Wanted to join everyone and share the progress of my build. I originally started with the idea of building out a van and through that became aware of truck campers and the GFC. So when the time came for me to buy a new car I went with a DCLB Tacoma TRD Off Road. I didn’t wait long to get a GFC and found a barely used one in the area. Transferred it over and voila I had a camper ready!
We did one trip with the camper on and started thinking it would be a safe upgrade to get a better suspension for it. With all our stuff in the bed it seemed like the back was starting to sag a bit and over time it likely would continue. Plus it’s easier to get a bit more money if you’re selling stock suspension with less than 1k miles on it. So pulled the trigger on a Bilstein 6112/5160 kit. Along with it I added an Icon Stage 3 leaf spring kit and Icon Delta joint UCAs. But this would have been too much for me to do since I haven’t really messed with cars that much prior to this, so I had this taken care of by a pro. If you’re in the SoCal/LA area check out IronRyno on Tacomaworld - he did a fantastic job with all of this for me.
I then added on a Talon’s Garage cat cage because thefts were picking up in my area. This was an easy one for me, compared to what the suspension upgrade would have been.
I also added on a Martin OR roof rack. I originally only added MaxTrax and a 7 gallon Yakima Road Shower to it. The Roadshower was the biggest pain to get on there horizontally. The mounts that come with it are only for it to be installed vertically but when I go surfing I want to be able to shower on both sides of the car, depending on how I parked. Easiest solution for me was just drilling some holes into the crossbar and putting spacers below it so that it wouldn’t hit up against the rest of the roof rack.
With all that done my focus turned to the camper itself. I added Overland Softgoods sheets and foam, Hest pillows and a Lumbering Bear pull down strap (which I really wish GFC had baked into the tent). We took it out on some new adventures to Joshua Tree and various SoCal beaches. I saw a fair few of you with GFCs driving around in that time.
Made some more smaller additions to it like VRNCLR top shelf and the bedding catch to just be able to leave stuff in the bed when I’m not planning to go camping.
The projects never stop and the next thing I got in my mind was adding solar power. I already had a Ecoflow River 2 Pro power station and had tried the portable solar panel as well for it but again, when your tent is always there, loading and unloading the car is just annoying. So I got a 175w flexible Renogy panel and used VHB tape to put it on top of the camper. I sealed it off with some EternaBond tape and then… I noticed how the cable come out at opposite ends - I hadn’t thought this through and just thought it would be like my portable solar panel which just had both cables on one end. Shortened one of the cables, crimped it and used the ShittBrix to hold everything in place. The cable on the far end I just epoxied down on the panel. To run the cables into the camper I drilled a small hole into the back panel and ran the cables through a small grommet. Has stayed water tight ever since I put it on so I’m hopeful that continues. Now that I had power I wanted to add a cell booster, since we’ve had a few incidents working while camping and our cell phone hotspots resulting in dropped zoom calls. Did essentially the same thing to mount a WeBoost Overland and route the cables into the GFC. The antenna is on the Martin OR rack and the booster is in the truck bed since that’s mostly where we’ll be working from or we leave our phone in the truck bed and use the hotspot from the phone when we’re sitting outside. Each time it’s been used so far it has been a significant improvement over just using the phone hotspot unboosted.
I have a few more projects and trips going on the next couple weeks which I’ll continue to post about here.
Current build
Truck
- Bilstein 5160
- Bilstein 6112
- Icon Stage 3 Leaf
- Icon Delta UCA
- Talon’s Garage catalytic converter cage
- Nitto Ridge Grappler tires 265/70/16
GFC
- GFC ladder
- Overland Softgoods foam & sheets
- Vrnclr top shelf
- Vrnclr bedding catch
- Renogy 175w flexible
- Ecoflow River 2 Pro
- OVS Nomadic Awning
Other
- Martin OR GFC cab rack
- Yakima 7 Gallon Roadshower
- Maxtrax boards
- WeBoost Overland
