So, here are my current tweaks. Haven't started my interior buildout yet. Have posted most of this elsewhere, just copying here to hopefully attract more Tune Owners and builders
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This is a thread to centralize my tweaks work on 2021 Tacoma OffRoad 6ft bed, with a Tune M1 popup Camper. Hard to find right spot for bed prep for camper, and various electrical, so just gonna centralise here. Figure it will be more helpful for other popup canopy or wedge camper folks to see all the mods in one place.
I have a 98 Tacoma 4x4 OffRoad that I drove more, so only 11k miles on my Oct 21 Tacoma. So all is in great shape.
Pickup Bed Preparation
First, before having the Tune camper installed in Jan24, I did the following preparations to the pickup bed:
1. Removed bed rail caps on sides, to seal up all the 20 holes underneath. These are plastic and just popoff with a screwdriver. I placed a strip of 2" aluminum tape down over all the holes, whole length. Then I ran a bead of sikaflex on both sides of plastic rail cap. Then reinstalled, pressing the locking tabs down thru the aluminum tape, and tapping with rubber mallet.
2. Removed bed front rail cap, ran bead of sikaflex on fiberglass bed top amd the rail cap, reinstalled. All water running down the cab face of a camper shell would just run right in there, without this. There is no seal at all, it really needs it here.
3. Plugged top corners where side amd cab bedrails meet, with butyl tape. Two half inch by 1 inch gaps there.
4. Installed Rok Blok tailgate bed seal, and also the side tailgate seal from same company, ESI.
5. Installed bed stiffeners from Total Chaos. Pretty expensive, other companies make for $40 and would work, but the TC ones don't blick slide out drawers as much.
6. Installed Pop And Lock tailgate keyfob locking mechanism. Big help getting into camper amd locking or unlocking at night!
Here is a video I made showing so.e of the prep.
Drilling Holes in fiberglass bed for Diesel Heater
I did this before camper install too, figured it was easier to blow out any fiberglass dust then. I decided to i stall heater inside bed, the way it was engineered by Eberspacher to be installed and as directed in their 98 page install manual. But mostly done incorrectly by Chinese diesel heater purchasers. I positioned it against front cab wall, passenger side. There is a nice open area near muffler that lets you drill through and have your diesel exhaust go right out near car muffler. I drilled two 1.5" holes using a hole saw. Bed is solid, but easy to drill through. I then wrapped the intake and exhaust tubes with fiberglass motorcycle muffler wrap, to deal with any heat near pickup bed, and taped it all on with aluminum tape for gas water heater exhaust ducting. Then I sealed the tubes through the holes with same tape, so no airflow possible. This pisition has worked well. Only issue is the diesel heater tank has terrible lid seal, and leaked when sloshing about. So I will be moving the diesel tank outside, under the car between gas tank and muffler. Or maybe in gap between fender and fiberglass bed. Here is a video I made showing heatee install.
DC Fuseblock for 12v Camper Electrical
The best practice for electrical for a truck canopy camper, is to run 12v DC power to a fuseblock, then supply all your loads from the fuseblock, with correctly sized wires running to each one depending on watts and amps used. This lets you have a fuse for each load, correctly sized to protect the wire to the load as you're supposed to. You can also size fuse smaller to orotect whatever the load is too, so long as the wire is sized to allow the max current that device will pull, and the fuse is 125% of that. Especially in a mobile setup, a truck camper, you will get lits of wire movement and chafing, asn also wire connection movement, which both lead to shorts or hot connections. Which lead to fires and your car burning down. So a properly planned out fuseblock is key.
Before my install, I bought a BlueSea dc fuseblock with 12 fused connections, and the proper size ATO blade fuses, and correct gauge wires, for all my expected loads. Then I crimped connectors to wires, and had everything ready so I could screw it in place on rails when camper was installed, and hook up the lights, maxxair fan, diesel heater, heating blanket socket, and USB ports for phones and laptops in bed or pickup bed.
Here is a video of my dc fuseblock preparations.
I will add more on the camper install, power station setup to power everything, insulating the camper, charging power station from the Tacoma truckbed inverter, 400W Anytime install, etc. As well as some camping use!
