Rear Swing Away Saga, Part 1
While I've posted a couple of shots with the swing away tire carrier of late I hadn't really documented it all that much since it was still 'in progress.' I think we've now reached a point where it is both good, and good enough, in terms of its final state and with enough data to post up here what all went on. In many ways it is illustrative of the challenges of building anywhere, particularly when you can't do the welding/fabrication yourself, so perhaps some will find points to keep in mind for projects that are outsourced of this magnitude. I don't regret the commissioning of the carrier and don't fault Icon for the trials and tribulations we went through to get to here-but that might just be a facet of growing more used to inshallah culture after 2 years in Abu Dhabi.
Background: tire carrier was necessary because I'd decided to buy the Frontrunner aux fuel tank that will take that space under the aft end of the truck. I didn't want to put the tire on the roof for a variety of reasons (MPG, COG, and the sheer joy of lifting the relatively heavy weight up and down from the roof being a royal PITA-I've played that game before, not going to do it this time). I also didn't want to sacrifice the cargo area, so it had to go on the back. Keep in mind the wife is not happy about this as she thinks the extra fuel is unnecessary (it probably is) and the loss of ease of use of one of the best facets of the D3/D4 compared to the D1/D2 (i.e. the tailgate and hatch) is unfortunate (it definitely is). However she's in China and realized that I have one toy here so was forgiving with my advocation for the project, basically saying she didn't care b/c I wasn't allowed to touch her Tacoma back in the US. Right. So I had a sketch in hand, and as alluded to earlier in the thread when the fuel tank showed up started executing violently and then realized it would be nice to slow down on the tank since I wanted a gauge for it that FR doesn't provide. So that can wait till the US, but the tire carrier was already in motion and at a good price-why not, right? The sketch, along with the truck, went in just before I went back to the US for a week to do spring break with my kids. (*I also pilfered a lot of shots of the FR swing away and several of the other fabrications others have done here and gave them about six pages of print outs showing what I wanted; i.e. just a single support arm, locks at 90 and full swing, etc)
The office manager at Icon kept me in the loop via what's app and a lot of videos/pics that week, as I'd posted some of them before these are illustrative.
Some of them resulted in some back and forth with specific concerns regarding:
-the latching mechanism, I don't like it hanging down on the bumper
-the absence of lock outs at full swing
-the rubber stopper touching the tailgate, making for wear of the paint at vibration.
The shop manager related these concerns but was essentially put off by the fabricator who doggedly stuck with the latch since that was what they were used to from a recent large contract build for the Int'l Red Cross, further claiming that the second lock out was not possible. They did cut down the rubber stopper, but basically otherwise the truck waited for me to get back to the UAE.
Upon return in country I drove up to Dubai and amidst relating the concerns face to face with the fabricator things unraveled, esp when I asked for the 5 pages of pictures I'd annotated and printed out to illustrate what I wanted and he said "Oh, I don't know where those are" While I acknowledge that I have incredibly high standards for people that are rarely met, this was too much. Compounded when the fabrication 'supervisor' intervened and I asked him about the issues and his awareness of the dialogue while I was in the US and he said he wasn't aware of any problems, nor had he seen any of the pictures as the fabricator put all this together. I informed him that I didn't think supervisor was an accurate title for his position. Off to see the shop manager who was already extremely frustrated by the fab folks, she promised they'd fix it-and deliver it to me in Abu Dhabi.
So the truck was dropped off:
Here's the butchery of my bumper after it was 'fixed', note-no second lock out (still), and the bumper cover is basically trashed and looks like my 9yr old was given allowed to cut it.
I was apoplectic. In contacting the manager the concerns coupled with the soft copy of the initial files provided and the pictures of the current state went to the ownership. To their credit they offered two COAs immediately: they would come get the truck, fix the quality issues with the build or alternatively come get it, replace the stock bumper with a new LR stock bumper and refund me my money. I will give them credit for standing by their name and providing option to salvage reputation. Given my optempo and it being the sole vehicle here I mulled over the options for a bit, also using the time to explore some the good facets of the carrier-i.e. that I think I can stow rotopax between it and the vehicle (the cardboard is the same size as a 2gal rotopax, absent the width of 3", there is also a like mockup on the right side tucked well in behind the tire). That, plus the way they build the pivot so that it is easily removable (i.e. for day to day driving in the US it may well come off and only come on for events and trips.
In the end I decided to let them try again, and with another work trip of about a week coming up they came and grabbed the truck again. (you can also see the chronology of the build b/c the mockup of the rotopax was done with the FR half rack still on, but the pickup for attempting again is with the prospeed).
