RockMonster
New member
Eric, thank you for sharing that picture.
EarthRoamer XV-JP "Northwest Edition"
- Thread starter WhereTheHellIsJames?
- Start date
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
I had the XV-JP out this week. Not much to say about the trip except the camping was nice,
the weather was good, and the scenery was impressive.
It was the first long trip with the one-bed mode discussed above. As mentioned, I am awash in storage with this configuration, with lots of empty space. But I found another positive to the sleep-below setup that I hadn't thought of.
It got below freezing outside, and while I was plenty warm (cat heater until bedtime, then the petrol heater), I realized that what with warm air rising, I was making the top of the tent unit pretty toasty, and there was no one up there. Okay, we can fix that.
With the pneumatic struts, it only takes a press of the button and a few seconds to put the roof height to whatever height you want. Also, the tent has no internal structure; the top connects to the roof and the bottom connects to the cabin top and it's held taut by the tension caused by raising the roof enough. So it occurred to me that I could lower the roof down quite a ways without any problem and eliminate about 20 inches of dead space. So I did,
and it worked as expected. The petrol heater seemed to need less output to keep the same interior temperature. I put it down to the point where I could still stand at the front. It probably would have worked even better to lower it another foot.
I could, of course, have lowered the roof completely, but that would have required spending a couple of minutes getting the tent fabric out of the way, and then it would have been more time to put it back up in the morning. With this approach, it was five seconds to cut the cabin volume, and five seconds to expand it back in the morning. Admittedly, though, the limp tent material looks a little sloppy,
but that's no problem beyond aesthetics.
the weather was good, and the scenery was impressive.
It was the first long trip with the one-bed mode discussed above. As mentioned, I am awash in storage with this configuration, with lots of empty space. But I found another positive to the sleep-below setup that I hadn't thought of.
It got below freezing outside, and while I was plenty warm (cat heater until bedtime, then the petrol heater), I realized that what with warm air rising, I was making the top of the tent unit pretty toasty, and there was no one up there. Okay, we can fix that.
With the pneumatic struts, it only takes a press of the button and a few seconds to put the roof height to whatever height you want. Also, the tent has no internal structure; the top connects to the roof and the bottom connects to the cabin top and it's held taut by the tension caused by raising the roof enough. So it occurred to me that I could lower the roof down quite a ways without any problem and eliminate about 20 inches of dead space. So I did,
and it worked as expected. The petrol heater seemed to need less output to keep the same interior temperature. I put it down to the point where I could still stand at the front. It probably would have worked even better to lower it another foot.
I could, of course, have lowered the roof completely, but that would have required spending a couple of minutes getting the tent fabric out of the way, and then it would have been more time to put it back up in the morning. With this approach, it was five seconds to cut the cabin volume, and five seconds to expand it back in the morning. Admittedly, though, the limp tent material looks a little sloppy,
but that's no problem beyond aesthetics.
Every Miles A Memory
Expedition Leader
Love to see testing and feedback made from Real World usage. Thanks for keeping us up to date Mike!!
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
You know, Pat, after all the years of messing around with it, making it up as we went along, what amazes me most is that it really does work well. It's very cool to have this fully-equipped off-road motorhome with such a tiny footprint, and I really appreciate the guys like you who provided support when the project didn't seem all that brilliant. Much appreciated.
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
Teraflex JK Tailgate Hinge
I had another XV-JP trip in the freakishly good Oregon spring weather. I figure I'd best get the truck out now given the likelihood of an early and serious fire season. Nothing special about the trip to pass on except for an obligatory "Ain't Oregon purdy?" shot of Mt. Hood behind Trillium Lake:
and a beauty shot of the Jeep in the trees:
.
The reason for the post is to tell about the new Teraflex rear door hinge. Now, understand that I'm not sure anything was wrong with the stock Jeep door hinge setup. I had added the rear case, the Molle rack and a bunch of stuff in the bags,
and all together, it weighed about the same as the stock tire carrier and spare. Then there's some weight, though not much, from the rear window and the framing riveted to the top of the stock door.
So it's pretty much unknowable whether someday the rear door would have started to tear from its hinges. However, it apparently is something Teraflex wants you to worry about, because they're selling a big slab of metal--the JK HD Hinged Carrier--to replace the stock hinges. Being both cautious and gullible, I bought one and proceeded to install it.
Installation is easy enough, especially if you watch the Teraflex YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJnwModQVOE) instead of using the directions, which while not horrible, rely on a couple of pretty murky black and white photos. The key to the whole install would seem to be making sure that you don't let the door move in the period between loosening the stock hinge bolts and tightening the new hinge bolts. Teraflex has you put support blocks under the door
,
and I went further by taping all around the door with wide sticky duct tape. Since the Teraflex hinge hardware goes in the same holes as the stock hardware. if the door doesn't move, the installation is largely a no-brainer.
As it warns in the video, there's not much clearance to put in the (not visible) T50 bolts that hold the left side of the hinge to the body and you have to use the supplied Torx key to tighten them up. No problem doing so, though, and everything else is socket-and ratchet stuff. When you're done, the setup looks like this. (Ignore the quarter-circle metal pieces to the left. They're spacers supplied to make the separately-purchased tire carrier fit right, and I need to use them to keep my Pelican case parallel to the tailgate.)
If you enlarge the photo, you can see that there are three empty M12 x 1.75 threaded holes on the inboard side of the hinge piece; these are used, along with the right-side bolt holes under the spacers, to connect the tire carrier. Since I don't have a tire carrier, I got three bolts to fill up the holes. Someday, I may think of something useful to put there, as it would provide a very secure mounting point.
The most interesting thing is that the new hinge makes the movement of the tailgate VERY smooth, but it also is tight enough that the tailgate will stay put at the angle where you place it if the truck is anywhere close to level. It's maybe not tight enough to keep it in place if a big wind hits it, but you probably wouldn't want it to be. On my tailgate, at least (YMMV), it's a perfect balance between non-floppy and easy-to-move. With the old hinges, the tailgate usually flopped to the closed position if the truck was even slightly off level. To hold it open, I ended up taping a strong magnet to the pivot of the former giant rack/tire carrier originally on the truck so it could grab the tailgate and hold it against gravity.
The new hinge doesn't allow the tailgate to open quite as far and the door ends up a little bit short of the magnet. So it's nice that the tailgate's no longer as floppy and I'll be detaching the magnet soon. (I'll probably keep the pivot point, though, in case someone down the line wanted to re-install a big swinging rack.)
All in all, it was a fine addition with no downside except that, boy, does it cost a lot. It's pretty much $500 for the cleverly-shaped pieces of metal, a couple of bearings and some bolts. It's one of those simple things that seems like it should cost way less, but I've got to admit that it's a nice piece of work and the confidence that my tailgate won't rip off on some bumpy trail is worth something.
One change I made before remounting the case was to make a modest adjustment to the position of the case dividers so that the right side that is used to carry the Honda eu1000i generator can also be used to carry two folded Pico chairs. When the generator is along, the chairs are clipped down in the cabin, but the generator isn't carried all that often, so this will make a great place to haul the chairs.
I had another XV-JP trip in the freakishly good Oregon spring weather. I figure I'd best get the truck out now given the likelihood of an early and serious fire season. Nothing special about the trip to pass on except for an obligatory "Ain't Oregon purdy?" shot of Mt. Hood behind Trillium Lake:
and a beauty shot of the Jeep in the trees:
.The reason for the post is to tell about the new Teraflex rear door hinge. Now, understand that I'm not sure anything was wrong with the stock Jeep door hinge setup. I had added the rear case, the Molle rack and a bunch of stuff in the bags,
and all together, it weighed about the same as the stock tire carrier and spare. Then there's some weight, though not much, from the rear window and the framing riveted to the top of the stock door.
So it's pretty much unknowable whether someday the rear door would have started to tear from its hinges. However, it apparently is something Teraflex wants you to worry about, because they're selling a big slab of metal--the JK HD Hinged Carrier--to replace the stock hinges. Being both cautious and gullible, I bought one and proceeded to install it.
Installation is easy enough, especially if you watch the Teraflex YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJnwModQVOE) instead of using the directions, which while not horrible, rely on a couple of pretty murky black and white photos. The key to the whole install would seem to be making sure that you don't let the door move in the period between loosening the stock hinge bolts and tightening the new hinge bolts. Teraflex has you put support blocks under the door
,and I went further by taping all around the door with wide sticky duct tape. Since the Teraflex hinge hardware goes in the same holes as the stock hardware. if the door doesn't move, the installation is largely a no-brainer.
As it warns in the video, there's not much clearance to put in the (not visible) T50 bolts that hold the left side of the hinge to the body and you have to use the supplied Torx key to tighten them up. No problem doing so, though, and everything else is socket-and ratchet stuff. When you're done, the setup looks like this. (Ignore the quarter-circle metal pieces to the left. They're spacers supplied to make the separately-purchased tire carrier fit right, and I need to use them to keep my Pelican case parallel to the tailgate.)
If you enlarge the photo, you can see that there are three empty M12 x 1.75 threaded holes on the inboard side of the hinge piece; these are used, along with the right-side bolt holes under the spacers, to connect the tire carrier. Since I don't have a tire carrier, I got three bolts to fill up the holes. Someday, I may think of something useful to put there, as it would provide a very secure mounting point.
The most interesting thing is that the new hinge makes the movement of the tailgate VERY smooth, but it also is tight enough that the tailgate will stay put at the angle where you place it if the truck is anywhere close to level. It's maybe not tight enough to keep it in place if a big wind hits it, but you probably wouldn't want it to be. On my tailgate, at least (YMMV), it's a perfect balance between non-floppy and easy-to-move. With the old hinges, the tailgate usually flopped to the closed position if the truck was even slightly off level. To hold it open, I ended up taping a strong magnet to the pivot of the former giant rack/tire carrier originally on the truck so it could grab the tailgate and hold it against gravity.
The new hinge doesn't allow the tailgate to open quite as far and the door ends up a little bit short of the magnet. So it's nice that the tailgate's no longer as floppy and I'll be detaching the magnet soon. (I'll probably keep the pivot point, though, in case someone down the line wanted to re-install a big swinging rack.)
All in all, it was a fine addition with no downside except that, boy, does it cost a lot. It's pretty much $500 for the cleverly-shaped pieces of metal, a couple of bearings and some bolts. It's one of those simple things that seems like it should cost way less, but I've got to admit that it's a nice piece of work and the confidence that my tailgate won't rip off on some bumpy trail is worth something.
One change I made before remounting the case was to make a modest adjustment to the position of the case dividers so that the right side that is used to carry the Honda eu1000i generator can also be used to carry two folded Pico chairs. When the generator is along, the chairs are clipped down in the cabin, but the generator isn't carried all that often, so this will make a great place to haul the chairs.
mk216v
Der Chef der Fahrzeuge
Looks like a beefy door hinge! Glad to hear it makes the rear door operate smoother. Maybe I can adapt it to my G? :chef:
Sure is the coolest looking Jeep I know. Your 2nd picture reminds me of the old Patterson picture, for you just never see these kind of creatures in the woods;
:drool:
Sure is the coolest looking Jeep I know. Your 2nd picture reminds me of the old Patterson picture, for you just never see these kind of creatures in the woods;
:drool:
Every Miles A Memory
Expedition Leader
Don't let Micheal Slade (Forum Member) see that photo...LOL
Overland Hadley
on a journey
That is a really funny comparison.
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
Here's something you don't see every day:
Nope, that's not my "Northwest Edition" XV-JP. It's Martin Wright's "Antipodes Edition." Martin has had an XV-JP as long as I have, and his is silver, too. But one thing he has that I don't have is that yellow Jerry can full of diesel on the rear rack, or the diesel engine that would use it.
I've corresponded with Martin for several years, and we actually sold him a spare part or two left over from our renovation. Martin bought a right-hand drive export model JK with the 2.8 liter four-cylinder CRD diesel and had it shipped to EarthRoamer in Colorado for conversion; I think his is #005. Martin and his wife are true world travelers, going all around Australia in the Jeep but also taking a wide variety of tours to no end of exotic places. They are good enough to write up reports of their trips for their friends and acquaintances, and the writeup of their latest adventure to Kangaroo Island and other sights included this picture of the Jeep. They don't generally stay in the XV-JP when they have other lodging available, but it's proven a good vehicle for them as they travel around, including very remote places like the Simpson Desert.
There's a report of his conversion here
http://www.4wdaction.com.au/articles/2010/roamin-wrangler
though it's pretty standard XV-JP stuff; Martin's got the only diesel and the only RHD XV-JP, but he's otherwise left it pretty stock.
Nope, that's not my "Northwest Edition" XV-JP. It's Martin Wright's "Antipodes Edition." Martin has had an XV-JP as long as I have, and his is silver, too. But one thing he has that I don't have is that yellow Jerry can full of diesel on the rear rack, or the diesel engine that would use it.
I've corresponded with Martin for several years, and we actually sold him a spare part or two left over from our renovation. Martin bought a right-hand drive export model JK with the 2.8 liter four-cylinder CRD diesel and had it shipped to EarthRoamer in Colorado for conversion; I think his is #005. Martin and his wife are true world travelers, going all around Australia in the Jeep but also taking a wide variety of tours to no end of exotic places. They are good enough to write up reports of their trips for their friends and acquaintances, and the writeup of their latest adventure to Kangaroo Island and other sights included this picture of the Jeep. They don't generally stay in the XV-JP when they have other lodging available, but it's proven a good vehicle for them as they travel around, including very remote places like the Simpson Desert.
There's a report of his conversion here
http://www.4wdaction.com.au/articles/2010/roamin-wrangler
though it's pretty standard XV-JP stuff; Martin's got the only diesel and the only RHD XV-JP, but he's otherwise left it pretty stock.
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
IIRC, he's routinely in the upper teens whereas 14 is good for me. Probably 4-5 mpg better with the diesel.
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
Foxwing Deployment
After some camping with Jeremy and his G-Wagen at a really pretty dispersed site in the Tillamook State Forest,
I met up with the Sprinter at Champoeg State Park south of town. There, we ended up with about the last campsite which, while being less scenic, was plenty big for us to deploy the Foxwing awning the XV-JP has had since the early days.
If you know much about this awning, you know that provides fantastic coverage, but it needs a fair amount of space to deploy. You can't really just put it out part way; you either put out the whole big thing or leave it in the cover. Also, while it's easy enough to put up on a calm day, you need two people if there's much breeze. It's nicely stable in a wind--much better than the average angled pull-out setup--but it's vulnerable during the floppy time until the poles are under it.
Anyway, with plenty of room and a second person to join in if the wind gusted, there was no problem getting it up and enjoying it.
I also zipped on the "awning extension" and put it at a jaunty angle using unextended poles. This worked great for cutting the direct sun while still allowing the breeze to come through.
A lot of what makes the Foxwing so stable is that it's practically horizontal in my application. The wind encounters just the edge of the main awning. The extension piece, when vertical or angled, obviously catches much more wind and flaps around more, but it doesn't transmit any instability to the main unit. All in all, having a couple of extensions to put onto the main unit as required gives me a lot of flexibility with no downside.
After some camping with Jeremy and his G-Wagen at a really pretty dispersed site in the Tillamook State Forest,
I met up with the Sprinter at Champoeg State Park south of town. There, we ended up with about the last campsite which, while being less scenic, was plenty big for us to deploy the Foxwing awning the XV-JP has had since the early days.
If you know much about this awning, you know that provides fantastic coverage, but it needs a fair amount of space to deploy. You can't really just put it out part way; you either put out the whole big thing or leave it in the cover. Also, while it's easy enough to put up on a calm day, you need two people if there's much breeze. It's nicely stable in a wind--much better than the average angled pull-out setup--but it's vulnerable during the floppy time until the poles are under it.
Anyway, with plenty of room and a second person to join in if the wind gusted, there was no problem getting it up and enjoying it.
I also zipped on the "awning extension" and put it at a jaunty angle using unextended poles. This worked great for cutting the direct sun while still allowing the breeze to come through.
A lot of what makes the Foxwing so stable is that it's practically horizontal in my application. The wind encounters just the edge of the main awning. The extension piece, when vertical or angled, obviously catches much more wind and flaps around more, but it doesn't transmit any instability to the main unit. All in all, having a couple of extensions to put onto the main unit as required gives me a lot of flexibility with no downside.