My new Camper hauler.

[Squatch]

Stock tires pretty much suck. Truck is currently stuck in the back yard down the hill a bit. I'll wait for the ground to freeze so I can drive it out. New tires when I get it out!

I just today remembered I have a brand new Superwinch 9,500lb winch in the basement. So today I ordered a front receiver hitch and a portable winch mount so I can use the winch in it.

Now I'll be able to use the winch on any of my trucks receiver hitches.

 

[Squatch]

The truck is unstuck and out of the backyard. It dried up a little today. I managed to get it moving downhill a little and got some momentum and just drove a big loop and kept enough speed to get up the drive.

Now on to get some better tires!

 

[buckland]

Well shoot that is a bummer ...but glad you are out... I have had to keep going down o get back up! Good tires can still get stuck as well as 4WD! I know this to be a fact! Having a winch handy is a good thing.... so far I can't afford it but I have been told. Good luck on the tires. In suggest E rated...and if you are in snow area go thin.

 

[Squatch]

Getting stuck out back is pretty normal. When the ground is frozen and the top thaws slightly it turns to grease on the hill. I've only owned one truck that never got stuck. This beast! That is the hill you have to come up to get out.


This shows how long I've wanted a FWC. I had originally hoped to put one in this truck 20+ years ago.

As far as tires I've decided on the Cooper ST Maxx. Same width as stock and an inch taller. I don't want to get into lifts and gearing with the Tundra. They will be E rated. For my uses and the kind of winter weather we get here I'm not really a member of the "Pizza Cutter" fan club. I prefer a little more tread on the ground.

 

[Squatch]

I now have new tires! Cooper ST MAXX LT265/70/r17 E. These are a hybrid between an AT and MT tire. Initial impressions are good. There is some noise. Not quite the hum of a full on MT. More like a soft whirring sound. But louder than a BFG AT KO2 for sure.

The ride is very nice. I might sorta feel a little bit more of the tiny stuff because of the stiff E rated tire. But the square edges of pot holes that had me cringing with the old P metrics just disappeared. Typical of moving up to a real truck tire.

With the P metrics there was a wandering twitch feeling to the steering wheel I didn't like. Kinda like if you looked away from the road and coughed you'd be in the ditch kinda thing. That has been replaced by a heavier solid feel. The tires are heavy and you can feel it a little. So what it's a truck. before I was concerned about taking the camper on a forest service road for fear of tire failure. Not now!

These are an inch taller than stock and same width.
Old(new) p 265/65/r17 Dunpops


New LT265/70/r17 Cooper ST MAXX.




Obviously I haven't reinstalled the center caps yet. It's been raining for 2 days. The tires felt solid in the rain. I did roll away from a stop and then punched it hard. The v8 had no trouble spinning the rears even with a real Limited Slip Differential.

I think I'm going to like these. They should haul the camper weight much better. Especially when the road gets rough!

 

[Vic Harder]

think you could make it up that snowy hill now?

 

[Squatch]

Ha Ha! When that pic was taken it wasn't snow. It was solid ice. The beast has a full load of Oak firewood in the bed.

That snow event came down as a very soaking wet snow of about 8". The temps plummeted over night and the snow froze solid. You couldn't even walk on it safely on level ground.

Another pic. The Beast barely even left tracks and it's a very heavy truck. 700# big block engine and 350# of winch and bumper up front. ! ton drive train and axles. It has so much weight on those front mud tires it would power through or over most anything including deep snow.

Note the very faint tracks That's with 6,000lbs of truck plus the firewood. Solid ice.


To answer your question. At this point I think the new tires will greatly improve the traction of the new truck especially when the yard thaws. That's usually a bigger issue than snow. When the ground is frozen traction usually isn't an issue.

At the moment the Tundra is in the garage. Last night it got an oil change and 50k service. Today I'll be working on installing the front receiver hitch and setting up the winch. I'm going to need to change out the battery for an AGM. The winch will toast a cranking battery.

 

[Squatch]

I spent the last few days doing the 50k service on the truck. Along with this I installed a new Curt front receiver hitch. There seems to be 2 available for this truck. The Curt allows the front skid plate to be retained with a little trimming.


This flange needs to be slightly trimmed on both sides. I did it with a cutoff wheel in a Dremel.




The hitch uses the Tow hook mounting locations along with the drilling of one 1/2" hole on each side. The nutted bolt is the drilled one.


End result is a new hitch with tow loops built in.


Great place to mount my Superwinch 9,500lb Tigershark on a Bull Dog mount.


The winch has cables that are long enough to reach the battery along with a circuit breaker.


The problem is that I need an AGM battery preferably with dual marine posts on top. Unfortunately Toyota specs a Backwards terminal battery in it's trucks. It's not a group 27. It's a group 27F with flipped terminals. No one makes the battery I need in this configuration. And the cables wont reach a normal battery. So I'll either have to extend or replace the factory cables.

Next up is to install a 7 pin round pin commercial trailer wiring connector in the rear bumper and to install the Daystar cradles for my airbags.

 

[Squatch]

think you could make it up that snowy hill now?

YES!
Yesterday afternoon. Truck loaded with firewood which helps with traction. Towing my M416 trailer also filled with wood for an upcoming camping trip. The trailer usually doesn't help climbing a snowy hill at all.


2 minutes later I'm up the hill and unhitching the trailer. The ground was frozen which helps and we had 3" of show which doesn't. The truck with the new tires climbed the hill with almost no wheelspin.


Have to love a trailer with a parking brake!

 

[Squatch]

The Daystar airbag cradles have been installed.

 

[Happyjax]

Squatch you always impress me with your skills

 

[Squatch]

Thanks!

 

[One-derer]

that looks nice

 

[jimjxsn]

The Daystar airbag cradles have been installed.

Squatch,
What is your impression of the Daystar cradles so far? Have you had any issues and do the bags seem to stay centered in the cradle?
Thanks!
Jim

 

[Squatch]

Answered in the other thread.

 

[Dandil]

I have the truck & new used Fleet Camper ready for our first trip ( a weekender). Mods included Firestone Airbags, added a leaf, 10 ply tires, 2 1/2 in lift for a little extra clearance. It seems to be the right combination. It all seems to be supporting the weight and just about eliminated the side to side roll I was experiancing without the tires and extra leaf. I can still play around with air presser with the tires & airbags.

 

[Squatch]

Without the pics Photobucket has been holding hostage this thread is useless. The pics have now been deleted from Photobucket and I'm declaring this thread dead.