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15. Camping Modifications and Extras
- The ARB Fridge
The fridge in the back of the truck was motivated by the idea of long trips in the desert or mountains. It was originally motivated by my aborted plan to do the Rubicon in June 07 (aborted due to truck not being ready
). In any case, the fridge is the
42 Qt ARB fridge. The fridge is of rebranded Japanese manufacture. In order to make it even more efficient, it can be wrapped in a custom insulating jacket, which I now have on mine.
IMAGE-> The ARB 42 Qt fridge.
IMAGE-> The ARB fridge wrapped in its sweater.
To lock the fridge down in the back of the truck, I have a set of
Engel Slide Loc mounts. These are bolted straight to the floor of the truck. I ripped this idea of the Engel mounts off from
Corey, who has it much more nicely mounted on a drawer setup. For my purposes, the floor works fine. When the fridge isn't in there, the mounts are so thin that I can just ignore them and pile junk up ontop. The slide rails are really smooth, with a nice little locking button, so getting the fridge in and out is a breeze.
IMAGE-> The Engel Slide Loc mount bolted to the floor of FJC. When the fridge isn't in there, the Loc mounting plate doesn't take up much room.
The ARB fridge can be powered either by a cigarette-style or a regular plug. I have both available at the back of the truck for the fridge.
- Rear Door Lock and Latch
When you're in the back of the truck (say sleeping in there), one of the biggest problems (aside from vehicle size) is that you can't open the rear door from inside. This seems like an oversight, but thankfully, creative forum types have once again designed solutions. For the problem of the latch, a metal rod can be inserted down to where the exterior latch mechanism push rod is. This mod can be accomplished following
this post. It is also nice to be able to unlock or lock the rear door from a button on the door itself. I followed SwissArmySUV's choice of button style (a GM part), and
this post for the installation.
IMAGE-> The latch release mechanism is on the top of the door sill. To open, you just press the down on the long, thin "button" (plastic coasted metal rod).
IMAGE-> The rear door lock/unlock button is a GM part.
16. Engine
I really have not implemented any of the standard performance modifications (like cold air intake or supercharger or any of that). One of the main reasons is that so long as the vehicle can move forward over trails, I'm happy. I'm not too into racing or high speed driving (although even fully modded with gnarly Pitbull Rocker tires on, it'll do 80-90 mph on the freeway just fine --- albeit at like 8 mpg). In addition to those things, below, I have also mod'ed my exhaust (though for robustness and clearance, not for performance --- see my earlier "Exhaust" section).
- Snorkel
The Safari Snorkel is on my truck mainly to get the air intake up away from dust in my wheel well. I noticed that I was getting mud and dust clotting in the stock intake location. The Snorkel came out, and it just seemed a no-brainer to get one on and get the air from a cleaner location. As a side effect, the snorkel seems to function as a kind-of cold air intake in itself. Using my ScanGauge, it seems that at moderate to high speeds, the engine intake temperature is consistently only about 2-4K above ambient. A very nice snorkel installation thread
is located here.
IMAGE-> The snorkel on the truck.
- Hood Louvers
The need to get the engine bay temperatures down comes from the desire to use the air compressor under my hood to drive my air locker. I saw some early threads on cutting the hood for the purpose of cooling for engine performance. I know there are pro and con arguments on that. In an case, for my purposes,
what we did was: 1. take out the stock hood plastic faux intake and replace it with strong metal mesh; 2. cut the wall between the engine bay and the grill below the windows (this is usually the cabin air intake, though I no longer use it that way); 3. cut holes in the hood and cover them with open louvers. The effect on keeping the compressor cool is VERY noticeable. We are still evaluating issues of water penetration (
viz. e.g. the alternator).
IMAGE-> Louver pattern on the hood (the passenger side louver is faux - I didn't want water dripping on to my fuse box).
IMAGE-> New and functional mesh in the hood air intake.
IMAGE-> Example cuts in the hood to allow air through.
17. Auxiliary Fuel Tank
The need for an auxiliary fuel tank is obvious to anyone who has heavily modified their truck (hence killing the mpg) and/or wants to do long trail runs. As best I can tell, the stock tank has about 17 gals of useable capacity, which gets me about 200 miles with a favourable tail wind and down hill. This sucker just needs more fuel capacity.
From early summer 2007 till early 2008, my truck served as the testbed for Man-A-Fre's development of an auxiliary tank. Design work was completed in late 2007, but issues with the fabricator meant a long delay in getting them out (a
long thread describing the soap-opera-esque issues of tank development). Regardless, the tanks are now available in a nice package that gets 19 extra gallons of fuel capacity in a aluminum tank with baffling, filled from a common filler neck, and with the ability to pump from the auxiliary-to-main tank. The tanks also have a skid plate attached, though it's nearly impossible to hit the tank if you have any form of rear bumper.
The first development version of the tank had 23 gallon capacity. This was modified back to 19 gallons to gain better clearance on the basis of feedback from forum members. I ran the 23 gallon tank in Red Rock Canyon and on the Mojave Road with no clearance problems.
IMAGE-> The 23 gallon tank on my FJC on the Mojave Road.
IMAGE-> The final 19 gallon tank on my truck.
IMAGE-> The final 19 gallon tank on my truck with the skid plate.
IMAGE-> Auxiliary tank dash gauge and transfer pump switch.
IMAGE-> The old "aux" fuel tank: Scepter jerry can. Now it's the aux, aux fuel tank.
Proudly Made in Japan! 
Fukushima
With contributions from: Australia, Canada, China, Taiwan, and USA
...But always a little corner of England to me...
