Interesting Overland setup

[AdventureTim]

thank you so much for the detailed description. i plan to order a voyager low profile rack for a RTT along with their sliders, ladder, rear receiver, and likely their hidden winch mount and front skid plate.

i had planned on the rear swing away as well, but have been second guessing when weighing positives and negatives of it. my other option is building out a rear storage setup and storing the spare inside the car which is where i am leaning.

If you're just planning on mounting a rooftop tent up there, I'd recommend mounting directly to the roof's hard points - you can save a lot of weight up high. I used FrontRunner's vehicle mount rails and some custom brackets to attach my RTT - saved 80 lbs of rack that would never be used.

As for the rear swing, I strongly recommend one for overlanding. Not only do you have the spare easily accessible (compared to under the car), you give yourself a spot to mount accessories - I attach my propane tank, RotoPax and Trasharoo to my spare tyre.

 

[cbboard]

Do you have any pics of your rack setup? I don't think FrontRunner is selling the mount rails only now. Just the full rack.

 

[ktm525]

To each his own but these overland systems seem overly complicated for the result of a tent, portable stove and a sleeping bag. The same camping essentials I carry on a dirt bike tail bag minus the cool box and I do enjoy a cold beer at the end of a long ride... Fortunately nature provided streams for that.

 

[Rover Runner]

My cheap spare tire carrier!

 

[RobRover88]

G'day RoverRunner; nice bit of engineering! Do you get much vibration on corrugations?
Is that jerrycan for gas, or do you have an aux. fuel tank in the spare's original position?
I can't see one below the bumper.
I was thinking that may have been the reason for previously putting the spare up top.
My Kaymar rear bar with spare carrier makes it much easier for a guy like me, also in
my '70's to access my spare, but also allowed me to get a 110 liter aux. tank installed by
Brown Davis.
I like the ARB bullbar you've fitted. I'm surprised I don't see many photos of U.S. D3's
& D4's with bullbars. What are the restrictions - if any, to fitting a bar in most U.S. states.
Enjoy your exploring!

 

[mbw]

I couldn't deal with having my rear hitch on or anything in it while on a trail. That thing would get hung up so badly on stuff. The stock rear bumper gets torn off pretty easy anyway if you do anything tough off road.

I also don't see how that could hold up on rough roads. It needs more than one point of connection. That is a large load on the end of a lever being moved around. I guess people will learn the hard way. * shrug *

@RobRover88 The U.S. doesn't really have restrictions on bullbars at all. Which is why you see most people with plate and tube bumpers that are just built by random shops with zero engineering knowledge. Australia has laws and regulations which I suppose some people would see as bad, but in this case it drove companies like ARB to actually design quality bumpers that work, yet are not dangerous to have on a vehicle. That is why I shipped an ARB Summit bar over for my LR4. My rear bumper is from Tactical 4x4 and is very solid kit. I've never so much as heard it squeak at me on horrible roads.

 

[Troy A]

I had a Wilco off road hitch gate and it had that exact problem. It wrecked my departure angle and I was constantly scraping it on things.


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[RobRover88]

G'day mbw; you've got a great looking rig. It'd look right at home on our rough bush tracks. The only thing I see missing is a snorkel. That's one of the few bits that I haven't yet fitted. I had a Safari snorkel on my 1995 Disco 300Tdi for almost 20 years & it was as good in 2014 as when new. I'll be getting a Safari unit as soon as this nightmare is over. What battery do you have in your dual system? It's very
disappointing that a large lead acid deep cycle battery won't fit under the hood. The optima that will fit
does not have the capacity of my old 100amp/hr deep cycle Exide . I've been using a 2200 amp power
pack/starter from Projecta to run my Engel fridge overnight because it only cost around 20% of an installed dual battery system, but I'll bite the bullet & install a Piranha dual system - again, when this
lock-down is over.

 

[mbw]

G'day mbw

Snorkel would be great for dust, but I have no interest in fording water higher than my hood and the stock intakes do just fine with that (with a bow wave). The computers you would impact are the main risk anyway. We can't really add snorkels here with the 5.0 L V8 since both sides are intakes and you can't do half or block the other side.

I do pretty well with my dual battery setup. I actually use a Traxide system from there. I run a 50L ARB fridge in the middle seat second row. Along with radios and the usual stuff. I also run solar on the roof.

 

[avslash]

Snorkel would be great for dust, but I have no interest in fording water higher than my hood and the stock intakes do just fine with that (with a bow wave). The computers you would impact are the main risk anyway. We can't really add snorkels here with the 5.0 L V8 since both sides are intakes and you can't do half or block the other side.

I do pretty well with my dual battery setup. I actually use a Traxide system from there. I run a 50L ARB fridge in the middle seat second row. Along with radios and the usual stuff. I also run solar on the roof.

Is that a separate bluetooth dongle in your first picture? Referencing the second green arrow pointing to the Victron text.

Just curious, I run a Victron as well, but the bluetooth function is built into the controller itself.

Your truck looks so similar to mine under the hood that it scary. Although I do use a part-time portable panel that stores inside and not a permanent roof mounted one.