Land Rover ideas for Jeeps

[ZONE ZERO]

This item was in the most recent issue of Land Rover Owner:

My immediate response: Wow! That's a lot of sand in the cyclonic filter that the regular air filter doesn't have to deal with.

I see a lot of snorkel products for Wranglers, but very few offer a cyclonic prefilter. I guess there aren't too many places in the U.S. where a cyclonic prefilter would be truly useful, but every time I get off an Easter Jeep Safari trail at Moab I open the windows and turn the HVAC blower on high as soon as I get on the highway to blow the dust out of the HVAC system, and I usually change the air filter after I get home from the trip, so places like Moab probably would be a good place for a prefilter.

I don't like that pretty much all of the snorkel products on the market require that you cut holes in the Jeep sheet metal, so I did some work on a prefilter/snorkel idea for the TJ a few years ago that would not require cutting any of the external sheet metal - I created a mold for a cowl panel that included a provision for mounting a cyclonic prefilter. The new fiberglass panel compared to the stock panel:

Testing it on my pickup:

The air intake gets routed through the firewall and there's ductwork integrated into the bottom of the new cowl panel to channel the air through the firewall. It worked very well, but since I don't drive my Jeeps into dusty areas like Moab more than once a year I didn't permanently install that panel and a prefilter on either of my '06's.

About a half dozen of the cowl panels escaped into the wild, two years ago a forum friend borrowed the molds and had a bunch made for himself and a few friends but other than that I haven't done anything else with the molds.

ive run pre cleaners or cyclones on all my snorkels on my jeeps, land rovers and Toyotas in New England and I can say with confidence that they do work well and keep so much debris and water out of the air box. I empty it every month and it’s amazing how much they catch. I have yet to change the air filter it’s still white.

 

[Winterhawk]

I know this isn't exactly in the spirt of this thread, but I found the last remaining part of my ex 97 Discovery that was stolen. It's only the rubber hitch plug, but it works on my XJ. As a side note I've owned 3 Jeeps, but nothing has come close to my old Disco and I'll more than likely end up with another one sooner than later.

 

[AggieOE]

This item was in the most recent issue of Land Rover Owner:

My immediate response: Wow! That's a lot of sand in the cyclonic filter that the regular air filter doesn't have to deal with.

I see a lot of snorkel products for Wranglers, but very few offer a cyclonic prefilter. I guess there aren't too many places in the U.S. where a cyclonic prefilter would be truly useful, but every time I get off an Easter Jeep Safari trail at Moab I open the windows and turn the HVAC blower on high as soon as I get on the highway to blow the dust out of the HVAC system, and I usually change the air filter after I get home from the trip, so places like Moab probably would be a good place for a prefilter.

I don't like that pretty much all of the snorkel products on the market require that you cut holes in the Jeep sheet metal, so I did some work on a prefilter/snorkel idea for the TJ a few years ago that would not require cutting any of the external sheet metal - I created a mold for a cowl panel that included a provision for mounting a cyclonic prefilter. The new fiberglass panel compared to the stock panel:

Testing it on my pickup:

The air intake gets routed through the firewall and there's ductwork integrated into the bottom of the new cowl panel to channel the air through the firewall. It worked very well, but since I don't drive my Jeeps into dusty areas like Moab more than once a year I didn't permanently install that panel and a prefilter on either of my '06's.

About a half dozen of the cowl panels escaped into the wild, two years ago a forum friend borrowed the molds and had a bunch made for himself and a few friends but other than that I haven't done anything else with the molds.

Love this simple protrusion. So many of the others look out of place.

 

[jscherb]

Love this simple protrusion. So many of the others look out of place.

For me, form and function are equally important. I started designing my own Jeep accessories years ago because it seemed that form played a poor second place to function in so many Jeep products and I wanted to elevate form to equal importance with function, at least for my Jeeps

 

[jscherb]

Back in January I posted about hook & loop dash pads, apparently they're popular in Australia: https://expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/land-rover-ideas-for-jeeps.218029/post-3082485.

Intrigued by the idea, and figuring out how to mount dash pads securely in Wranglers without fasteners, I made some experimental dash pads for my JKU and my LJ. In the JKU:

I attached some small MOLLE pouches by temporarily using self-stick Velcro on the back to see if something like that might be useful:

I posted about it here (https://expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/land-rover-ideas-for-jeeps.218029/post-3083745) and also posted about LJ ones here (https://expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/land-rover-ideas-for-jeeps.218029/post-3083934).

After trying MOLLE pouches and things on these panels in both Jeeps, I really didn't find them useful - they're awkward to access while driving and for keeping small things at hand while driving I've got better ways for those items, like the OO Grab Bar Pockets and Roll Bar Buddies.

Almost ready to give up on the idea, I came across these the other day: https://crashpadgear.com/collections/road-trip-essentials/products/dash-pod. Reviews on the site are positive, so these got me to thinking about the dash storage idea again. I have some pouches like that so I temporarily added self-stick Velcro to the back to see if I might find that style useful.

That was a total fail. On the driver's side, the top of the dash is level, so going up a hill or accelerating things can slip out of the pouch. On the passenger side, the dash slopes down, so things slip out without any provocation. Some things slipped out and fell into the OO Grab Bar Pockets in the passenger photo, so that product works well .

The only place the dash slopes appropriately for pouches like this to work is the drivers side of the TJ/LJ, but in spite of that I'll declare this style pouch a definite fail.

I kept the experimental dash pads in both Jeeps until yesterday, hoping that some inspiration came from them. Not quite ready to give up, I remembered driving my sister's Hyundai when I was in Florida last month - that has a compartment with a lid on the dash:

So I made a compartment with a lid out of fabric. I decided to give up on the hook & loop dash pads and for this compartment. It has Velcro on the bottom so it will work with the dash pads but I didn't really like the dash pads so I made a smaller dash attachment that isn't visible under the compartment. The new dash attachment works the same as the attachment for the dash pads - no fasteners or adhesive.

The same compartment works in the TJ/LJ, but with different mounting. Full disclosure, in these next photos it's just sitting place because I haven't made the attachments yet but when I do make them, they'll attach to the dash with no fasteners or adhesive. In the TJ/LJ, it could also mount in the center and because of the way it it would mount there, it would flip up for access to the built-in compartment on the dash.

I made this new compartment as a quick proof of concept; I'm not really happy with the brick shape so maybe I'll make another one for a longer term test with a little more contoured shape, and perhaps a little lower. I'll have to test this one with my 5'6" better half to see if it obstructs her vision.

Now I feel like I'm getting somewhere with this idea that started out as a Land Rover idea .

 

[jscherb]

Land Rover Owner Magazine has been the source for a good percentage of the ideas in this thread. I got a message the other day from the publisher of LRO; they've decided to cease publication after the issue that will be released on April 14. Of the two UK Land Rover magazines I subscribe to, it's been my favorite and I'll miss it. No such word from Land Rover Monthly, so I assume that one will continue into the future, at least for a time. Sad. I wasn't this sad at the demise of JP or Four Wheeler.

 

[AggieOE]

Land Rover Owner Magazine has been the source for a good percentage of the ideas in this thread. I got a message the other day from the publisher of LRO; they've decided to cease publication after the issue that will be released on April 14. Of the two UK Land Rover magazines I subscribe to, it's been my favorite and I'll miss it. No such word from Land Rover Monthly, so I assume that one will continue into the future, at least for a time. Sad. I wasn't this sad at the demise of JP or Four Wheeler.

As much as I read my articles online, there is something I love about flipping through pages. Is LRO still going to publish articles online and just abandon physical copies?

 

[jscherb]

As much as I read my articles online, there is something I love about flipping through pages. Is LRO still going to publish articles online and just abandon physical copies?

The notice said:

We are writing to inform you that Bauer Media has sadly taken the decision to cease publishing Land Rover Owner International in a printed or digital format. This means that the May 23 issue on sale 12th April 2023 will be the last issue that you will be able to download."

Finis.

 

[jscherb]

It's common to see Defenders and Series Land Rovers with van sides - no windows.

I wonder if there would be any interest in factory Jeep hardtops without side windows? This is a brochure from the U.K., Jeep did it there:

Van versions of various SUVs are done in some parts of the world as "commercial" vehicles, not only for commercial use but because vehicles intended for commercial use are taxed much less than passenger vehicles. A friend of mine in Singapore, where personal vehicles are heavily taxed, drove a small Toyota SUV with van sides because that was the only affordable way to have a vehicle there.

Jeep also sold hardtops in places like the U.K. with metal hardtops intended for commercial use, these were known as "World Cabs".

A version of that top with side windows, known as the Overlander, was sold in Australia.

I guess we'll call this a Land Rover idea for a Jeep that Jeep did implement, although not here in the U.S.

One more photo... a "van" version of my homemade hardtop (it's a van because I hadn't yet cut out the window openings):

 

[akpostal]

230 of the World body CJ-8s made it to Alaska for the postal service. There are still some examples running around.

 

[wildorange]

Land Rover Owner Magazine has been the source for a good percentage of the ideas in this thread. I got a message the other day from the publisher of LRO; they've decided to cease publication after the issue that will be released on April 14. Of the two UK Land Rover magazines I subscribe to, it's been my favorite and I'll miss it. No such word from Land Rover Monthly, so I assume that one will continue into the future, at least for a time. Sad. I wasn't this sad at the demise of JP or Four Wheeler.

Ceasing LRO is such a shame and must be reasons why they won't combine LRO/LRM.

Albeot it'll be a bigger monthly issue but secures both bases.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[jscherb]

230 of the World body CJ-8s made it to Alaska for the postal service. There are still some examples running around.

Yes I had one of those CJ-8 World Cab hardtops a few years ago:

It was part of the inspiration for my Safari Cab hardtop design; I loved the World Cab but the Scrambler wasn't a practical long-distance driver so I sold it, bought and LJ and designed the Safari Cab for it...

There were actually three different designs in the World Cab family, all mostly intended for export. The first was the CJ-8 version above. There was also a CJ-7 version. When I lived in England I found one and brought it home when I left England, these photos show it on a TJ I had at the time, I was testing to see it if could fit the TJ:

And then there was the CJ-10/CJ-10a half cab version. It was used on the U.S. for the air force on the CJ-10a airplane tugs and it was also part of the CJ-10 pickup sold in Australia but never in the U.S. An Aussie CJ-10 pickup:

I may be the only person in the U.S. to actually have owned all three, this photos shows the CJ-8 with its World Cab, the CJ-7 World Cab on the driveway and also the CJ-10 half cab:

The CJ-7 and CJ-10 World Cabs both donated parts to become the half cab for the cab of my Retro Wrangler pickup:

Since turning the two original metal cabs into that halfcab I've molded the half cab in fiberglass so more could be made without destroying original World Cab parts if I ever need another one.

 

[akpostal]

My postal has the CJ-10 half cab, the full top went to someone who needed a spare. I sold one postal to a guy up in Fairbanks, 1 went to a rural mail carrier in WA, some nut bought one and drove it from AK to NC.

 

[ZONE ZERO]

It's common to see Defenders and Series Land Rovers with van sides - no windows.

I wonder if there would be any interest in factory Jeep hardtops without side windows? This is a brochure from the U.K., Jeep did it there:

Van versions of various SUVs are done in some parts of the world as "commercial" vehicles, not only for commercial use but because vehicles intended for commercial use are taxed much less than passenger vehicles. A friend of mine in Singapore, where personal vehicles are heavily taxed, drove a small Toyota SUV with van sides because that was the only affordable way to have a vehicle there.

Jeep also sold hardtops in places like the U.K. with metal hardtops intended for commercial use, these were known as "World Cabs".

A version of that top with side windows, known as the Overlander, was sold in Australia.

I guess we'll call this a Land Rover idea for a Jeep that Jeep did implement, although not here in the U.S.

One more photo... a "van" version of my homemade hardtop (it's a van because I hadn't yet cut out the window openings):

I’m debating this very thing right now with my safari top, for the time being it might be easer to add some L track to the sides to hold molle panels or water can holders .
‘I’m going to have to move the roll cage to make the top more useful.
did you find the Lj feeling cramped with out the side windows?

 

[jscherb]

I’m debating this very thing right now with my safari top, for the time being it might be easer to add some L track to the sides to hold molle panels or water can holders .
‘I’m going to have to move the roll cage to make the top more useful.
did you find the Lj feeling cramped with out the side windows?

The Safari Cab's 7 windows provide so much more visibility than the factory tops that you get spoiled pretty quickly.

Just like any van, without the windows it just takes more care to drive on the road, much more reliance on mirrors to see traffic to the side and behind.

I wouldn't want to go back to no windows, like I said I'm spoiled. And especially spoiled when I swap the hard sides for the roll-up soft sides .