Found a unicorn

[Shran]

Dude... you have that rig pretty dialed in for in for some road trippin. On or off road...

Totally jealous of the fridge... I've wanted one of those for years. Seems no matter what I do... I end up with hot dog flavored water in the cooler after a couple days. Not sure my current ride will get one... but being a new Bronco or Ranger is on the radar and we want to travel and camp when time allows... I'm gonna have one someday. I do think I will miss pulling a cold drink out of an ice filled cooler though.

Yeah...I am pretty self contained!

This year's trip to NM was the tipping point for me on the fridge. I had been thinking about it for the last three years but had other expensese... and this year I had a bag of ground venison leak inside one cooler and a Hershey's bar get wet inside the other (looks like diarrhea water )

This fridge was right at $450 shipped. It's one of the cheaper off brands but got really good reviews on some overlanding sites. Nice thing about these is you can run it off 120v in your house as a second fridge/freezer (it does go down to zero degrees) when you're not using it in the car. And even on 12v it just sips power - I had it set on 27 degrees and it held that for a full 24 hours without draining my battery down too far.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Yeah... they don't give them away. But you start looking at the price of these new coolers now days... $450 doesn't seem that bad... and no buying ice. Was a good move on your part...

 

[Stumblefoot]

Instead of painting it do like the Jeep guys do get it covered in bed liner, cant hardly scratch it. tough as nails. and with the gloss it looks good too!

With the 5 speed it is pretty snappy! Compared to my 4 cylinder Ranger, of course. Functional cruise control is pretty cool, haven't had that in quite a few years. I am looking forward to seeing what it will do for gas mileage, mid teens is what I am expecting, anything better would be a nice bonus.

I am definitely going to fix the rust and see about maybe painting it after that. I don't know, it would look a lot better, but then I would have to worry about scratching it and stuff. Maybe the peeling clear coat suits me better.

guys

 

[Shran]

Instead of painting it do like the Jeep guys do get it covered in bed liner, cant hardly scratch it. tough as nails. and with the gloss it looks good too!

Meh... I'm not a fan of bedliner paint jobs. A good bedliner job (Line-X, Raptor, etc) is probably a couple grand easily to do a whole truck. Cheap bedliner jobs don't hold up very well. I'm gonna paint it eventually with quality 2K urethane, just have several other projects ahead of it.

 

[Shran]

Almost 2 years since my last update - haven't really done much outside of just using the truck. I did get some rear U bolt plate skid plate things that are really nice. I destroyed several sets of factory plates just by dragging this pig through the rocks. They also move your shock mounts up.

We went out to Wyoming a couple weeks ago and ran parts of the Backcountry Discovery Route. Truck worked great. Couple small things to revise but I'm really pleased with my refinements to the camping gear setup over the years.

 

[Shran]

I built a gas can mount back in 2022:

At the time I was pretty happy with it but I found that those green gas cans kinda suck. Namely the lid grommet... gasoline turns them to goo, and the "good" aftermarket ones are too thick. So I scored a Blitz jerry can but the damn thing is just a hair too big to fit! Have to rebuild my mount... why not integrate a propane tank holder into it too? I had a 5lb propane tank in my shower Packout box but keeping the propane outside is a little safer and frees up room inside.

Here's what I am working on - not quite done yet but this is the general idea:

 

[sgtsandman]

I built a gas can mount back in 2022:
View attachment 122608
View attachment 122606

At the time I was pretty happy with it but I found that those green gas cans kinda suck. Namely the lid grommet... gasoline turns them to goo, and the "good" aftermarket ones are too thick. So I scored a Blitz jerry can but the damn thing is just a hair too big to fit! Have to rebuild my mount... why not integrate a propane tank holder into it too? I had a 5lb propane tank in my shower Packout box but keeping the propane outside is a little safer and frees up room inside.

Here's what I am working on - not quite done yet but this is the general idea:
View attachment 122607

I'm told the Wavian brand cans are the way to go if you can't get a hold of a milliary surplus can. All the other metal ones are a disappointment in some form or fashion.

 

[Shran]

Part of the reason for the propane & gas can mount rebuild was my shower water heater. This is what I have now:

These are intended for recirculating water to get it hot or just a slow stream through a shower head. It works great for either purpose - I recirculate into the water tank. My beef with it is that since it's a dual burner unit you have to run two 1lb bottles (really sucks bad in cold weather, they freeze up immediately) or you have to use a bracket and this ridiculous Y shaped hose that is as stiff as a board and has to be disassembled every time the heater is packed up:

I just frickin hate it. I almost always use it too because of the bottles freezing up - I kept a 5lb propane tank on hand at all times. No more freezing up but setup is just a big pain! I really like being able to shower at camp but setting up the heater is probably my least favorite part of camping. That needed to be addressed. I spent 3 hours at several hardware stores looking through fittings and came up with this:

I don't think it will ever run on a single 1lb bottle but now I don't need that dumb ass Y hose and I can just run the heater off a single hose from the 10lb tank on the bumper. One hose to connect... 5 minutes and I'm up and running. That same long hose can also feed propane to my skottle burner if I choose to use it.

Still need to do a little tweaking and build a different stand for the heater that packs up into the shower box but so far I think this will be a VERY welcome upgrade... more to come.

 

[Shran]

Built a new stand for the heater and a couple pieces of allthread bent and bolted into the body of the heater itself that slip into the stand:

It fits so nice inside my little Packout tool box. This is great, it really takes 30 seconds to set up. I have everything painted, should have it assembled in a few days when the paint is nice and hard.

 

[Shran]

Also got me some of those fancy AVM locking hubs. These things are legit. Probably moving the weak link in the axle to the u-joints now but that's OK, I have a lot of D35 shafts and Spicer u-joints are cheap. Factory locking hubs are plentiful in my collection but if I don't have to destroy them, I won't.

 

[Jim Oaks]

Also got me some of those fancy AVM locking hubs. These things are legit. Probably moving the weak link in the axle to the u-joints now but that's OK, I have a lot of D35 shafts and Spicer u-joints are cheap. Factory locking hubs are plentiful in my collection but if I don't have to destroy them, I won't.

View attachment 123047

I've been thinking about ordering a pair. How would you compare them to other hubs you've used?

 

[Shran]

I've been thinking about ordering a pair. How would you compare them to other hubs you've used?

My immediate impression is that they look very well made. The main piece is steel or cast iron so it’s going to be much harder to break that vs the Ford hubs that are zinc/aluminum/whatever they are. I would say go for it!

@4x4junkie is the only other person I’ve seen on here that has them and has some trail time on them.

 

[Shran]

Finally got my propane tank back from getting a new valve, and assembled the whole deal onto my tire carrier swingout. I used a couple of big hose clamps to hold the propane tank onto the mount, hopefully that and a cable will keep it secure and prevent easy theft.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Finally got my propane tank back from getting a new valve, and assembled the whole deal onto my tire carrier swingout. I used a couple of big hose clamps to hold the propane tank onto the mount, hopefully that and a cable will keep it secure and prevent easy theft.

View attachment 123457View attachment 123458

Not that I think dot or cops will care too much, but carrying a tank like you are is not legal. At least in Canada. That said, I plan on doing very similar with my RV. Putting some type of cover over it would probably help too... If nobody sees it, how can it be illegal?...lol.
and the jerry can is much more likely to rupture in an accident.
Edit; looked at your mounting... Probably 80 lbs of gas and propane hanging off that. You sure it will stand up to vibrations and shocks while traveling?

 

[Shran]

Not that I think dot or cops will care too much, but carrying a tank like you are is not legal. At least in Canada. That said, I plan on doing very similar with my RV. Putting some type of cover over it would probably help too... If nobody sees it, how can it be illegal?...lol.
and the jerry can is much more likely to rupture in an accident.
Edit; looked at your mounting... Probably 80 lbs of gas and propane hanging off that. You sure it will stand up to vibrations and shocks while traveling?

I'll beg forgiveness on that. I don't know if it's legal or not in the US. I guess I don't see it being any different than putting one on the hitch of a camper trailer or on the back bumper... I see that a lot on trailers of any age.

I think the mount is OK. I was figuring about 60lbs. I may revise two of the bolts slightly - the horizontal ones - I may drill all the way through the tire carrier arm and use two larger, long bolts there. Right now all four are short bolts into rivnuts. The old mount survived a couple years of wheeling and I had no issues with it but there is more weight and more leverage here.