Electrical Overhaul/Spring cleaning

I made some mistakes.

This is like a look at the Paleolithic era of my offroading.

I'm actually quite fortunate that things more or less worked as long as they did without incident. The further I went in to looking at re-routing things more efficiently, the more I realized that some things, quite frankly, needed to be scrapped and a Do-Over pursued.

The above photo literally showed the various layers of the different types of mud I encountered with the truck in the past 2-1/2 years. There's some UT red sand, some Virginia clay mud, a bit of PA soup, etc. 

 I took the chest box out of the bed after deciding to discard the bed mounted and headache rack lights. All of this brush and moist earth had worked its way in under the box and the mat. I was well on my way to rusting out my bed if I didn't start getting on this section. I've washed the bed numerous times, but all of this stuff was staying out of reach of the hose and accummulating.

 I got rid of the cheaper off road lights that I had on the bed. Without their covers, they housings were actually starting to visibly rust. Initially I had thought about removing them, touching up the paint and reinstalling. But the cheap mounting hardware had seized and one of the lenses had cracked. All in all, it just wasn't worth keeping them around. They weren't particularly bright anyway.

In my short time offroading, I have come to appreciate that there is value in spending a bit more to get better quality equipment. I think it was not unwise to start with more budget-friendly items. I've smashed and bashed quite a few items while determining where is and decidedly is NOT a good location to mount things.

There are a few more relocations I am contemplating. I need to shift my CB antenna, as I'm eyeing that location (with the absence of the bed lights) to mount my Jerry Can up along the bed rail.

I'm thinking of keeping the bed-mounted chest out unless I go on a very long trip. I've been able to get most offroad essentials into the driver side bed box. I cut off the sharks teeth. The hood LED bar is now working properly. I've got it fed off of the house battery now utilizing the switching and wiring that previously had been supporting the switching of the bed lights.

I've also gotten the fogs installed and will be doing a separate writeup and post regarding the sponsorship opportunity that brought these lights into my possession.

This is what she looks like a bit cleaned up (not physically; she's dirty...but without some of the other distractions).