FJCC Trasharoo

I'm always sick of carting plastic bags full rubbish from the campsite, back to civilisation. The clinking of beer bottles (amongst other things!) is enough to drive you mad. Solution? A Trasharoo Bag!

We threw the idea around over at FJCC, to not only initiate a typical group buy for Trasharoos, but also going the step further in getting them branded with the club logo. The results of the printed logo were brilliant; the bags are second to none in terms of quality and absolutely cavernous. To be honest; I've never been so keen to pack rubbish up at a campsite!

Interior Light Upgrade

Well it seems I'm going through a bit of an LED fetish phase at the moment. With the MagLite upgrade, Dually D2 reverse light, ARB Adventure Light and saving for a 40" Rigid Industries Light Bar for the roof rack; I might have to go to LED's Anonymous!
To feed my addiction this week, I decided to do what I would call one of the easiest and most valuable upgrades for the FJ; LEDs in the interior dome lights.

Very simple process really; jump on eBay and search for "48 SMD White LED Light Panel". If that's to tricky; I got mine from here: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/48-SMD-White-LED-Light-Panel-T10-Festoon-Ba9s-Dome-12V-/270965668356?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f16cffa04

Since these are from China and I couldn't be sure on the quality, at $3 a panel I just bought 4 of them. 2 for the car and 2 for the spares draw just in case.
The kits come with everything you need; the panel which has a 3M backing strip and three different festoon adapters (as seen in image 1). We'll use the spring loaded one for the FJ.

To install:

1. Pop the clear plastic cover off the dome light using a small flat bladed screwdriver.
2. Make sure the light is turned off and cool; I cooked my fingers on the incandescent the first time I did this!
3. If the incandescent is cool; take it out and put it aside in your spares draw.
4. Insert the spring loaded adapter; positive goes to the side with the tab (you'll know what I mean when you see it) or worst case grab a multimeter and check before hand.
5. Once you've got the spring loaded adapter installed (the trickiest part of the install); plug the LED panel in and test it works.
6. If all has gone well; position the wires into the space the festoon goes into, peel the backing off the sticky strip and attach it.
7. Re-install the plastic cover
8. Admire your handy work!

1. LED plate and components (ebay image)

2. OEM incandescent cab lighting

3. LED light panel installed

Maglite LED Upgrade

I realised the other day (night actually), that LED torches are the wave of the future. I've got an LED headlamp from my days in the SES and my ARB LED Adventure light I got at Xmas 2011; but I always throw my trusty old mini Maglite in my pocket while roaming around camp. This Maglite uses the old school incandecent bulb, which is marginally brighter than a few candles.

Google to the rescue; I soon found overhaul kits for Maglites to convert them to LED. Two brands stood out as the clear leaders in the field; NiteIze and TerraLux. Because I wanted the most lumens from the torch, I went for the TerraLux Extreme upgrade kit which brings the torch to 140 lumens of output.

Its a very simple process to change over to LED; simply replace the bulb with the LED one provided and change out the reflector to the one provided in the kit. The output in comparison to the standard Maglite bulb is unreal, the photos below really don't do it justice.

Standard Maglite bulb.

TerraLux LED upgrade kit

Upgraded Maglite with TerraLux LED bulb.

So if you have a Maglite that you want to give a new lease on life; I'd highly recommend getting an LED upgrade kit.