Just Downsized to a Renegade (build and trips)

[jgaz]

“Beater” camera and phone and the pictures didn’t suffer a bit.
Thanks for posting

 

[ZMagic97]

I haven't check in here for while: doing so was not a disappointment. I love what you're doing with that "little Jeep."

 

[Morgan Weafer]

Thank you for sharing another adventure with us Simon. Despite only having a "beater" on hand, your photography is quite stunning. I can't wait to see what you fashion next for your plucky Jeep, your "lunch" station is perfect.

 

[crossed-up]

“Beater” camera and phone and the pictures didn’t suffer a bit.
Thanks for posting

I haven't check in here for while: doing so was not a disappointment. I love what you're doing with that "little Jeep."

Thank you for sharing another adventure with us Simon. Despite only having a "beater" on hand, your photography is quite stunning. I can't wait to see what you fashion next for your plucky Jeep, your "lunch" station is perfect.

Thanks all. My 'beater' camera body is actually about 8 years old and bought as 'water damaged' off eBay a few years ago for £20. Its was actually a decent entry level model in its day, but uses AA batteries that it eats quite quickly, especially in the cold, and they were half dead already. The two lenses I had with me though were top quality, just not wide enough for what I had planned (a 40mm and a 200mm.) So yes, the quality was there, I just ran out of power, and couldn't get far enough back from anything!

Regarding new additions, I just finish (almost) this today....

One issue I’ve had is the lack of illumination at the rear of the Jeep. This was most apparent back in October when I was marshalling on an all night rally and we had to rely on head torches. Since then I’d been eyeing up these these Nebo touches for a while with an idea to mount them to the now redundant parcel shelf cord hangers.

But on a recent trip to ASDA (Walmart) I spotted these near identical ones:

They were less than half the price of the Nebo’s (albeit a slightly lower spec.) but also in the same red anodised finish as the trim on the Trailhawk. So I bought two
I had also been looking for a little project to practice some aluminium welding so came up with an idea for a mount for the lamps but also decided to add some extra functionality by adding a cross rail to form a hanging rack for various items like cloths and utensils.

I used some ali angle to form some vertical brackets and 10mm tube welded between them.

The torches had a convenient little clip that could be riveted to the bracket and used mount them. The also allows them to be swivelled to direct the light where needed. I was going go mount one on each side but decided to start with just the one.

Trial fit. I used some ali tube as a bearing over the parcel shelf cord screw, and a ‘C’ clip snapped int the existing groove to retain it.

The rail dimensions allow it swing into the window recess when the tailgate is closed.

I was going to leave it raw ali, but thought I’d follow the interior theme of black and with the red accents. So finished it in a textured black paint.

Fitted to the Jeep.

I was initially going to just let the rail swing down under gravity without any latch, but decided that might be annoying if you just wanted to reach over the parcel shelf for something. So fabricated a little toggle latch so it can be locked in place when not needed.

Locked

I think the rail will be quite useful for things like a rubbish bag, drying towels etc. as I’m always looking for somewhere to hang those. I might add a magnetic utensil mount if I spot something suitable.

The beam does get slightly blocked by the stove lid, so I’ going to add add the second torch to the right hand side. This one will sit the other way up (due to the direction of the swivelling head) so the beam will be firing from higher up and also have a more direct line to the stove which is offset to the left. It only needs a couple of 3mm holes drilling for the rivets to mount it.

Now looking forward to the weather getting better and planning some trips.

 

[shade]

Nice bracketry, as usual. You may consider adding an LED strip that faces down when the hatch is open. Between that and the torches, shadows would be minimized.

 

[jgaz]

Love the holes in all the brackets! Adds a nice touch

 

[jeepgc]

Over the last 3000 miles (including the Alps trip and some enthusiastic driving around Mull I'm showing 36.1 mpg

Now I know that you're rubbing it in .

Happy New Year crossed-up!!

I finally read your thread all the way through, excellent work and pics as per usual, enjoyed reading through that very much.

Thank you for taking the time to post up, the Renegades look great.

Fantastic that you've got more trips planned - we (they, family) decided it was dog time for our family, so all my travel plans have been shelved for a good while.

Being midlands based, I'd be interested in tagging along on one or more of your green lane adventures if my WK isn't going to cramp your Renegade's style - doesn't have to be too long/exciting etc, am happy to travel some to meet up.

How are you getting on with those tyres both on and off road?

 

[crossed-up]

Thanks jeepgc, and Happy New Year to you too.

Your are more than welcome to come along on any of the trips. It would great to hear the rumble of a Hemi again without having to bear the expense I'm currently looking at putting together some day trips linking the local lanes together. I think it will be a month or so before they dry out sufficiently to avoid too much surface damage, and many of the lanes have TRO's in force until April for this reason anyway. We tend to plan fairly gentle trips focused on exploring and enjoying the countryside with the odd challenge here and there, rather than hardcore offloading.

As you can see there are plenty of byways (red) and unclassified roads (blue) to have a go at in the Midlands:

Then there are some of the old favourites in the Elan Valley which is not too far either. My last trip there was several years ago in my old GC Orvis:

Regarding the tyres, I've been pleasantly surprised with them. They seem to offer plenty of grip on the gravelly/rocky mountain tracks, but I was more impressed how good they were in the recent outing in the mud considering they are a fairly mild AT pattern. They seem pretty good on road too, although I don't tend to drive it hard.

 

[borison]

Lots of cool little touches to your rig. Nice work.

 

[jeepgc]

That would be perfect, your timing fits with me, and the gentler routes would be better for the Hemi, no extremes needed , have had a few problems with the Jeep over the last couple of years, all age related sadly. I think the next big problem will make me think hard about letting go, maybe...

Thank you, joining you on some of your green laning would be great, look forward to it.

You definitely like your Jeeps.

Please let me know if I can help any in your planning or ask me to bring anything with me etc, I'd be more than happy to help out.

Those tyres sound good and certainly looked like they handled the mud well, some of your pics and video would have made me think twice about going though that, well without spinning a wheel or two/four .

Sent from my I3312 using Tapatalk

 

[crossed-up]

That would be perfect, your timing fits with me, and the gentler routes would be better for the Hemi, no extremes needed , have had a few problems with the Jeep over the last couple of years, all age related sadly. I think the next big problem will make me think hard about letting go, maybe...

Thank you, joining you on some of your green laning would be great, look forward to it.

You definitely like your Jeeps.

Please let me know if I can help any in your planning or ask me to bring anything with me etc, I'd be more than happy to help out.

Those tyres sound good and certainly looked like they handled the mud well, some of your pics and video would have made me think twice about going though that, well without spinning a wheel or two/four .

Sent from my I3312 using Tapatalk

Yes, it was a tough decision for me to swap to the Renegade. I loved the WK but I was working on it quite a bit at more regular intervals (nothing major, just service and maintenance items) and had the big Alps trip planned. I think if I hadn't have spotted the Trailhawk in the local dealers identical to my brother's I would probably still have it and be enjoying it now. But with my sensible head on the Renegade was the right choice I think, whilst there was still some reasonable residual value in the WK, which wasn't going be the case for much longer. I also had the advantage of knowing the Trailhawk was fine for the sort of trips I do.

I'll keep you posted on the laning plans, there should't really be too much to do - the biggest decision is usually what we're going to cook up for lunch!

Nice bracketry, as usual. You may consider adding an LED strip that faces down when the hatch is open. Between that and the torches, shadows would be minimized.

Thanks shade, I did think about a striplight initially, and I might still fit one wired into the courtesy light circuit. I've got another night rally event in a week's time so I'll see how the double torch setup works out; I've just fitted the second one today. For some reason I thought it was going to have to mount upside down because of the one-way swivel head, but realised they actually ended up 'mirror image' so mount the same way.

 

[jeepgc]

I'll keep you posted on the laning plans, there should't really be too much to do - the biggest decision is usually what we're going to cook up for lunch!

Fantastic, sounds like you have your priorities in order . Look forward to it.


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[crossed-up]

The sun came out for a couple of this morning, so I thought I’d head out with the camera and check out another couple of lanes. The unsurfaced ones I looked at were predictable boggy , so I gave them a miss and stuck to the unclassified gravel surfaced roads. The rain returned after an hour or so but it was still a pleasant couple of hours out to take my mind off work tomorrow!
Whilst I was out I dropped into the supermarket for some lunch provisions and found a triple pack of magnetic tool holders. So once I got back I mounted one up on the rack with some plastic ‘P’ clips.

I was going to bend up a little hook for hanging a rubbish bag, but found some spare Velcro straps, so thought these would be a bit more versatile.

Some pics:

 

[crossed-up]

Spent yesterday fitting the other set of lamp brackets I made to my brother's Renegade. Instead of the Cibie LED's I have on mine he went for some KC Slimlites, which he had to order from the States. These are a tad smaller than the Cibies, but I think I actually prefer the look of them on the Renegade. It was nice for a change just to be able to fit a kit of parts without having to figure things out and fabricate as you go along.

Routing the wires behind the grill.

Brackets in place. The KC's came with a very nice sleeved loom with 'sureseal' connectors. We had to chop the loom up but ultimately ended up with a slightly tidier installation than on mine.

Fitting the lams.

Finished. I think the final result looks very 'factory' without the covers fitted.

 

[Wally NY]

How have the front light brackets been holding up? I’m thinking of mounting a set on ours and not coming up with many other ideas. My biggest concern is that my wife likes to run through the automatic car wash regularly and I don’t want to worry about anything getting torn off.