2-Door JK JeepKitchen - AT Chaser - Globetrotter - National Luna build thread

[jacobconroy]

It's 2019 and there has been a change of plans. I've decided that I don't have enough money coming in to build the van project this year, so I will be putting the Jeep back together and making some changes to the setup. Last fall I completely removed the overlanding gear from my JK and am able to start from scratch.

I had ordered the parts from Front Runner to extend my Slimline II rack to 109 inches long (the longest rack they sell) and I installed this rack on the JK today because it's finally above freezing here. The longer rack is going to solve three problems:

• A place to permanently install a solar panel
• A place to install a second Front Runner camp table (with sink)
• A place to put my shoes and pee bottle outside the tent at the rear.

First, I prepped for the rack mounts by removing the Jeep roof and taking off some covers. Then I loosely installed the roll bar mounts for the rack:


The next step is to put the roof back on and line up all the holes (this is the third time I've installed this rack, so the holes are already done. These are the little foam seals that Front Runner provides to keep the water out, and they do.


And the holes from the inside of the top:


Then the brackets need to be aligned with the holes in the fiberglass and the nuts tightened. I was warned by Front Runner that no two early JKs have roll bars that are parallel to the car and they weren't kidding. My solution was to cut some PVC pipe and use it as shims:


Then the top came back off to put the grey covers back together. The brackets are complete.

 

[jacobconroy]

At this point my brother-in-law came over to help me move the rack and the RTT...so I forgot about taking pictures. This is what we wound up with at the end of the day:



There are now 4 extra slats overhanging the front window. I will use this space to permanently mount a solar panel later this summer. Or, I might reinforce the overhang with a buttress (or whatever you'd call it) back to the A-pillar and put a Front Runner gravity fed water system up there. I don't really want a hundred more pounds up top though. We will see. I'm not quite sure what I will do with that extra space, but it will definitely be put to good use after I think about it. Also, my awning was quite a bit longer than the old rack length and the awning would twist when deployed...leading to a loose awning cover. Now I will be able to connect the awning solidly to the end of the rack.


We moved the entire rack towards the rear by one slat. This will allow me two slats at the rear to put dirty shoes, a pee bottle, and anything else that I don't want in the RTT with my at night (and I will build some sort of shelf between the slats). It will be interesting to see if this weakens the corner that the Shadow Awning mounts to (because it doesn't have a mount directly under it). If it causes a problem with the awning, I'll have to move it forward.

As you can see I also moved the tent forward by about a foot in an attempt to get some weight off the rear. I short drive down town seems to verify that. I think it looks more balanced too.




Moving the rack back made it much easier to get the Front Runner camp table in and out. Bonus! If the weather holds I will install the awning on Sunday and drive it for a week to make sure that there are no unintended consequences from the huge rack.

I have two leftover side pieces from the rack that we are going to use to prop up the front overhang (that match). It should be pretty cool and add a lot of real estate to this little rig.

A couple of interesting things:

• Though the awning is not mounted and the RTT is empty, there is no sag in the rear. The airbags are empty now.
• The rig is not miserable to drive. Yet. So, it's not the weight of the rack and RTT that ruin a 2-door JK drive-ability...it's the weight of all the crap we pile in the rear.

 

[jacobconroy]

Today was awning day. I had to move the front mount bracket forward due to the longer rack. The blue tape to the right was the old location...the blue tape on the left will be the new location. I held it back from the front by one slat space so that we will have room to attach the gussets to the a-pillar later:



I finally figured out the secret to working on the Shadow Awn without drilling holes through the awning. Open it UPSIDE DOWN to do the work. Duh!


As it turned out, the second-to-front slat location on my awning is as far out as I could go on the awning. The bolts to the right are the ones that I used to secure the awning cover on the old setup. Since the holes need to be plugged, I left them in there:


You can see how far out they were moved. The bolts on the far right are the old bracket location. All that awning was left unsupported.


Since the entire rack was moved towards the rear by one slat...the awing now sits further back and a little bit shorter than the 109 inch awning. I thought about shortening the rack by one slat. Maybe later.






When the awning is open there is now much less twist because the awning is solidly attached to the rack. After I closed it I found that the twist you see is due to my bolting the awning to the rack without paying attention. Tomorrow I'll adjust the bolts so that the awning sits perpendicular to the rack. Hopefully there will be no twist at that point. The awning is quite a bit more taught when deployed than it was before.




Since the rack was moved back, there is a small bit of space behind the Jeep that will not have full awning coverage. But, If I'm working back there the glass will be open. Hopefully it won't be too bad during rain.


The good news is that the awning is solid despite moving the rack to the rear. I mounted the Teraflex HD Alta Cargo Rack too. I have a few bolt issues to work out tomorrow (torque, etc.)

 

[jacobconroy]

I'm on the verge of permanently installing the Propex heater inside the Jeep. I think the "Thru hull" exhaust filling will fit in the fiberglass next to one of the rear windows. Of course, I'll need to build a bracket to mount the heater up high in the rear. The problem is, that this will be more or less permanent. I can't decide if I want to put jacks for the heated air supply and return in the sides of the fiberglass top (and using 60mm ducting that hangs outside of the rig at camp)...or drilling holes through the roof and into the RTT.

I've been kicking this around for about a year and am ALMOST ready to commit. Today it dawned on my that I could permanently install the heater on the Alta rack (which would not make any permanent changes to the Jeep). Decisions, decisions. I'll work on the electrical system this week while I weigh my options.

 

[pookie]

Maybe I missed it, but rack is that over the spare tire?

 

[jacobconroy]

The rack is Teraflex Alta.

 

[jacobconroy]

Nice day today, so I decide to finish the rear rack and start the supports for the long rack. Not exciting, but I finished torquing everything on the Alta rack and put the spare back on. Solid as ever.



So, as you can see the front overhang on the rack is drooping a bit. It would probably be fine, but I can notice it jiggling when driving and it doesn't even have any goodies bolted to the front of it yet.


After some looking I ordered these spotlight brackets from Poison Spyder. The price wasn't bad at $30.00 and they showed up two days later (I only paid the standard shipping price). Cool. They were really easy to install and included longer 8mm bolts and anti-rattle gaskets. Seem to be a pretty heavy gauge too. I had intended to bolt the uprights to the side of these brackets...but they are not quite parallel to the Jeep when installed. I can up with something else though.


First a mockup to get a feel for how everything was going to line up. I chose to aim for the upper spot to have an easy place to position the uprights during fab.


I couldn't find an easy way to make them perpendicular to the ground but they aren't too far off.


Getting ready to start cutting and drilling (lots of thinking here). I positioned them where I wanted them, put a 1 inch spacer in to scribe a line on the upright (to match the base of the new A-pillar brackets).


Then to the chop saw to cut that angle. The lasers made it pretty easy despite the black powder coat (which is not the easiest to see with the laser). My saw has a speed control. Cutting at a low speed with a good carbinde blade takes all the voodoo out of working with aluminum IMO. It turned out to be 31.6 degrees (same as a 90º compound miter for cabinet crown molding...what are the chances of that?).


There was quite a bit of monkeying around to prepare the bolt holes and I neglected to take pictures. Basically, I drilled a hole straight down into the bracket and took a chance that it would all work out after. Luckily it did.


And from the top:

 

[jacobconroy]

Continued...

Prepping the bottom of the passenger-side upright took a bit longer because I had to replicate the freehand voodoo on the drivers-side upright. Had to drill a hole. But I pooched it on the first try. The hole wasn't centered and after a bit of cursing, I simply cut the upright miter down to the next hole and started over. The second try involved a drill press and worked just fine.


Bottoms done and bolted on.


I then clamped the uprights to the rack and checked the site lines to make sure the entire rack was more or less flat now. Then I drilled an 1/8 inch hole through, then enlarged it to 5/16 (for all the Front Runner 8mm bolts).


And done!


There is a little black touchup paint work to do. In hindsight I shouldn't have drilled this hole all the way through (and bolted from the inside). Oh well. Too late now.



Also took a 50º miter off the bottom-back of the uprights. Made it much less likely to break the glass if it happens to work loose on a FS road.


This thing is friggin stout now. Glad I spent a couple of hours on it.


I might try mounting the propane tank and a new Waterport up there. Between the two it would add about 100 lbs. If they turn out to be too heavy then I can move them elsewhere.

Tonight I'm ordering new RTT brackets to lower the RTT into the rack (so it sits directly on the slats). I did more checking and I think it is going to work just fine after I scribe a few external fiberglass parts to work. There will be pics.

Also, I am going to start collecting the parts to permanently install the Propex in the rear of the Jeep with ducts that run through the roof of the Jeep and into the RTT. Big commitment, but cold camping will be as easy as turning on the propane valve and setting the thermostat. I suspect that having the Propex in the cab will keep the temperature in there above freezing at night (for water storage and best battery life).

 

[jacobconroy]

Starting making some brackets to mount the Baroud RTT directly to the slats in the Front Runner Slimline II this afternoon. Front Runner wants $100.00 for four brackets (that have a bunch of extra doodads I don't need). Too much money. Besides, I want six brackets.

The local Fastenal store was very helpful. The fellow sold me a 60 inch cold rolled bar that is 1 inch X 1/8 inch and cut it into 5 inch chunks. We then added 16 of each:

• 5/16-18 x 1.5 bolts
• 5/16-18 nylon nuts
• 5/16-18 skinny nuts
• large washers
• I had to go back later when I found that I needed 2 inch bolts instead of 1.5 inch
• 1 can of black paint for rust

All together (keeping the 1.5 inch bolts that were wrong) the parts were less than $50.00 and I am going to have 6 brackets instead of four. I think this project will be worth the trouble.

That, and the factory tent brackets I've had before are three inches long. That is WAY too much wrench work while reaching under a roof rack.

My collection of parts when ready to start:


Marked halfway for width:


Drilled two 5/16 holes on a four inch center and put together the test bracket. There is a little over 3 5/8 clearance between the bolts.


The skinny lock nuts will keep me from having to ask a favor from a welder. When test fitting the bracket I found that the skinny nuts hang below the C channel in the tent just a little bit and they also touch the slats a little bit. So, I drilled 6 plates with 5/16 holes on 4 1/16 centers and 6 plates with 11/32 holes on 4 1/16 centers. The 11/16 holes are a little bigger to help with alignment when bolting to the rack.

Here they are with the first coat of paint.


Later tonight I'll paint the backs and will probably install them tomorrow. With this I should be able to lower my tent by two inches, get rid of the weight for the two Thule Aero bars and a small pile of brackets up there. And, the bottom of the tent will have much more support.

 

[jacobconroy]

Bolted the new brackets together this morning and am in the mood to get them installed.


Now, there is only one tricky part to lowering this tent (by removing the Thule load bars). The side vents on the RTT are a little wider than the internal dimensions of the rack.


I unbolted the RTT from all it's brackets, masked it with blue tape, and created a jig to scribe it for belt sanding later. The jig was a chunk fo 1/4 inch plywood with a 1 inch board pinned to the front. There is a 15/16 depth from the top of the rack slats to the top of the side profile. I chose to scribe at 1 inch to leave room for caulk if necessary and to avoid squeaking between the profile and vents.


The the tent was opened and the vents were removed. I removed the old caulk below the 1 inch scribe line because it would be a lot easier now than later. It won't show, so I didn't have to be careful about it.


Here, the tent is propped up so you can see the Thule Aeroblade load bars that will be coming out. I removed all the bolts and pulled them out.




The tent was then lowered into the rack. Width-wise...it fits like a glove. I took the chance to put my Adventure Trailers Propex "tool box" on the rear of the rack to see how it will fit. I think I am going to attach the tool box here for now and use the Propex while I make the final decisions for mounting it in the cab.


The tent was moved forward yet again. This is about how much rack I have free in front. Probably not enough for a solar panel, but I'd rather add another group 31 battery than mess with solar.

And, the RTT now sits flat on the rack.


Here I found a big "oopsy". The Front Runner camp table that is mounted under the rear of the rack is in the way of the new brackets I made. Crap! The channel under the RTT over the place where the table mounts. Not roof for both.

 

[jacobconroy]

Some thinking lead me to realize that I can move the camp table to the front of the rack now that it is longer. This also helps to move weight back over the front axles. It's a bit of a stretch to get the table in and out in this location...but favoring the drivers' side made it easier to reach. I started to move the hardware. Incidentally, I found that my fancy new brackets need to have the "skinny nuts" tightened so that they are as narrow as possible (otherwise they bound up with the bolts in the top of the RTT track). Luckily, this just worked and I didn't have any do-overs with the brackets other than to re-tighten them in this location.


The camp table brackets and locking mechanism have been moved over the drivers' seat.


Brackets have been placed in the channels and everything works! One bracket was going to be over the camp table again, so I cheated it back towards the rear of the Jeep by one slat to miss the table. This gave me the idea to stagger the RTT brackets. Nearly every slat is clamped to the tent over the length of the tent now. I think this will aid in overall system rigidity.


Here is a shot of the front brackets in place (rear brackets are not in the pic).


And all the brackets are bolted in and complete. Man my shoulders were tired at this point. Thank god the bikini top will come out of the Jeep under the rack. I don't know how long this would have taken to do without all that easy reach space. After the brackets and camp table were moved to under the bikini top it just BARELY goes back in. Some paint was scratched (doesn't bother me though).


Camp table installed.


Here is a before and after from the front for tent location:
Before:


And after:


And from the side before:


And side after:

 

[jacobconroy]

And just two more after pics:




I'm kindof excited about putting the Propex in this location. The propane runs for both the Propex and quick-release for the kitchen will be short. I also like that the tent is about the same height as the tool box (should help with aerodynamics). Tomorrow I'm going to test fit the propane tank to the left of the tool box and see how it feels.

I'll also scribe the RTT vents and put them back on, as well as put the guts back into the RTT for camping. Not sure what I can put to the front of the rack now that I've moved the RTT forward so much, but I'll find something.

Gonna have to start on the electrical. I figure it will take a day to remove the NOCO charger and National Luna Power Pack from my van and a day to install reinstall both in the Jeep. I'd really like to relocate the Power Pack in the Jeep this time, so that might add some nonsense.

In other news, I think I've decided to abandon the Jeep Kitchen for first part of camping season and use a combination of my Kanz Field Kitchen and one or two Arcteryx Leaf Khard backpacks (for the storage of small camping gear). I bought a couple of those backpacks some years ago with a big pile of the velcro organization pouches and haven't really used them for anything. It would be pretty cool to open one of those packs and hang it on a hook on the rack for easy access to everything I need at camp.

The goal is to offload most of the weight in the back when I'm not camping. We will see.

 

[jacobconroy]

Been playing with the layout in the rear since deciding that I am no longer interested in drawers because they are highly overrated. Too heavy, too expensive, too hard to remove on occasion, and not nearly as convenient as I expected them to be.

This is what I came up with. Fridge on the drivers' side and kitchen on the passenger's side.



Tomorrow I'm going to tear the rig apart to begin installing the battery system and have decided to finally put another group 31 in the rear. My plan is to cannibalize the National Luna Power Pack and use the circuit to separate the engine battery from the two coach batteries. It has a voltage disconnect at 12.5 volts (so I can use a little of the engine battery at camp) and some fusing/power outlets. I then will build some custom cabinetry to mount both big coach batteries behind the front seats. There will be another battery to the right of this one.



While making the cabinet I will get a chance to make a proper-fitting "dog escape prevention partition" to replace the plywood nonsense in that pic. I also will probably separate the batteries a bit to fit the electronics and wiring between them...or I might make it so the wiring and electronics will mount under the cabinet and make sure I can access them from either above, the seat area, or both. Still working that layout out in my mind.

I can see that these efforts are going to greatly increase the amount of space I have in the back. It will also be awesome to be able to quickly and easily empty out the rear of the Jeep when I need to use it for something other than camping gear.

 

[jacobconroy]

Today I reinstalled the electrical. For now I will reuse the NL Power Pack while I work out the details for another big battery. I really hate running wires. Tedious.

Here I am ready to go to work. I cleaned that sub floor up less than two years ago when I installed all this the first time. Crap gets dirty fast.


And here is will the NOCO will live.


And both are back in their original locations. I did move the Power Pack back about 1 inch so it doesn't hit the seat anymore.


Because I'm not sure about the new configuration in the rear, I left a couple extra feet of power cable under the passenger rug. This way if I wind up being a foot short during the new config I won't need to do any splicing.


Before putting the interior back together I am going to run a couple of extra wires this weekend. I need to run a 12 g set of wires up to the ceiling in preparation for the Propex (and anything else in the future). I'm also going to run a trigger wire from the battery location to the NOCO 120V source location in case I want to do any fancy automation with battery stuff later.

Maybe next week I'll get to installing the propane tank and Propex heater. That will be fun. First I need to research some sort of weatherproof method of passing power through the fiberglass roof. Has anyone heard of a part that will work?

 

[jacobconroy]

Expedition Portal Reality Check.

I don't mean to be a whiner here...but this build thread hasn't generated much, if any, reaction from this community. In fact, there has been some scuttlebutt about the general under-appreciation of build threads on the portal lately. To put it more plainly, everybody reads, nobody responds.

Truth be told, when attempting to keep up with this thread, I need to keep certain things in mind, such as remembering to stop and take pictures, explain unexpected problems, and generally point toward some ulterior motive while I spend all this time and money. Sometimes that is fun and I follow up eagerly. Sometimes (usually when there has been no response) I'm busy and I don't really care if you can follow what I'm doing here or not.

Granted, I'm not good at doing this (the Internet thang). Making a living on YouTube isn't an eventuality that is regularly suggested by my Magic 8 ball.

I had previously decided that making this thread would be fun. If you search the Interwebs for "JK Overland RTT", ninety-five out of one-hundreds hits will be about JKUs. Info about 2-door JKs (in regards to Overlanding) is really hard to find. Thought I'd be the one to share. In short, I've done pretty much all of this through pure experimentation. In other words, spending dollars in the hopes of success while aided with power tools and clamps.

So, if you are digging this thread I need you to speak up. Otherwise, I will just build it out and forget about the web-related chores. Just like all the other guys that build this sort of rig.

Not begging for a "group cry" here. In all honestly, I"m tired of documenting the build. Doesn't seam like anybody cares.