Hello all, have been reading the forum for a while now, its a great resource for information and have got a few ideas from here too. Been lurking around long enough, so thought I should probably post up a bit about my hilux and introduce myself.
This will probably help me to keep track of what I have done too
Well, my name is Ryan and this is my 2008 Toyota Hilux SR5, D4D Turbo Diesel... this is my build.
On the front there is an ARB sahara bull bar, snorkel, lightforce Striker 170 spotlights, and an imax 12000lb winch
Up ontop there is the roof rack, recovery tracks, and a Rhino Sunseeker awning
I keep the sand tracks tied down and padlocked to the roof
I know when I was looking at roof racks, i could'nt find any information about how they mount, so if anyone is looking
they just bolt through the roof, as long as you have the right mounts, its easy.
The imax winch, cable not so tidy because I used it today... some poor guy had been digging for hours trying to unbog his car. great winch for its cheap price, no problems so far.
Up ontop I have an LED lightbar, turns night into day.
GME CB radio (antennas on the bull bar, see previous pics)
And below that, the 3 lighting switches.
Hardwired radar detector
Out in the back theres my custom drawer system, built this myself, took a few weekends overall but ill give you a quick run around on this:
The final product, 2 drawer system, with slide out fridge
These are the only two photos I took unfortunately of the build of it, but i have some rough plans on google sketchup if anyone wants them.
its pretty heavy, 18mm thich wood for all of it, except the base, which is 9mm
All got painted to protect it a bit, and covered in marine carpet - not bad for a DIY.
Down the left hand side is where all the wiring, aux battery and some other bits are.
This is running a 130ah AGM auxilary battery, with a ctek d250s DC/DC charger, plan to put a solar panel somewhere at some point for those extended stays. Also an aircompressor down the back on this photo
Switch panel on the front, also there is the air outlet there at the bottom, just connect up the airhose and switch on the compressor at the switch and you have a quick method for re-inflating tyres. going to put an air tank in somewhere at somepoint, and hopefully air lockers down the track.
Theres also a 12v outlet and usb power for chargers etc...
Bottom drawer - these are the full length of the tray - runs on roller bearings.
Top drawer
This is the rear fusebox that runs most of the cars accessories off the AGM battery
Its all a bit messy at the moment, but i still have some things to wire in, so will tidy it up when i dont have more to wire.
Here is a new addition, a lamp that is great for light out over the tray for lighting up the drawers, or if you are cooking or working on the back tray.
Wires all run down back to the inside through a small rubber grommet
This is with the fridge slide out, and fridge open, just fits.
Cold from todays trip to Wilbinga
Fridge temp controls, its 80L cheap ebay one but works great. its actually my second to be truthful, the first one did not work but was replaced under warranty. thats e-bay for you i guess.
In behind the fridge there is a cubby to hide all sorts of things, i use it to put sleeping bags or storage boxes inside usually, useful cubby to put stuff away out of sight.
You see down the side there is the fridge power wire, and a vent just to give the fridge a bit of extra room to breath.
Also keep my camp cooker up here in the gap to the right of the fridge, and theres a fire extinguisher ontop just incase.
This is my rear work light, great for using while camping or can be used as a reverse light if i need to.
There is switches in the back and front to activate this light.
this is the front aux fuse box, that just runs my front lights at the moment, excuse the mud and dirt, its well used...
And finally, this was everything all in use properly for the first time today at Wilbinga, i guess a quick trial run before camping over the easter holidays.
Don't know if its the case for others, but the photos are chopped off on the right hand side, had this problem on another forum I run, there is an issue with the phpbb3 code.
Thanks for looking, comments and suggestions welcome!