BajaTaco

A long overdue mod - I added a really nice map light to the cab. It is a 5W Osram Copilot halogen lamp with an adjustable arm. VERY NICE!! It's wonderfully bright. Now my wife can read on road trips at night, and it doesn't interfere with my vision at all. She had been using a book light, but it was too dim to be ideal. I tapped the wiring at the dome lamp and mounted it to the rear view mirror. I ended up having to get longer screws to tap fully through the moulding cap so that it is mounted really solid. I really like the quality and finish of this light! This is the same light that many police and emergency vehicles use - they come in much longer arm lengths as well. I think I am going to mount a couple of these in the camper too.

rimpainter.com

Hey looks cool! My question is, how on earth does your wife read in the truck? I get totally sick when I read while riding.

BajaTaco

LOL!! Yea, some people can do it and others cannot. I know I can only read for brief periods of time or else my stomach can get queasy too... or I drift into oncoming traffic... JUST KIDDING!

Babypig

So just where'd you pick that up. It looks sweet.

Bob_98SR5

Baja,

After reading your fridge post and now this, what's next for the interior?!?? Your ingeniuty and what you can squeeze inside a Taco cabin ceases to amaze me.

And 96, I'm w/ ya: about a few minutes of reading in a car is all I can take. I always have to be looking forward so I always prefer to drive.

Los Gatos?

I don't get stomach aches, but I get MASSIVE headaches that make me freaking sick. Dramamine makes them go away, it's just because the scenery/you are moving but you're focusing on something that appears stationary...I'm sure you all knew that though

BajaTaco

I found it on Ebay. But there are lots of places on the web that carry them too. Just do a search - I think 4x4 connection was one of the places with better pricing. http://www.4by4connection.com/osharlig.html

Thanks Bob!! Yea, the Taco cabin is pretty tight and when I started out, I was definitely scratching my noggin' trying to figure out where I was going to put stuff. I ended up having to cut and sculpt alot of the guts of the center dash to get that stuff into the bottom area - and I was surprised that a gauge and rocker switch would actually fit on the e-brake panel - LOL! I would love to get one of those gauge pods for the a-pillar someday. SteveS just got one of those and it looks great!

Scottiac

Nice mod!


(But ya know, most planes have at least three radios, so you're still one short! )

"I keep telling you, that thing will never fly!"

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Semi-related question for ya... If you're running purely on battery, how long can you run something like that w/o jeapordizing your starts? I do a lot of camping in my runner, and I like to read at night, but I've been paranoid about using the trucks inside lights for that.

(Yeah, I know someone posted the math for battery run-down, but I'm to darn granite-skulled to figure it out.)

Thanks!

BajaTaco

Good points. (doesn't my MP3/Tuner count as a radio? I just can't TX on it ) For reading in the camper, we have always just used battery powered headlamps, like the ones you use for backpacking. With LED's available now, I think that's the way to go for camper lighting if you only have a regular starting battery for your vehicle. My original plan was to rig up 2 LED lamps like the Petzl Tikka, but on a pivoting base that had a velcro backing, so that they could be positioned anywhere on the carpeted interior of the camper. They provide nice light for reading or other tasks, and the AAA batteries last a long time.

But now that I am getting a 2nd, deep cycle battery, I think I might use these Maplights instead. The halogen light is really nice and they only use 5W, so they will work well with the monster battery that I am getting. The adjustable arms should work well if we want to direct the light into a small area, so if one person wants to sleep while the other reads, it's not a problem. I actually got 4 of these lights, so I need to hook one up and mess around with it in the camper to see where a good place to mount it might be.