pith helmet
Well-known member
And you are running SL tires, correct?
Land Rover ideas for Jeeps
- Thread starter jscherb
- Start date
jscherb
Expedition Leader
I use Michelin Defender LTX M/S tires, 265/75-16 on both of my 06's.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
This post is a reverse of the subject of this thread... I'll call this a Jeep Idea for a Land Rover.
One of my hobbies is designing accessories for my Jeeps those who follow what I do know that I take a lot of inspiration from accessories from Land Rovers. A number of my designs have been picked up by companies in the Jeep and offroad world, including Overland Outfitters. Yesterday they asked me if I thought some of their gear might work in a Discovery. Many of OO's products are specifically designed for Jeeps, but some work well in other vehicles - for example the bags in this post hang on the back of the seat using a zipper attachment that is held in place by the headrest pins. There's a Discovery 2 in the local u-pull so I tried some of their seat-back storage bags there.
This first one they call the Backpack Messenger bag. Like all of their products, it's made from military grade canvas with real leather accents and reinforcements. In this photo you can see the zipper attachment it's hanging from. The zipper enables the bag to hang securely from the seat back and unzips when needed to be carried away from the vehicle.
This next one they call the Cool Bag - it's an insulated cooler designed for drinks or picnic lunches. In addition to the seat-back attachment, it comes with a shoulder strap for carrying a picnic lunch on a hike to a picnic site.
The inside of the Cool Bag, pictured on the seat of one of my Jeeps:
And this one they call the Zip & Go bag, it's a simple storage bag.
Overland Outfitters is at https://www.overland-outfitters.com/
For the record: I am not an employee of Overland Outfitters, nor am I an employee of any of the other companies that have picked up my designs. I just do these designs as a hobby. I receive no compensation from Overland Outfitters from sales of their products or from this post; since I went to the trouble of trooping around the u-pull on a drizzly day to get these photos I thought I'd post the photos here in case anyone might find the ideas interesting.
One of my hobbies is designing accessories for my Jeeps those who follow what I do know that I take a lot of inspiration from accessories from Land Rovers. A number of my designs have been picked up by companies in the Jeep and offroad world, including Overland Outfitters. Yesterday they asked me if I thought some of their gear might work in a Discovery. Many of OO's products are specifically designed for Jeeps, but some work well in other vehicles - for example the bags in this post hang on the back of the seat using a zipper attachment that is held in place by the headrest pins. There's a Discovery 2 in the local u-pull so I tried some of their seat-back storage bags there.
This first one they call the Backpack Messenger bag. Like all of their products, it's made from military grade canvas with real leather accents and reinforcements. In this photo you can see the zipper attachment it's hanging from. The zipper enables the bag to hang securely from the seat back and unzips when needed to be carried away from the vehicle.
This next one they call the Cool Bag - it's an insulated cooler designed for drinks or picnic lunches. In addition to the seat-back attachment, it comes with a shoulder strap for carrying a picnic lunch on a hike to a picnic site.
The inside of the Cool Bag, pictured on the seat of one of my Jeeps:
And this one they call the Zip & Go bag, it's a simple storage bag.
Overland Outfitters is at https://www.overland-outfitters.com/
For the record: I am not an employee of Overland Outfitters, nor am I an employee of any of the other companies that have picked up my designs. I just do these designs as a hobby. I receive no compensation from Overland Outfitters from sales of their products or from this post; since I went to the trouble of trooping around the u-pull on a drizzly day to get these photos I thought I'd post the photos here in case anyone might find the ideas interesting.
Correus
Adventurer
Know the lady, very nice and helpful. She helped me when it came time to buy my Landy.
Correus
Adventurer
Ever since the early Series models, Land Rovers have had full rear doors, often called "barn doors." It makes access to the cargo area so easy I don't know why they never caught on in the Jeep world. Barn doors have been part of the Land Rover since the 1950's. This one's on a Series III Land Rover from the 70's:
A Swiss Post Office Land Rover:
Jeep teased us with a barn door on the jeep Africa concept a few years ago:
But the closest Jeep ever got to a production barn door for this country was on the postal Jeep of the 60's/70's:
Jeep did produce a barn door for export only, it was called the "World Cab" and was available in CJ7 and CJ8 versions. This is an ad from the UK:
And Mahindra in India, which has always produced cool Jeep variants, has barn doors on all of its long wheelbase jeeps. This one is a Savari:
But no factory barn doors in the U.S.
When I designed and built the LJ/TJ Safari Cab hardtop and the JK/JKU Safari Cab, a barn door was at the top of my design requirements list.
I designed the JK barn door to also work with the factory JK/JKU hardtop in case someone ever wanted one for a factory top. It also works with the Ursa Minor camper top since that was derived from a factory top. Here's a barn door I did for Donny's Ursa Minor:
I've done two different barn door designs for the factory TJ hardtop as well but I haven't made the molds for that one.
Maybe some future Wrangler will offer a barn door as an option, but I doubt it.
That's a new one on me... never heard it called a "barn door" before; is it an "Americanism", like "breakfast" is?
I've always known it as tge full sized safari door, usually only found on the Station Wagons.
Correus
Adventurer
One thing I have never seen on a Land Rover - angry bird/angry eyes or pretty much any type of goofy grill. Good show, chaps
This one doesn't count - it belongs to Veronica Lemond, she's an author of a children's book featuring "Landy" the Land Rover.
This woman threatened me within an inch of my life if I wrote a children's book involving my Rover. Said she sue my a** off if I tried.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
This photo is from an article in the June issue of Land Rover Owner:
I've done a number of posts in this thread about rooftop boxes and not long ago I implemented one for my Jeeps, it's very similar to the one above:
I took the photo of my JKU this morning, it's outfitted for a trip to Overland West, which is next weekend. Anyone else going to Overland West?
The Disco in the first photo is also carrying a HiLift, which I almost never do, and a jerry can on the back. I regularly carry extra fuel on expeditions where I might need fuel; for the trip to/from Overland West I won't need extra fuel but I am carrying a 2-gallon Rotopax on the back:
It's empty, my JKU will be in the Overland Outfitters and MORryde booths (they're next to each other and my Jeep will be in the middle) and I'm carrying the Rotopax to gauge interest in the "Insulpax" cover, that's what I call the insulated cover I designed that's on the container. Rotopax containers carrying fuel have a tendency to bulge in the the sun and the insulated cover minimizes that problem (and prevents the red can from fading in the sun)
I'm also carrying my "mobile recycling bin" - the bag hanging off the spare. I use the bag for many things, but for trips like this where we'll be drinking many things that come in plastic bottles I toss all the recyclables in the spare bag and recycle them when I get home. I guess it's my addition to the Tread Lightly ethic - don't throw recyclables in the trash when on a trip when you can easily bring them home and recycle them. My LJ is in the photo too, it's got the same bag in black.
I've done a number of posts in this thread about rooftop boxes and not long ago I implemented one for my Jeeps, it's very similar to the one above:
I took the photo of my JKU this morning, it's outfitted for a trip to Overland West, which is next weekend. Anyone else going to Overland West?
The Disco in the first photo is also carrying a HiLift, which I almost never do, and a jerry can on the back. I regularly carry extra fuel on expeditions where I might need fuel; for the trip to/from Overland West I won't need extra fuel but I am carrying a 2-gallon Rotopax on the back:
It's empty, my JKU will be in the Overland Outfitters and MORryde booths (they're next to each other and my Jeep will be in the middle) and I'm carrying the Rotopax to gauge interest in the "Insulpax" cover, that's what I call the insulated cover I designed that's on the container. Rotopax containers carrying fuel have a tendency to bulge in the the sun and the insulated cover minimizes that problem (and prevents the red can from fading in the sun)
I'm also carrying my "mobile recycling bin" - the bag hanging off the spare. I use the bag for many things, but for trips like this where we'll be drinking many things that come in plastic bottles I toss all the recyclables in the spare bag and recycle them when I get home. I guess it's my addition to the Tread Lightly ethic - don't throw recyclables in the trash when on a trip when you can easily bring them home and recycle them. My LJ is in the photo too, it's got the same bag in black.
ZONE ZERO
Active member
id absolutely kill for a barn door for my JKU Ive always hated the door hatch combo.
if it has to be door hatch make it a drop down tailgate
jscherb
Expedition Leader
A company was interested in manufacturing and marketing my JK barn door design but in the end they decided not to go ahead with it so the only barn doors that exist so far are the one on my JKU and a few I've made for friends. I've still got the molds so if someone is ever interested in producing and selling it I'll be happy to explore the idea with them.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Adding extra switch/gauge panels on top of the dash of a Defender seems to be a pretty common thing to do. These photos are from an article in the June issue of Land Rover Owner:
A fairly common way to create a panel seems to be to use a rear door "numberplate surround" from a Discovery, I posted this in September 2020: https://expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/land-rover-ideas-for-jeeps.218029/page-15#post-2840460
This next one is pictured in an article in the June issue of Land Rover Monthly, it's similar to the one in the link above although in this photo they call it a door handle:
I don't see extra panels like this too often in Jeeps, but I wanted to see what one might look like so I grabbed the panel images from the first photos in this post and edited them into photos of my JKU's dash:
In this photo I left off the top part of the panel from the Land Rover, I think this one looks like it really belongs there:
Probably the same method as in the link above could be used, I'm sure something could be found in the u-pull that would work.
Or, a fairly easy fiberglass project would be to make a panel housing that's form-fit to the top of the Wrangler dash and the mold could be used to make multiple copies for friends or for sale.
A fairly common way to create a panel seems to be to use a rear door "numberplate surround" from a Discovery, I posted this in September 2020: https://expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/land-rover-ideas-for-jeeps.218029/page-15#post-2840460
This next one is pictured in an article in the June issue of Land Rover Monthly, it's similar to the one in the link above although in this photo they call it a door handle:
I don't see extra panels like this too often in Jeeps, but I wanted to see what one might look like so I grabbed the panel images from the first photos in this post and edited them into photos of my JKU's dash:
In this photo I left off the top part of the panel from the Land Rover, I think this one looks like it really belongs there:
Probably the same method as in the link above could be used, I'm sure something could be found in the u-pull that would work.
Or, a fairly easy fiberglass project would be to make a panel housing that's form-fit to the top of the Wrangler dash and the mold could be used to make multiple copies for friends or for sale.
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jscherb
Expedition Leader
The point of this thread isn't to turn a Jeep into a Land Rover. The Land Rover community has many more decades of overlanding/exploration experience than the Jeep community, so the point of this thread is to learn what we can from that experience and maybe apply some of the good ideas to our Jeeps.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
The dozens of small mods listed in this thread are what I think people might be interested in doing to their Jeeps. This thread is more about those things than about Alpine windows and rear "barn doors". But some Jeeps do have those things too
.
If people don't find this thread interesting and possibly useful, I'll be more than happy to stop posting ideas here, just let me know. But with 124,000 views so far as I write this, I suspect people are finding it at least interesting if not actually useful as they plan mods for their Jeeps.