An ARB Xmas

I must have been a good boy this year (or Santa has the same affliction as Ray Charles); as I scored some new toys for my rig over Xmas. Namely an ARB Adventure Light, Speedy Seal tyre plug kit and a Rapid Tyre deflator.

ARB Adventure Light
The ARB Adventure Light is ARBs top of the line light. A similar version is also available, but unlike this one, requires constant 12v connectivity. From complete discharge, to full charge takes approx 6 hours which will last 4.5hrs of constant use courtesy of the LEDs; which I can attest to, using it as a prawning light one night, lol. The light also has two considerably powerful magnets which holds it easily onto any metal surface (bullbar, side rails, etc) making working on your car in the bush at night simple. I plan to mount this onto my MPAC rack for easy access and simple charging location.

ARB Adventure Light

ARB Speedy Seal Puncture Repair Kit
Next unwrapped was an ARB Speedy Seal Puncture Repair Kit. Its the type of present that you're grateful for, but hope you never have to use! Having been on some long touring trips to Cape York and across the Simpson Desert, this is a very handy item to have. I remember vividly repairing a tyre on a mates 4x4 just before Big Red in the Simpson Desert with one of these plugs. He drove through the desert and all the way to Alice Springs on it without a problem. I can't recommend them highly enough, especially for those doing long distance trips where the possibility of repeated punctures before reaching a service centre is a real issue. One of the greatest benefits of this kit (and any other like it), is that you can simply plug the tyre while its still on the hub and just re-inflate when done. It saves the jacking up and changing tyres process.

ARB Speedy Seal Puncture Repair Kit

ARB E-Z Deflator
A buddy of mine first showed me his E-Z Deflator a few years ago, I had always wanted to get one, but never seemed to get around to it. Fortunately Santa hooked me up with one this year! Gone are the days of pushing in the valve and waiting for the tyre to come down in pressure when you get into the rough stuff. This deflator actually unscrews the valve core, which allows for the fastest tyre deflation around (bar a sharp knife in the sidewall!). Having a gauge on the system is invaluable so you can keep a close eye on where the pressures are at, and it's all housed in a bright orange ARB pouch (so you can't loose it).

ARB E-Z Deflator

Blackhawk Gloves
Just in case Santa did see my indiscretions this year, I decided to play it safe and buy myself a present. From being in fire and rescue crews, I quickly learnt the value of a quality set of gloves. Your run of the mill leather riggers gloves from the local hardware store are fine in some situations, but I personally don't like them due to the lack of 'feel' they have. When trying to do finer work (doing up shackles, rigging recovery lines, operating hi-lift jack, etc), mass produced riggers gloves are terrible in my humble opinion. Having gloves that fit properly, you're more likely to use them and keep them on. I've lost count of how many times I've got frustrated with not being able to do a simple task with poorly made / fitting gloves, taken them off, only to cut or burn my hands.

The Blackhawk gloves aren't terribly cheap, at over $100 AUD. But they are made to fit and work in the harshest environments on earth, being military spec gloves made of Nomex, Kevlar and specially treated leather, I'm sure they will outlast me.

Blackhawk Fury Commando Gloves

Rigid Industries Reverse Light

Recently FJCC (FJ Cruiser Club of Australia) ran a group buy for All Pro Offroad "Bandi" Mounts. These mounts attach to the top hinge of the rear door, principally for the attachment of an aerial. Since I have my aerial mounted to my bullbar, I decided that using the mount to attach a reverse light would be perfect.

The mount itself doesn't come too far away from the hinge or body of the car, so getting an appropriate light took some research. I finally settled on a Rigid Industries Dually D2 Diffusion LED light, putting out 2600 lumens and being an LED draws only 2 amps. When unpacking from the box, I was surprised by how well made and solid the unit was. It comes with a full wiring harness, including switch and fuse, though I'll probably butcher this and alter it to fit my needs better.
Once mounted to the Bandi mount, the light really lived up to its name of being "Rigid", trying to move it around once the bolts had been cranked up was impossible, so theoretically should be perfect on corrugated roads and bush work.

Here's some photos of the current installation, unfortunately I haven't had a chance to wire it all up yet. For Aussies wanting the same light, you can get them through Snake Racing.

Illumination; not distance but flood.

Custom Sheepskin Seat Covers

Howdy once again.
After a week slogging it out in a datacentre in Sydney, I decided to treat myself to a set of custom sheepskin car seat covers on the way home. I've always had sheepskin seat covers for all my cars for a few reasons:

1. Warm in winter
2. Cool in summer
3. Protect your seat coverings
4. Additional comfort

The FJ having a few unique aspects to the front seats meant that a custom job was going to be the only real way to go. So after cruising around the net I came across a crowd in Canterbury; Canterbury Seat Covers.

The owner is a top bloke, in his mid 80's and as you can guess, has been there and done it in regards to upholstery and such, so I knew I was in good (and bloody strong!) hands. I splashed out on the top of the line sheepskins which have a lifetime warranty, custom air bag provisioning, arm rests and head rests. At this point in time I was a bit over $700 poorer, but it was money well spent. For color I went for "Charcoal" as it fits in perfectly with the interior colors and almost looks like it was made for the FJ. The backs of the seats I left "open" to allow access to the map pockets and such. Given I never have any passengers in the rear and the fact that my drivers side rear seat is coming out shortly, I thought enclosing them would be more hassle than benefit.

Attached are some photos minus the arm rest covers, which are still being made.

Ellis Precision Shift Knobs

After many a month of waiting, my Ellis Precision shift knobs turned up from Canada today. On opening the packaging I was amazed at the quality and weight of the product. Joel from Ellis Precision has really excelled himself with these and I'm sure the other 50+ FJCruiserForums members who got on board the group buy are just as impressed.

Nothing terribly complicated about installing them. Just unscrew your stock knobs and screw on the new Ellis Precision ones. I may cut the automatic shifter shaft and extend the thread to make it shorter, though not really on my critical path at this point in time as these knobs looks sweet without any further modification.

Tiger Bay Buggy Whip Install

So I've had a TigerBay Buggy Whip laying around the garage for a few months now, so I thought I'd get off my arse this weekend and install it!

Now, the TigerBay Whip is a break down version of two 1.25M lengths, making a 2.5M total whip. It comes with a quick detach base, which is like an oversize Nito air fitting and a brilliant idea for something that will be used on limited occasions. I also had Scott from TBBW to make me up an additional top, which was only 300mm. This top also had a flag and strobe, just like the main top; the shortened length was so I could also use the whip as the lead car on FJCC trips.

Components:

• 2.5M Break Down / Quick Release TigerBay Buggy Whip with 12V strobe
• 300mm shortened top with strobe and pennant
• 15Amp Anderson PowerPoles, Weather Caps and BLOK-LOK Clamps
• Custom "Whip Strobe" Rocker Switch
• 15Amp Wire, 7mm Split Conduit, Cable Ties, Heatshrink and other incidentals

Installation:

1. First, installation of the quick mount bracket. I used a rubber grommet in between my bull bar and the mount to save the paint work, not necessary, but I figured if I ever remove it, it'll be for the best. Use the supplied 1/2" washer and nut to secure it.
2. The TigerBay whip has connectors on the whip at the joining locations to join the cable, however at the base, there is no connector, so you need to use whatever suits your need. For this I decided to use 15 Amp Anderson Power Pole connectors. Anderson fittings are renown in the 4x4ing world, but are normally the large 150-Amp+ fittings. I found PowerWerx supplied 15, 30 and 45 "mini" Anderson Plugs, which suited the job perfectly. They are also available with weather caps and "Blok-Lok" clamps to prevent them coming apart, ideal for the task ahead.
3. Next, I ran 15-Amp power line from the Anderson Power Pole to my custom rocker switch and the return line to the aux battery distribution block. Fairly simple stuff, all lines were contained in split conduit for protection.
4. Coming from the Anderson Power Pole on the car, I ran the negative line straight to the base of the TBBW quick connect base, which had a good earth. The connection was established with a crimp connection and a second 1/2" bolt which had the added benefit of acting as a lock nut.

1. 15-Amp Anderson PowerPole

2. Attached to the quick release coupling.

3. Shortened top, principally for club use.

4. Whip strobe rocker switch installed

5. Full length (2.5M) whip.

BRC Diff Breather - Installation (Part B)

So as per the previous installment, we have the competition breather kit mounted in the engine bay. Now its time to run the breather lines to it.

1. First, remove the stock diff breather plug on the rear diff and replace with one of the plugs supplied in the BRC kit.
2. Once installed, connect the BRC poly breather line to the plug then run up to the top of the fuel tank, along the same path that the brake lines take. Drop the line out along the chassis rail. Put some 7mm split conduit onto it and run into the chassis rail as shown in the photo. The split conduit only needs to be long enough to cover the entry point into the chassis rail to stop rubbing the poly line.
3. Run the poly line through the chassis rail up to the inside of the passenger wheel well. Feed the line out through the hole shown in the photo and again use some 7mm split conduit to protect it.
4. Finally run the poly line up to the BRC breather manifold, which should be directly above the exit hole in the wheel well. Trim to size and fit.
5. You will notice that underneath the BRC manifold is the two factory installed breather tubes. We will now plumb into this using some fuel line barbs. For the larger breather, I got some brass fitting from my local auto parts store. The smaller end of the barb was still to large to easily fit onto the poly line, so I used a heat gun to warm up the poly enough to slide it on.
6. With the poly line fitted to the barb, remove the factory breather cap and install the new barb. Finally run the line up to the breather manifold and connect.
7. The same process is followed for the smaller breather line, but instead of using a reducing barb, a straight 4mm barb will work to connect the poly line to the rubber line.

1. Remove the factory breather plug from the rear diff.

2. Install BRC supplied breather plug.

3. Install the poly line into the connector. (Simply push it in)

4. Run the poly line up to the fuel tank following pre-existing lines. Cable tie in place with slack so it can move with axle articulation.

5. Conduit installed over the poly line and running into the chassis rail.

6. Poly line exiting the chassis rail inside the wheel arch (no conduit installed yet).

7. Conduit now installed and running up into the engine bay.

8. I labelled the line since five will be run into the manifold, so this makes them easily identifiable.

9. Installed into the BRC competition manifold.

10. Brass reduction barbs to fit poly line into pre-existing breather line.

11. Since barb was larger than the internal diameter of the poly line, I used a heat gun to warm it up enough to fit it.

12. Installed into the manifold and onto the pre-existing line.

13. Two lines down, two to go!

BRC Diff Breather - Installation (Part A)

Time again for another installation instalment.... This time around its a new BRC Competition Breather Kit, which has 5 intake ports for: rear diff, front diff, transmission, transfer box and winch. The kit comes with a stack of Billet Race Craft branded poly tubing, adapters, the breather unit itself, K&N filter, a piece of laser cut steel to be used for a mounting plate and the pièce de résistance, a BRC stubby holder! Perfect for the work ahead.....


Components:

• BRC Competition Breather Kit
• M6 Stainless Bolts and Nuts
• Etch Primer and Paint
• 13mm Split Conduit
• Incidentals (Cable Ties, Grinding / Cutting Discs, etc)

Installation:

1. First off, as anyone with an FJ knows, space under the bonnet is at a premium (I've probably harped on about this a few times by now!), so locating a place that's out of the way, yet easily accessible and viewable from a maintainence perspective was my first mission. I located a bracket on the passenger side of the engine block - directly opposite the OEM Fuse Block, which fitted the bill nicely. It had only a single tapped M6 hole to use, but if I needed more support for the bracket, I figured I could weld some sills onto the back of the bracket to stop it moving around.
2. Now that I had a mounting point, it was time to put the breather core onto the supplied mounting plate. This was a simple task as all the hardware required came with the kit and included 3 x M6 hex head bolts and 3 x Nyloc nuts.
3. Trial mounting the package onto the bracket located previously in 1 highlighted a couple of small problems. First the bolts were too long and fouled against the bracket, second, the supplied mounting plate had some sharp edges that were close to digging into an electrical conduit run underneith it. So out came the trusty marker to make some adjustments...
4. I had figured to remove about 20mm from each side of the plate and round off the edges to make it more finger friendly when fishing around in the engine bay. I used a 4" angle grinder for this purpose, cutting away the majority of the excess, then cleaning up with a grinding blade. To get rid of the rough edges and burs I used my trusty little Dremel.
5. Once I was happy with the final shape and again trial fitted it in the engine bay to make sure I hadn't missed anything, I used some wet and dry rub to remove the surface protection and clean up the plate ready for priming.
6. Before priming (like anything paint related) you need to clean the surface. I used some 3M surface prep stuff I had lying around which cleaned off the grease, oil and other gunk on the metal plate. Once I was happy that it was clean, I hung the plate from one of the bolt holes suspended across a spare box I had lying around the shed.
7. Following the instructions, I covered the metal plate with 4 coats of etch primer, then left it overnight to dry. Apparently you only need to leave it for 1 to 4 hours, but it was getting late and I figured the longer it had to completely dry the better.
8. Now that I had the metal bracket primed, I rubbed it back slightly with some 600 grain paper (as per the instructions) and then cleaned again with the 3M surface prep product. I then re-hung the bracket in the box and sprayed it with 5 coats of 3M Gloss Black paint I had lying around. Again, I left this overnight for it to completely dry.
9. Now that I had the bracket done to my liking, it was time to reinstall the breather system onto it and fit to the engine bracket. I used an M6 Stainless Bolt which threaded straight onto the tapped hole in the bracket. As there was only one bolt holding this in place I put some Loctite on the thread, cranked it up then put a nut on the exposed end of the bolt at back of the bracket to make sure it couldn't rattle loose. I was surprised how solid the mounting was and doubt at this point in time it will need the welded sills to make sure it remains in this position, however time and rough roads will be the true test.... 

1. Diff breather installed on mounting bracket

2. Side on view - Note excess length of bolts

3. Trimmed down bolts with angle grinder

5. Keeping hydrated while working is important!

6. Bracket location on the engine block to mount breather

7. Breather trial mounted on engine bracket

8. Cutting down breather mounting bracket

9. Mounting bracket primed for painting

10. Diff breather mounted to engine bracket

11. Engine cowel reinstalled

Driving Lights Installation

This install I completed the weekend past (29th / 30th October).

Components:

• Hella Rallye 4000 Chrome Lights (1 Spread, 1 Spot); 55w HID @ 6000K
• 16 Gauge Wire (Red, Black, Blue and Green spools)
• Spade Crimp Connectors
• 7mm Split Conduit
• M4 35mm Stainless Bolts
• Terminal Block
• Heatshrink, cable ties and incidentals.

Installation:

1. When I measured the size of the lights on the bar from the dimensions from Hella's website, I knew it was going to be a tight fit, so immediately on getting them unboxed I dropped them into the holes in the ARB bar and breathed a sigh of relief when they fitted perfectly!
   
   
2. Rather than putting the metal base straight onto the metal bull bar, I cut 2 pieces of rubber mat slightly smaller than the base of the lights, used a gasket punch to cut a hole for the light bolt in the centre, then mounted the lights into the bar with the new rubber spacer.
   
   
3. If you have an ARB bar, drop the bash plate off to get better access to the light bolt. You can do it with a ratchet and an extension, but a uni-joint in this equation makes the job so much easier and allows you to get this bolt done up nice and tight. I put a couple of drops of loctite on the threads to make sure it can't rattle loose over time on corrugated roads.
   
   

4. Now I had to pick up the high beam circuit for the relay to operate on. This was a fairly simple task of unplugging one of the headlight connectors and placing a multimeter over the terminals with someone flicking the high and low beams. On my rig, the high beam was on the red wire with a white stripe; I'd hazard a guess that every Aussie FJ will be the same, but please check first!
   
   
5. Pop the back off the black plastic housing which holds current terminals for the OEM light setup. A small flat blade screwdriver helps, be aware this thing is packed with white grease, so have a rag on standby! Once you get the back off the housing, use the flat blade screwdriver to lever the terminal out of the housing and clean off all the grease.
   
   
6. Fire up a soldering iron; because you'll be soldering onto the current connection a decent size iron helps. I used my 80W for this job, it also helped cook off the rest of that grease! Solder your relay lead (I used blue 16G cable) to the correct connector (Red/White) and secure it around the cable with some self amalgumating tape and some small cable ties (though down the cable a little bit with the ties, you don't want to foul the ability to close the housing).
   
   
7. Slide the connector back into the housing and test your lights to make sure they still work. If so, put some white lithium grease into the housing (to replace the stuff you took out) then click the back onto it and re-install.
   
   
8. Put the lead wire into some new 7mm conduit (or use a conduit that has some space, I used the one for my fog light lead). Run up to the rubber grommet on the drivers side of the firewall, then push the wire though.
   
   
9. Run enough of the blue wire to your switch point (mine was in the centre console) and cut it. Now run a second blue lead from your switch point, back out through the rubber grommet to the location you plan to attach the relay. I installed my relay using a pre-existing tapped hole under the bonnet hinge on the drivers side.
   
   
10. From the relay, run the power lead to your fuse block and the ground to and appropriate place. My fuse block also has a negative bus, so I connected there.
    
    
11. Terminate both blue wires with spade connectors and attach to your switch.
    
    
12. For the illumination on the switches, I cut into the line that ARB had run into my cab for the fog light switch. So when the lights are on, the rockers light up like the rest of the dash. I used a terminal block so I had a common point to leverage when adding more switches.
     
13. Next I created a common ground using the same technique in 12. Using an M5 35mm bolt (which I cut down to around 30mm) I attached this block to the side of the UHF radio in place of the thumb screw. This negative ground will be used for the connections from the rocker switches. I created a 3 tail lead out of the terminal block for this purpose (not shown but the same as the photo above). The ground was then connected to the front left bolt holding down the transmission cover.
    
    
14. The Carling rockers don't fit in the holes out of the box and need a little adjustment. I used my trusty Dremel to trim off some of the plastic to make them fit, very little needs removing to get the switch to fit.
    
    
     
15. Now, run the light harness into some 13mm split conduit, attach to the lights through the grill and cable tie into place all the way back to the relay location.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
16. Once the dash is back together; time to admire the handy work!

Lights on illumination

Switch active; Left one is the driving lights,
right one is the UHF

Switch installation

Fired Up

Distance Shot