My Mods thread...

[LandCruisers4Life]

My modifications have begun, slowly. I am beginning on the electronics package. Right now I have put in a new K40 Antenna with a top load transmission, large oversized magnet mount base with a medium tension spring.

In the works will be a custom housing to put my Cobra CB into, along with room for a future addition - an Icom HAM radio. Of course, the HAM will come after getting my license to operate, which I hear is much easier these days since morse code is no longer required for basic operation.

Today I ordered up probably one of the last DGPS Beacon receivers in the united states. Since WAAS came out, the DGPS stuff has all but disappeared. I like DGPS over WAAS because it will help correct GPS positioning even in inclement weather. WAAS are extra satellites in orbit which are mainly for the use of airplanes, and are not so great for ground users like us. It does help, but not nearly as much as it is trumped up to be. DGPS on the other hand is a Coast Guard run affair, with transmitters on the GROUND, which interact with the regular GPS satellite signals to give you a greater pinpoint accuracy. In bad weather, GPS often gets erratic, because the signals have to travel through the atmosphere (clouds, rain etc as well). A DGPS (Differential Global Positioning System) signal helps to correct this. Now you can see the advantage of having this sort of set up.

I will probably not get the DGPS installed before leaving for Big Bend, as I still have to find a shakespeare 5224, 4' antenna to attach to the receiver, and a DGPS wiring harness from Lowrance to purchase. All in good time.

[LandCruisers4Life]

Found the Shakespeare antenna online, and ordered a wiring harness as well from LEI extras.

Still need an actual RAM mount. That's about 50 bucks, so I'll have to wait on that. The Beacon set me back a few.

[Bear80]

Nice idea with the thread. Keep it comming, I want to see a built 100.

[LandCruisers4Life]

Once I get all this installed (see above posts), I will have to add new springs and tires to my sons truck. That will give me a hiatus til I can get into the next phase.

Phase 2 will be:

ARB air lockers and 4.88 gearsets front and rear.

Phase 3:

Old Man Emu lift with OME shocks - possibly FOX or OME with the remote reservoir

New heavy duty Upper control arms from JT

Slee IFS Diff Drop kit

35" Kumho mud tires

Phase 4:

ARB front bumper (winch ready)

Slee Rock Rails

Slee rear bumper with swing away tire carrier

Slee underbelly protection

Phase 5:

ARB Fridge/Freezer

Safari Snorkel with pre-cleaner

Inti Roof Rack

Phase 6:

Dual Optima battery set up with electronic monitor

Warn M12000 winch with synthetic line

Long range fuel cell

[LandCruisers4Life]

whoo hoo! My DGPS beacon receiver is here..... Now all I need is the wiring harness and shakespeare antenna to show up

[kcsmithson]

Just curious as to why phase 2 before phase 3? An unlocked 80 that is lifted and on 35" tires will get you to and from a lot of places.

Chad

[LandCruisers4Life]

Originally Posted by kcsmithson

Just curious as to why phase 2 before phase 3? An unlocked 80 that is lifted and on 35" tires will get you to and from a lot of places.

Chad

Because I wanted the grunt of the 4.88 gears for the 35s.... it pretty much gives it a stock like ratio when those two are combined and less stress on the drivetrain.

[kcsmithson]

I understand that. I guess I don't understand the time frame between the phases. If it is going to be a few months, might be better to add the 4.88's to the 35's instead of the other way around. Either way, it will be sweet.

Chad

[LandCruisers4Life]

I got screwed around by Wireless Hut .com on my shakespeare antenna, so don't ever order from them. The antenna was lost in shipment, the company was notified, but nobody ever tried to contact me about it. I found out on my own through UPS. After sending 5 emails, and leaving two voice messages I still never got a response from the company, so I filed a grievance with my credit card company to contest the charge for not receiving items paid for.

Now...... I found a local boat outfit that is a chain store and their Galveston store had yet another Shakespeare antenna. A Loran-C/DGPS 4' model 173 antenna which was promptly delivered to my hands a day after asking for it.

I hastily put all my wiring together with GPS, DGPS Beacon (with antenna), and attached it to +12V to see if the beacon was working. It was working properly, however I am too far away from any transmitters to receive data correction in San Antonio so I disconnected the DGPS and stowed it away til I get the ARB bumper installed.

The installation calls for +12V, so I nosed around in my Toyota manual and looked at the fuse circuits.... I found a 20A fuse which is for AHC. Since my vehicle doesn't have AHC, I tapped into that to run my GPS off of. Red to fuse, black to convenient nut/bolt contact with body of vehicle.. all done.

No room to put the wire in next to the fuse, so I took a lighter and burned some of the plastic off one side of the fuse. Then I took my Weller soldering iron, and heated that metal up under neath and applied some solder... Then, I added solder to the red +12 wire (with inline 2A fuse), and then held it to the metal/solder on the side of the fuse and heated, joining my wire with the side of the fuse, and plugged it back in. Now I have my tap off the fuse, and it is secure from vibration.

[LandCruisers4Life]

Today the RAM mount came in, so I took 30 minutes and decided the best place to install that. I'll be taking pictures of all the install soon so you can check it out. I had a similar DGPS install in my old 40, but with a Global Nav 310, but it bit the dust after so many years of hard off roading.

Today I decided that I want to make a bracket and mount the DGPS beacon after all, instead of waiting for the ARB bumper since that's going to be a while. So that's going to be a fabrication job, and I'll be back under the dash soldering wires again in the next day or so.

My above dash custom console I have been contemplating is also going to be in the works next for fabrication. I want to eventually install a Sirius Satellite radio head unit there, and a Lowrance Baja 540C large screen GPS unit. Ok so I'll have 3 GPS units in my Cruiser (2 Lowrance, and the stock in dash street unit)...

I think the 540C will come after the HAM radio however since it costs more.

[LandCruisers4Life]

I went to Lowes on a little shopping trip to get the items I need to fab up a Beacon antenna mount for the front of the Cruiser. Tomorrow morning will wake up early and start piecing things together.

This will be a basic mount to tide me over til I get the ARB front bumper, then I will scrap part of it and mount directly to the bar.

[LandCruisers4Life]

I got to bed around 4am so morning didn't work out. It's almost 2 and just getting started haha.....

[LandCruisers4Life]

Ok back to the antenna.... I found that my drill bits were lost, so I didn't bother finishing up last night. Wife always has things for me to do around the house, so I am going to work on it today.

I got the steel bent to fit around some piping in front of my radiator and the bracket will go through my grill and the beacon receiver will mount to that....

[LandCruisers4Life]

DGPS Beacon Receiver installed.

First, made a custom bracket which bolted up to the body of the Cruiser just under the hood and in front of the radiator. One bolt was existing as a mount of some sort, and the other was for one of the two horns the 100 has. That bracket was twisted and shaped to bring about the angles I wanted and needed to fit through the plastic grill on the front of the Cruiser.

Once bent, cut, drilled etc, I primered and painted it black. Then I mounted it directly to the Cruiser via the two bolts just spoken of. Once in place, I mounted the beacon receiver to the bracket with two large hose clamps. I had already fabricated a holder to put the beacon receiver into out of PVC pipe, and wrapped it all good in electrical tape. Once mounted with the hose clamps, I covered those with more black electrical tape.

I zip tied the cable to the bracket, and then proceded to route the data line for the beacon. I zip tied it across the inside of the grill in about 4 places, then ran along the inner fender wall on the driver side. I then punctured a very small hole into the rubber boot which a large wiring harness was feeding through the firewall into the cab. I fed what I needed inside under the cluster guages, and neatly zip tied up the rest inside the engine bay off to the drivers side. I then added some silicon to the area where I fed the cable through the boot, even though it was a very tight fit.

Inside I had already tapped into the +12V from the AHC fuse point on my drivers side fuse block, and ran my negative to a convenient point on the body in the drivers side foot box. Now, I took the wiring apart to my GPS, added a toggle switch to toggle the Beacon on and off separate of the GPS itself, and soldered up my DGPS signal wires. My GPS is a Lowrance unit, and the DGPS is an Eagle unit, so they are totally compatable (Lowrance makes Eagle). After I got all the soldering done, heat shrinked the connections etc, I tucked it all up nice and neat with more zip ties, and turned on the Cruiser. GPS powered up, light working..... Toggle DGPS Beacon and read a 30dB gain from my antenna. DGPS is working, just no signal correction as I am too far away from the nearest transmitter in Aransas Pass, Tx.

After picking up my tools, soldering station etc, I head down to the local truck stop and pick up a small spring mount to attach to the Beacon, and then attach the antenna to give it even more flexibility. The Beacon bracket I designed flexes and moves a bit to allow it to take up the jolts and off road movement of the Cruiser.

Tomorrow Friday I will take some pictures and try to post them up here to show the whole process.

[LandCruisers4Life]

Next small project will be adding some black aircraft carpet to the dash, and a very slimline cabinet space to add a Sirius satellite radio head unit. As well, I will be leaving some space for possibly another larger GPS unit (Lowrance Baja 540C), which would actually hang off the dash towards the drivers seat. The mount would be bolted to the cabinet. Hard to explain... if I do get the larger GPS to put there, I'll obviously post up pictures of it all. Might skip that and go with something else. I have a small cabinet in mind for just behind my center console facing the front at an angle to mount my Cobra CB into, and later a Icom HAM radio.

[BrettinSanAntonio]

Hey, can't you get a killer diving watch at Wal-Mart or Academy for $49.95?

Originally Posted by LandCruisers4Life

After all these years, Rolex came out with a new version of my diving watch (Rolex Sea Dweller 4000 ft / 1220 M), and it's playing head games with me. Focus on the Land Cruiser was momentarily swayed last night as I beheld a thing of magnificence.... the new Rolex 'Deep Sea' version of the Sea Dweller. Waterproof to 12,800 ft / 3900 M, domed saphire crystal etc etc..... wow.

It is a 904L stainless steel watch. A couple pictures make it appear gold, but it's just the lighting. Still, I can imagine this new piece is going to cost a VERY large sum of money. My regular Sea Dweller was $6000 so I can only imagine what this one will go for. For those who don't know me, I am a Commercial Diver, so this watch has a purpose other than looking cool on my wrist

[LandCruisers4Life]

Ok- went wheeling tonight. I cranked up the GPS, and as I was sitting waiting for the cruiser to warm up, I started to receive DGPS signal corrections. I figured I was too far away from the nearest station, but it's working like a champ. We went into the densest brush/tree coverage you can imagine this evening, and it never lost a signal the whole time. It worked perfectly and I was pretty happy about it.

Today I added a light shroud to the screen. In the position my GPS is in, the screen is often in the sun, which is not good for an LCD display. So I did the Martha Stewart thing and made a sun shade to keep the sun, and glare off the screen to make it easier to read.

The sun shade was made easily.. I got some flat cardboard like off the back of a notepad, and cut out the pieces for 3 sides. I painted them all flat black, and cut them to fit my gps at angles to give it a wide screen look. (you'll see in the pictures). Then, I applied velcro in strips to 3 sides of the screen, and also the counterpart to the cardboard where it will all attach. It looks good and works.

I have to install wiring for some Hella amber fog lamps my son bought for the Range Rover today, but I will be outside with the camera getting documentation for all the above mods to post up here later this evening and tomorrow. Gonna be a good amount of picture posting here real soon!

I spent most of the day tearing the underside of the dash apart in the Range Rover to find a place to run two wires through the firewall. It was a nightmare, I just couldn't find an opening, til late this afternoon that is. FINALLY.... I stuck a long steel rod through a rubber boot that had a wiring harness running through it, and attached the wires to it on the other side, pulling them back inside to me in the dash area. See, in the engine area of the Rover, the firewall is covered all over in everything you can think of, so it's even hard to think of drilling a new hole even. The P38 Range Rover has a TON of electronics, so I can see why they want everything so sealed up. Anyway, the wires are through, and in the morning I'll be finishing the Range Rover up and testing the lamps. Then I can go on a picture taking binge.

[LandCruisers4Life]

I finally got the switch mounted, and wired inside the Range Rover. Ran all the wiring under the hood etc, and wired so the lamps can be switched on at any time regardless of whether the vehicle is on or not. Son has the bracket for the lamps arriving on wednesday, so I will finish up the rover then. At least the tough stuff is done.

I know, I need to post pics on the Land Cruiser........ The little shade thing I built didn't work out on the GPS as the velcro's sticky side didn't want to stick to the cardboard pieces. Oh well I will figure something else out.

I got the Shakespeare Galaxy 5224 DGPS specific whip antenna in today. I was suprised I got it after all the BS I went through with wireless hut. Now I have two whip antennas to put on the beacon, in case one gets trashed or something. I think the Shakespeare Galaxy 173 Loran-C / DGPS whip is a little better than this 5224, but it's hard to tell. Both work great though. I might try to get one more 173 to put aside since I like that one a little better. I think it picks up the signals a little quicker at start up. Might just be my imagination however.

[LandCruisers4Life]

I was going to wait on lighting for the front end because the stock bumper sucks. However I am going off road enough that I wish I had some yellow fog style lamps up there. Installing some yellows on the front of the Range Rover has got me bit by the bug and now I want some lamps on the front of the cruiser.

I am looking around, because I think the Hella lights we bought for the Range Rover suck. They put out this really narrow beam of light, but wide.. I mean like a foot wide. For my own use I want something that puts out a lot of yellow light. I guess that is more of a 'driving' lamp, in yellow.... So I have been looking around and everyone has these little lights, and I want some big daddys, but the Lightforce 240s are 9.5"...... Also, I want 3 lamps, not two. I want the center one facing forward, and the outer two facing towards the left and right at an angle... Lightforce 170s are about 6.5"..... still a little small. Can't they have like a 7.5"??? Man this light stuff is getting on my nerves.

The Lightforce lamps are impressive. I saw a video of a guy shooting one 4 times with a shotgun, and it didn't damage the lamp. Light output is also incredible, and I like the large yellow filters.

So right now I am wondering if I can go with 3 of the 240s on an ARB winch bar.... probably not. At 9.5" that is just huge.. so maybe 3 of the 170s....

[LandCruisers4Life]

I am going ahead with the plan to make 3 model 240 Lightforce lamps work on the front of an ARB bumper. I had plans to modify the bumper slightly to suit my taste and make it a little better. This will just have to figure into the equation.

My little soap opera continues with the range rover here at home. The kid drove it today, in the rain which he knows he wasn't supposed to right now. Reason is, the tires weren't very good on it, and we were waiting on a friend to buy his lift kit as he's getting a newer slightly taller one for his rover. Then once we had the kit, were gonna go ahead and put better tires. So today he calls and says he hit a pothole which he couldn't see because it was 'in the water'...... so he creamed both passenger side tires, and the wheels got screwed too because of the impact. Good thing for him he wasn't home (he snuck off while I was having a nap) when I discovered that not only the tires are gonners, but I got to find some more wheels. I wasn't going to buy tires for another month or two. I hate unexpected expenses like this.

Kids = Money Pits..... I suggest birth control and dogs. MUCH cheaper!

[LandCruisers4Life]

I got some requests to see what I do. I get people all the time thinking I am a scuba diver for a living. Far from it..

Here are the pics of me at work. I promise Land Cruiser pictures very soon I am downloading em right now!

All Gulf of Mexico shots:









Look at these tired bastards... I am the one on the far right, servicing my diving helmet.

[BrettinSanAntonio]

Why do you need to allow Helium to vent? Are you filling your watch with Helium before diving? Do all watches come with Helium? Does my watch have Helium from the factory? Couldn't I just buy a Helium free watch?

Originally Posted by LandCruisers4Life

Not with a Helium Relief Valve in the case....

Wrist shot of my Sea Dweller 4000 - see the valve...?



Another shot... I like this one as it shows the 4mm thick saphire crystal...



One more... these pictures should show the differences between my Sea Dweller, and the new one....

[BrettinSanAntonio]

Why is that guy smacking you on the ass? Do you work on The Love Boat? What kind of diving do you perform that you get spanked as a reward?

[LandCruisers4Life]

Originally Posted by BrettinSanAntonio

Why do you need to allow Helium to vent? Are you filling your watch with Helium before diving? Do all watches come with Helium? Does my watch have Helium from the factory? Couldn't I just buy a Helium free watch?

In saturation diving, the divers live in a helium/oxygen environment. No nitrogen. Over time, helium molecules, which are very tiny, will infiltrate the watch and the watch becomes saturated with helium, much like a human. On decompression, if the helium cannot escape fast enough the same way it got in, the watch would experience explosive decompression. Once a helium valve equipped commercial watch such as the Sea Dweller reaches the critical point where a large enough differential pressure is encountered, the watch will off -gas the excess helium so the watch does not experience this explosive decompression. It decompresses itself.

Humans 'come up' slowly so that their bodies can off-gas naturally, to keep from bubbles forming in their bodies and causing the bends. At some point, you can be decompressing as little as 1 ft of depth per hour

[LandCruisers4Life]

Originally Posted by BrettinSanAntonio

Why is that guy smacking you on the ass? Do you work on The Love Boat? What kind of diving do you perform that you get spanked as a reward?

Typical offshore horse play.....