Rockets Wagon

[Rocket55]

Another update:

While I was installing my overhead switches I ran all the wiring for the dash cam, it just fits behind the mirror. I'm contemplating painting the back of the mirror a dark grey to hide the camera a bit.



The following weekend I installed my winch. A few weeks ago I picked up a Runva 11XP. The winch slips in from underneath really easily and bolts up through the front of the bull bar. This means the rope has to spool off the top of the drum, no big deal, just means it gets mounted with the gearbox on the drivers side. Because of this I had to remove the gearbox and rotate it 90 degrees to bring the level back up to the top, this took less than 10 minutes.

Because the top mounting bolts also hold on the fairlead, I had to get 10mm longer bolts.



I popped the grill out (undoing those two bottom clips was a PITA, next time I'll just replace them with little bolts) which gave me tonnes of access to wire up the winch. There's cavernous amounts of room behind the grill, but nothing to mount the solenoid box to. So I made a bracket that spans the chassis rails and mounted it to that just drivers side of centre. While I was there I wired up a couple of Hella LED numberplate lights I had lying around from a previous project to light up the drum behind the grill, pretty straight forward and worked a treat.



In this pic which is looking straight down from above the car you can see my bracket, solenoid box and LED lights



To finish it off I installed a strip of LED just above the fairlead to light up the front of the car. The internal switch which activates the winch also turns on the lights, should make winching of a night time a bit easier, well that was my rational, but really its just a bit of LED bling and wank factor

[Rocket55]

While I was at it I also threw in a set of LED parker/Blinkers (LED Autolamps 175AW). I had these on my previous ute and they were fantastic. No more filling up with mud and rusting.

[skip187187]

nice rig mate

[Rocket55]

Thanks Skip, it's starting to come along. I'm starting to look at suspension packages atm. Current thinking is 3" lift (not too high, not too low), Superior springs and Profender adjustable remote res shocks. Then to bolt a set of 35's onto it.

An Opposite Lock Slim Line (Windcheater) roof rack and 40" Aurora light bar might slip in there along the way too. I'm thinking maybe a 2m rack as opposed to a 2.2m rack is better as it keeps the light bar back a bit from the top of the screen....

[Rocket55]

Started building my barn door table on the long weekend

The replacement door card (6mm Marine ply)



and the table (12mm Marine ply), a few screws and some glue then ready for a coat of paint.

[Rocket55]

Well slowly getting the new bus ready, today I installed some front recovery points (not that I'll need them )





Also installed a little extension bracket so the small rear barn door opens up to 90 degrees

Before



During



and after



It's not much, but you can see the extra opening amount where the door lines up against the tail light in the rear bumper, makes all the difference for the mounting position of the fridge.

Now just to finish installing the other bits that are here or will be here by the weekend

- Barn door table (just finishing off painting it)
- Driving lights
- Sliders
- Snorkel
- Volt meters
- USB plugs

That's probably enough for now.

[Rocket55]

Been a big weekend for Rockets bus. First up I put a new set of lights on the front, these things seem to work pretty well





They kinda draw heaps more amps than the other set so a whole new wiring install was required.

While the front was all apart I ran winch controls up into the cab.

In testing the lights I made a rookie mistake I left the grill out to make adjustments easier and drove off with the grill clips still sitting on the bull bar, so now I need to get some new ones...

[MEGOMONSTER]

I love the switches in the sunglass holder on the roof console

[Rocket55]

Then it was time to put some sliders on, these are from Bolsy up in QLD and look like a high quality product. A bit of fiddling around to get them on, but all in all pretty straight forward.

Before



The naked look



And finished





Cut out of the front flare to fit

[Rocket55]

Now for the scary bit, time to mount up the snorkel. I opted for a TJM snorkel, well, because I like the look of them, nice and neat.

Laid out on the installation table, you can see my barn door table on the end of the table. This is just needing another coat of paint and then it goes on too.



The clean up and guard preparation, I gave it a quick polish, easier to do it without a snorkel on. Jacked it up, put it on a stand and removed the wheel for access.



The strip out begins, airbox out, battery and tray out, inner guard out, arial out.



Stick on the template.



Centre punch, take some brave pills and drill some holes. Always feels better after the first one and nothing happened. I don't know what I was expecting to happen after all it's just sheet metal, but I had visions of the drill wandering around across the guard, the car falling off the stand, something blowing up... anyway it all went pretty smoothly



Now time for the big sucker, 111mm diameter. More brave pills, get a grip and just do it. Nice steady pressure, a good speed, not to fast and not too slow, although I did find that it worked better when spun faster that what I thought was a good speed. I found on my 3 speed drill, I was in 2nd gear at about 3/4 rpms. Remember to stop regularly as you can generate enough heat to burn the existing paint and cause it to bubble away from the guard, well at least that was the tip I was given by TJM when I picked up the snorkel.

TIP: mask over the rubber strip between the flare and the guard, as hot filings will burn into the rubber (again I was told this by my friendly TJM store).

Phew All done 8-)





A bit of stuffing around, stacks of Sensor Safe Sikaflex 227, a few swear words, late for dinner and whollar its on





I did find there was a substantial gap between the airbox and the duct that goes through the guard. I removed and threw away that stupid foam seal on the flange of the airbox, how is anyone suppose to seal anything with that there. Anyway with his missing, one side was touching and the other side had about a 5-6mm gap I'm thinking WTF! Nothing a generous helping of Sikaflex won't fix, a good bead around both surfaces, airbox in and I could see it squeegee out all the way around, put everything else back in and job done.