Photon (The Light Hunter) Build Thread

All work and no play makes Photon one unhappy girl so I took her out for a little drive in the woods...

Up here in the mountains the remaining snow level has now risen well above 6000' and with Trout season about to open this next coming weekend it was an opportunity to check and see if any of the forest service roads were open...been hankering for a trail ride ever since missing last fall's opportunities to hit some of the trails around here.

This trail ride would be an official 'break in' run with the new rear bumper as well as to test how far I could load up the factory Fox suspension, one last time. Given that these shocks have just over 51,000 miles on them they still performed wonderfully.

Where the pavement ends...


Hit some trails with varied terrain from sandy/dust tracks and spying some abandoned mining camps.



Finding a neat camping spot...


This old bridge runs below a dam's spillway, sad that the 'spring runoff' hasn't been that great so no waterfall action here.


Then onto some class 2-3 sections of rocky-loamy soil with off camber pitches.



I'll have to check the dash cam to see if it recorded this one kinda hairy situation when I attempted to turn around on this hill to get this pic...

Out of the forest but not after Photon (whom sometimes thinks she's a dog) puts her nose between the Sugar Pines up here.


And back onto the main highway and to stop at one of my favorite vistas...hard to believe but not two weeks ago there was snow along that far ridge.


Time for a bath! But not after admiring how Photon would look with a Desert Tan paint scheme!

 

sorry if this has been discussed - what antenna is that or what is it for?

 

It’s a Bolton Technical Blade XL antenna for my Velocity signal booster.

I use this setup so I can run onX in most areas…except down in this one canyon up here!

 

does it work well?

 

So far my results have been mixed…signal boosters work their best in open territories like down in the Mojave region around Ward Valley vs in steep canyons here in gold country. Seems one can get cell signal easy enough along major thoroughfares nowadays, much better than 10-15 years ago.

 

Is that signal booster something like this? https://www.weboost.com/products/drive-reach-overland <----I was thinking of buying this

 

Yes! Same functionality/purpose. I just prefer the slimmer antenna profile over the weboost’s design….hey, every bit of drag counts!

 

Vehicle Suspension - Going Down Under

I had mulled over this next phase of Photon's build for two years now and in the process I took an intermediary step up from factory grade (Fox shocks/OEM springs) to installing Eibach's dedicated Pro Lift springset, a very important aspect of these shocks and why Eibach's approach was a modest amount of lift can be discerned from this Toyota article. While this was, to me, an excellent upgrade path it only served its purpose with Photon loaded up with 300 lbs, give or take 50 lbs, of add-ons/gear combined. What I discovered later on after adding a steel rear bumper, Photon's additional fixed weight additions came to just under 400 lbs. Yikes!

The Eibach springset seemed to handle the additional weight but sagging was apparent, around - 0.5" in the front and over 1" in the rear...the disparity due to the total weight distribution. On-road handling became much softer which let me know that the Fox shocks were also a bit out of their league. With upcoming trips planned and with Photon carrying even more cargo I had to follow up with a more significant suspension upgrade.

So, after doing much research and conversing with Jessie at Stellar Built in Sacramento, CA we zeroed in on a 2"-3" lift (spec'd to 2")


The specifics of this lift consists of Fox 2.5 Performance Elite DSC coilovers and Dobinson springs (C59-327B) and Billet UCAs. The UCA upgrade was required for clearance around the new 2.5 coilovers but I suspect anyone going to just 2.0 may not need to do this (and save a few $$$.)

It was more a convention of me not wanting to mess around with a UCA installation and having to drive on a whacked out alignment to get Photon trimmed up so I elected to have Stellar do the install and alignment. So here's Photon getting her shoes removed and initially prepped for the new bits and pieces.


All of the Fox shocks will be rebuilt.


The new coilovers going in!


Now here's an interesting item to note, since the lift is a bit more than modest there are a few considerations as to what happens to the overall front end geometry. I elected NOT to get a diff drop however instead of upgrading the sway bar links to adjustables it worked out that the front coilover reservoir mounts just so happens to lower the swaybar just enough. Here you can see the clamp has been removed in preparation for the installation of the reservoir mount/spacer.


Ater the shocks, reservoirs and the UCAs were all installed Photon was kindly given her shoes back and off to the alignment rack she went.
Egads, she almost looks like she received a 3" lift! what have I done?


I'll have to follow up with a before/after photo once I get her all cleaned up!

 

May 21, 2025 On-Board Air - Nearing Final Destination.

First came musical chairs with this damn compressor. Now that I have its final location nailed down it seems that I'm forever working on ways to make improvements. This latest round involves converting this from a pseudo-permanent installation to one that's readily removable...without using tools of any kind. This will serve two purposes, to have on-board air but to also make the compressor available for remote use away from the vehicle (sans carrying a looooong air hose.)

To make this work required me to modify not just the wiring but also the mounting scheme...which took additional iterations to get the fit just right.

First step was to convert the electrical from a hard-wired, unswitched (local) power feed downstream of the circuit breaker but to one that included the factory power switch on the compressor assembly. Then I needed to completely re-work the factory wiring harness since it includes unnecessary wiring for two solenoids (used for air-lockers) and additional (unnecessary) switches. ARB had someone use literally an entire roll of electrical tape to wrap up the harness, WHAT A PITA to deal with!



Once I got all of the harness run un-bundled it was a simple matter of separating out the unnecessary wires and connectors/connections. Just look at that little pile!


Once I got all of the local compressor connections established (pressure and local On/Off switches) all that remained for wiring was the main power leads and a local hot/gnd for the relay enable and switch backlight leading out from the assembly. For connectors I chose a 2-pole Anderson style for the motor supply leads and a 2-pole Deutsch style for the small signal pair.


Final installation will have to wait until I'm able to reconfigure the battery terminal arrangement, do some wiring clean up around Photon's main fuse box and add an ANL fuse block to the winch main power wiring.

 

Realizing I’m about three months behind… still got that thang? Want to re-home it?

 

June 13/16 2025: Battery Terminal Upgrade and Electrical Safety

So before I go and make a new mess of the (temporarily) cleaned up power wiring and knowing full well that there will be additional battery connections in the future I decided it would be a wise idea to change out the factory battery terminals for these from SDHQ. It was a very simple process and took less than 20 minutes...would have been less but I needed to remake the primary winch supply cable.

I simply unbolted the fuse block from the OEM positive terminal and installed it onto the SDHQ "+" terminal and transfer over the two ground tabs to the new SDHQ "-" terminal and install onto the vehicle's battery, nothing could be simpler and now I have multiple tap locations on each terminal. You can see the positive winch lead is tucked under that (positive) terminal's protective cover.


Next change (about a week later) was to add in an ANL fuse block to the winch feed. The fuse block I used had a rather large gap between the clear protective cover and the base of the fuse block, leaving a rather large portion of the sides unprotected.




So, I 3D printed up a 'skirt' to prevent any accidental contact with those terminals (should I drop a screwdriver or something conductive between it and some grounded surface!). Also, I fabricated two 'jumpers' from 4 AWG multi-strand copper (not copper coated aluminum!)


Located a spot on the side fender wall, installed two rivnuts and voila! I'll probably go back and re-route that positive cable off the top of the battery as well as the relay cable bundle that's sitting on the top edge of the winch cut-off switch.


For now, I'm satisfied with this effort.

 

Sorry to say but I've already gave that away at a local get-together/swap meet!

 

Rats. Thanks for responding, though!

 

June 23, 2025 Something Cool to Drink, Please.

So for a couple of years now I have just tossed my fridge into the back of Photon, securing it with just piled up supplies and gear. It was time to make things a bit more convenient by installing a Fridge Slide-out. So like any project out came the clipboard, paper, pen and tape measure, makes some initial measurements and begin the process. Seems simple enough, I could elect to mount the slide directly to the bottom of the body or, like many, use a platform of some kind. I elected to use a piece of 19/32 ply sheathing that I had laying around. I made up several spacers made from a 1x4 pine plank and 1/2" ply sandwiched together which brought the top of the ply deck to the perfect height matching the pre-existing carpeting height.



Here I took measurements of the two forward cargo tie down anchor posts as the tops of these needed to be flush with the top of the new plywood deck.


And the spacer blocks...


Initially I planned on securing the decking at six points, two groups of three. One group is on the crossmember seen at the top of the preceding image and the next three where the spacer blocks are. For those positions I went underneath and drilled at locations that were close to symmetric and clear away from any surrounding obstructions. It was then an easy process to match drill the clearance holes in the decking to match.

Don't forget to seal off those newly drilled holes against rust! Made a simple paint mask from a scrap piece of wood and a 1" Forstner bit. The underside I just sprayed on liberally.


Added some sound deadening material while I had everything opened up. Then installed the spacer blocks and decking.


Located the OEM carpet and installed the slide, done. An easy afternoon project!

 

July 7/8 2025 On-Board Air, I'm over it.

This had to of been the longest mod/project on Photon to date...but that's what happens when I want to do things a bit 'out of the box' and my ADHD (and OCD!) just won't let me be satisfied until I've thoroughly beaten a notion to a pulp. So last month I began the prep work for what I hope will be the final time I mess around with this mod. Now that I have the main electrical all cleaned up (and properly fused) I focused on two simple steps; 1. Re-install the damn compressor assembly into its little nook and 2. Route the wiring. Simple. Yeah, that is until you discover that your wiring is a little short, have run out of 4 AWG and 12 AWG wiring in addition to appropriately sized butt splices. So I temporarily tied off the incomplete wiring, drove to the electrical supply house for the needed items, drive back and get back to things. Sure, that is until I also later discover that I'm out of 8-10 AWG lugs so once again, temporarily close things up, drive to/from to buy lugs then get back to it. I was ready to call it a day.

If it weren't for the delays I actually enjoy wiring, there's something therapeutic about measuring and routing, crimping terminals, splices and lugs and just making things look as tidy as possible. So despite the musical chairs, multiple mounting plate designs and one awful mis-measurement that cost me a few weeks of design and building I'm finally done!




Just a few more cables to tidy up...

 

Took Photon out for a short (unimproved dirt) trail ride earlier this morning, nice to see the canyon I once did a great deal of hiking and fishing in.


Once I got to the trailhead I had the opportunity to play around with various DSC settings on the 2.5s but did not air down just so I could get a feel for how well the new shocks/springs functions. Tires were at 40 psi and I could tell that! Dialed the 'High-Speed' settings all the way down and man did that help smoothen out the corrugations...*Note to self: TR 1-2 trails I can get away with 1-2 on the 'Low Speed' setting, "...floats like a butterfly"!

Next up I exercised the 4WD systems. 4H, 4L, A-Trac, MTS, HAC, CRAWL...cycled the rear locking diff too.


All systems go, that is until I ran into a...


I stopped then slowly approached but the Steer was not having it! It walked onto the trail and stared me down.

I had no recourse but to back up and turn around...went the way I came in!

 

Some 50 miles from the last trail location and yet what is with all the cows up here!?? At least I got past crew.


Last time I was up this way this part of the trail was not paved! Now we're talking...


it's a little chunkier than I remember...



Got in a small creek crossing...earlier in the spring this can be up to 1' or so deep.


Making good use of the signal booster up here! Sent this pic to the 4Runners Live earlier.


And from the 'high point' of this trail, almost 9000'. Can see a good +50 miles of the Sierra Mountain range from here!