My urban child hauler/office

Well I figured it was time to start my own build thread so here it begins.....

Bought my 2012 PPV back in late November after my old truck (1988 Dodge Ramcharger) was totaled by an inattentive Electrician decided it was too nice.

First day I brought it home:



Truck never had a cage installed and no holes in the roof. Came with the center jump seat installed too so 2 wins. Milage was higher than I was wanting (187,000) but after a pre purchase inspection it came back in good shape with no problems.

First impressions: love it, it's big and roomy plus it handles great and moves fast. Down side, stock stereo cuts in and out randomly, no third row (I have 4 kids).

Goals are to make a cool family hauler that I can subtly hot rod. Looking forward to documenting my journey and look forward to learning from you all also.

 

If you haven’t already, be sure to take a good look at the front sway bar end links. The bushings on both of mine were shot.

what does your wife think of the ride?

 

So on the way home I heard a "clicking" noise on the passenger side. A little investigation shows me the center wheel covers are not tight. Little research and removing another one show me these "standoffs" are needed.


Well my inner 18 year old thinks "what do I have in my garage that could I could use instead?"

5min later, one of my wife's old curtain rods that she simply couldn't get rid of.


10 min later truck drives quietly and the garage has one less item in it. Win-Win

 

Good problem solving there MacGyver!

If you have my luck, tomorrow your wife will get a wild idea for some
Home decor project and ask you to grab that curtain rod she was saving for just a time like this.

 

Nice, love the white.

I picked mine up with around the same mileage, I am at around 240k now and it has been awesome.

 

She was a little unhappy at first, due to the fact that she wanted a Tahoe before I did and currently drives an Audi Q7 which is officially the car of Satan, it's name is Shawanda. And yes its named well.

She has come around though.

 

I'm lucky enough that she has about another one billion to check through and at worst I'll deal with the crime later.

 

So a week before Christmas one night I come into the bathroom to find my wife in a serious amount of pain. Enough that for once in our 14 years together she agreed to let me take her to the hospital.

To those that haven't experienced the wonders of post -Covid hospitals I'll describe it like this: we might as well have been a gangsters and one of us was wounded in a drive by. Pull up, drop off, drive away or wait in parking garage. Do not pass go, do not collect anything. I only describe this for what happens next.

So there I am sitting in the parking garage for the past 2hrs sprawled across the center bench completely changing my thoughts about a center console as this is pretty damn comfortable. Watching what ever will keep my interest as ADHD is no fun when you have few options to keep occupied.



So something I love about these PPVs is "stealth mode" I like not attracting attention to myself and a blacked out car with quiet exhaust and dark tint appeals to me on all the levels. So as I'm sitting there trying to figure out how much space a ton of bricks would take vs a ton of feathers I notice someone walking through the parking lot. The man in question appeared to be looking for his lost keys, in other people's cars. Just peeking in through the windows and moving to the next car. Seeing the man in obvious need of help I used another great option on most PPVs.... my spot light. After lighting up the car he was looking in he must have found his keys and had been in a hurry to leave because without even a thank you he took off at an impressive rate of speed.

Good dead done for the evening I sat back and thought to myself "I need to get a brighter spotlight to help more people". This picture is from the location of the lost keys, in between the 2 cars, right where the Diet Coke is.

 

I love the description of the "alleged" car burglar....errr, correction, man with missing keys!

 

So in my quest to help more people I started researching spotlight bulb upgrades. My current bulb had definitely seen better decades.



And the clarity was meh in my mind


So as much as I'd like to get a led upgrade the only options I found were waaaayyyy more than I wanted to spend ($100 +). So a little searching in the forum and I found mention of a glass build available on Fleabay for $30. Done and done. Light arrived in a timely fashion well packaged so I jumped into action.

Small torx driver to remove the lock screw and jt was game on. Wiring was straight forward pretty much tab A to tab A, only hurdle was the clocking of the plug in back made getting the wires ,which are short, hard to get back into the housing.

All done


Brightness.....well...

Not much difference to my eyes. The focus appears to be a little tighter but other than that.....well at least it looks better.