After bringing the truck home from Utah I started compiling a list of upgrades and improvements I wanted to make. While I feel capable of doing some work myself, I knew I would need a shop that could help me in building out the truck. In addition, I wanted someone with offroad experience that could advise me and tell me where I am wrong and why and guide me to make the right decisions.
I started my research and expected that I would have to go down to San Diego or maybe go up to Los Angeles to find the right offroad shop, but it turned out that there was a great offroad shop right here in Vista not too far from where I live.
Basil’s Garage is local to me and I really liked the fact that if these guys would turn out to be the trusted partner I was looking for that it would make my life significantly easier. I had a few quiet days at work and decided to just go for it and visit Basil and his team unannounced.
I was impressed
Google had some difficulties guiding me to Basil’s Garage, but in the end, I made it. I arrived at their location and had to wait for a few minutes. Basil, the man himself was just finishing up a phone call and then gave me a tour of his shop. The shop was clean and well organized. They were working on a few different things, but it all looked just right. I had spent a lot of time in online forums and on YouTube to educate myself and so Basil and I had a really good conversation about my future plans for my truck.
We decided that adding an air compressor system to the truck would be a great first step to allow me to go offroading. If you are not familiar with the idea, in most cases you want to air down your tires when going offroad to soften the ride, but also to reduce potential damage to your tires. A couple of days later I signed the work order and paid for the equipment to be ordered. Unfortunately, it would take almost 4 weeks before Basil had an opening for me on the calendar.
Shortly after Labor Day, I dropped off my truck for the installation. Basil had recommended an ARB Dual Air Compressor, a compressor tank, and a Switch-Pros 9100 Switch Panel Power System because my truck did not have the factory upfitter switches. The Switch-Pros 9100 system would address this problem and give me a total of 8 power switches (with one reserved for the air compressor of course). Basil recommended installing the compressor and tank above the spare tire and I felt that was the right thing to do as I had seen another installation by someone on YouTube doing exactly the same thing. Due to a wrong part being shipped, the installation took a little bit longer than planned and carried over into the next day. But Basil was very open with communicating this and it was not a big deal at all.
When I picked up the truck the following day the team walked me through how to use the compressor and showed me where the Switch-Pros engine compartment unit was and where they had installed the actual switches inside the cab. Everything looked and worked great and I was very impressed with the quality of the work and everything.
We discussed future upgrades for the truck for a bit more before I head off back home. A few days later I would head out on my first offroading day trip to test out deflating the tires and using the compressor to reinflate them at the end of the trip.