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6. Roof Rack
- Gobi Ladder
I think the very first mod I ever made to the truck was to get the
Gobi rear door ladder. I may have said earlier that it was the front bumper that came first, but that isn't true. I got the ladder somewhat as bling, cause I thought it looked cool. As it turns out, even though the rungs are very narrow, I use the ladder every time I put stuff up on the roof or take it off. It turned out to be very useful, thereby de-blinging itself. This comes under "roof rack" as I only use it to access my roof rack
.
IMAGE-> Labeled picture of the rear of the roof rack with various parts and mounts.
- Demello HiLift Jack Clamps
I looked at many threads on many forums when trying to figure out how to mount the various large tools I wanted to bring on trips. Very early on, I read about the
Demello HiLift Jack Clamps, and bought a set. These end up being really nice clamps (they come in two pieces that mount around the roof rack bar and that you bolt together with allen bolts) - I have them mounted on the lower, rear part of the roof rack. Since the HiLift is so heavy, I have it most easily accessible. The clamps use nice, large winged nuts to hold the Lift on the bolts. Despite vigorous shaking, I've never managed to even slightly loosen the wing nuts while wheeling, and the nightmare fear of dropping the jack off the back of the truck on the freeway is receding... The clamps are biased to the left driver side of the vehicle, since I chose to put the heaviest part of the jack nearest the ladder (the weight of the jack base means that the centre of mass is way over to the baseside of the jack - rather than being at the half way point along the jack length).
IMAGE-> Close up of the shovel, axe, HiLift, and jerry can mounting rings.
- FourTreks Shovel and Axe Mounts
For the shovel and axe, I ended up going with the
FourTreks dual tool mount. These have nice
Quick Fist rubber clamps located on rings that allen-bolt around the roof rack bar. It's really easy to lock and unlock the tools into these rubber clamp mounts. I have this tool on the upper bar, and the axe and shovel get locked in after the HiLift has been locked on.
IMAGE-> The HiLift and tools on the stock roof rack.
- Jerry Cans and Roof Mounting
I also ended up using
FourTreks rings to mount my
Blitz jerry can carriers to the roof rack. I had read about the dangers of horizontal fuel can storage, but after experimenting with
Scepter NATO plastic fuel cans, I've become somewhat more comfortable with it. We'll see if at some point I don't leak petrol all over my roof. Not so much as a drop so far. I have two jerry can carriers, which I sometimes use for two fuel cans, and sometimes for one fuel and one water can. The water can does leak, but who cares? It's water.
IMAGE-> More of the tool storage.
When all the tools are loaded, and the shovel head rotated properly, this setup keeps the tools from rubbing on each other and vibrating. It's very quiet. The only problem is that unloaded, the fuel can bases stick up from the roof like two huge air brakes. Probably really hurts fuel efficiency. This leads to the need for an air dam.
IMAGE-> Top view down onto loaded roof rack.
- What Would I Do Differently if I Were Starting From Scratch?
Having started down the path of adding mounts, etc. to the stock roof rack, I decided that I didn't want to give up and replace it completely with an aftermarket solution like
e.g. a
Gobi. If I were to start again from scratch, I might not have bought the stock roof rack with the truck - but I barely knew what I was doing when I bought it (would also likely not have bought the stock skid plate).
- Garvin Basket for Roof Rack
There are aspects of the stock roof rack that I like, but the front half seems nearly useless in stock form for actually storing stuff on the roof. In order to make more useable space up front, I decided to add a
Garvin "Adventure Rack". This has the advantage of coming with a pseudo-airdam on the front, plus this dam sits far enough back that I can fit it behind my light bar and lights. The Garvin hangs on brackets that grip the stock roof rack rails.
IMAGE-> The pseudo-airdam on the Garvin sits nicely behind the old Manik light bar (just as well behind my new Cowboy4x4 bar).
IMAGE-> Lots of room for stuff on the roof - and nice match to Cowboy4x4 light bar.
7. Lights
- Bumper-Mounted Driving and Fog Lights
Having been stranded a couple of times out on trails too late, I decided to get some more lights. The first part of this came with the ARB front bumper. I had fog lights installed in the bumper, and two
Hella driving lights added in the center, flanking the winch control box.
IMAGE-> Front of FJC with the fog lights inset in bumper, and two Hella driving lights in center.
The driving and fog lights are controlled by factory fog light switches on the left side (top and bottom) of the center console switch panel (see photo, below).
IMAGE-> Center console, gear sticks, and switch panel. Bumper fog and driving lights are controlled by two factory fog light switches on left of switch panel.
- (old) Manik Front Roof Light Bar with Hella Driving Lights
Up top, I used to have have a
Manik Light Bar attached to the front of the roof rack. Four additional
Hella driving lights sit up on there.
IMAGE-> Hella driving lights mounted on a Manik light bar. Three of four lights sport the white Hella light covers in this shot.
- Cowboy4x4 Roof Light Bar with Hella Driving Lights
The same lights are now housed in a custom Cowboy4x4 lightbar (Thomas, "cowboy4x4", is a forum member, search for him and PM him if you're interested in a lightbar). The reason for the switch is that the Manik gave no protection to the lights and I was bashing them on tree branches, etc. Now the lights are nicely caged.
IMAGE-> Hella driving lights mounted on a Manik light bar. Three of four lights sport the white Hella light covers in this shot.
The four upper driving light are paired up, with the center pair on one switch and the outer pair on a second. Since I am now out of room on my main switch panel, switches for these lights were added to the access door below the steering column on the left. The two right hand switches are awaiting my roof rack mounted side and reverse lights.
IMAGE-> Switches for the front lights (left two switches).
- Daytime Running Headlights Switch
For times when you want the truck running, but without the lights (say while camping for the heater, or for any other reason), I added a daytime running headlights switch. For this mod I followed
SwissArmySUV's post.
8. On Board Air
- Compressor or CO2? Why not both?
I went backwards and forwards on whether to go the compressor or CO2 route for onboard air. In the end, I went both - kind of a belts
and braces (or suspenders) thing. The way I now have things, my CO2 is the first option for tires and the compressor is the first option for the air lockers. The compressor serves as the backup to the CO2 for tires.
IMAGE-> Airing down the AT's.
- QuickAir 3 Compressor - For Tires and Front Diff Locker
Until very recently, I had only the compressor. I went with a
QuickAir 3 compressor due to the relatively high flow - rated 3.65 cfm at 40 psi. I mounted the compressor in the engine bay, on the vacant driver side wheel well. Recently, the compressor has been re-plumbed with a 100 psi pressure switch and hooked up with a switch on the dash to drive an
ARB front locker.
IMAGE-> QuickAir3 in the engine compartment.
- Heat problems with under-the-hood compressors
The only major problem with having the compressor under in the engine compartment is heat. It has no problems on cool days for the very short periods needed to get the front differential locked, even when I'm turning it on and off every few minutes. The problem comes when after a long drive, you need to air four tires up from 15 to 45 psi. On one of my first test runs, the compressor did three and then stopped. I had to find a gas station to fill up the fourth. After that, I was without front air locker for the rest of the day. The compressor thermal shutoff only got released after a couple of hours of post-sunset cool down on my driveway back home. I think mounting the compressor elsewhere would be better for cooling and reliability. As it is, I figured I'd just be better off having the compressor assigned to one job, and get a dedicated system for tires.
On a more recent run in the southern California summer, the compressor would not work simply due to the combination of ambient and engine heat --- clearly the current location of the compressor is far from ideal as it's getting baked. What we ultimately decided to do was to get some air vents placed in the hood to get the engine bay temperatures down. Most people are interested in this for purported performance improvements. I'm not sure about this, but I figured since most people would be interested in hood vents for this purpose, I've included my mods in the "Engine" section.
IMAGE-> Closeup of the compressor with the air locker plumbing.
- The CO2 Ultimate Air 15 Lb "Multiforce" System
For the CO2 system, I decided to go with the
Ultimate Air 15 lb CO2 "multiforce" system. This has a nice volume and good flow rates. I had difficulty getting this tank refilled at paintball shops - but a welding supply store proved much more useful. The can is accommodated in the rear drivers' side of the back cargo area, standing upwards, with the stand housing bolted to the floor. The reach of the hose from the tank (via appropriate door) seems to be sufficient to get the tires. The tank is mounted in a cradle when driving, so as to stop it sliding around. The cradle is itself bolted to the floor of the rear of the truck (see next photo). We had looked at trying to mount the cradle horizontally above the rear left wheel well (i.e. on the "sill" below the rear, left window), but it was simply too big and heavy.
IMAGE-> The mounting stand for the CO2 tank. We had looked at mounting on the rear window sill, but it's too big and heavy.
The system has a main "open / closed" valve on top, which takes the flow into a regulator (when "open"). The regulator has two gauges: one provides a measure of the mount of CO2 in the tank, the other a measure of the pressure at the outlet nozzle. The latter can be controlled with a valve on the regulator. This valve can be thought of a a rate-of-flow control or a final-pressure control. I use it more for the former and use a separate tire gauge to periodically check pressure while filling. The only operational problems I've had with the tank has been some "sticking" of the flow, which seems to be when ice forms in the line and/or regulator. In that case, I simply stop and then restart the flow. It is impressive how cold the regulator gets, forming a nice water ice frost on the outside (boy, I guess adiabatic expansion really does cool, who knew?
).
IMAGE-> The Utlimate Air 15lbs tank.
IMAGE-> The tank regulator (annotated). The main valve opens the tank to the regulator system. The main tank pressure gauge then provides info on how full the tank is. CO2 flows when the "flow rate valve" is opened. This valve controls the delivery pressure in the output valve. This pressure is indicated on the second pressure gauge.
- Where do You Fill CO2 Tanks?
I had always heard that paintball shops would fill CO2 tanks, but on my first forays, I uniformly found that they would claim the tank was too large and refused. I eventually found that
a welding supply place would do it (for those in SoCal, it's Gordon Woods Industrial on Coldwater Canyon in North Hollywood.) Others have had luck with exinguisher places, etc.
This post has eight parts. Click below to navigate:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four <- You are here
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
