How would you outfit this custom LJ?

[jscherb]

The LJ earning its keep today. I'm looking forward to not needing the plow anymore, where we're moving doesn't get enough snow to justify keeping it so I'll be selling it soon.

The trailer in the background usually lives in a storage unit when it's not being used but I've been moving things to the new house using the trailer, making one or more trips every week so it was in the driveway when the snowstorm hit.

 

[jscherb]

I removed the plow from the LJ this morning, I won't be needing it anymore. Where I'm moving to there's a bit less snow and lot less driveway. I haven't removed the mount from the frame yet, didn't feel like working under the Jeep in the rain but it is only a few bolts to remove.

I'll be selling it as soon as I take the mount off the Jeep. Plow works great and the mount bolts up easily to a TJ/LJ. Plow is 7' wide so it makes quick work of most driveways. Includes headlights with high/low beam, running lights and turn signals. Photo of wiring harness shows the cab controls, the rest of the harness is attached to the plow. Electric up/down, manual angle. Only the two battery connections to make the plow work; the lights require tapping into the circuits in the Jeep but that's not difficult.

 

[Chorky]

In the post above I offered to send people the engineering drawings for the roof supports for running the Gr8Tops Safari Cab without the sides and the first person that contacted me didn't ask me about that, they asked me about adding a wiper to their Safari Cab. Unfortunately that's another feature Gr8Tops decided not to include in the product. So I'll provide the wiper info here...

The motor I used is from AM Equipment, it's their 212-series motor: https://www.amequipment.com/shop/212-series-dc-gear-motor-assembly-and-208-replacement-3a2kl/, specs are 12v, 100-degree sweep, 25mm shaft. The wiper blade is 13", and the geometry looks like this:

View attachment 813545

For my Jeep, I used some Trico parts to make a custom wiper arm. Before Gr8Tops decided not to offer the wiper as an option, I was working with the AM Equipment on a custom arm for this application, it's in the photo below. I didn't go any further with AM Equipment when Gr8Tops decided not to offer the wiper option so if someone wants to put a wiper in their Safari Cab rear door, they'll need to work up a custom wiper arm like I did. The dimensions and bend angle are shown in the drawing above, it's not really that hard to make.

View attachment 813546

The wiper motor goes inside the bottom cavity of the barn door as shown in the diagram above and the photo below; the photo is a work-in-progress photo taken as I was installing the motor. One thing not shown in the photo below is the cavity cover, that was a separate piece molded in fiberglass so that's something that would need to be made if someone wants to do this project.

View attachment 813544

This is such a great idea! It's one of the things that has kept me from getting this top. But, have you looked into adding some wiring to use the factory rear window heater/defroster?

 

[jscherb]

This is such a great idea! It's one of the things that has kept me from getting this top. But, have you looked into adding some wiring to use the factory rear window heater/defroster?

Yes, back when I was building the initial top I made up a rear window with a defroster grid, but I decided to try the Jeep for the first winter without it. I ended up never installing - the rear window is only a few degrees off vertical so ice and snow doesn't accumulate on it. I've been driving the Jeep now with this top in upstate NY winters for many years and never felt like I needed it.

 

[jscherb]

Now that the plow is off the and the LJ is a daily driver again, I towed my trailer to the new house today; I've been moving a lot of stuff over the past 2 months using the trailer and towing it with either the Wrangler pickup or the JKU. But my favorite is the LJ so I used that today.





Almost every time I tow the trailer with the LJ I get asked if Jeep makes the trailer to match the hardtop and that happened at a rest stop today. I have to tell them that neither the hardtop or the trailer topper are from Jeep .

 

[jscherb]

At SEMA I ran into my friend Greg Henderson (Unofficial Use Only: https://unofficialuseonly.com/about) He built the two Quadratec custom Jeeps in the last few years and I worked with him to design storage solutions for those projects that I had Overland Outfitters make. He told me he's got an Egyptian military TJL tub that he plans to build (stock photo):



He asked me if I would build a custom length Safari Cab hardtop for it and while I do have the all of the original Safari Cab molds and can make custom-length tops using those molds, for the foreseeable future I don't have the time to build one because I'm so busy working on our new-to-us 200-year-old house. But since I developed templates for making quick TJ/LJ concept drawings back when I did the original Safari Cab for my LJ, I did a concept image for him...

 

[jscherb]

18,000 lb. recovery job... One of the things we're doing to our new-to-us 200-year old house is restoring the exterior - a lot of the siding has seen much better days. Today the contractor brought a cherry picker so they could work on some of the higher spots. It was cold in the morning and the 18,000 lb. machine had no trouble on the mostly frozen grass. But by the afternoon things had warmed up and they couldn't get the cherry picker up the slight slope back to the road. The yard isn't very steep but the tires of the picker quickly turned the yard to mud and no forward progress was possible - wheels were spinning. So I backed the LJ out of the garage, hooked up my 35,000 lb. tow strap, and pulled the machine up the hill and back onto the road. I've recovered a lot of Jeeps, a few cars in snowbanks in the winter, and strapped people over obstacles on trails, but this is the heaviest recovery I've ever had to do. The LJ did just fine, as I knew it would.

 

[jscherb]

I posted a while back that I bought a new Grenadier and I'm outfitting it to replace my Wranglers for expedition use. If anyone is interested in following along with my outfitting, mods and new designs for Grenadier accessories, it's in the Grenadier section of this site: https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/outfitting-my-grenadier-trialmaster.247640/

 

[jscherb]

I've been working with MORryde on a cargo slide; it's for the JKU and JLU Wranglers and the Bronco. It also installs in the Ineos Grenadier (hey, now that I've got a Grenadier, I'm not going to miss an opportunity to adapt something to it). In the JKU:



The TJ/LJ isn't on MORryde's radar for this slide, but I figured if it can be made to fit there too so much the better, so I tried it in my LJ today. Turns out if fits great, it's basically full width in the TJ/LJ. Since I haven't installed the slide to the floor, in this next photo showing the slide extended I'm supporting the tray with my camera tripod...



For the JKU/JLU/Bronco MORryde's doing a no-drill kit and I haven't shown them these photos yet but they don't have plans to do a no-drill kit for the TJ/LJ; even without no-drill kit it wouldn't be hard to do some nutserts in the floor to secure it using the holes that are already in the slide's mounting brackets.

They say their price target for the slide is around $330 and plus the no-drill kit for whatever vehicle they're shooting for less than $400 total price, but if one were to install the slide in a TJ/LJ with nutserts you'd avoid the cost of the no-drill installation kit.

I wonder if there's enough demand for this in the TJ/LJ market to make an installation kit worthwhile? The TJ/LJ don't have really usable tie down points in the bed so a no-drill kit might be a challenge to design but I think it could be done. What do you guys think? Worth pursuing?

As long as I'm posting today, I'll add this... I've got a full collection of JP Magazine (every issue) that it taking up space, I haven't read them in a long time so if anyone's interested I'll consider offers.



I also have a full collection of JRations Magazine and a nearly complete collection of Jeep World UK magazines that I don't probably need anymore if anyone is interested.



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