Building Arrakis (2016 JKUR)

Caelan

New member
Part 1: Living Space

It was pretty much a given that we’d end up in a Wrangler. My 6’8″ frame doesn’t fit in Land Rovers or Toyotas and Sophia grew up riding around in Jeeps with dreams of having one of her own. And then there was this prophetic wooden sign, proudly featuring a Jeep, that hung in the gasthaus where we planned out our future while hiking through the Black Forest. When we found a 2016 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon with Mojave Sand paint on a used lot in Bend, OR, we knew something special had fallen into our laps. It had 833 miles on the odometer. A bit of paperwork and some nervous waiting later, it was a done deal. We named it Arrakis then drove it from the dealership straight out into the Willamette National Forest for a bit of fun on the trails and a night out under the stars.

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First night out with Arrakis

We wanted a mobile base camp setup that would allow us to be stationary and self sustaining for a week or more at a time, regardless of the weather. So our build started with the idea of maximizing the amount of “indoor” space available. The main frame for that would be a roof rack. Gobs of research narrowed our choices to Gobi and Front Runner: Front Runner makes a great rack with an entire catalog of neat things you can bolt to it (table storage under the rack?!) but the Gobi racks wouldn’t require drilling through the hard top. That was the deciding factor; we went with a Gobi Stealth rack. Since we would be in Colorado for my brother’s wedding around that time, we took a detour to Gobi’s shop outside Denver to have them install the rack for us.

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We took the long way back from getting the roof rack installed

We took a couple trips like that, gear strapped to the top and sleeping either in Arrakis or in a sleeping bag under the stars when weather allowed. But our real dream was a roof top tent. Soon enough, we found ourselves the proud owner of a Tepui Ruggedized Autana Sky (now called a Ruggedized Series Autana 3). It came bundled with a lower awning room, used a heavier canvas than most of the other tents we looked at in our price range, and was one of the very first roof top tents we saw that could open up two panels in the roof for an unobstructed view of the sky. Their shop was also just down the way from us, so it was easy to pop down for a chat and pick up our tent. Arrakis had finally become a home. We now had three usable rooms (upstairs, downstairs, and inside the Jeep itself).

The final step in creating our living space was to pick up an awning. Sophia has a dislike of mosquitoes that somehow mixes phobia with fury, so we knew we had to find an awning with a fully sealed room attachment. Fortunately, ARB makes a Touring Room to pair with their 2500mm awning. We bought them both. Since then, ARB has released the Deluxe Awning Room and I’ve found myself looking for ways to disparage it to make me feel better about our much more standard awning room. With that, our living quarters were complete. Until it all became obnoxious and we scrapped the whole plan. But I'll get to that later.

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Somewhere under all that is a Jeep
 

BigBad408

Observer
"Until it all became obnoxious and we scrapped the whole plan. But I'll get to that later."

I looked at all that stuff and went "what's the point if it takes an hour to setup camp?". It's a struggle we all face. I'm interested to see what you have in store. Great looking Jeep!
 

Caelan

New member
I looked at all that stuff and went "what's the point if it takes an hour to setup camp?". It's a struggle we all face. I'm interested to see what you have in store. Great looking Jeep!

That's exactly it. Once everything was set up it was amazingly posh but getting everything built took forever and breaking camp in foul weather was guaranteed to spark some foul moods. On the rare chance we'd hang out in a camp for more than a day or two, it felt good. I think it only happened twice in six months on the road.

I like the name. Not sure anyone else will get it...


Arrakis.
Dune.
Desert Planet.

"Because Jeep IIIIISSSS the Kwisatz Haderach!" Haha.

I'm glad there's other classic sci-fi nerds out there! When we were trying to decide on a direction for our mobile abode, we went back and forth between a Jeep named Arrakis and a big expedition camper named Shai-hulud.

Jeep did a great job matching their Mojave Sand paint to the color of the Mojave Desert. All the black on Arrakis disappears completely when it gets covered in desert mud, but you can hardly tell it's there on the paint.

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squint

Adventurer
That’s a great name! I just got finished reading Dune for the second time. I read it the first time 30 years ago.
 

Caelan

New member
Part 2: Storage

Jeep Wranglers are not known for their storage capacity. Arrakis is an incredibly capable off-road machine, but weight and space are at a premium. Plus, it didn’t take long before just stacking bins in the back got to be a hassle. So I took over my dad’s well outfitted woodworking shop for a month of building out the rear 2/3 of our rig. He’s got one of the better shops I’ve ever worked in and he turns out some pretty amazing things. Check out his stuff at ShopDog Turnery or on Instagram.

First step: remove unnecessary weight. Since we don’t plan on using Arrakis to carry more than one extra person at a time, I wanted to remove everything but the bucket seat in the rear. Unfortunately, that seat bolts directly to the 60% side and can’t stand on its own. Adventure Trailers makes a bracket to fix that problem. You’ll have to give them a call if you want one since they make them to order.

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Naked Jeep!

While they were building my bracket and getting it out to me, I started yanking out all the extra plastic and carpet. I ran across Goose Gear’s amazing plate system while researching, but it wouldn’t fit our giant 65L fridge and at the time I just couldn’t justify dropping $1600 on something I’d need to modify right away. So I borrowed heavily from their design and set about making something similar on my own. Looking back with hindsight, I can easily say the price they ask for their system is a great deal.

Everything started with a cardboard mock-up. I wanted it to bolt into the tub without needing to modify the Jeep at all, so I had to get everything lined up just right. It took forever to measure out all the bolt-holes, accommodate for every protrusion and contour, redesign sections as I added complexity, and test fit each piece. After a few days of that, it was finally time to start transferring the cardboard patterns onto baltic birch plywood for cutting.

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Transferring the cardboard mock-up to the final structure.

Once the pieces were cut out and finished, I assembled the individual parts with a good glue and a handful of screws. Dad’s made a study of wood glues, so he was full of helpful, exhaustive, and occasionally excessive advice on this stage. His recommendations were sound, though. After letting the glue set overnight, the first section was ready for its beauty session.

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Clamps are an amazing invention.

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It fits!! This project took a lot of late night building/fitting sessions.

Staining and finishing took forever. We only needed two coats of stain, fortunately, but it took a while for it to dry. The polyurethane coating we put on took several days to finally set. It looked fantastic when it was done, though!

The new seat bracket arrived long before I got the rear section finished, so I could jump right in on building a platform to replace the missing seat and side panels to make cubbies out of the unused space above the wheel wells. It didn’t take long to get that built and installed since I’d already figured out the process with the rear plates.

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More late nights.

Once that was done, it was time to move on to a fridge surround and a kitchen solution. We spend a lot of time in bear country, so it’s important that our kitchen isn’t permanently attached to the Jeep. Which means I got to build a chuck box. I spent many, many hours pouring through build threads and Boy Scout plans for inspiration before piecing together what I wanted. The external dimensions were set by the space left over from the fridge, so I just had to plan out an efficient way to create counter top space and storage space within those constraints.

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All the clamps!

Instead of making a cardboard mock-up this time, I measured everything out directly on the plywood, cut it to size, and assembled it all with glue and pocket screws. Dad made a seriously burly wooden milk crate for bulk storage that took a ridiculous amount of clamps to hold together while the glue set. The cubbies ended up sized perfectly for our kitchen gear and the whole thing went together one piece at a time. It took a lot longer than I anticipated to build, but the results were great. We now have a kitchen table, a counter top, and storage that collapses down to fit perfectly in Arrakis.

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Everything fits!

The final step was to get everything stained and finished. We were running out of time, so the whole family pitched in on this stage. A few days later, it was done and installed. It weighs a good bit, but we now had a usable kitchen and a much more organized home.

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Everyone helped with the final push.

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It's easy to use and everything has a place.

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A few thousand miles in, its a little dusty and holding up great.
 

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