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The Prospector

haeriphos

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Ok, I wanted to post some notes about some installs I did recently on my new JLURD and see that people keep these rig journals with cool names. My Jeep's not half as cool as most of these I've been looking at, but I'll start adding in the things I've done to it to save others some hassle. I live in Alaska and the kids and I have recently gotten into gold panning, hence the name.

Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3579
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haeriphos

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First project was to install some roof racks for the Tepui rooftop tent. I ordered the Jeep with the soft top option because I really like the idea of being able to take down the roof on a whim for the few weeks of hot weather we get every year. The two main things holding me back are my region's winter weather and the tent. It dips down into the -40s F up here and while I'm not worried about the heaters keeping up, I really do want a rear-window defroster available. If I go with the soft top then I can't mount roof racks and would need to get one of the cage racks which is just not very appealing to me.

So I opted for the dual top group with the intention of swapping in the soft top during the hottest part of our summer. Some day if I leave the state and move south I'll want the soft top anyhow so I figured this was a good buy.

I purchased the Yakima roof rack system which fits the rain gutter of the hard top. The towers are the 1A models and I chose the large (66") round bars, though the 58" were recommended.
https://www.yakima.com/1a-raingutter-system

My goal in mounting the Tepui was to have it attached all the time because it's such a hassle to get up there. I didn't want to interfere with the Freedom Panel operation so the bars had to mount behind the panels. As you can see it fits quite nicely. I just have to keep reminding myself not to pull into the garage after work.

The actual installation was quite straightforward. The hardest part was aligning the bars in the towers. To get them centered I needed a second person to apply backwards pressure to one tower while I did the same to the other. That would move the bar and so we would have to release pressure to reposition and center the bar, then apply pressure again. Frustrating but once it's up, it's sturdy.

Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3588
 
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haeriphos

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Second project was to install a winch! I always thought that people who drove around with winches were pretentious, but when I bought the Jeep (my first) I started to wonder what I would do if I got stuck out of cell phone range -- not an uncommon situation to get yourself into out here even without offroading. The obvious answer was I either needed a winch or more friends, so I bought a winch.

One of the most frustrating things about living in Alaska is shipping things. You would think that we lived in Africa the way online merchants treat us up here. Rugged Ridge wanted over $300 to ship me a winch. Amazon shipped me a Smittybilt winch for free. The Jeep merchandise store wants $30 to ship me an overpriced water bottle for my dog. This is relevant to the winch project because I was quite limited in what I could have shipped up here for a reasonable amount of money, so I ended up buying a Smittybilt winch, a Rugged Ridge winch plate (through Amazon who shipped it to me for free), and kept my OEM steel bumper.

The installation went well overall. I wasn't impressed with the winch installation instructions but was able to follow along if I studied them closely. The electrical connections were easy to route along the passenger side of the grille and up through the engine -- just a positive and negative for the battery. I was not at all happy with the RR winch plate however. I wasn't aware that if I was keeping my stock bumper (and not using a RR bumper) I would have to cut through some of my OEM brackets to make everything fit. Had I known this I would have purchased something else because I'm not setup to make accurate cuts through steel in my garage. However, I made it work and everything fit together as it should. Almost.

Using this combination of products left me with two small problems. First, the control module on the winch sits right up against my grille. I have a feeling that if I ever need to take that winch off I'm going to have a scratched grille. It also prevents me from taking the grille off without first taking the bumper and winch off. Second, the clutch handle of the winch is too long and hits the edge of my bumper. I can jam it under the lip of the bumper to make it work but I hate having to do this. I'll probably just trim 1/2" off the end of the silver handle so it rotates freely.

If I had to do it all over again I would have looked for a matched set of bumper and winch plate. This probably would have resulted in the winch being in the correct location and not pressing up against my grille and the handle not contacting the bumper edge.

https://ruggedridge.com/p/rugged-ridge-spartacus-winch-plate/rgr-11543-16/
https://www.smittybilt.com/product/index/150.htm (model 98510)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BQJRVS2/


Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3585
Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3583
Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3584
Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3591
 
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haeriphos

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One thing you get used to in Alaska in the dark (and the sun in the summer). For a pretty significant part of the year you go to work in the dark and you come home in the dark. It doesn't take long to get irritated with poor reverse lighting when you need to use your backup camera. Thankfully Alaska also has pretty liberal laws when it comes to auxiliary lighting. I think the only restriction on backup lights is that you can't turn them on when you're driving forward.

If you haven't heard, the Wrangler JL LED backup lights leave a lot to be desired. I have a pair of LED lights attached to the back of my F150 which are extremely handy so I opted to do something similar on the Jeep. The F150's hang down from the bumper but I wanted to avoid any reduction of ground clearance on the Jeep so I found a pair of flush mounting white LED lights instead. It was nerve wracking drilling large holes into my brand new Wrangler but I got the measurements right and everything turned out ok.

I used taps to access the backup hot and ground at the towing harness and ran these to both lights. I did not use diodes and have not had any problems so far. I made the connection with spades and am considering disconnecting the lights for summer, but given that they're LEDs and will probably outlast me, I haven't quite gotten around to it yet.

In the bottom picture you can see the bottom of the hitch with the wires coming out of the hitch plug. I have the LED wires running through the frame of the bumper and only exiting right before the connection into the hitch wires.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NPPNKTU/

Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3589

Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3590
 
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haeriphos

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I do a fair amount of traveling outside the city and our rural roads get quite dark during the winter. Rather than watching for deer run across the road we have to watch for casually strolling moose. Adding to the problem is that moose heads tend to be above your beam pattern and so their eyes do not reflect headlights well. So most of our vehicles up here either have really nice factory headlights or they add moose lights (aka LED bars). You'll see them on everything from trucks and SUVs to Geo Metros.

I've got my eye set on the KC Gravity Pro6 LED light bar but couldn't really justify the $1,900 price tag at this point, so I instead bought the lesser-known Rigidhorse 42" LED light bar likely made somewhere in rural China for $80 from Amazon. I paired this with a DDUOO mounting bracket that secures the light bar just behind the hood hinges. The mounts are $75 and very nicely made. They're red so blend in well with my factory paint and machined very well. There are some adjustments available to make sure it fits most 42" light bars and also has room to mount a cube light.

I wired this in to my AUX4 switch and added a relay. I have the LED package and there is a wiring harness conveniently located just above the passenger headlight that contains the power for the high beam. There have been multiple questions about how to wire your LED bars to trigger with the high beams so I'll be specific here, but bear in mind that I literally just finished this install a couple of hours ago and so I haven't spent a lot of time using the lights; I can't yet speak to whether or not the CANBUS will throw an error, the Jeep will catch on fire, etc etc.

I pulled the power for the relay off the AUX4 switch under the hood so the LED bar only activates when I have that switch engaged. I grounded it to the frame at the same location that i grounded the LED bar. The trigger for the relay is run to a vampire tap on the white/grey wire (high beams) at the harness above the passenger headlamp. So if the AUX4 switch is engaged, the light bar will activate when I turn on the high beams. I've tested it and it works great. I mounted the relay using an existing bolt rather than drilling a new hole somewhere. There's not a lot of places to fit the relay and it doesn't seem to interfere with the hood closure in it's current location.

I did not use a diode here so if I get any CANBUS errors that's probably the first thing that I'll do, but since I'm using a relay I don't expect problems. I am definitely not an electrician so if I hooked something up wrong please let me know!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MCNYV6P
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZQH61JB
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074QV54V1/

Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3586

Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3587

Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3592

Jeep Wrangler JL The Prospector IMG_3593
 
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Biohazard

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Had that exact winch in my jlur (coal fire build in this forum section). Works like a charm, even when frozen by upstate Ny winters. Don’t worry about taking it off, if you sell it the winch will most likely stay on.

Good looking Jeep. Sure the rain gutter mounts will handle a static load of you and whoever is sleeping in your Tepui?
 
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haeriphos

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Good looking Jeep. Sure the rain gutter mounts will handle a static load of you and whoever is sleeping in your Tepui?
[/QUOTE]


EDIT: Originally I had a minor heart stoppage when I looked up the weight limit and saw it was 165#. I looked into this some more and it looks like that's the dynamic load limit, with the static limit for all the different types of crossbars being 600#. I've emailed them for clarification.
 
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Biohazard

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I used Maximus-3’s rhino rack system, which had a static/dynamic load rating of 900lbs/300lbs. A bit more of a to do, but a solid system. Was very happy with it. You can see the interior mounts from the roof to the roll bar in the images.

55496EEF-B8C1-40D1-A445-4EB1BC47E8C0.jpeg


69A4D255-307F-4D07-91D4-BDFFD5387E36.jpeg
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