Duty Calls...

Or actually doody calls and necessitates a diaper change. I have been a lot more focused and calculated in going about making modifications to the truck. Gone are the days where I can sit isolated in the garage pontificating on a concept or experimenting through trial and error. The benefit of this shift is that I am doing a lot of this planning while attending to chores and then undertaking changes in concise shifts of work on the truck. The Mrs. is happier because I am attending more to my household duties, and I am happy to be relieved of some of the friendly 'reminders' that she used to make.

So I've been driving around with no power to my radios, the rear winch out of the commission, and no power inverter for any 110V accessories drawing more than an amp or so. (The one in the cab can handle about an amp or two tops; the rear maxes out somewhere around 9amps).

These past couple of days I was able to make the permanent connections. I still need to zip tie the wires so that they are fixed and neatly routed.

 I didn't have an exterior shot of the full and finished Trail Rack.

 I had been held up trying to identify a suitable place to enter the cab on the passenger side. I went on the forums and found that some of the stereo modders had identified this existing knockout in the wheel well above the liner. I reamed it out with a dremel and fed the power wires in through here to my Blue Sea fuse block.

 I probably use more decking parts on my truck than a carpenter uses on a deck. Took one of these offset plates and welded a 4" junction box cover to it, drilled holes in the cover, and bolted the fuse block to it. Then I used self-tapping screws to mount to this hump in the floor pan so that it is just beneath the passenger seat. Radios are now powered.

I reconnected the wiring to the toolbox and affixed these terminal posts along the upper shelf of the toolbox. The rear winch is now served from these junctions and a power offshoot is now available to the inverter.

Now just need to tidy up the wires.

Up next will be, in all likelihood, routing control wiring from both winches up into the cab. My goal is to retain the option of either hooking up the controller into the stock ports or to run them from the driver seat. I may also consider putting in a disconnect switch adjacent to the momentary control switches. More on that to come...