Offroader5's Runner Thread....

[Offroader5]

Not much of an update, but something else crossed off my list, so it's a start.

After being without front door panels for quite some time while I stewed over what components to install, I finally got them in.

I did alot of research on components and after narrowing it down to several different brands/sets that ranged from about $300 up to $500, I settled on a set not even in that list. I found great reviews on these components and as inexpensive as they are...decided to just go for it. Ironically enough, the OEM JBL Synthesis speakers have been replaced with JBL The MS-62C 6.5" components.

Made a bracket out of acetal plastic for the tweeter, and a 3/4" MDF baffle board/adapter to fit the 6.5". The area directly behind the woofer received a square of Ensolite acoustical barrier from RAAM Audio to help break up the waves coming off the rear of the woofer. I also put some over the top of the deadener where the larger holes were in the door and I used it as a gasket material between the MDF baffle and the door sheetmetal.

Sounds Incredible. Right now they are being fed about 80 watts per door, but will see closer to 100-120 when I get my new 4 channel amp later.

Sorry, the pic with the woofer came out a bit fuzzy

 

[Offroader5]

Been a while since the last update. Not much to show that's new. This update is only audio based. I have plans to update/upgrade my front speakers to a 3 way active using some very high end drivers. This means I will have some type of fiberglass project for the front doors and/or a-pillars. To equip for the upgrade, I picked up a couple more amps & I'll need a DSP (which I have yet to decide on).

I started glassing a new sub enclosure that will be going into the rear quarter. I used the OEM one as a mold for the back half so i knew that it would fit. Once I got it to finally release from the mold, I added a couple more layers to it, trimmed up the flange on the outside and did a test fit while holding my breath as to whether it would truly fit after all the issues and work that went into preparing the mold.

It fits! Now I just have to start adding layers to stiffen it up and also strengthen the mount tabs. I'm not too worried about adding a bunch of support to the tabs/flanged areas yet, I can do that once I start the front baffle and tie them in together. My original plan was port this and run two 8's, but I've been experimenting lately with a single 15 sealed in about 2 cubic feet...and I've had great results. So I believe I'm going to head in that direction with the completion of the enclosure. I can get more output and cleaner sound with the single 15 on about 700 watts than I get right now with two 8's in a vented enclosure on 1000 watts.

Here is a picture of the OEM enclosure all prepped to be a mold blank along with a pic of the fitted rear half of the glass enclosure:

More updates to come

 

[Geologist]

Nice looking ride, I like what you've done. Great pics too. I guess I know who to bug when it's time to overhaul the sound system :guitar2:

 

[Offroader5]

Oh, forgot to add a newer pic with the 285 Toyos. Bad pic really...can barely tell it's lifted and that those are 33's :

 

[Offroader5]

Made a small addition today. I am in the midst of installing a whole new audio system and needed a main fuse near the battery. Instead of just bolting the inline fuse onto the firewall, inner fender, or wherever, I decided to add a new box to the engine bay. I wanted a place where I could install aftermarket fuse blocks and future relays that not only would be water proof, but also look clean and almost OEM.

The passenger side has plenty of room, but that would put the fuses and relays too far from the battery. I would have been able to use a much larger box if I was able to use the passenger side. I had to settle on a smaller box due to the limited space on the drivers side.

I looked into many variations of "plastic weatherproof boxes", and based on previous experience with them, I settled on a Pelican case. The 1120, their smallest "small case", was a PERFECT fit. I made a couple brackets that connect to the inner fender that triangulate for a strong mount. In place, it still allows access to the OEM fuse panel cover and relay covers.

The Pelican cases are so nice, It's sad to have to drill holes in it The blue cable you see in the pics will be the fused line that will run into the box and back out to the battery and will also be Techflex'd. Any wires that enter/exit will get grommets.

Here are some pics:

 

[Offroader5]

Finally installed this thing...

Used a portion of a bracket I had from an old GPS mount and used industrial strength velcro. Wheel tilts all the way up with no interference.

 

[Offroader5]

New front door midbass installed. IMO, these doors were made for 8" woofers baby :nod:
These are only the midbass woofers in a 3 way front setup. Still have to figure out locations for and mount up the midrange drivers and tweeter transducers. The baffles will be painted with undercoating spray and I still need to get some material to go behind the baffle to decouple it from the door.

The woofers may look plain, but these are very special and very well built. No bling....all business. They will be getting about 400 watts each.

Making the baffle. I sandwiched two pieces of 1/2" MDF to make the baffle thick enough so the magnet wouldn't contact the bottom of the window when it was all the way down. Before & after:


Inserts on the backside for woofer mounting:


Woofer mounted to baffle:


And, mounted to the door:


I'll need to get more deadener, acoustic foam, and some MLV to layer the doors in an effort to rid the new resonances and rattles from the lower frequencies that are now being played by the 8's.

 

[Offroader5]

A pic from this past weekend.

 

[CZ Eddie]

Really nice build.
Do the rear Peerless midbass and new 8" front midbass all fit behind stock grills?
Also, before adding the new 8" midbass, would the rear midbass ever draw the soundstage behind you?

 

[Offroader5]

Really nice build.
Do the rear Peerless midbass and new 8" front midbass all fit behind stock grills?
Also, before adding the new 8" midbass, would the rear midbass ever draw the soundstage behind you?

Both fit behind the OEM panel with one modification. There is a little vertical plastic "flap" on the inside of the panel around the perimeter of the perforated area of the grille. On the rear Peerless, I removed this flap for fear that it MIGHT contact the surround of the driver...but it may have fit just fine. On the front 8", because I needed to make the baffle 1" thick to allow the magnet to clear the window when it was rolled all the way down, it was pretty much required to cut the flap off.

Modification is to the interior side of the panel only so it doesn't show at all once the panel is reinstalled.

When I was running the Peerless, the front was still the JBL component set and the rear midbass did pull the sound rearward a bit, but the rears were crossed lower than a midrange meaning they didn't play a lot of voice, so it wasn't horrible. I never played the Peerless along with the front 8". By the time I installed the 8", I had already removed the rear door speakers and I don't run rears anymore.

Here is a pic of how the doors were finished out (minus the MLV and CCF layers that were attached after this pic):


The setup I run now is Audible Physics 3" wideband drivers in the front kick panels which play as midrange and all the way up to about 12khz which is almost high enough to run tweeterless and the 8" in the front doors as midbass that play down to about 70hz and all the way up to meet the 3". The sub is a single Dayton Audio 15" in a small sealed enclosure.

I've just finished a new amp board/wiring layout and will be installing it here soon. With the new board install I finally gain a DSP, so it will be a bit of tuning before all sounds good.

 

[Offroader5]

I have the amp board installed...temporarily. It's nothing special, just a piece of MDF with holes and carpet. The sub is a 15" Dayton HO in a temporary 2 cubic foot sealed enclosure. Seems like I do a lot of temporary installs

Only reason the amp board is temporary is since it's bolted in using a filler piece along the bottom. This will eventually be the bottom platform of my rear cargo drawer system I'm going to build. The gap at the bottom will be covered at that point to blend nicely and the rough carpet edge along the bottom will not be visble either. The sub enclosure is temporary because I still have intentions of finishing the rear quarter panel fiberglass enclosure and I *should* be able to get the 15 to fit in the alotted space. Fingers crossed.

Amps are PPI Phantom. Left is the 1000.1 for the sub, the ther two are 900.4's. The center one is not wired yet, it will soon be bridged to run only the 8" midbass in the front doors. Right now the midrange & midbass are both being powered by the 900.4 on the right. DSP is the Mosconi 6to8.

I made all the patch cables to the length I needed in lieu of buying pre-made one's. I still need to make the one that runs between the HU & the DSP...right now I am using one I had previous (which is way too long).

A single 0 gauge cable runs from the battery through a Blue Sea ANL fuse holder @ 200A, which is mounted in the Pelican case installed earlier..then on to the rear cargo area to the back of the amp board into a Knu Konceptz distribution/fuse block that splits off to each amp & DSP. This cable is Techflex'd in the engine bay. Don't have a picture of this uploaded yet.

On the input end of the distro block is another branch off of 0 gauge that feeds power to an aux Blue Sea fuse panel that sits on top of the rear passenger quarter wheel well. You can see the double 0 gauge cable in the picture of the sub.

 

[Offroader5]

My headlights were pretty cloudy and I had pondered just getting a new set. If I was going to go new, I also wanted to try one's with black bezels.

I decided to just do the one's I had and save the cash. I also did the DRL/turn signal and driving lights while I was at it to complete the look and because they were also looking pretty cloudy themselves. Since I had to remove the housings anyway to cook them in the oven to do the black, I went ahead and used this to my advantage and was able to polish the lenses off the vehicle and disassembled from the housings.

I bought the Mothers headlight lens renewal kit that comes with the small powerball for your drill. But, I instead mounted this into my drill press which allowed me to keep both hands on the lens while polishing and this gave a lot of control and I was able to put as much pressure on it as I wanted.

It completely changes the look of the front. Now I just need to Satoshi my grille.

Here is a before and after of just the headlights:



Here's some more shots:

 

[Offroader5]

Alright, so I have been approached by numerous people at gas stations and around town that have commented on the headlights and they all asked the same questions. Where did you buy headlights like that and those that knew that they were simply refurbished wondered what I did to get them so clear.

So in an effort to make the info more complete for those that want to do it I have some additional details.

The kit is by Mothers and comes with a small version of their Powerball, a bottle of Power Plastic polish, a microfiber towel, and two small flexible foam sanding squares with a different grit on each of the 4 sides with the smoothest being I think 2000.

The sanding squares are for the "extreme" treatment. With as oxidized, yellowed, and pitted as my headlights were, I opted to go right into the extreme treatment before even trying to just buff them out. I sanded all lenses (headlights, DRL, driving) with each grit consecutively down to the smoothest. Then I mounted the Powerball into my drill press so I could have both hands on the lens for better control. Then I simply buffed them out till I was satisfied with the reflection and finish.

You can see that the lenses came out looking almost new. You can still see some tiny pits in the headlights which I could have sanded deeper to remove, but after the buff, they looked fine to me.

The big thing is to take the time to do a nice complete sanding of each grit before moving on to the next, and go through all grits to as smooth as you can. This leads to less time buffing. Buffing only took maybe 5 minutes on the DRL & driving lenses, and of course much longer on the headlights purely because of their size and the fact that they are perfectly clear unlike either of the smaller lenses that have fluting in the lens. This forces you to spend more time on them to get them just right.

So, there ya go. :biggrin2:

 

[Offroader5]

Here are some shots showing the whole front and with lights on:

 

[ebg18t]

Excellent job.

Did you do a body chop mod to clear the the 285's.

 

[Offroader5]

Excellent job.

Did you do a body chop mod to clear the the 285's.

Hmm, not sure how I missed this post.

I had to trim just a small bit out of the rear face of the front wheel well (at the bottom of the flare) where the outer corner of the sidewall was contacting when turning. I also cut away some of the thin black plastic that backs the front bumper just forward of the tires. The rears I did a bit of trimming to the flaps, but they still rub a tiny bit when fully stuffed.

I need to do a bit more trimming on the front somewhere. It is barely rubbing only when turned and backing up. I'm going to wait though till I get the front bumper installed (or a hidden winch mount...haven't decided) and the coil overs adjusted before I finish up the trimming.

 

[Offroader5]

I've been wanting to install an on board 12v compressor for a while now. Previously for air duties, I had been content using a 10# CO2 cylinder for airing up tires and such (which really just came from using it on my other crawling rig). While the refill cost or frequency of refills wasn't a deciding factor for this upgrade...the fact that IF the tank is empty and you want to have air for an impromptu trip...you're out of luck if you didn't already get a fill before your trip (which was unplanned to begin with )


Did a bit of research on Viair, TJM, ARB, Q Industries, Extremeaire, and even the "cheapy" versions from Wally or Harbor Freight. Came down to reliability and cost in the end. I intended on spending a decent amount to get a good product which really was the only reason to take the Wally & HF versions off the list. Figured they would be the least optimal for performance in terms of duty cycle and the "get what you pay for" reliability. I MAY have been perfectly happy using a $69 HF compressor, but there are some times when I feel spending the extra cash on a quality product up front will win out in the end...and this is one time.


I eventually decided on the ARB model CKMA12. I've always thought ARB's products were a bit overpriced, but at the same time knew they make good products. I picked it up locally at http://www.sierraexpeditions.com/ which have always been great to deal with in previous purchases. Any AZ guys in the Phoenix area that need equipment or install help should drop in on Will and he'll take good care of ya.


My original plan was to mount it inside the rear drivers quarter panel. Even though the ARB would fit if I relocated the OEM jack & tools, it would have been tight and the airflow wouldn't have been optimal. Not to mention...I didn't want to run ANOTHER large gauge cable all the way to the rear just for the compressor to have a good power feed. I decided to instead install it under the hood on the passenger side behind the air intake.


I pondered over an orientation and welded up a triangulated bracket that uses all OEM holes on the inner fender well. The bracket will be decoupled from the sheetmetal by rubber washers/spacers to at least try and remove some vibration and sound transfer into the body. And because I'm an audiophile and know the benefits of sound deadening, I may even coat the backside of the bracket with a CLD deadending layer just so I can be sure resonances will be in check. (sometimes I overthink things )


I may try and make a vertical seperator that blocks some of the engine heat from reaching the compressor (kind of like they do with aftermarket air intakes). At some point I may also add a tank which will probably end up underneath forward of the spare tire.


Of course I don't have the pics up yet, but they will come soon.

 

[Offroader5]

Oh.....and I also installed a set of All-Pro rear lower trailing arms and made up a new set of sway bar end links for the rear too. I'll have pics soon.

 

[H&KRunner]

Love the build. Any updated interior pics?

 

[Brutalguyracing]

Sweet build
Where do you keep your 33" spare?