Prius V road warrior build

I’ll start with this.

02313E11-7A23-4E28-A0CB-58B35153EEF8 by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 26, 2024 at 7:44 PM

Built out of 3/4” plywood, some hardwood pine, fiberglass filler.and your standard fare home improvement store black utility carpeting.

To get the fit as close as possible, I used a contour gage to make up some patterns out of some old crappy plywood and cardboard. Fitted the patterns together and with some trial and error came up with some templates and transferred it to some decent material for the build.

I built this in two sections. The first section was to have a flat floor. The second section is the cabinet that fits on top of it, using Titebond.

It fits correctly enough to the contours in the car that it doesn’t even need to be fastened, but there’s a power inverter that’s going in it. I used one. Just one. It mounts to a seat belt threaded insert in the vehicle.

 

Victron Energy Phoenix 1200 watt inverter. I chose this for several reasons.

1. Pure sine wave.
2. True 120vac output
3. Maintains true 120 vac output under load
4. Switched on by remote trigger
5. Bluetooth- monitor the inverter via phone/tablet app.
6. Highest efficiency in its class.

External marine socket on the front, with an Isobar inside, all 12 gauge.
2 gauge power and ground to the inverter with 125 amp breaker.
The inverter is mounted to the cabinet floor using 10/32 brass inserts.

8B9AB460-59D2-421C-BD9A-E4C2013A57C1 by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 26, 2024 at 4:07 PM

 

That’s a great question. I suppose I should have stated the purpose of this thing. It replaces the rear passenger side seat with:

1. A place to store things.
2. A place where I can charge batteries for portable tools.
3. To house the inverter.
4. A flat floor from front to back, which also serves as a place to lay down a foam mattress.
5. Provide 120vac up to 10 amps via a marine plug on the front.

more pics to come.

 

The removable lids lock into the cabinet. The bottom of the lids are framed to fit the opening to keep them in place as well as to negate rattleling.

I considered hinging the tops, but Its less aggravating to have them removable. I spaced them enough where they fit snug, but easy to remove.

95BCBAC3-A3B3-4C4D-A215-53902528523F by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 26, 2024 at 4:07 PM

 

The rear of the vehicle has the Prius Offroad coil springs which added about 2.5-3” of lift in the rear. I replaced the shocks with a set of KYB’s for a regular Gen 3 Prius- they’re slightly longer than the Prius V shocks and are a direct fit otherwise.

Airlyft airbags installed.

Kurt 2” hitch with an external4 plug connector- truly plug and play setup. I have a cover for it, however the hitch also serves as a repellent for various Kia, Hyundai and Stellantis/FCA products. I'm on the third bumper cover on the third gen car. I now leave the hitch in that one too.

IMG_0841 by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 27, 2024 at 2:11 PM

 

D744206B-C8A7-46AA-B63D-07F574AA9BAF by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 26, 2024 at 4:07 PM

The office. Rubber floor mats are a must have. Pull them out and hose them. Cable management is also important as having to deal with loose cables or finding them will just pi$$ you off. I don't want to deal with it especially in the middle of the night, if I need to take a meeting, when its raining, when you want to relax, etc..

For you geeks, that's a 13" Dell Lattitude tablet with an i5, 16GB of memory, 16:10 display and a 256GB internal SSD- more than adequate for my needs and doesn't require a lot of power to run it- I'm using it for business, not for World of Warcraft. I also have an IPAD Pro and an IPAD mini that will fit in there as well, but for business stuff on the road, I really need a Windows based machine. I just hotspot it to my phone when away.

IMG_0842 by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 27, 2024 at 2:34 PM

Switched 12v recepticle on the back of the console, on a relay, from the battery.

IMG_0843 by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 27, 2024 at 2:33 PM

External 120vac from the cabinet.

 

The front has the Prius Offroad 2” aluminum spacers. Pirelli P-Zero 255/45R18’s on 18x8 wheels. These were pulls from a late model Mustang and have a slightly more negative offset (5mm outward).

This is probably the tallest and widest tire that wil fit on this vehicle without rubbing, I also removed the inner fender liners for additional clearance.

This vehicle did come with the optional LED headlights and also has the squirters for the headlights.

The turn signal lights are removed from the bumper and relocated into the headlight assembly, using one of the two pairs for the parking lamps.

The driving lights are JDM glass bullets fitted with an H11 headlight LED bulbs. Mounted on some brackets I made up out of aluminum as they are not a direct fit for a Prius V. They still retain adjustment. I also added a relay and a switch as I prefer to use them without the restrictions the original circuit has.

IMG_0844 by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 27, 2024 at 4:26 PM

IMG_0845 by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 27, 2024 at 4:26 PM

IMG_0851 by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 27, 2024 at 5:22 PM

 

I had bought this 2014 Prius V Five for cash "as-is" under my LLC from an estate sale in the summer of 2022. It was a very low mileage one owner vehicle that had meticulous maintenance and service and came with the documentation to prove it. It was also optioned with everything short of "The Technology Package (the glass roof/nav assist package)". However it did have some scars. I spent some money having it spot painted and straightened out by one of the dent doctors in the area (small business owners have a great quid-pro-quo system among themselves). It's now a dent free car and I have gone through pains to keep it that way- black cars especially just look like crap with dings and dents.

The front bumper cover was tore up as well as most of the plastic covers underneath. Both driving lights and turn signal lights were either broken and/or filled with water. The bumper bar was also bent, but fortunately the hood was fine and there was no tweaking of the frame rails. I bought a used aluminum bumper bar off of Ebay.

I bought a new front bumper cover from Toyota and painted it in single stage acrylic urethane using some universal Chevrolet Truck black- and there ain't a speck of dirt in it. I also removed all the plastic skirting and use a Prius Offroad aluminum skid plate in its place. The cover is now retained with only 4 bolts. This works out quite well when encountering those late night armadillos and possums as there is now a lot of flex in the cover. Since it had them originally and I liked them, I also bought a new set of chrome driving light rings and a chrome grill bar to replace the broken ones. In place of the Toyota emblem, I cut a piece of aluminum and wrapped it in carbon fiber to fit in the emblem hole.

The hood had some road rash and some dings. Worked out the dings (fairly easy to do with an aluminum hood, providing you can get to them from the backside) and I wrapped it in carbon fiber wrap. Keeps it from gaining new ones as well.

I also installed a pair of Auxbeam 100 watt CREE LED offroad lights behind the lower grill, drilled and tapped to the rear side of the aluminum bumper bar using brackets I fabricated out of .125" aluminum L channel. Seeing at night through the mountains and on dark rural roads is no problem anymore.

IMG_0849 by Ford Galaxie posted Nov 27, 2024 at 5:22 PM