🛠️ Member Build Overtrail Upgrades (1 Viewer)

[Texican]

Installed the Beatsonic amp for my base Overtrail stereo (not the ML stereo).

Beat-Sonic Encore Sigma Plug and Play Amplifier Kit for Lexus GX550

It was a royal pain in the ass. Not because of Beatsonic and their stellar product, but because of the tight spaces, sharp corners & pieces everywhere, stubborn clips, etc. This reminds me why I hate car stereo work. In fact, the last time I personally installed car stereo equipment was in 1988 when someone smashed the driver's window and stole the stock Clarion head unit out of my Suzuki Samurai. I installed a $32 Sparkomatic AM/FM/cassette deck head unit from Kmart along with 2 detachable speakers from my boom box. The stock front speakers were re-used (not stolen) and I added the 2 rear boom box speakers for that full, rich, auditorium Sparkomatic sound that we all crave. The rear speakers were secured with duct tape. My apologies, I digress.

The Beatsonic product was very well packaged and clearly professionally made. Much higher quality than I expected. Directions were easily found online, although the directions make it look like a walk in the park and reality was a bit less enjoyable.

First step, undo all seat bolts and tilt that seat way back. Pull the door sill trim and pull up the carpet. Get rid of the evil sharp staples that get yanked out of the carpet or they will cut you. I just clipped them back with a wire cutter.
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My fat fingers couldn't press the black locking mechanism button to release the stock Lexus plug that is plugged into the stock amplifier so I used a tent stake to reach in and press the button and then I jammed my hand in and was able to yank back the clip. Then it took an act of God to back the actual plug out of the amp - there are other wires & clips in the way that prevent the main clip from backing out. I just pushed the other clips forward to make some room.
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The instruction video show a nice bit of generous wiring lead on this clip so you can pull it out and have some room and a pleasant experience plugging in the Beatsonic main secured clip, but they must have been short on wiring when they built my truck because I had no room to pull out the clip, I had only a fraction of an inch of room to move the clip around. Then I could not, for the life of me, get the black security clip to snap home. It eventually happened but I left some scraps of flesh and blood under there.
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To insert the Beatsonic plug back into the stock Lexus amp, I got smart and jammed a full beer can and a seat belt extender under there to make some room. The step immediately after was the best step in the whole process because it involved popping open the beer can.
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The rest of the job was easy. Route all the wires through the second carpet opening per the instructions, I set all the Beatsonic gains at 1 tick from all the way up, plug in the Beat Box, bring the protective sheath all the way up, secure it with a small zip-tie, shove the Beat Box back onto the rear floor, move to the rear door. I also used small zip ties to secure the loose wires where the sheath didn't cover to keep them manageable. You have stuff and coil a lot of wiring under the carpet between the stock amp and the second carpet opening.
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Then I tilted the seat forward, removed the headrest, and used the seat back tilt feature to stuff the top of the seat back up into the headliner by the sun visor. This held the seat in a forward-tilt position. Then I sat in the back seat and the mounting the Beat Box was pretty simple. First I removed the elastic holding down the mouse fur carpet covering the bottom of the front seat, fold the carpet up and tuck it into the seat back pocket. I got extremely frustrated trying to blindly unsecure the elastic before I decided to tilt the seat forward so I could see what I was doing.
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Then I used some heavy duty XL zip-ties I had on my workbench to secure the Beat Box up & under the seat.
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Then fold the mouse fur carpet back down but I've covered the original securing clips so I just pulled the elastic strap down and around the seat springs to hold it in place.
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When I started my truck after finishing the install, I wondered what kind of drunken savage had left the volume absolutely blasting. The volume was set at #25 and it was soooo much louder than before. I turned it down to about 12. Previously, having the volume at 12 meant you could barely hear it. Not only is it louder, it is so much clearer and so full of body, like Pamela Anderson in the early 90s.

I haven't driven the truck yet with the Beat Box rockin', but I will tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Now all I need is a tape deck add-on and I'll be cool again.

I’m on here today looking for a reason to keep trying to install the Pissed Off Plug and Play Beatsonic amp, due to the connector locking latch challenge. Thank you for the tent stake suggestion!
My fat fingers are swollen from trying brute force to no avail.
Wish me well- I’m going back under.

 

[YellowLab]

I’m on here today looking for a reason to keep trying to install the Pissed Off Plug and Play Beatsonic amp, due to the connector locking latch challenge. Thank you for the tent stake suggestion!
My fat fingers are swollen from trying brute force to no avail.
Wish me well- I’m going back under.

Go Gladiator, go!

 

[Earth]

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there!

Yesterday I crawled back under Junior to install the Dr. KDSS track bar (aka panhard bar) and track bar correction kit.

Dr. KDSS Track bar:
Dr. KDSS Track Bar

Dr. KDSS Bolt On Trackbar Correction Kit (BOTCK):
B.O.T.C.K - Bolt On TrackBar Correction kit Land Cruiser 250, GX550 and 6th Gen4runner

This is some really nice hardware, very well made.

In the following photo you can see my stock track bar sitting at a pretty good angle. The axle mount on the right hand side measured 16.25 inches from the ground and the frame mount on the left measured 21.25 inches, for a difference of 5 inches. I put a red line from bolt center to bolt center and you can see the high angle of the track bar - it should be as close to level as possible.
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If you are only installing the correction kit, you have to loosen the frame side bolt to let the stock track bar relax. I'm replacing the bar so I removed the bolt entirely. There is a free (not captive) nut on the back side.
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Here is the stock track bar removed and compared to the Dr. KDSS track bar - it arrived from the good doctor nearly perfectly sized - maybe 1 mm longer eye to eye.
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Here are the BOTCK parts - I grabbed this screen shot from Dr. KDSS' install video as I forgot to get a good pic of the parts. Here is also a link to his install video.
Install Video
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The red rectangle on the left is simply a threaded plate for the bottom bolt to anchor into to secure the bottom of the "Main Front Bracket." The red "Back Bracket" in the foreground is a really ingenious part that makes this whole kit work - the long cylinder takes the place of the stock track bar eye location and you re-install the stock track bar anchor bolt through this whole (the backside on the stock truck's bracket has a captive nut). Kind of hard to explain but it makes sense as it all comes together. Then the Main Front Bracket sandwiches the stock mount on 3 sides and the upper bolt hole is the new hole that you bolt the old or new track bar into, thus lifting the trackbar mounting location but keeping the whole structure rigid and strong.

In the photo below, I've slid the rectangle anchor plate in the proper slot (white arrow) and the Back Bracket (red arrow) is loosely set in place. I already loosely installed the Dr. KDSS track bar on the frame mount on the driver's side and I held it up out of the way with a bungee cord. I figured it would be easier to anchor the track bar in the frame mount and then the kit would have a little play in it so I could jiggle it all into alignment on the axle mount side. This proved to be the way to go as it was a bit difficult to line up the eye of the track bar to the rear hole on the Back Bracket. I ended up doing it out of order and getting the new track bar mounting bolt all the way through the new track bar, then jiggling the whole setup as I got the stock bolt into the stock hole location, then got the bottom and side bolts lined up. I then went from bolt to bolt, turning them each about a half dozen turns at a time until they were somewhat tight.
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Then it's time to torque everything down. The directions call for 105 lb-ft on the stock bolts (frame mount bolt and original axle mount bolt) and 120-125 lb-ft on the grade 8 Dr. KDSS bolts. Of course I got into an arm wrestling competition (both arms) with a buddy Friday afternoon after a few beers at our local watering hole and my arms and shoulders were already killing me before I started this job Saturday morning. It was all I could do to brace my feet on various parts of the truck and pull/push 105 & 121 lb-ft on these damn bolts. Now I can barely type this here on Sunday. Good times.
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The finished product - note the angle of the new track bar.
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I then half-heartedly started to work on installing my new Icon rear upper & lower links. I can see all 8 nuts & bolts (1 each end of the 2 upper & 2 lower links) but it's a bit tight, especially the upper links. Then I realized that I couldn't get my impact gun on most of the bolts, just not enough room, and I can't really get a breaker bar in there either, not to mention a torque wrench to get the bolts back to 90-100+ lb-ft. The truck really need to be up on a lift. Besides, it was already over 100 degrees in my garage and my arms were killing me. I'll leave the rear link install to a shop.

Nice work with this. I have a similar kit on the 4runner but I could reuse the stock track bar. Does the GX require both?

 

[Bluegill]

I’m on here today looking for a reason to keep trying to install the Pissed Off Plug and Play Beatsonic amp, due to the connector locking latch challenge. Thank you for the tent stake suggestion!
My fat fingers are swollen from trying brute force to no avail.
Wish me well- I’m going back under.

You've got this!

 

[Bluegill]

Nice work with this. I have a similar kit on the 4runner but I could reuse the stock track bar. Does the GX require both?

I doubt I needed the new track bar....but as long I was under there....

I do like the adjustability of all these parts. I just may end up going for 37" tires someday.