)
)
)
"Cargo box"
Here are 3 shots of my new cargo
box I had made in August of 2001.
It's made out of solid red oak,
with a little oak veneer in places. This box is real sturdy, and
very high quality like furniture.
I had it covered in the same
blue carpet that covers my sub woofer box.
This sure beats having the Rubber
Maid plastic box I had back there before.
The box stops right in front
of the sub woofer. If I had it go all the way back to the rear seat, the
sub would have sat up to high and over the tops of my headrests.
Plenty of room in here for all
of my tools, and my 1/2" impact wrench and accessories for my Power Tank.
The box really turned out almost too furniture like than utility like.
If you would like a box similar
to this one built for you, email me and I can get in touch with the builder.
He prefers to see your rig to
get a precise measurement, but he has my templates on hand, and he can
stretch it out to 4 drawers and all the way across if you don't have a
Power Tank in the way like I do.
He may even do orders for out
of state too, and ship it to you.
He's a carpenter at where I
work, and he enjoys building projects on the side.
For some full size pics sized
at 1024x768, click here.
Update on the cargo box:
With it loaded up now with tools
that will come in handy, the drawers are mighty heavy. When I accelerate,
the drawers will fly open. Then when I brake, they slam shut. The noise
can be very annoying.
A neighbor of mine and I came
up with a solution to prevent the above from happening.
We took some clevis type pins
and modified them with some 1/8" cabling and have the pins go through the
top of the box, then into the drawers to prevent movement.
The pins are cable to some eye
screws to prevent loosing them.
This works out great, and no
more drawers slamming and making noise.
)
)
Mounting the jack to my rig brought
on some pretty heavy discussion on the Toyota SUV forum I use.
After much thinking, and a cool
link to a place that sells Land Cruiser gear, I opted to mount my Hi-Lift
to the top of my Yakima Cross bars for my rack.
The outfit that sells the brackets
I bought is Slee Off Road, and here is their website.
Slee's mount should fit the
Thule square cross bars also if you use the
new Yakima Snap Arounds.
I am very pleased with the quality
of the brackets, and I believe they will do a great job holding the jack
up on my roof safely.
The bolts for the brackets actually
go through the holes in the Hi-Lift making it even more secure.
Before you use one of these jacks, please read the manual thoroughly. They can be very dangerous if not used carefully.
)
)
)
I ran across a very good article
from a local 4WD shop in WA. state.
They have a good one
by Bill Burke on using the Hi-Lift jack.
If you don't know who Bill Burke
is, head on over to his site.
He has lots of good articles.
This bumper is one beefy mutha.
With the addition of the XD 9000, I should have lots of fun on outings
with it.
In the 3rd picture you can see
that is doesn't really stick out a whole lot.
Also purchased was the Warn winch accessory kit. A must have that includes gloves, 10 feet of choker chain, an 8 foot tree saver strap, a snatch block, and a shackle for rigging stuff to the straps with.
)
)
)
)
Below are a few full size shots
I also purchased an accessory
from Central 4WD called the ARB Hi-Lift jack adapter.
Central doesn't have it on their
home page. You can see a picture of it here
at 4x4 Connection.
I have this item and I can attest
that it does work great. Slee Off Road also carries this item.
Click the pic below to go too
their site.
)
)
Without going into a lot of detail
on how the stuff work, I'll let you read a few articles I have linked here.
Here is a good review from Randy
Burleson from Outdoor
Wire.com.
His review is also echoed on
Master-Pull's website under the article area.
Bill Burke also has an excellent
review on the rope in Master-Pull's article area.
Bill Burke also has some excellent
articles on his site on getting unstuck using a winch, and other items.
Part one,
and part two.
Ramsey Winch has an excellent
video on their site too. It's about 11
MB, so you might want to right click it and save it to your hard drive
instead of streaming it in.
The above video is a real good
one.
Here are a few pics from the
install that Jim & I did on the plasma rope.
Kind of looks like dental floss
that Barney would use 
)
)
)
)
This stuff was an absolute joy to work with. It doesn't kink like steel winch line can, and 100' of it with the hook only weighs 6 lb. The steel cable I had weighs in at 18.5 lb with the hook on it.
Here is a page with some info
from SAW's site.
Since installing them, I no
longer get a nose dive effect during hard braking. Before, the front end
would go down a little.
Right now the bars are cranked
up a little too much, but they will be coming back down by 3/20/2002, and
with a fresh alignment.
You can clearly see in the 2nd
pic below that the front is slightly higher than the rear.
It is also a good idea to pick
up new bolts & nuts from your dealer before putting on new T bars,
or adjusting your stock ones. Check and see if you have the old style that
uses the lock nut on top or not. If not, go with the newer part #'s.
They can get pretty tight over
the years, and snap on your. You can also try soaking them with some spray
lubricant for a few days before embarking on this project.
Here are the part #'s you will
need:
1988 to '95
Bolt # 90101-12159 / Nut # 90179-12074
1986 to '88
Bolt # 90101-12104 / Nut # 90170-12025
/ Lock Nut # 90170-12004
Here are two articles too on
adjusting your T bars, and upgrading to new ones like mine:
Adjusting
T bars
Replacing
T bars
)
)
Update on the torsion bars:
Since I had the bars lowered
back down to even out the front with the rear, I gained a lot more clearance
for the upper bump stop.
The rig rides so much better,
and does not have the feeling of wanting to catch air when coming off of
a bump.
I am very happy with the addition
of the torsion bars, and highly recommend it if you have the extra weight
up front.
)
The beauty of this gadget is
you don't have any remote cable to get in your way.
I have tested this a few times
and there is no delay. Push the in/out buttons on the car alarm like transmitter,
and it works instantly just like if you were using the cable remote.
Below are some pictures of the
setup.
The "1st" one breaks down the
four components that make up the kit.
The "2nd" one shows the receiver
mounted to the inside fender. This was about the only place to mount it
as my engine bay is getting crammed.
The "3rd" one shows the route
I took to hide the solenoid cable and antenna wire behind the windshield
washer fluid bottle.
)
)
)
The "4th" one shows the antenna
setup. It uses a magnetic base and can mounted just about anywhere.
The antenna also unscrews from
the base, and a red cap replaces it.
The "5th" one shows the receiver
cable to the solenoid pack. The kit comes with sticky back wire receptacles
making storing the cable very convenient.
A simple snap and the units
open up allowing you to remove the cable to plug in to the solenoid.
The "6th" one shows the receiver
cable plugged in to the solenoid. I only have to unsnap two of the three
cable holders to be able to plug the receiver cable into the solenoid.
)
)
)
The next day an idea whacked
me in the brain. I could take the Yakima Snap
Arounds and modify it by putting in longer .25" carriage bolts. The
Snap Arounds I had came with one of my bike racks, and I was not using
them at the time.
It has the plastic wing nuts
you turn to tighten them down.
What I did was buy 2 4"
long carriage bolts, lock washers, and nuts to tighten them down to the
crossbar that is part of my Yakima Load Warrior roof rack.
)
After the Snap Around were secured
with the hardware, I drill 2 .25" holes into the handle of the shovel.
It doesn't weaken it enough
to be concerned with the handle breaking.
After the holes were drilled,
I lined up the shovel and pushed them onto the 4" long carriage bolts,
then tightened the Snap Arounds down further with the hardware.
I then took the plastic wing
nuts from Yakima and put them on the bolts, then tightened them down.
What I ended up with is a nice
and tight way to secure the shovel to my rack.
The Snap Arounds can be rotated
to if I want to angle my shovel up into the air at all.
Below are some pics that will explain the setup further.
)
)
)
)