TGO - The Overlander Build

[emulous74]

I’m laughing at this based on my own experience. I lost a rear flap on my Superduty and wondered WTH. Two trips later, I was making an 18 point u turn (common when you’re wheeling a bus). I backed into a bank and watched as the bank pushed the flap into the tire, which promptly removed the flap. I’ll be damned. . .

I hear ya, my Bison is sporting one rear mud flap because the other one got torn off and lost when a tree removed my fender flare for me.

Sponsored

 

[emulous74]

GFC Superlite finally got on the rack today. I do love that I can get it on the vehicle by myself, it's only 80lbs, so easy to lift up and push on.

Installed them with GFC's Quick Release Mounts, what's great about these is there is just a lever you move 1/4 turn and it locks it in. There are separate locks, that I just ordered 2 of them. But what is great, is you can easily move the tent back and forth and get it just the way you want. If you notice in the pics, the tent is over the windshield, that will be the position I put it in when stopped/sleeping, and can just slide it back for driving. I didn't think that I'd like that it raises the tent up, but with the TrailRax brackets that are holding the awning, it brings it a mm above those so I can somewhat center it. I have to leave some room against the back of the awning, so that I can unzip that side. If I use the traditional mounts, I'd have to have it hangover 3 more inches on the passenger side.

I've been playing with the placement of the tent moving back to have the front level with the fairing and light bar to see if that cuts down on some of the wind noise. Having it level with the fairing does cut the noise down, but the gap between the light bar and the tent just creates a vertex so I'm thinking of stuffing a pool noodle between them with a wire running through it to tie to the rack. I could feel the wind when I touched the roof panels from inside. The tent also hangs about 10" off the back. I'd be worried if it weighed more.

So a 28lb Awning and a 80lb Tent, if it wasn't for the 13lb Light Bar, I'd meet the 110lb dynamic weight for the OEM Roof Rack. TrailRax says the dynamic weight of their rack is 300lbs and 70lb for each side of the Pax Rax, so I'm well under those.

Alu-Cab just announced a 101lb Aluminum Tent, but their mattress weighs and additional 10lbs. It's tempting, but more than double than what I paid for the original Superlite.

 

[Macjr]

That overland build on the Bison is sweet!

 

[ElDuderino]

Digging your build journal here. In the process of building an overlander myself. Ended up catching a Superlite on their last drop.

Was the TRMR rack fairly easy to install/do you think it's easy to remove? I'd like to be able to take the rack off to get the full roof off experience when I don't have any camping trips planned in the spring/summer.

Do you find the awning you have to be sufficient, or do you think the XL would be better? Hard to tell the coverage from your pictures.

Hope to see more updates soon!

 

[emulous74]

Digging your build journal here. In the process of building an overlander myself. Ended up catching a Superlite on their last drop.

Was the TRMR rack fairly easy to install/do you think it's easy to remove? I'd like to be able to take the rack off to get the full roof off experience when I don't have any camping trips planned in the spring/summer.

Do you find the awning you have to be sufficient, or do you think the XL would be better? Hard to tell the coverage from your pictures.

Hope to see more updates soon!

Thank you, I would say you would be looking at 20-30 minutes to take off the rack. You would need to take off four bolts at the header where the side rails attach, 8 bolts where the Pax Rax attaches to the fender brackets, 4 bolts and nuts ( possibly just loosen) where the rear roof brackets attach, then the four bolts attaching the header. You could stop there if you have a place to store it almost fully assembled. You could possibly skip in doing the side rails from the header and just unbolting the header, but those bolts are really hard to access.

The regular Litewing awning is six and a half feet long closed and provides 70 sq feet opened, the XL version is 8.2 feet long closed and provides 100 sq feet opened. I think the 70 sq feet is adequate coverage for two to three people and the sizing is perfect for the two door Bronco. If I had a 4 door I would go with the XL which would be perfect for 4 people.

One thing to note about mounting the Litewing is that the rear door on the hard cover rotates to open the awning so you have to have six inches of clearance to open it. Which is why mine is mounted further back.

 

[emulous74]

Haven't been keeping up with my postings, but I have been busy working on the Bronco.

I last left you all at installing the TrailRax and the Superlite. When I got the Superlite on a few days later there was loud creaking and a lot of air noise. I tried moving the Superlite back so the front was even with the wind fairing and shoved a pool noodle between the tent and the fairing. I ran a wire through the middle of the pool noodle and tied it to the side rails of the TrailRax that worked for one day, so I'm going to need something stiffer to put through the middle of the pool noodle, also switched out the pool noodle for pipe insulation since the bright colors of the pool noodle weren't to my liking.

Well doing all of that the creaking and the air just didn't go away, so I researched and found TrailRax suggests moving the wind fairing up as high as it will go. Seems the opposite what one should do, but it brought down the wind noise to acceptable levels, but I still had loud creaking. To stop that my research showed putting something between the wind fairing where it meets the side rails, didn't think that would help my situation because I took the front roof panels off and I could hear that the cross bar the the tent mounted to was the one creaking. But I was willing to try anything so I loosened the wind fairing and put a zip tie in-between on both sides and tightened it down, Low and behold the creaking stopped. I have some wind noise still but it's 80% better, so I'm going to try the pipe insulation again.

I did install the IAG v1 rock rail steps, left out the cyber orange piece as it was the only thing I ordered a couple years ago when I was going to get cyber orange but they got rid of that color for '23. I like the steps a lot and think they will provide protection from someone opening their door into my vehicle. Now that I have these the AR Magnum full length steps are looking really good and would provide more protection from doors, but also help with stuff flying up from the road, but man are they pricey. I'll get a picture of the IAG steps up tomorrow.

I ordered the BuiltRight Industries 2-door rear Molle Panels as a way to attach my fire extinguisher (ended up not working on the roll bar, or so I thought, but when I took the roof off to install the PaxRax, I ended up catching part of the Badass Moto in between the roof and the side mount and that's why it must of kept turning). Anyway the main point of the Molle Panels was to install a DC-DC converter so I could charge my EcoFlow Delta2 faster than just with the cigarette style plug.

They install with brackets that go under the OEM tie-down brackets:

However, when I saw someone's post that they were able to get the slide-out tailgate installed in a 2-door, I had to order it as I knew that would make a huge difference on trips having a place to sit or to prepare something without having to remove anything from the trunk. I wasn't sure if the Molle panels would work with the slide-out tailgate and in the end they didn't but I do think I'll be able to fabricate something to get them to work. I tried just zip tying the bottoms to the slide out tailgate frame, but I couldn't get the cover to fit with the installed. In order to install the slide-out into a two door, you just need to create a place to attach the rear of it:

That's the bracket I made to use one of the rear seat bolts:

While I was installing the slide-out tailgate my Mabett v3 tailgate table came in:

While I wanted something made out of stainless steel, the price ($239) and the functionality of this one called to me, so I thought I'd give it a try.

First, I watched the video and read through the instructions. There was no way to get the little bars through the opening on the right (when the door is open) side of the tailgate, luckily there is a rather large hole next to them, so I was able to carefully put the bar on the backside and screw into it from the front. The Left top side the little bars went in the way the instructions show. Also I ended up replacing the washers provided as they were to small and feel into the hole when tightening up. I just used 1/4 SAE washers that were wider. Otherwise the install was relatively easy and one person can do it on their own.

2nd observation is the unit itself is dark grey that doesn't match anything on the Bronco. I would of preferred it to be black.

Overall for the price it seems to be well made with an enamel type of paint. Would be awesome if it was made out of food grad stainless-steel, but I'm sure that would a couple hundred of dollars to the price. The slide out piece seems fairly stable (as long as you pull it out to the farthest it will go). I see why it's not possible, but wish the top piece could be deployed without the side pieces deployed. And for those of you with the slide out tailgate, you can deploy both at the same time.

One downside is the closing "locks" you need to push in hard to get them to close, which means you either have to hold the tailgate door or move it to the max position. Hopefully the will close easier with wear.

 

[Kickit]

Haven't been keeping up with my postings, but I have been busy working on the Bronco.

I last left you all at installing the TrailRax and the Superlite. When I got the Superlite on a few days later there was loud creaking and a lot of air noise. I tried moving the Superlite back so the front was even with the wind fairing and shoved a pool noodle between the tent and the fairing. I ran a wire through the middle of the pool noodle and tied it to the side rails of the TrailRax that worked for one day, so I'm going to need something stiffer to put through the middle of the pool noodle, also switched out the pool noodle for pipe insulation since the bright colors of the pool noodle weren't to my liking.

Well doing all of that the creaking and the air just didn't go away, so I researched and found TrailRax suggests moving the wind fairing up as high as it will go. Seems the opposite what one should do, but it brought down the wind noise to acceptable levels, but I still had loud creaking. To stop that my research showed putting something between the wind fairing where it meets the side rails, didn't think that would help my situation because I took the front roof panels off and I could hear that the cross bar the the tent mounted to was the one creaking. But I was willing to try anything so I loosened the wind fairing and put a zip tie in-between on both sides and tightened it down, Low and behold the creaking stopped. I have some wind noise still but it's 80% better, so I'm going to try the pipe insulation again.

I did install the IAG v1 rock rail steps, left out the cyber orange piece as it was the only thing I ordered a couple years ago when I was going to get cyber orange but they got rid of that color for '23. I like the steps a lot and think they will provide protection from someone opening their door into my vehicle. Now that I have these the AR Magnum full length steps are looking really good and would provide more protection from doors, but also help with stuff flying up from the road, but man are they pricey. I'll get a picture of the IAG steps up tomorrow.

I ordered the BuiltRight Industries 2-door rear Molle Panels as a way to attach my fire extinguisher (ended up not working on the roll bar, or so I thought, but when I took the roof off to install the PaxRax, I ended up catching part of the Badass Moto in between the roof and the side mount and that's why it must of kept turning). Anyway the main point of the Molle Panels was to install a DC-DC converter so I could charge my EcoFlow Delta2 faster than just with the cigarette style plug.

They install with brackets that go under the OEM tie-down brackets:

However, when I saw someone's post that they were able to get the slide-out tailgate installed in a 2-door, I had to order it as I knew that would make a huge difference on trips having a place to sit or to prepare something without having to remove anything from the trunk. I wasn't sure if the Molle panels would work with the slide-out tailgate and in the end they didn't but I do think I'll be able to fabricate something to get them to work. I tried just zip tying the bottoms to the slide out tailgate frame, but I couldn't get the cover to fit with the installed. In order to install the slide-out into a two door, you just need to create a place to attach the rear of it:

That's the bracket I made to use one of the rear seat bolts:

While I was installing the slide-out tailgate my Mabett v3 tailgate table came in:

While I wanted something made out of stainless steel, the price ($239) and the functionality of this one called to me, so I thought I'd give it a try.

First, I watched the video and read through the instructions. There was no way to get the little bars through the opening on the right (when the door is open) side of the tailgate, luckily there is a rather large hole next to them, so I was able to carefully put the bar on the backside and screw into it from the front. The Left top side the little bars went in the way the instructions show. Also I ended up replacing the washers provided as they were to small and feel into the hole when tightening up. I just used 1/4 SAE washers that were wider. Otherwise the install was relatively easy and one person can do it on their own.

2nd observation is the unit itself is dark grey that doesn't match anything on the Bronco. I would of preferred it to be black.

Overall for the price it seems to be well made with an enamel type of paint. Would be awesome if it was made out of food grad stainless-steel, but I'm sure that would a couple hundred of dollars to the price. The slide out piece seems fairly stable (as long as you pull it out to the farthest it will go). I see why it's not possible, but wish the top piece could be deployed without the side pieces deployed. And for those of you with the slide out tailgate, you can deploy both at the same time.

One downside is the closing "locks" you need to push in hard to get them to close, which means you either have to hold the tailgate door or move it to the max position. Hopefully the will close easier with wear.

I like that tailgate table, looks lightweight and I like that it gives more surfaces to utilize. Guess I’d just worry my dumb a$$ would forget to put that top shelf down before using a camp stove and then I’d scald my hand with a Molle pattern when I go to put it down……

But looking good!

 

[ElDuderino]

Haven't been keeping up with my postings, but I have been busy working on the Bronco.

I last left you all at installing the TrailRax and the Superlite. When I got the Superlite on a few days later there was loud creaking and a lot of air noise. I tried moving the Superlite back so the front was even with the wind fairing and shoved a pool noodle between the tent and the fairing. I ran a wire through the middle of the pool noodle and tied it to the side rails of the TrailRax that worked for one day, so I'm going to need something stiffer to put through the middle of the pool noodle, also switched out the pool noodle for pipe insulation since the bright colors of the pool noodle weren't to my liking.

Well doing all of that the creaking and the air just didn't go away, so I researched and found TrailRax suggests moving the wind fairing up as high as it will go. Seems the opposite what one should do, but it brought down the wind noise to acceptable levels, but I still had loud creaking. To stop that my research showed putting something between the wind fairing where it meets the side rails, didn't think that would help my situation because I took the front roof panels off and I could hear that the cross bar the the tent mounted to was the one creaking. But I was willing to try anything so I loosened the wind fairing and put a zip tie in-between on both sides and tightened it down, Low and behold the creaking stopped. I have some wind noise still but it's 80% better, so I'm going to try the pipe insulation again.

I did install the IAG v1 rock rail steps, left out the cyber orange piece as it was the only thing I ordered a couple years ago when I was going to get cyber orange but they got rid of that color for '23. I like the steps a lot and think they will provide protection from someone opening their door into my vehicle. Now that I have these the AR Magnum full length steps are looking really good and would provide more protection from doors, but also help with stuff flying up from the road, but man are they pricey. I'll get a picture of the IAG steps up tomorrow.

I ordered the BuiltRight Industries 2-door rear Molle Panels as a way to attach my fire extinguisher (ended up not working on the roll bar, or so I thought, but when I took the roof off to install the PaxRax, I ended up catching part of the Badass Moto in between the roof and the side mount and that's why it must of kept turning). Anyway the main point of the Molle Panels was to install a DC-DC converter so I could charge my EcoFlow Delta2 faster than just with the cigarette style plug.

They install with brackets that go under the OEM tie-down brackets:

However, when I saw someone's post that they were able to get the slide-out tailgate installed in a 2-door, I had to order it as I knew that would make a huge difference on trips having a place to sit or to prepare something without having to remove anything from the trunk. I wasn't sure if the Molle panels would work with the slide-out tailgate and in the end they didn't but I do think I'll be able to fabricate something to get them to work. I tried just zip tying the bottoms to the slide out tailgate frame, but I couldn't get the cover to fit with the installed. In order to install the slide-out into a two door, you just need to create a place to attach the rear of it:

That's the bracket I made to use one of the rear seat bolts:

While I was installing the slide-out tailgate my Mabett v3 tailgate table came in:

While I wanted something made out of stainless steel, the price ($239) and the functionality of this one called to me, so I thought I'd give it a try.

First, I watched the video and read through the instructions. There was no way to get the little bars through the opening on the right (when the door is open) side of the tailgate, luckily there is a rather large hole next to them, so I was able to carefully put the bar on the backside and screw into it from the front. The Left top side the little bars went in the way the instructions show. Also I ended up replacing the washers provided as they were to small and feel into the hole when tightening up. I just used 1/4 SAE washers that were wider. Otherwise the install was relatively easy and one person can do it on their own.

2nd observation is the unit itself is dark grey that doesn't match anything on the Bronco. I would of preferred it to be black.

Overall for the price it seems to be well made with an enamel type of paint. Would be awesome if it was made out of food grad stainless-steel, but I'm sure that would a couple hundred of dollars to the price. The slide out piece seems fairly stable (as long as you pull it out to the farthest it will go). I see why it's not possible, but wish the top piece could be deployed without the side pieces deployed. And for those of you with the slide out tailgate, you can deploy both at the same time.

One downside is the closing "locks" you need to push in hard to get them to close, which means you either have to hold the tailgate door or move it to the max position. Hopefully the will close easier with wear.

I had no idea the slide out tailgate fit on the 2 door. How much room is left behind the front seats? I'm looking into rear seat delete options and I may have to add this to the list. I guess it wouldn't be too hard to make something to level the rest out.

 

[emulous74]

I had no idea the slide out tailgate fit on the 2 door. How much room is left behind the front seats? I'm looking into rear seat delete options and I may have to add this to the list. I guess it wouldn't be too hard to make something to level the rest out.

Check out this post, he made it level out:

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/2-door-slideout-tailgate.68378

There's about 1 foot 4 inches left to level out, where the floor goes down, then you'd have whatever room between the front seats. He also made extra boards for when the front seats are moved as far forward and tilted.

According to DeepSleep, which just made mattresses for the 2-door, there is 5 feet from the back of the front seats (slided forward), and about 6'3" if you lay diagonal.

 

[ElDuderino]

Check out this post, he made it level out:

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/2-door-slideout-tailgate.68378

There's about 1 foot 4 inches left to level out, where the floor goes down, then you'd have whatever room between the front seats. He also made extra boards for when the front seats are moved as far forward and tilted.

According to DeepSleep, which just made mattresses for the 2-door, there is 5 feet from the back of the front seats (slided forward), and about 6'3" if you lay diagonal.

Very cool. Definitely an option. I'm still up in the air between this, Goose Gear, American Adventure Labs, or just a DIY setup.

I did see the post from DeepSleep as well. I just don't see there being enough room with gear to comfortably sleep in the back. Have a ground tent for now, will get a RTT eventually.

I'm very interested to see if you replace the slideout tailgate mat with plywood so you're able to mount a fridge slide, ect to it.

Keep the updates coming!

 

[emulous74]

Very cool. Definitely an option. I'm still up in the air between this, Goose Gear, American Adventure Labs, or just a DIY setup.

I did see the post from DeepSleep as well. I just don't see there being enough room with gear to comfortably sleep in the back. Have a ground tent for now, will get a RTT eventually.

I'm very interested to see if you replace the slideout tailgate mat with plywood so you're able to mount a fridge slide, ect to it.

Keep the updates coming!

I hear ya, I was going back and forth between Goose Gear and AAL, but I knew when I saw the slide-out tailgate work in a 2-door, I wanted to start with that, because having that tailgate is going to make everything easier in such a small vehicle.

I actually ordered the DeepSleep I figured with a roof rack, I can keep stuff up there if I don't bring the RTT, but mainly I think my dog will be using it.

I'm really hoping I can find someone to build it out right for me, I just think I'd go through so much trial and error that I'd spend more than paying someone to do it.

 

[NVCowboy]

The tailgate will make all things roof rack related much easier. Okay, maybe not ALL things, but a lot of things. I don’t see myself roof racking, or tailgating, but if I were gonna roof rack, the tailgate would be part of the cost associated with the rack. Your meh review of the table is kinda disappointing. I was liking the looks of it.

 

[wizardoforange]

Overland Kitted Spare Tire Maxtrax and Rotopax Mounting System.

As mentioned, I'm taking a different way of modifying my Bronco vs. what I did with my Bison. Since this is going to be my daily driver, I don't want to drive around with unnecessary weight, and since the Bronco has a miserable payload, I'm trying to be very aware of how much weight I'm putting on. Since I also paid for the extended warranty, I'm trying to keep as much as stock as possible and/or use Ford Accessories when they meet my needs.

So if I had the money and didn't care about the warranty. The first thing I'd do is replace the stock roof rack with a TrailRax and the associate PaxRax. The second thing I looked at was the M.A.S.S. Spare Tire Platform Mini from American Adventure Lab, put configured to carry both maxtrax and rotopax you're looking $560.00 and you just ruined all of your real rear view vision. Then I found Overland Kitted Spare Tire Matrax system and I was intrigued, pricier than what it should be (but what isn't these days) and recommended by Maxtrax USA. I thought I could do it cheaper than the $340.00 system, because I had a Racksbrax Matrax mounting plate that I thought I could mount to their system, so I bought their accessory bracket with strap first. When that didn't work I ended up buy the Complete System so I'm into this for $440.00.

After I purchased this, I came across Rockslide Engineering EZ Rack for $110.00, that comes with two accessory plates and is intended for only Rotopax, not Maxtrax, and when I saw that they don't recommend anything bigger than a 2.5 gallon rotopax, it doesn't appear to be as strong as the Overland Kitted which says can hold up to a 3 gallon rotopax and 4 Maxtrax Extreme boards.

So I went with the Overland Kitted set:

Here's the accessory bracket strapped to the tire:

And the Rotopax mount can mount directly to that. For the maxtrax mounting you'll need to attach the Universal Maxtrax Mounting Plate. The nice thing about this plate is you can mount it to roof bars, roof racks and platforms, so I can use this on my Bison too.

I can't say it's fun installing with one person, things kept sliding and moving, I definitely recommend getting someone to help you install it.

I had to mount the boards up higher, which is why they are at a slight angle, but they just clear the tailgate handle, which is still usable:

The strap, is a 2-inch MAC's Custom Tie Downs that is very beefy and smooth to use:

The Rotopax is close to the tailgate, but doesn't touch it (this is a 3 gallon Rotopax) and the tailgate still opens fully with this on there. I originally wanted the maxtrax on this side, but I wouldn't be able to open the tailgate fully.

It doesn't really block the rear view all that much. It might affect the 360 degree rear view, I'll have to check it when I'm not in my garage:

While I was hoping to be able to do this for under $300.00 dollars, spending $140 more got me what I wanted. Something that can be taken on and off relatively easily, can be used on another vehicle and not impeding my rear visibility.

I'll fill up the rotopax and drive around to see how it does, the maxtrax do wobble but they are definitely securely mounted.

Are you still digging this setup? My Bronco just arrived after a 1003 day wait. I'm about to leave on an extended trip to Nevada and Idaho fairly soon and I'll not have time to accomplish even 1/10 of the things you've done, but I definitely want to be able to carry some spare fuel in to the backcountry and this system looks simple and economical.

 

[rguest3]

Haven't been keeping up with my postings, but I have been busy working on the Bronco.

I last left you all at installing the TrailRax and the Superlite. When I got the Superlite on a few days later there was loud creaking and a lot of air noise. I tried moving the Superlite back so the front was even with the wind fairing and shoved a pool noodle between the tent and the fairing. I ran a wire through the middle of the pool noodle and tied it to the side rails of the TrailRax that worked for one day, so I'm going to need something stiffer to put through the middle of the pool noodle, also switched out the pool noodle for pipe insulation since the bright colors of the pool noodle weren't to my liking.

Well doing all of that the creaking and the air just didn't go away, so I researched and found TrailRax suggests moving the wind fairing up as high as it will go. Seems the opposite what one should do, but it brought down the wind noise to acceptable levels, but I still had loud creaking. To stop that my research showed putting something between the wind fairing where it meets the side rails, didn't think that would help my situation because I took the front roof panels off and I could hear that the cross bar the the tent mounted to was the one creaking. But I was willing to try anything so I loosened the wind fairing and put a zip tie in-between on both sides and tightened it down, Low and behold the creaking stopped. I have some wind noise still but it's 80% better, so I'm going to try the pipe insulation again.

I did install the IAG v1 rock rail steps, left out the cyber orange piece as it was the only thing I ordered a couple years ago when I was going to get cyber orange but they got rid of that color for '23. I like the steps a lot and think they will provide protection from someone opening their door into my vehicle. Now that I have these the AR Magnum full length steps are looking really good and would provide more protection from doors, but also help with stuff flying up from the road, but man are they pricey. I'll get a picture of the IAG steps up tomorrow.

I ordered the BuiltRight Industries 2-door rear Molle Panels as a way to attach my fire extinguisher (ended up not working on the roll bar, or so I thought, but when I took the roof off to install the PaxRax, I ended up catching part of the Badass Moto in between the roof and the side mount and that's why it must of kept turning). Anyway the main point of the Molle Panels was to install a DC-DC converter so I could charge my EcoFlow Delta2 faster than just with the cigarette style plug.

They install with brackets that go under the OEM tie-down brackets:

However, when I saw someone's post that they were able to get the slide-out tailgate installed in a 2-door, I had to order it as I knew that would make a huge difference on trips having a place to sit or to prepare something without having to remove anything from the trunk. I wasn't sure if the Molle panels would work with the slide-out tailgate and in the end they didn't but I do think I'll be able to fabricate something to get them to work. I tried just zip tying the bottoms to the slide out tailgate frame, but I couldn't get the cover to fit with the installed. In order to install the slide-out into a two door, you just need to create a place to attach the rear of it:

That's the bracket I made to use one of the rear seat bolts:

While I was installing the slide-out tailgate my Mabett v3 tailgate table came in:

While I wanted something made out of stainless steel, the price ($239) and the functionality of this one called to me, so I thought I'd give it a try.

First, I watched the video and read through the instructions. There was no way to get the little bars through the opening on the right (when the door is open) side of the tailgate, luckily there is a rather large hole next to them, so I was able to carefully put the bar on the backside and screw into it from the front. The Left top side the little bars went in the way the instructions show. Also I ended up replacing the washers provided as they were to small and feel into the hole when tightening up. I just used 1/4 SAE washers that were wider. Otherwise the install was relatively easy and one person can do it on their own.

2nd observation is the unit itself is dark grey that doesn't match anything on the Bronco. I would of preferred it to be black.

Overall for the price it seems to be well made with an enamel type of paint. Would be awesome if it was made out of food grad stainless-steel, but I'm sure that would a couple hundred of dollars to the price. The slide out piece seems fairly stable (as long as you pull it out to the farthest it will go). I see why it's not possible, but wish the top piece could be deployed without the side pieces deployed. And for those of you with the slide out tailgate, you can deploy both at the same time.

One downside is the closing "locks" you need to push in hard to get them to close, which means you either have to hold the tailgate door or move it to the max position. Hopefully the will close easier with wear.

The Mabett may be a good option for a Tailgate table?

Do you have to drill any holes for installation?

 

[emulous74]

Are you still digging this setup? My Bronco just arrived after a 1003 day wait. I'm about to leave on an extended trip to Nevada and Idaho fairly soon and I'll not have time to accomplish even 1/10 of the things you've done, but I definitely want to be able to carry some spare fuel in to the backcountry and this system looks simple and economical.

I am still digging it, I think where I have ended up will be a great setup for me and my dog. I need to get the platform for slide-out tailgate finished and then I think I'll be good.

Beyond keeping fuel inside the vehicle I think the most economical thing would be to get the Rock Slide Engineering spare tire kit and mount Rotopax to those, the nice thing is if you move up to something else (like Pax Rax) you can reuse the Rotopax.

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