TGO - The Overlander Build

[emulous74]

Broaddict Single Cross bar for OEM Roof Rack

In Ford's not so bright wisdom offer's a Roof Rack from the factory as an option. However they only give you two crossbars. Normally on most roof racks, this is fine, you get one at the front and one at the rear. However with the Bronco roof rack one bar in 1/3 from the rear and one in the middle. There is no front bar and they want to charge you an additional $200.00 to put a crossbar at the front of the rack.

I found Broaddict on Amazon and saw they sold a copy of the oem bar, and on that particular day it was priced at $66.75 (Currently it's $89 on amazon with a 5% off coupon), so less than half what Ford is asking.

The Broaddict bar is a complete copy of the factory bar, the plastic piece doesn't form as nicely around the Broaddict bar, but seeing how tall most Bronco's are you'll never see it, the only other difference is the 4 bolts provided are silver, where the factory ones are black and branded Bronco. At least Broaddict did use the same T27 size, so you don't need to get a different tool for anything else on the rack.

The Broaddict Bar:

The Factory Bar:

Not bad for less than half the money of the real thing.

Sponsored

 

[emulous74]

Ring Car Cam

I did the pre-order on this and it came in today.

Pretty easy to install, you have to install it through the Ring app, which I already have as I have Ring Doorbells and Alarms at both my houses. Because I was already subscriber I got 10% off on the preorder and all hardware I purchase.

So Ring Car Cam is a front and rear camera device that also records audio. It plugs into your OBD-II port and get's it's energy from that. During setup and through settings you can select from 3 different battery use configurations, with suggestion based on how old your battery is and how often you drive your vehicle.

You can connect it through Wi-fi although it normally communicates through cellular LTE networks (if you pay for the subscription). The problem I see is you can only tell it to connect to one Wi-fi network, it's not like your phone, where you can automatically connect to multiple wi-fi networks if they are available. Ideally I'd like it to connect to my vehicle wi-fi hotspot, but when it's in my garage or driveway and my vehicle is off, I would like it to connect to my house wi-fi. I ended up setting it up to my house wi-fi, because I figured if it couldn't get an LTE signal, neither could my Bronco.

In order to have LTE and other features such as:

• Live View and Two-way talk over LTE
• Notifications over LTE
• GPS Location over LTE
• Cloud highlights (stored for 180 days)
• Cloud highlights for Traffic Stops
• Rich Notifications (with a picture)
• And you Can Download and share videos

The Subscription is $6.99 a month or $60.00 a year.

Without a subscription you get Video Recordings, Security Beacon and Traffic stops, as well as Live View and Two-way talk over Wi-fi, Notifications over Wifi and GPS Location over wi-fi

There is a privacy cover that will stop recording video and audio from inside the vehicle. You can tell Alexa to Record now and will capture video inside and out until you are moving again.

It was pretty easy to setup and hide the wire behind the dashboard and down the driver's side door frame to the OBD-II port the cable is just a thin type-c ubs plug on both sides.

The actually camera is small, but the stalk is rather wide (I believe it has video storage onboard) and there is an adhesive sticker to mount it to the windshield. I have a tinted windshield so I mounted a sticker saver between it and the windshield. I'll let you know how it stays up.

Here's a video that it captured with my vehicle turned off, but I was stepping on the rear tire and getting something off the roof rack. It notified that there was movement outside my vehicle.

And here's a screen shot from my Phone:

Overall, I'm happy with it so-far, Will be neat if I can take video while I'm driving off-road.

 

[emulous74]

CDT ES-E4X coaxial speakers for the front dash (fail) and the rear pods (win).

So my wire harness adapters came in today from Fast Daddy on ebay. Nice quality for the price. I got the set with 300hz blockers (to block the bass) for the front 3 speakers and no blockers for the rear. I was able to test the new speaker in the dash and wasn't as big as an improvement that I would like, but didn't have a choice, these are old school spears where there is metal mounting ring around the whole speakers, where it seems newer 4" speakers don't have this ring and just have small mounting tabs that come out from the speaker. There is also a wire harness that is at the bottom where the speakers mount, which I would need to remove if I could actually mount these speakers, but I can even get them all the way in the dash.

So I move onto the rear pods in my 2-door. I was surprised how much room there is back there for 2 people, when I checked the specs, the 2-door only looses one inch of leg r. oom and obviously the supposed middle sit, but that makes for a more airy feeling in the rear because you're not slammed up against the side plastic. Being high up it's not really ergonomic to get in out of the rear seats on a 2-door, but it's not a penalty box like I thought it would be.

The rear pods grills come off easy enough, and I was surprised that they included an extra harness so you can detach the pod from the roll bar without having to disconnect the speaker first. I was worried that the extended tweeter on these speakers would stick out to far for the grill to go back on, but that turned out not to be a problem. I did have to drill 3 new holes to mount the speaker, I just drilled into the plastic, it was simple as could be. I did test the Fast Daddy ebay harness with the bass blocker and with out. I definitely preferred the sound with the bass blockers, than without, both sitting in the front and hearing them as fill as well as sitting in the back seats with all the sound going to back as well as centered in the default fade position, so I left them attached. Guess I'll have to get two new harnesses for the front speakers if I can get the coaxials in there.

What surprised me is using the surround mode how much fuller everything sounds, so with the 6.5 kick panel speakers replaced and the rear speakers replaced, the front stage does sound much better, but now I really want to complete the three way setup in the front.

Even the 4" separate wouldn't fit in the dash.

My license plates came in today, but my temporary tag goes until the middle of April. I need to decide what I'm going to do with the front plate, I'm kinda leaning to just zip tying it to the front grill, the stock mount blocks the front camera and you have to drill into the bottom surround of the grill, which I'm not sure if I want to do or not, plus I'll have to move if I break down and get the ARB Summit bumper.

My Sticker Fab order came in today too, so it's supposed to be in the 70's tomorrow here in Austin, so I'll probably start on all that stuff.

 

[emulous74]

Another day, a few more mods/additions.

Front License plate, my dealer was nice enough to call me and ask if I wanted them to install the front license plate mount. I asked him how it was installed and he said into plastic. I told him no, that I would do it. However I found that the factory mount for it, blocked some of the front camera. The only alternate option I found was a mount that attached to the bottom of the bumper. The more I looked at the more I didn't like that ideal. Why would I put something on the vehicle that I would have to take off every time I went off-road? I did see one that mounted up from the skid plate but it covered one front tow hook and a sensor. That was a no go for me.

So the mudflaps I installed came with 4 sheets of foam with adhesive backing. I had the idea to attach the foam to the back of the plate and just zip tie the foam backed plate to the grill. Nothing permanent and if I decide to get the ARB Summit Bumper, I'd have to move it anyway. You can see the top two zip ties in the front camera, but I'm sure I won't notice it unless I look for it.

The bottom zip ties go around a lot of stuff inside the grill, it looks like there are active shutters behind the grill, those zip ties might impeded the the bottom shutter from fully closing, but I doubt living in Central Texas that they will ever be closed.

Also putting on the rear plate, I found one of the easter eggs, I didn't know about:

Sticker Fab 2-door lower door protection:

I tried to install this on the driver's side, unfortunately the door piece is meant to wrap around the bottom of the door, which is something I don't have the knowledge to do. So I used a Xacto knife and cut it, which did work well, but then I noticed that the front didn't look like and the rear piece wasn't cut right, so I just ended pulling it all off. I noticed when I started this effort that I have my first rock chip right in that area. So I'm going to search for some touch-up paint for HPR. I'm also going to find a wrap shop to do the lower doors and the hood. I plan to put the hood rock guard on and some plastic lower door pieces I just want the wrap so that I'm not mounting these things with double sided tape directly to the paint, this should allow me to either remove them or change them out without having to scrape adhesive off the vehicle.

A good friend of mine came by today to check out the Bronco since he's never been in one. I let him take it for a drive and he was really impressed. I promised him I'd let him drive it off-road.

 

[emulous74]

2.5lb Buckeye ABC Fire Extinguisher attached with Badass Moto for Jeep mount.

I believe that fire extinguishers are the first mod needed for every 4x4 especially if you're using it for camping/overlanding/whatever they want to call it today.

I say someone use this on YouTube for their 4-door Bronco and bought what he suggested as he said he used to be a fire fighter (thank you for your service). The 2-door roll bars are much smaller than what is in the 2-door. So I removed the passenger rear speaker pod, which doesn't sit flush to the roll bar in order to install this. I've yet to drive it around with this installed, but I think it's a perfect space for it. The plan is to have 2 Element 100's underneath the front seats as well.

Doesn't come close to touching the hardtop:

 

[emulous74]

Well, another audio workaround.

I've never in my life purchased speakers this cheap, but it was the only CDT Audio speaker that had a fighting chance to fit in the dash. They did fit without at a problem and they do sound better than the stock coaxials, however not as good as I'm looking for. But that kind of change up will happen in due time when discretionary income is available.

CDT Audio CL-4EX

Used the Fast Daddy (eBay) wire harness, one with the 300hz bass blockers and one without. The one without sounds fuller (so obviously the blockers are doing there job) but I will order more blockers.

This leaves the dash center speaker and the subwoofer as the only "stock" speakers left in my vehicle.

 

[Huey22]

Broaddict Single Cross bar for OEM Roof Rack

In Ford's not so bright wisdom offer's a Roof Rack from the factory as an option. However they only give you two crossbars. Normally on most roof racks, this is fine, you get one at the front and one at the rear. However with the Bronco roof rack one bar in 1/3 from the rear and one in the middle. There is no front bar and they want to charge you an additional $200.00 to put a crossbar at the front of the rack.

I found Broaddict on Amazon and saw they sold a copy of the oem bar, and on that particular day it was priced at $66.75 (Currently it's $89 on amazon with a 5% off coupon), so less than half what Ford is asking.

The Broaddict bar is a complete copy of the factory bar, the plastic piece doesn't form as nicely around the Broaddict bar, but seeing how tall most Bronco's are you'll never see it, the only other difference is the 4 bolts provided are silver, where the factory ones are black and branded Bronco. At least Broaddict did use the same T27 size, so you don't need to get a different tool for anything else on the rack.

The Broaddict Bar:

The Factory Bar:

Not bad for less than half the money of the real thing.

I am considering buying an additional one or two of these crossbars. My question is, do you happen to know if these help with the weight limit while driving (dynamic) of 110 pounds, and the static rating of 450? I keep finding conflicting information.

 

[emulous74]

I am considering buying an additional one or two of these crossbars. My question is, do you happen to know if these help with the weight limit while driving (dynamic) of 110 pounds, and the static rating of 450? I keep finding conflicting information.

I am not an engineer so can't say for sure, but what I do know is it will help in evenly distribute the weight across the entire rack which is a great thing to do. I think the OEM rack can only take one additional cross bar (otherwise you will need to drill into the rack to install additional one). It will definitely help, but couldn't say if it would actually increase the weight limits of the OEM rack.

 

[Huey22]

Thank you. Makes sense! I was thinking the OEM rack could allow for as many crossbars as you wanted, but went and looked again and see the pre-drilled holes for the one extra. Thanks again.

 

[Huey22]

Thank you. Makes sense! I was thinking the OEM rack could allow for as many crossbars as you wanted, but went and looked again and see the pre-drilled holes for the one extra. Thanks again.

Also, did you have any additional wind noise?

 

[emulous74]

Also, did you have any additional wind noise?

Not that I can tell

 

[Twister22]

Another day, a few more mods/additions.

Front License plate, my dealer was nice enough to call me and ask if I wanted them to install the front license plate mount. I asked him how it was installed and he said into plastic. I told him no, that I would do it. However I found that the factory mount for it, blocked some of the front camera. The only alternate option I found was a mount that attached to the bottom of the bumper. The more I looked at the more I didn't like that ideal. Why would I put something on the vehicle that I would have to take off every time I went off-road? I did see one that mounted up from the skid plate but it covered one front tow hook and a sensor. That was a no go for me.

So the mudflaps I installed came with 4 sheets of foam with adhesive backing. I had the idea to attach the foam to the back of the plate and just zip tie the foam backed plate to the grill. Nothing permanent and if I decide to get the ARB Summit Bumper, I'd have to move it anyway. You can see the top two zip ties in the front camera, but I'm sure I won't notice it unless I look for it.

The bottom zip ties go around a lot of stuff inside the grill, it looks like there are active shutters behind the grill, those zip ties might impeded the the bottom shutter from fully closing, but I doubt living in Central Texas that they will ever be closed.

Also putting on the rear plate, I found one of the easter eggs, I didn't know about:

Sticker Fab 2-door lower door protection:

I tried to install this on the driver's side, unfortunately the door piece is meant to wrap around the bottom of the door, which is something I don't have the knowledge to do. So I used a Xacto knife and cut it, which did work well, but then I noticed that the front didn't look like and the rear piece wasn't cut right, so I just ended pulling it all off. I noticed when I started this effort that I have my first rock chip right in that area. So I'm going to search for some touch-up paint for HPR. I'm also going to find a wrap shop to do the lower doors and the hood. I plan to put the hood rock guard on and some plastic lower door pieces I just want the wrap so that I'm not mounting these things with double sided tape directly to the paint, this should allow me to either remove them or change them out without having to scrape adhesive off the vehicle.

A good friend of mine came by today to check out the Bronco since he's never been in one. I let him take it for a drive and he was really impressed. I promised him I'd let him drive it off-road.

I used this bracket for mine. just drilled two holes in bumper. Worked great.
https://dv8offroad.com/products/bro...3TCTkXBMXGIYQZaq3V5KPswUTH26ahwRoCfc0QAvD_BwE

 

[emulous74]

Still in the process of installing my TRMR rack on my 2-door and did an exploratory purchase at McMaster-Carr to see the largest and most robust mounting hardware I can use with/on the TrailRax. Hopefully my experiment will help some other folks out in time, money and frustration.

What worked:

• 93180A911- 316 Stainless Steel Square-Neck Carriage Bolt Super-Corrosion-Resistant M6 x 1 mm Thread, 20 mm Long, Packs of 10. This is a very tight fit and the tolerances of the carriage bolt are not exact, so about 1 in 10 wouldn't fit in the track:
  • 
• 94205A250- 316 Stainless Steel Nylon-Insert Locknut, M6 x 1 mm Thread, DIN 985, Packs of 50.
  • 
• 3061T26- 316 Stainless Steel Oval Eye Nut - for Lifting, M6 x 1 Thread Size. I test fitted this one and seemed a little loose, I think using a washer and blue thread lock would work here. YMMV.
  • 
• 47065T226 - T-slotted Framing. Drop-in Nut with Spring Loaded Ball, 1/4"-20 Thread Size. These allow you to drop these in through the top of the track (meaning you don't have to take off the side brackets and slide something in. The one caveat to this is the bolt is 9/16" which means it sticks up rather much, so you'll need something thick to get a tight fit, they do have 1/2" size that I will try out as it's 11% shorter.
  • 

Did NOT Fit:

• 3136N399 - T-slotted Framing, Drop-in Hammer Nut, Button Head, 30mm High Rail, M6 Size
• 5537T72 - T-slotted Framing, Drop-in Hammer Nut with Button Head, 1/4"-20 Thread Size
• 6000N312 - T-slotted Framing Fasteners, Drop-in Spring Loaded Ball Nut, Stainless Steel M6

 

[emulous74]

Finally got the Rigid Industries 40" SR Pro Light Bar installed on the Trailrax Front Bar with Wind Fairing. The two brackets that come with the Light Bar won't work with the wind fairing cut-out, so a trip to Lowe's I found Stainless Steel L brackets that the first vertical hole was the same height as the low bracket that came with the light bar. I had a friend cut down the vertical part since it would of gone higher than the roof rack. Followed the Ford Performance instructions for the wiring.

 

[emulous74]

Finally got the entire TrailRax and PaxRack installed and my Roofnest Litewing Awning.

My only problem with the TrailRax Roof Rack are the instructions are wrong in some places, which TrailRax has known for a while, but they haven't updated their instructions. Luckily I looked at other install videos besides TrailRax so I was aware of them.

The first being the header brackets attached to the first bar, instructions state to use slide in nuts, based on the spacing with the header bracket holes, two slide in nuts won't match with the holes, they did supply 4 M6 Carriage Bolts and associated nylon lock nuts, but says nothing about it in the instructions.

Save yourself some time and mount the header brackets to the first bar and get the fairing on before attaching to the rest of the rack. This allowed me to take my time and install the 40" Rigid Light bar and do all the work without needing someone to help me lift the whole rack on the car multiple times.

Since I did the above, I put together the rest of the rack adding all the cross bars (they only recommend doing three), so that when my friend came by to help, I just needed his help to lift the rear roof off (instructions don't tell you about the two roof bolts that need to be undone), put the fender brackets on and reinstall the roof. He helped me lift the rack on. And that's all I needed his help with, so 30 minutes of help rather than 3 hours of putting the rack on, taking it off, putting it on, taking it off, like the instructions tell you.

I also suggest getting some name brand thread locker, what they included was a pain in the ass to use and wasn't as thick as the real stuff.

I also suggest buying drop-in hardware, taking crossbars off and on to install slide-in nuts or carriage bolts gets really old, really fast. Luckily I have an 80/20 rack on my trailer, so I pre-ordered a bunch of hardware and found what works and doesn't work. I'm a little concerned that everything is put together with 1/4" 20 bolts it doesn't appear to robust, especially when trying to mount accessories, but we'll see how well they hold up.

Roofnest Litewing Awning is a small 270 awning (covers about 70sq ft) but weighs under 30lbs. They accomplish this buy using Aluminum, Carbon Fibre for the arms, and Nylon for the awning itself. It has an Aluminum cover, built in LED light strips on three of the arms and is self-standing in calm winds, the brackets they send with them are the most robust ones I've ever seen and would of made it possible to attach to the oem rack, but I ended up using the TrailRax Modular Roof Rack 90 bracket, Low Profile.

I have to say, I think this and their larger one (only 40lbs) is the perfect 270 awning for the Bronco and any other vehicle where you want the least amount of weight on your roof rack.

The height is perfect where the rear window can be fully opened without touching the awning:

I wish the lights had a dimmer on them, but at least the plug into a usb port and there is an on/off switch on the wire.

Sponsored