Road Trip Prep

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This weekend I’ll be heading out on a 4000 mile road trip to tow back the Rx-7. The truck has been running well, but it’s as good an excuse as any to finish up some of the projects I’ve been putting off. The first has been sorting out the electrical system in the bed. I had a spare battery in back when I had the camper in place, but with the topper installed the battery is now in the “living” area. Instead of trying to rig up a sealed box and external vent, I’m planning on moving the second battery under the hood instead. That will require building a new battery tray, so in the mean time I just ran power back from the main battery to a fuse panel and removed the second battery entirely. I’ll have to be careful not to kill it, so for the moment it’s only powering a light and cigarette lighter socket, a fan and inverter will have to wait.

While I was messing with the wiring, I installed the backup camera I bought a while back to replace the one that left with the Four Wheel Camper. It was another cheap ebay camera, however this one must have been meant to mount under a bumper or other lip. I made a mount out of a spare piece of aluminum, but the angle still isn’t great. I’ll see how it works on the trip, but I may end up replacing it.

Good enough?

Next on the list was to build a shelf over the front part of the bed. The idea is to have a place to store camping gear while leaving space for a mattress underneath. I considered a platform with drawers instead, but decided to go for something simple this time. I made it out of 5/8″ plywood with an aluminum L channel to brace the front. I think it came out pretty nice.

Storage for the topper

With the slope of the cap, it’s a tight fit between the bed rails and won’t be coming out any time soon. But so far it looks like it’ll work to keep everything out of the way.

Comfy.

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