may come in useful in the future. It's and international model so has GPS/Glonass and is also Wi-Fi and can take a SIM card - and Google Fi gives me free data SIMs, so this thing will get its own signal without having to bluetooth off my phone, which is convenient. 

A few other projects this weekend planned if stuff comes in, so more updates then. 

A cold rainy day with nothing much to do except close myself inside the Raider for a couple hours and do some wiring re-routing - primarily to move my GMRS deck up to the top shelf, off of the dash. It's always been a bit too far away, especially the handset mount. But it was easy enough to run all the wiring for it up to the top and install the bracket there. So that should be a bit more convenient.

My RAM mount tablet holder thing came in today, so set that all up so see how it works. Seems it will hold the A7 fine (I did trim the extra length "ears" off the ends of the piece since this tablet doesn't fill up the whole space....)

So yeah, I think that'll work pretty well. Good position to see it and reach it while in the driving position. Much better than my little phone, for sure. 

The one other things I was hoping to install this weekend isn't going to be here until Monday or Tuesday now - typical FedEX, never, ever delivers things on time. (side rant: ANY COMPANY - I will 100% always pay extra to have UPS or even USPS ship things to me. Sick of FedEx saying "will arrive on Friday" and then it not being here until after the weekend, and the box always looks like it went through World War 3)....

Today I ran the family out to the Rally Farm, where we used to rallycross years ago, so they could visit with the owners' alpacas and I could say hi to the owners

I could post a bunch of pics of alpacas and dogs and kids and probably get more likes for this post, but trying to keep this mostly on-topic lol.

My other project of the day was to "enclose" my side rack in the back where I have containers and gear for stuff. I kind of got this idea this morning and figured I had some materials around and might as well see if I could make something that works. Unfortunately I didn't really take any pics while in-progress so i'll just have to describe it.

So first I cut some aluminum sheet scrap (leftover from the little "door" at the back of the shelving I previously made) and made about a 6" fixed inside "wall" of sorts. There's two reasons for why I didn't make an openable door for the whole shelf: 1. because it wouldn't have enough room to swing totally open before hitting the sleeping platform and 2. I need about 6" for a near-future project that would also be in the way of the door opening. So in the pics below the aluminum piece (an old speed limit sign) is bolted in and used as a support rail for the hinge for the slightly smaller door. I didn't have enough aluminum to make the door itself out of it (which I'd prefer) so used some thick ABS ( or HDPE, I forget) sheet that I bought and never used for some other project previously. It has a bit of flex to it, but I think it'll be ok for this purpose. If not, I'll replace it later. 

Anyhow, much like the other gear door at the back, I used the remaining piano hinge, riveted to the aluminum (and one of the shelf crosspieces) and riveted to the ABS sheet. Then I added the same weatherstripping as a "seal" to get rid of noise/vibration, and I made another threaded knob just like the other hatch, and tapped a threaded hole in to the crossmember of the shelf. 

So here's what it looks like when closed:

For the inside, I want to do away with the annoying camlock straps I used to hold the boxes and gear in place. I have a huge stack of the foam stuff used for Pelican cases and stuff like that, so I used that in a few places: First, on the inside of the door. I made these shelves to closely fit the boxes that go in them, so the foam on the door essentially presses them against the rear posts in the shelves and pretty much locks them in place:

And then wrapped the posts to further pad things out, and added foam to the metal shelf bottoms. So basically the boxes can't really move in any direction to any significant degree (or so I hope)

So that turned out fairly well, other than not having aluminum for the door (I need to find another old street sign in someone's garage, lol....). This was basically a side-project of the other one I"m working on, which should hopefully be finished tomorrow with any luck.

well, it's new year's eve, which is also my teenage daughter's birthday. So no partying tonight (not like there's much partying going on here in the burbs anyhow and the city is a hassle), so figured I'd finish up a couple projects this afternoon while it's still unseasonably warm. First off, something boring. For a good while I've had an issue that after sitting for a while the fuel system loses some pressure. This can be basically one of three things: a leak in the fuel pump check valve (or whatever it has), a leak in the fuel pressure regulator allowing fuel to drain to the return line (I think?) or leaky injectors. As I noted, I just replaced the fuel pump and nothing changed. The FPS and injectors are a more involved task and not one I really want to deal with during the winter out in the driveway, frankly. The truck runs fine, but yeah it takes several seconds of cranking to finally get fuel before it stumbles to life. I think I also noted it could be an ignition (coil, plugs, rotor/cap?) so that stuff is on the way too, but decided to do a workaround instead, after finding out there's a fuel pump test plug under the dash. Took me a good while to find it buried back behind the HVAC stuff under the glove box, but I ran a jumper to the battery and sure enough, the fuel pump came to life with no cranking. I know, pretty basic electrical lol. 

In any case, dug out a momentary toggle switch and basically wired it up to activate that test wire when pushed, so basically I can prime the fuel pump before cranking. Got it wired up, primed it for a couple seconds, and the truck fired pretty quickly after sitting for 24 hours. So maybe that worked. No pics, because...well, it's just a plain toggle switch down under the dash.

Let's move on to finishing up the storage stuff in the back, since my last piece came in to complete "the plan." If you look closely in the older photos, you can see a steel frame I set up vertically behind the driver's seat (made of angle iron). So that frame was built to hold this:

While I like to cut out metal stuff myself, I really don't have any way to make a molle panel cleanly, so spent a bit of cash to order one in the size I wanted. Made a few minor alterations and then mounted it up:

Came out pretty much exactly as I envisioned. So not only is it a bit of a barrier from crap flying into me on the trail, or in an accident, or whatever, but it also holds lots of stuff without more shelves. I had a couple old Molle pouches in the garage (no idea where they came from, must have gotten them back in the day). I also went on Amazon and bought a "set" that come with a fabric molle panel (which I may repurpose) about the same size as my metal one. Long story short, I mixed and matched them and filled up the panel. I'll use these to hold toiletries and other small necessities (the stuff I used to have in the three small plastic containers). Also may move my med kit over to here, we'll see. Incidentally, they seem like decent quality for $25 or so....will report back on how they hold up in the long run.

The nice thing about a free-standing molle panel is that you can use both sides (with some creative strapping), so I was able to add a smaller pouch next to the seat (for my wallet and other personal items) and the water bottle holder  that it came with as well.

Also rigged up my little trash bag to fit in between the seats, which is more convenient than where I had it before.

I had one leftover, so mounted it up on the lower dash where the long-defunct OEM dash speaker used to be. Figure a good place to keep other small stuff for driving, since this truck doesn't really have any real center console or parcel tray to put things on. IDK, we'll see, more places to stash stuff never hurts (or I'll forget where I put stuff). Down on the left bottom..

So yeah, most of that came out better than I envisioned, I think. There are a few other little things to do to finish up all the storage stuff, but nothing particularly interesting/notable. Hope you all have a happy new year!

Starting to look pretty cozy and less janky in there now

Compare that to what it looked like around this time last year:

With new coil, distributor/cap, fuel pump and primer switch.....STILL hard starting, and worse now that it's really cold. So I guess the next thing on the checklist from the symptoms is injectors (since it still seems like they're leaking causing too rich mix in the cylinder until it clears out). If that doesn't work, will troubleshoot further. So, ordered up some injectors. But then we had this "big" snowstorm (got about 10", which is paralysis in this area). So it was cold and snowy and I spent two days shoveling, snow blowing, etc. I did get the Raider out in the snow for a bit, nothing difficult at this depth but it did fine, and of course too, a few snow pics...it was only about 5" at the time, between two bands, so pretty wimpy looking lol.

And I jury-rigged the hitch with a strap and towed my snowblower across the neighborhood to do my in-laws' driveway and sidewalk, which worked out fine but got some odd looks from people I drove by who were shoveling or whatever...

Oh, and tonight the injectors made it here...

Supposed to be cold AF for the next week or two, and the garage is double-occupied, so we'll see if I want to do the injectors and freeze my butt off (spoiler: if you read this thread, you know I'll just do it anyways because I have no patience...)

So yeah, it got cold...

Not doing this stuff outside with the cold expected to go on for a couple weeks, so had to do some vehicle rearranging. The rallycar is out of action at the moment (fuel pump) and that side of the garage has an overhead rack that's too low to fit the Raider, so the Porsche had to come out and brave the weather. It had been sitting for a month and the battery was totally dead (gotta chase a drain, I guess....) to the point my jump pack wouldn't start it. So had to push it out manually and jump it off the Raider and then move it to the Raider's usual parking spot. Then to get the Raider into the garage I once again had to air down the tires to about 15psi (the roof boxes clear by about 1/2" that way lol). But all switched up...

a bit snug in here, though the Raider is so short in length there's actually about 6 feet of space in front of it (the Porsche is actually LONGER)

So, got into the engine, taking stuff apart and pulled the intake manifold to get to the fuel rail. Two of my plug wires separated the spark plug, so guess I'll be replacing those with some better ones. I pulled the plugs and they all look normal other than one that had the threads suspiciously wet and gassy-smelling, so hopefully this whole injector swap is the correct track to fix the hard starting. I'll put in new plugs while I'm there.

The old injectors. I honestly can't recall if I got these new/refurb when I first did this build. I guess I could look back in the thread but that seems like a lot of work for no reason. 

Interestingly, the new ones have a thicker nozzle and more of a "fan" spray pattern. Unsure what that means...they both have the same part number on the casing, so who knows. The new ones fit just fine though. 

So, shiny stuff in. I'm also replacing the FPR while I'm there, since it's pretty cheap and hard to access if that turns out to be the problem.

It also gave me the opportunity to check other stuff. I had noticed a small amount of coolant-like residue near the thermostat housing, and turns out both bolts for it had loosened up a bit so tightened them down. Also the bracket for the oil dipstick was way loose so cranked that bolt down as well (it's HARD to access with the engine in the vehicle, incidentally). And checked all my hard-to-access hose clamps for the heater hoses and such. Also found this:

This is one of the three plugs that go into the coolant block/thermostat area. I forget which of them is the ECU coolant temp, gauge, etc. I wonder how long this ground wire for it has been broken and if it has any negative effects. Anyhow, I spliced in some new wire and it's fixed now. 

So as I wait for the new plugs/wires/IM gaskets to come in, a few other things. I got a larger medical pouch for the molle panel on the "door" in the back that fits my medkit and some additional items I want to add into there. Also did a bit of rearranging of some of the other molle stuff to make things easier to access.

I've also been looking for better cooking gear. I'm not much of a chef, but the pots/pans/utensils I have are mostly just crap leftover from the house kitchen or wal-mart, and the stove is just the cheapo Ozark Trail one form walmart. It' works, but it's cheap-feeling, rattly, and pretty low output in terms of BTUs. So I did some research and decided on a Camp Chef Everest, based on what I've read on the forums being a good one for a good price. I was about to buy it online but decided to check FB Marketplace real quick and it turned out someone about 20 minutes from me had one listed and available BRAND NEW for half the Amazon price. Apparently she got it for camping but never used it because it was too big to fit in their camper (??). Well, it's not too big for the little Raider, so I ran out and scooped it up tonight. Definitely bigger than the Ozark one, but not too huge. Also feels very nicely built and I like the lid lockdowns that double as locks for the wind wings. Naturally, it has a different input thread for the gas line than the Ozark one, so my regulated line for my 5lb tank doesn't fit :/ Why can't these companies just use a standard fitting already??? Talking to you Jetboil and Camp Chef lol...

Dog approves

Also searching for some better nesting pots/pans, utensils, and such. I don't like how my cooking kit packs out - badly-fitting stuff and not very good stuff taking up too much space. So we'll fix that going forward.....

I had expected to get plugs, wires, and a few other things from RockAuto today to put everything back together. Thought it was odd no "your shipment arrives today" notification and couldn't find a shipping email in my box. Went back to the RA page and found it was still on the checkout screen from 5 days ago, so I didn't hit "pay" button. So that's annoying (not the first time I've done this....) and now I'm waiting until Friday for parts hah.

I spent a bit of time shortening my winch wires. The winch came with long wires and when I installed I didn't have any large butt connectors/crimps so just coiled them up around the intake tube and kind of forgot about them. With the intake out at the moment, no time better to cut 18" out of them and "right length" them now that I do have large connectors. So did that (no pics, it's not exciting).

Well, no RockAuto, but I did get the first of a few things I ordered for my camp kitchen. As noted before, my kitchen gear so far has been crappy cheap pans and cooking utensils from walmart, which all kind of suck (both in usage and in packing). After a bunch of research and getting opinions of people on Overland Bound forum, still a lot of choices. In the end, for pots/pans I got a Stanley nesting set that comes with 4 plates/4 bows and some utensils. Not too expensive, stainless, lifetime warranty, and had several people suggest them as good for a budget. So they arrived today, and I'm pretty happy with the size of the set nested

Here's the layout. 

The frying pan has a pretty thick base and feels like "home quality" and the folding handle seems very sturdy. The pot is nice, definitely lighter base but should be fine for boiling stuff, etc.  The bowls and plates are nothign special, but are a decent size and should be fine. The plates feel like a Frisbee. The "Spork" utensil has a fork on one end and spoon on the other that connect with a tab and split to fit inside the nest. They seem fine, but the disconnect is tight and kind of annoying. The two larger utensils have similar setup but are easier and reasonably nice. 

I will probably have some secondhand wood and stainless stuff to put in the kit eventually but will keep these in there as well.  So that's it for the moment; I know, not that exciting.