🛠️ Member Build Overtrail Upgrades

[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.

 

[Texican]

You've got this!

Modified coat hanger wire with the end hammered flat and thin to purchase that tiny tab.
I don’t work on cars but I do art and woodworking so I’m frequently challenged to create a new tool or part- and solving those puzzles is enjoyable and my prescription to avoid dementia!
Thanks again!
BTW- I appreciate my investment in Beat Sonic. The quality is much most noticeable for me playing Spotify Loseless content compared to Sirius or straight FM.

 

[DUSTTY AZ GX550 OT+]

I finally got around to finishing the mounting points for my Ironman 4x4 shade canopy.

I'm not the kind of guy who needs to drive around town looking like I'm ready for the zombie apocalypse to start any minute, with all sorts of shit strapped to my truck, so there was no way I'm leaving the shade canopy on my truck full-time.

So I bought a pair of these quick-release mounting brackets:
Awning Quick Release Mounting Brackets

They advertise them as mounting the male hook piece on your rack and the female piece on the back of the shade canopy but I didn't want those dorky hooks living full time on my rack. The hooks would also stick up a few inches over the top of my rack which wouldn't let me get in my own garage not to mention parking garages around town. So I simply reversed the male & female parts and mounted the hooks on the canopy and the female part on the side of my roof rack.

The two pieces of the brackets are secured with some large swivel hitch pin clips that go through pre-drilled holes in the male & female parts that line up when mounted, but the Iron-man supplied clips touched the white paint on the truck when inserted so I bought some stainless steel straight-pins and separate cotter pins. The rack is very secure and it doesn't rattle. Surprisingly, I couldn't hear any wind noise even on the highway. I'll have to get some pictures of the shade canopy opened up (or "deployed" as the zombie apocalypse overlanders like to say) on my next camping trip. It's still too damn hot here to open it up just for a picture.

Another problem was where to store this long shade canopy when it's not on the truck? I'd typically just lean it up in a corner of my garage but all the corners are already taken up with useless shit. While looking at it on the truck I thought what would be the easiest way to get it on & off and store it and I realized that the perfect solution was to hang it on the ceiling. So a few big hooks went in and now it's easy to just lower it onto the truck and then lift it back up onto the hooks and the canopy is out of everyone's way. Luckily it clears the garage by about a quarter inch. The zippers actually brush the garage door when it's opening and closing.

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I see how you did it now. Thanks for posting these images. You had the Ironman brackets on for about two years. How are they holding up?

 

[Bluegill]

They are perfectly fine. I've done plenty of offroad trips hundreds of miles) with the awning on the side and also hundreds of highway miles. No signs of cracks. Having 4 brackets means each one is only responsible for 25% of the weight or about 14 lbs (55 lbs total awning weight plus my brackets and hardware). There is tertiary backup built into the design. I'm sure 3 brackets can hold this up just fine. Two would probably be fine. Your 270 awning is probably more like 70 lbs.

Stop by the house this coming week and I'll show you how it's all set up and help you design if you'd like. I'll PM you here or on FB.

 

[Bluegill]

2024-2026 Lexus GX550 Overtrail TriXpoly Micro Flares

Installed the ARK micro-flares a couple days ago and immediately left for a work/camping trip up on the Mogollon Rim in northeast AZ. Very easy & quick install once I got a hold of the directions. The kit ships with a QR code linking to an install video which of course didn't work until the owner of Ark made the video public. Many thanks to Jason with Ark for resolving the video issue. Still, a simple paper instruction inclusion in the package would be easier. I'm all for saving trees but the convoluted QR code link to a 55-minute video (video is for installing all Ark products) where you then have to find your particular install instructions, then have your phone handy on the garage floor while installing, pausing and unpausing the video with dirty hands while you do the installation, dried mud and grit raining down on the phone from the wheel wells as you install, etc. is a pain in the ass. Dealing with the instructions issues took about four times as long as the actual installation. Call me old fashioned and get off my lawn.

At any rate, product is very clever, no drilling on the truck because of the clever design, easy to install, and quality made in the USA (just realized they are made in Phoenix - I could have walked over to pick up instructions and saved time).

The micro flares are just that - micro. I'd recommend the mid flaps or full flaps if you really want good coverage to keep mud and debris off the sides and rear bumper area. The problem with long, rigid flaps is that they will tear away (and mess up the mounting locations) on rocks if you really get up on rocks. Reversing on big rocks with even soft rubber flaps will rip them off too. I bent the hell out of my old Land Rover Discovery rear quarter panels this way.

I just ordered a sheet of 1/8-inch soft rubber and I'll be adding a couple/few inches of lower coverage to the bottom of these micro-flares. Need to find a simple attachment method so it doesn't look stupid.

 

[S SUBERI]

They look great. Nice clean install. I have the OEM flaps and I worry every time I'm going over rocks. How effective are they?

 

[YellowLab]

2024-2026 Lexus GX550 Overtrail TriXpoly Micro Flares

Installed the ARK micro-flares a couple days ago and immediately left for a work/camping trip up on the Mogollon Rim in northeast AZ. Very easy & quick install once I got a hold of the directions. The kit ships with a QR code linking to an install video which of course didn't work until the owner of Ark made the video public. Many thanks to Jason with Ark for resolving the video issue. Still, a simple paper instruction inclusion in the package would be easier. I'm all for saving trees but the convoluted QR code link to a 55-minute video (video is for installing all Ark products) where you then have to find your particular install instructions, then have your phone handy on the garage floor while installing, pausing and unpausing the video with dirty hands while you do the installation, dried mud and grit raining down on the phone from the wheel wells as you install, etc. is a pain in the ass. Dealing with the instructions issues took about four times as long as the actual installation. Call me old fashioned and get off my lawn.

At any rate, product is very clever, no drilling on the truck because of the clever design, easy to install, and quality made in the USA (just realized they are made in Phoenix - I could have walked over to pick up instructions and saved time).

The micro flares are just that - micro. I'd recommend the mid flaps or full flaps if you really want good coverage to keep mud and debris off the sides and rear bumper area. The problem with long, rigid flaps is that they will tear away (and mess up the mounting locations) on rocks if you really get up on rocks. Reversing on big rocks with even soft rubber flaps will rip them off too. I bent the hell out of my old Land Rover Discovery rear quarter panels this way.

I just ordered a sheet of 1/8-inch soft rubber and I'll be adding a couple/few inches of lower coverage to the bottom of these micro-flares. Need to find a simple attachment method so it doesn't look stupid.

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A bit concerned with your level of dirt on the vehicle - you need to rig up an overland car washing system to keep this looking showroom clean at all times.

 

[Bluegill]

The Ryobi leaf blower works wonders for dusty desert camping. I knew this was going to be a wet trip so I didn't bring it along this time. I may rig up a water jet system with a dozen arms extending off the roof rack so that I can push a button and wash while on the go. Like a giant headlight washer nozzle for the whole truck. After every mud puddle, wash on the go. At every stoplight, wash. If a bug hits the windshield on the highway, wash. I'll need to tow a 250-gallon poly water tank on a trailer.

 

[Bluegill]

They look great. Nice clean install. I have the OEM flaps and I worry every time I'm going over rocks. How effective are they?

Well, as you can see here, the fronts still let a lot of stuff fly by. I was hoping to keep debris off the sides of the truck. Clean side steps would also be nice, but the flaps really have to hang low for that. I have plenty of the 1/8-inch rubber on order so I'll experiment with adding length. I'll also be making covers for the rear around the shock tops, kind of like Ark's splash guards.

 

[Bluegill]

For reference, here is my truck with no flaps/flares after a particularly long day offroad in rain and mud (probably 100 miles or so offroad). I imagine I'd have a clean streak with the micro-flares installed. I've learned that a lot of the junk comes up from down low as the tire spins.

 

[Capt CF]

The Ryobi leaf blower works wonders for dusty desert camping. I knew this was going to be a wet trip so I didn't bring it along this time. I may rig up a water jet system with a dozen arms extending off the roof rack so that I can push a button and wash while on the go. Like a giant headlight washer nozzle for the whole truck. After every mud puddle, wash on the go. At every stoplight, wash. If a bug hits the windshield on the highway, wash. I'll need to tow a 250-gallon poly water tank on a trailer.

lol.. I gave up on mine too. I have a few miles of dirt/gravel to get from my house to a paved road and my driveway is dirt/gravel and about a half mile long. One trip up the driveway to haul the trashcans and my freshly washed/waxed truck looks like I raced Dakar (if dry) or is covered with mud if it has rained. I do the leaf blower trick (keep a battery powered dewalt in the garage) to blow off the Dakar dust, but that's more to keep it from piling up in my garage than to keep the truck clean.

 

[Bluegill]

Finally made time to have the Icon rear links installed. I started this job in my garage back when I did the Dr. KDSS rear track bar relocation kit in late June but I quickly realized that I couldn't get all the bolts for the rear lower and upper links loose with wrenches and I couldn't fit my impact gun on some of the bolts. I also wouldn't have been able to get my torque wrench on a few of the bolts for reassembly. The final straw is that it's hot as *#@$ here right now and lying on the garage floor is horrid even at 6:00 AM.

I originally took the GX to a nearby off-road shop on July 1 for the install but they called me with problems (links are too long and I need all sorts of sensor recalibration) and I quickly realized they had no idea what they were doing. I said, "Gimme that back!" and picked up the GX.

I took the truck to Westcott Designs yesterday and had them install the Icon rear links. Also had them adjust the front King coil-overs to lift the front up another inch to better match the rear. My rear rose up a bit over an inch after I installed the Dobinsons heavy duty springs in the rear. Finally, had them give it another alignment. As I was picking up the truck and paying the bill, Westcott advised me that I have 500-lb King springs in the front coil-overs and I should have 600-lb springs to help with the front bumper and winch. That information would have been really helpful before they started this job. Now if I want to switch to the 600-lb springs, I get to pay them to do the job again. Funny how that works.

Everything feels nice & tight now, tracks incredibly straight. Heading on an off-road trip at end of August/beginning of September and I'll exercise these new rear links. Articulation should improve.

Here are the parts, I ordered from Suspension House:

Rear lower links (trailing arms):

ICON 2024+ Toyota Land Cruiser 250 Series/Lexus GX550 Tubular Rear Low.

Rear upper links:

ICON 22-23 Tundra / 2023+ Sequoia/Tacoma Tubular Rear Upper Link Kit.

Note that you also need this sensor bracket to bolt onto the passenger-side rear upper link (circled in red in one of my pics):

ICON 2024-2025 Toyota Land Cruiser 250 Series/2024-2026 Lexus GX550, R