Third try - now a Bison!

[TheBison]

Love the Hella's. Best light (after some mods) that I have used. Better than all those fancy led light bar thingys. Put 55w 4300K hid in the driving beam Hella 500 housings, and you have a set of lights that will outperform 2000 dollar lightbars.
Great rig.

I'm replacing the bumper lights since one got trashed anyway with Hella 500LED units. Do you mind sharing where you got the 55W 4300K HID bulbs? I wouldn't mind upgrading the roof lights but I don't want to replace them completely like on the bumper.

 

[Autism Family Travels]

I'm replacing the bumper lights since one got trashed anyway with Hella 500LED units. Do you mind sharing where you got the 55W 4300K HID bulbs? I wouldn't mind upgrading the roof lights but I don't want to replace them completely like on the bumper.

I got mine years ago from VVME.com. I don"t think they are around anymore. I would goto the retrofitsource. They have very high quality HID kits. You will be blown away with the amount of light from the 50w versions they have. I am going back to this setup on the patriot. I am also debating going to Hella E codes for our headlights with 35w HIDs in them. HID is a much better technology for distance lighting. LED is a terrible color, and cannot get as good projection from them.

 

[TheBison]

Well, new Hella LED lights are in. MUCH better than my experiment of putting LED bulbs in a Hella 500 chassis. I kinda like the running lights along the bottoms too - I'll tint them amber to match everything else.


I also installed the new rear Eibach shocks today along with Rago Fab shock mount skids - which had I put on last summer before I forgot probably would have prevented this damage in the first place. I'll upgrade the front coilovers when they wear out, but for now they're good as-is.

 

[zgfiredude]

How does it ride? Did you get it out yet?

 

[TheBison]

How does it ride? Did you get it out yet?

Not yet. I'll find out on the way home!

 

[TheBison]

How does it ride? Did you get it out yet?

So far so good, but have just driven pavement and some county road washboard so far. Maybe I'll try to get out on a real trail over the holidays.

 

[TheBison]

One issue I had with the new Hella 500 LED lights is that the light grilles that were on the old bumper lights (and that are still on the roof rack lights) don't fit the LED lights - they're maybe 1/2" smaller in diameter than the regular 500FF lights. However, the LED lights come with an opaque cover that I wasn't going to use that increases the diameter of the light a bit so... Out came the Dremel tool and I cut out the center of each LED light cover and put the grilles on top of that added diameter. Added a bit of glue, and we'll see if they hold!

 

[TheBison]

So far so good, but have just driven pavement and some county road washboard so far. Maybe I'll try to get out on a real trail over the holidays.

Went out for a run with some OB folks back on Sunday. I was at full flex - fenders rubbing and a bit of three-wheel action - and no issues to report.

 

[Autism Family Travels]

Eibach has always made quality stuff. Nice choice!

 

[tjZ06]

Very interesting you got rid of the DSSV shocks. What was the motivation? Original shocks worn out and ridiculously expensive to replace?

-TJ

 

[TheBison]

Very interesting you got rid of the DSSV shocks. What was the motivation? Original shocks worn out and ridiculously expensive to replace?

-TJ

Basically. Broke one of the back pair (rod completely snapped) and DSSV shocks have a nasty reputation for failure by leaking anyway. I got the 2 remote reservoir Eibach shocks plus the shock skids I should have had all along for less than the price of 1 DSSV (or half the cost of having the dealership replace it for me).

 

[Autism Family Travels]

Basically. Broke one of the back pair (rod completely snapped) and DSSV shocks have a nasty reputation for failure by leaking anyway. I got the 2 remote reservoir Eibach shocks plus the shock skids I should have had all along for less than the price of 1 DSSV (or half the cost of having the dealership replace it for me).

Yes, the DSSV's look like something that belongs on a UTV, the shaft is tiny! The shafts on my crappy Rough country struts for the patriot is larger.

 

[tjZ06]

Basically. Broke one of the back pair (rod completely snapped) and DSSV shocks have a nasty reputation for failure by leaking anyway. I got the 2 remote reservoir Eibach shocks plus the shock skids I should have had all along for less than the price of 1 DSSV (or half the cost of having the dealership replace it for me).

Gotcha. I wasn't aware of the reputation/track record on them. Sounds like the right move!

-TJ

 

[TheBison]

A little preview of some big changes coming to the build.

 

[TheBison]

Also, tinted the marker lights on the new Hella lighting on the bumper amber to match all of the other running and fog lights.

 

[TheBison]

I haven't updated in a while, but we've been very, very busy! As I have mentioned before, we really liked the look of the Armordillo bed rack and tire carrier but it became practically unusable with the direction our build is going. We decided last fall it needed to go and be replaced with a much more usable cargo management system. We settled on the Leitner bed rack system due to its modularity and capability to carry cargo in the side pods, using a lot of vertical space that is normally wasted. This will also involve rebuilding the solar power and battery system from our Hiker trailer and moving it into the bed rack to support our Iceco fridge/freezer which is also getting moved from the trailer to the truck bed. This is in an effort to reduce the weight of the trailer and also make it so that we have the fridge accessible to us for the times that we decide not to bring the trailer along on our more technical trips.

Just for kicks, here are photos I took of the old rack and tire carrier just before it was removed from the truck.

 

[zgfiredude]

Nice tease............talk about the new rack, but show pics of the OLD rack, LOL.

 

[TheBison]

One of the things I liked about the Leitner system is that I could take the "pods" inside to do electrical work during the winter, and then install them in the rack and just plug everything together - going back to the modularity aspect. We dedicated one small side pod to be the electrical center that houses all of the charging equipment, power distribution, breakers and fuses, etc. with Anderson Powerpole color-coded SB50 connectors running out of the box to the battery itself (which will be mounted in the truck bed), solar panels, other pods with lighting and power outlets, etc.

Here are interior and exterior photos of this "power pod" in its final configuration after spending most of January indoors doing all of the layout and wiring. It is equipped with solar charging, a DC-DC charger pulling off of the start battery, and a shore power charger. Outputs are to the other pods and the fridge.




Knowing that this is a small enclosed space with a bunch of electronics, notice the cooling vents and fan on the bottom of the pod. These have squares of filter material on the inlet and outlet to minimize dust and keep air flowing. The fan is an IP68-rated electronics fan controlled by a thermostat in the box, so it's not running unless needed.

 

[TheBison]

Once the rack base frame was installed on the bed, it was easy to mount the rest of the pods on both sides. Again because of the modularity I was able to pre-wire each pod with switches for white, yellow, and red lights with associated switches, as well as 12V and USB sockets inside each pod. Additionally, an exterior switch and power socket box was mounted to control white/yellow/red lights that are being installed in the bed area as well as to provide camp lighting around the perimeter of the rack. Since everything was set up with the SB50 plugs, all that had to be done was to run wiring between the pods and plug them into the overall electrical system once installed. Another nice thing about the Leitner rack is the ability to hide all wiring within the channels of the rack itself for a clean installation.

 

[TheBison]

Obviously the spare tire needed to go somewhere, and I didn't like the idea of putting it back under the bed. There's a reason I had taken it and put it on the Armordillo tire carrier to begin with - I hate accessing an under-bed tire in mud, snow, rocks... well, any time. We chose to go with a Rig'd hitch-mounted swing out tire carrier. This unfortunately meant losing one of the AEV recovery points and negating one of the bumper-mounted backup lights I had installed, but what can you do.