MTMan's 2022 F-150 Lariat Adventure Truck

[MTMan]

First spring wash

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[Aonarch]

Looking good!

 

[MTMan]

So, trucks in the shop for requiring a double press of the start button to engage the starter intermittently. Anyone seen this before?

 

[MTMan]

Got the truck back after a week and a half. They had 4 techs out sick it sounded like and were able to replicate it one time but not when they were connected to Ford engineering.

 

[MTMan]

Getting ready for some adventures. Installed a solar rack.

 

[Blown F-150]

That’s sweet! 200w?

 

[MTMan]

Yes. Planning on building a lithium battery box to run my fridge, etc.

 

[Blown F-150]

That should work pretty darn good. I decided to try out one of those “battery generators” this year. I have a feeling it will be good enough for one or two nights and that’s about it.

 

[HammaMan]

Getting ready for some adventures. Installed a solar rack.

Careful if those panels end up level. They can retain water and that's been known to cause panel failure as they generate power while water can slowly make its way in. I don't ever recall seeing an edged panel such as that being able to be level mounted -- best double check this.

If I were to try and alleviate the issue, I'd make a corner, not an edge, the lowest point thus limiting the total amount of water that can accumulate.

 

[MTMan]

Thanks for the tip. I'm learning from scratch as I go so big learning curve here. Fortunately, I'm in a low rain environment.

Hopefully the box will come soon. Amazon was out so I ordered from an eBay seller but the first shipment didn't arrive like tracking said. The second one came and was the wrong one (too small) so back to the drawing board. I scored some Black Friday deals for this build I'm finally getting around to assembling. I have a 100 ah group 24 that I'm going to pair with the Renogy 50A Solar Charger MPPT and a 4000W Power Inverter. The inverter is way overkill right now but leaves room to grow into down the road and should be built with beefier electronics for reliability.

 

[MTMan]

Well, I wasn’t able to get the battery box in time so I decided to build a simple set up mounting everything on a piece of plywood that I put in the corner of the bed for now. I used some 12 gauge landscaping wire that I had to run it through the bed down to the frame and over Into the cab in a rubber plug I found under the factory power inverter. Wasn’t sure what the factory inverter bolt torque was, but in my experience a 6 mm bolt has usually been around 54 inch pounds.

 

[Blown F-150]

Nice clean install!

 

[MTMan]

Then it was time to make a heater inlet for the smartcap.

 

[MTMan]

And the adventure begins…

 

[Blown F-150]

You gotta let me know if you are in the area so we can go grab a coffee!

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