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Part Six
Part Seven<- You are here
Part Eight
13. Interior
- Arm Rest
A mod that was done so early I barely consider it a mod was attachment of the passenger side arm rest. It's more a correction of a "D'oh!" omission by Toyota than a cool mod.
- Overhead Dome Light
Another omission from the stock FJC is an adequate front map / dome light, as noticed by many people early on. SwissArmySUV did something about it and came up with
a very cool bracket system to make accommodating a GMC dome / map light. This sucker was on my "to do" list
forever - in fact, since my first trip out in the vehicle on trail at night and realizing that it was really hard to get useful light easily onto a map or book when sitting in the front seats. The mod requires the headliner to be cut, and this just kept it being bumped to the back of the queue. No more! Just ahead of the Pomona Expo, we got it done. SUCH a good mod: thanks for the instructions and bracket, Swiss...
IMAGE-> Dome light installed. Now when I want to look at a map or something, I can actually turn on a light that's in the proper place.
- Extra Power Outlets
Extra cigarette power outlets have been added on the center console (in the little box behind the parking brake). I have also had two added in the rear of the tuck (near the 3-pin plug). There are excellent posts on the forum on how to do this. For the front, I have two
like this, while for the rear, I have something
like this.
IMAGE-> Close-up of the dual cig outlet add-on to the rear power.
- Side Sun Visors
The original stock sun visor was great upfront (if you could reach it), but offered only very limited shade when turned to the side, for the '08's, Toyota added a second side visor, which turns out to be easy to install on the earlier trucks. Just before my late-Oct '07 trip on the Mojave Road, my faux-'08 extra sun visors came in. Whoo-hoo! Finally a mod I could implement myself
Anyway, here's some photos with the visors and the dome / map light.
IMAGE-> Visor up.
IMAGE-> Visor down.
- MPAC Rear Door Storage System
The
MPAC rear door storage system is a godsend for keeping all you small pieces of kit someplace you can loose them. The kit consists of a rack that is fixed to one or both (in my case) rear door bays. The rack mesh has numerous holes into which straps can be fixed. The bags that come with the rack in 1, 2, or 4 strap sizes are really easy to use with the rack. This system is SO much better than the lame-to-useless stock nettings for these bays. I just can say enough about how useful this storage system is for when you head off on long trips or go camping.
IMAGE-> Storage bag affixed to MPAC storage rack / mesh.
- Life Hammers
This story:
"FJ Cruiser sinks, driver dies" brought
life hammers to my attention. And even though my girlfriend kinda laughs at them, while ever there is a non-zero chance I'll roll my FJC (very much non-zero), I want to have something that I can use to cut my seat belt off and smash open my windows when I'm hanging upside down in the truck with the engine and electrics dead. I'm just paranoid that way. Several people have these located on their doors. I went the same way, and after practicing which way was the most natural to pull the hammers out of the holders, we went with the setup shown in the photo.
IMAGE-> Life hammer in holder case as installed on driver and passenger side doors.
14. Navigation, Communications, and Electronics
- CB Radio
IMAGE-> Cobra 75 mounted on the upper center console. The remote unit of the 75 is located near the hand brake.
Like many people, I have a
Cobra 75 CB radio. The Cobra 75 is nice because it's compact (only the had unit is / need be exposed). The remote housing unit is hidden away under the center console, near the hand brake. For ease-of-access, the handheld unit is mounted on the center dash face near the Fjammer radio/CD. In my implementation, the input to the Cobra 75 comes from
a 3-way switch box (only 2 are used) that connects to coax going fore and aft. The aft cable runs to a
bandi mount on the rear door hinge to mount a 3' or 4'
Firestick antenna. The fore coax runs up to the right front portion of the ARB front bumper, where it hits a mount for a
Wilson 5' antenna. All three antenna and all two mounts are fitted with
quick release connections to allow interchange and choice of what antennas to run, including the ability to run one antenna for aft communications and one for fore communications. I have a simple SWR (standing wave reflectometer) gauge to tune the CB for optimum performance.
IMAGE-> To make the Bandi mount and Manik tail light guards work together, one of them has to be cut. We went with cutting the guard.
For short range spotter communications, I also have a
Cobra HH38WXST handheld CB with a nice, voice activated head set. The idea is to have clean visible and radio communications between driver and spotter, even at a distance and with background noise.
IMAGE-> Antenna option one: The "classic" Bandi mount.
IMAGE-> Antenna option two: Front bumper.
- On Board Computer with RAM Mount
Hmm, having put the Ram Mount in, it takes up ALOT of room. I'm rethinking this right now...
IMAGE-> The Xplore iX104 PC with it's "rugged" USB keyboard.
The onboard computer is not yet onboard. The machine is a
Xplore techologies iX104 PC. Data feeds into the computer include a
Garmin GPS 18 external antenna (feeding Garmin mapping and
Delorme topomap software) and an
Autotap OBDII cable and software. The "rugged PC" will ultimately form the main navigation and vehicle performance computer, and as the display system for the feed from underside-mounted USB cameras. The latter are still pipe dreams.
For mounting, I have a cradle and a docking station that I got with the computer, but for the actual mount to the FJC, I've gone with a
RAM mount, following
this post. The specific parts used are 1. the base and adjustment mechanism (RAM-VB-138ST1), 2. the flange 12" male pole (RAM-VP-TTMF12U), and 3. the 18" long female base pole (RAM-VP-TBF18U). The parts were ordered from
Express Mounts and arrived ridiculously quickly.
The top of the RAM flange pole is the attachment point for the Xplore docking cradle. Between the rocker and the ability to swivel the male within the female poles, the system has a nice amount of docked freedom-of-position. The laptop power and data come via a remote docking station. This will eventually be wired straight to the battery. Then all I need is a remote USB hub and some remote external disk for maps...
IMAGE-> The PC mounted in the cradle, full RAM mount system, and keyboard attached to the remote docking station.
- Garmin 376c GPS
I got the
Garmin 376c GPS unit long before I bought my truck. I had bought it with the idea that I would get the XM weather service on it, though I have never subscribed. I also really liked that I could load up different base maps. Right now, I keep two map-cards in the truck: a street and city basemap (so I can find a Panda Express or a Wendy's whenever I'm jonesing to get my munch on) and a topo/trails map for offroading. I love this setup.
IMAGE-> Garmin 376c mounted on the dash. It is within easy reach of driver's hand, yet does not obstruct view of road (or indeed, any part of window).
I have the unit on a sticky mount just by my central three gauges. The unit is far enough to the left to avoid the airbag deploy zone. For the longest time, it was powered from the cig lighter and the antenna was stuck on the windscreen with suction cups. This had too many wires everywhere and the darn suction cups would lose their sticky after a while. So recently, I got a bare wire power chord and the unit is now attached to a power cable that runs straight to the vehicle fuse box (through a hole in the dash). The antenna cable now runs through the dash, up the a pillar and out onto the roof, where it is mounted with a magnetic mount.
IMAGE-> Cabling at the back of the Garmin 376c. The thicker cable is power, thinner is antenna cable. (Note that Garmin is proudly made in Taiwan.)
IMAGE-> The GPS antenna is the small, black rectangle on the roof. It is held in place by a magnetic mount. The cable is run up the A pillar.
- Scan-Gauge II
Like just about everyone, I have a
ScanGaugeII. It plugs into the OBDII port and gives you all sorts of nice vehicle diagnostics as well as fuel efficiency info. You can play the mpg-game on the freeway. So much fun. I have mine attached to the dash to left of the steering wheel and just beside the mirror controls.
IMAGE-> The scan gauge is taped to the dash to the left of the steering wheel. The ethernet cable runs in between the steering column and the dash cover down to the OBDII jack.
- i47 iPod Adapter
I have an
i47 iPod adaptor which allows the iPod playlists, etc. to be controlled from the FJammer controls. It plugs right into the FJammer (so not radio - like the FM iPod adaptors), and gives you the common serial port as a connection to the iPod.
This post has eight parts. Click below to navigate:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven<- You are here
Part Eight
nice one Mark!
IMAGE-> Dome light installed. Now when I want to look at a map or something, I can actually turn on a light that's in the proper place.
IMAGE-> Close-up of the dual cig outlet add-on to the rear power.
IMAGE-> Visor up.
IMAGE-> Visor down.
IMAGE-> Storage bag affixed to MPAC storage rack / mesh.
IMAGE-> Life hammer in holder case as installed on driver and passenger side doors.
IMAGE-> Cobra 75 mounted on the upper center console. The remote unit of the 75 is located near the hand brake.
IMAGE-> To make the Bandi mount and Manik tail light guards work together, one of them has to be cut. We went with cutting the guard.
IMAGE-> Antenna option one: The "classic" Bandi mount.
IMAGE-> Antenna option two: Front bumper.
IMAGE-> The Xplore iX104 PC with it's "rugged" USB keyboard.
IMAGE-> The PC mounted in the cradle, full RAM mount system, and keyboard attached to the remote docking station.
IMAGE-> Garmin 376c mounted on the dash. It is within easy reach of driver's hand, yet does not obstruct view of road (or indeed, any part of window).
IMAGE-> Cabling at the back of the Garmin 376c. The thicker cable is power, thinner is antenna cable. (Note that Garmin is proudly made in Taiwan.)
IMAGE-> The GPS antenna is the small, black rectangle on the roof. It is held in place by a magnetic mount. The cable is run up the A pillar.
IMAGE-> The scan gauge is taped to the dash to the left of the steering wheel. The ethernet cable runs in between the steering column and the dash cover down to the OBDII jack.
Linear Mode
