Slee Washer Bottle Relocation kit - Real time help needed pls (1 Viewer)

[RescueU]

Ok, I'm running into a bit of a snag with fitting the brackets in as per the WRITTEN* instructions.

Why in heaven's name there aren't any photos in the provided directions or up on Slee Off-Road's website, I can't fathom.

* I'm nominating this set of instructions up there with the anemic and non-illustrated "how to fit a Warn Winch into an ARB" instructions set.

I've searched the ARB 80-Series Tech Forum for "slee washer bottle relocation" and combed thru 10 pages of 25 results each. The best set of photos that I could find of the brackets and their installation orientation was tech_dog's thread:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/93130-my-dual-battery-setup.html

WTF??

At first I thought the holes were off from their proper drill locations for the horizontal bracket (that connects up with the Cruise Control mount points), but I can see from tech_dog's pic that they're the same as mine.

So here's what I've found:
a) When the horizontal bracket is installed to the washer bottle and then lined up with the CruiseControl mount holes, the bottle is pretty well jammed up against the large covered group of wires coming out of the firewall
b) no bending of the bracket will relieve that, unless new holes are redrilled set lower and further back from their current location in order to bring the washer bottle back tighter to the Cruise Control box (there's a good 1/2" of space there) and up a good 1/2" inch.
c) the reason for the latter adjustment is due to the vertical bracket, when mounted as described sitting on top of the air filter's rearmost foot bracket mount, orient's the hole about a 1/2" to high and an additional half inch back away from the bottle mount point (towards the front of the vehicle).

I checked to see if I put the vertical bracket's "foot" UNDER the airfilter can's mount foot, and it does line up better to the bottle, but put's it too low and would impede the removal of the air filter can's top in the future. Even if I could raise the height of the bottle, because of the designed offset angle bend, the top of the bracket is set back enough that would require the bottle to be forced back and up at an angle in order to line up for the bolt, thereby putting the bottle's plastic mounting tab compressed at a decent angle and seemingly prime for future compromise due to stress.

So what am I missing fellas?

Of course, I can see that if I tourque and bend the bottle enough, I can just get things lined up to secure it so I can run out and get dinner for the family (since I've gone an hour and a half beyond my estimated time for completion). And that's what I'm going to go do now when I've sent this off and leave the computer.

I'll try to get some pics uploaded showing the orientation deltas that I've tried my best to describe. I'm just really surprised this is turning into this much of a hassle. This should be a slam dunk if everything is cut and properly aligned, so my initial impression is that something's amiss on my part and there's a simple explanation to correct this.

For the multitudes out there that I've found references in threads that have used this very relocation kit, could you please post your experiences if the brackets cleanly lined up, or if you had to torque and bend the bottle and brackets to get them to line up? If anyone has any pics that cleanly show the brackets and mounting alignments in position, that'd be godsend.

If anyone can find pics already up on a thread that I'm describing, then please reply with the search string that you used. If tech_dog's post was the best I could find in 250 posts, then I must have missed something somewhere.

***Update***
Just briefed the on the situation... took the standard earful about one more project that's had a hiccup, and received orders to take the minivan to get food most riki-tik. So I'm off. Will check in later when I get back.


Thanks, fellas.

 

[Waggoner5]

Why in heavens name, as you put it, would you not contact Slee on this instead of ranting about it in a public forum?

 

[sundaypunch]

Why in heavens name, as you put it, would you not contact Slee on this instead of ranting about it in a public forum?

Maybe because it's 7pm on a Saturday and he wants "real time help" as the thread title says?

 

[NLXTACY]

I just installed this same kit last weekend. Yes the instructions are pretty lame in the kit but reading here on mud helped things along. I too ran into the bottle pushing up against the gray bulk wire loom. Now per instructions it says to be sure NOT to have anything rubbing against another part AND it also said that the bracket MAY need to be bent in order to better fit the washer bottle. I did two things, I slightly bent the bracket (that connects to the cruise control box bracket) a touch more to get the bottle tucked in better and I was also able to push the thick gray wire loom into the firewall a good 1/4". These two things solved anything that I thought was going to be an issue. Now, the only thing I didn't like about the angle bracket that connects to the air cleaner is that it slightly torques the cruise control cable so that it isn't a smooth transition into the cruise control box. But as I just found out after 600 miles of round trip cruise control driving, its totally fine. Hopefully this sets your mind at ease.

And yes, Slee being closed on the weekends doesn't really help much.

 

[96r50]

I had some trouble with this kit too, but eventually figured it out. Here are some pics of the finished result.

The included black bushing is on the bottom bolt between the bracket and washer bottle in this pic.

Hope that helps!

 

[Cattledog]

Had problems with the kit too.... Had to modify, bend and shim it to get the kit to line up. Would have been cheaper to make my own. Good luck.

 

[RescueU]

Why in heavens name, as you put it, would you not contact Slee on this instead of ranting about it in a public forum?

****Rebuttal (with due respect to Christo and his company)******
Waggoner, you've been around here long enough to know exactly why I posted this request for help. I did happen to put a call in to Slee OffRoad's business line this evening, just on the hope someone was there, but as their website says, they're open Mon-Fri and Sat by appointment.

When someone puts "real time help needed", that says it all, and the expected response when someone's in such a moment is anything but your statement. This was not a rant, but a detailed description in lieu of pictures being available. This "public forum" is EXACTLY where this post belongs.

Did you read my post in its entirety before posting?

"...my initial impression is that something's amiss on my part and there's a simple explanation to correct this. " <=- this kind of states clearly that I'm giving the manufacturer the benefit of the doubt...but if I've paid for a product and encountered what I have, with non-illustrated instructions dated "Revision 1.0 - November 2005" as my sole guide, then you better believe I have the right and responsibility to identify clearly what's been encountered, and request for assistance. If at the least out of my experience, due to my own bumbling or not, someone else may have an easier time on their project, then that's why I thought ih8mud existed.

I think I've made my point clear enough. I'll ask that if anyone as any objections, just PM me so we can get the technical and timely point of this thread back on track.

*******************************

It appears from the responses received so far, that this isn't the first encounter of other members with the kit's fit being a bit mucked. From the other photos I've seen posted so far, it looks like we've at least got a consistency to the cut and drilled hole locations as opposed to a QA issue.

96r50, I have to hand it to you. You've taken the same alternate solution that I examined earlier when first diagnosing the problem. Although the directions are very clear that the horizontal bracket attaches on the back side of the bottle, thus necessitating the spacer to be used on the upper bolt, you've attached it on the front side. Kudos.

My guess was that it would pull the bottle back in more snug to the Cruise Control box, but what did you do to accommodate the hole on the vertical bracket being almost a 1/2" higher than the bottle's mounting tab? Did you just loosen all the bolts everywhere, torque the bottle up enough at an angle to line up the holes, and then go back and secure all the bolts as the were?

I've been considering drilling some new holes in the horizontal mounting bracket (down and to the left by 1/2" equally) to try and realign everything, but thought it prudent to wait and see if anyone else has attempted this so far.

Who else out there has installed this kit and needed to take modifications into their own hands out of necessity to get it to fit?

Did you encounter the same or not?

What "solution path" did you take and in the end, to what result?

Thank you, fellas.

 

[jomo]

Did mine this afternoon too. The photo above would have been helpful since it took five minutes to figure out the alignment. Mine is straight as is, and nothing has to be bent. If I was to do it all over again I would cut out a notch for the cruise control cable, but I don't have the energy to take the bottle out again to cut the bracket. Just a suggestion for future installs.

 

[RescueU]

Did mine this afternoon too. The photo above would have been helpful since it took five minutes to figure out the alignment. Mine is straight as is, and nothing has to be bent. If I was to do it all over again I would cut out a notch for the cruise control cable, but I don't have the energy to take the bottle out again to cut the bracket. Just a suggestion for future installs.

I'm happy to hear that yours went well, Jomo.

As you stated, if I hadn't have found tech_dog's post, what took you 5 minutes would've taken me much longer than it did to get the initial orientation of the brackets correct.

If you have the chance to take some pics, and possibly some measurements (ie, clearance b/w bottle and CruiseControl cover, etc), I'm sure others would find it very useful. I'm also very curious to see a pic of your horizontal bracket and where the drilled holes are.

BTW, I'm doing this all on '97 FZJ80. I know I have that in my signature, but thought it wise to state the obvious. A thought struck me that there could be a possible difference b/w years.

 

[NorCalDoug]

wow.

I did this a while back, but don't recall having any problems at all with it.

I spent more time worrying about soldering than I did with any part of the bracket assembly install.
It seemed pretty straight-forward to me.

 

[RescueU]

wow.

I did this a while back, but don't recall having any problems at all with it.

I spent more time worrying about soldering than I did with any part of the bracket assembly install.
It seemed pretty straight-forward to me.

I know, Doug. That was the same impression that I'd read from all the posts I'd found on the topic.

I guess that's why I was really stunned at how much it all didn't line up right. As well, that's why my first impression that I'd done something wrong, but evidently I'm not the first. So I'm curious what the common thread is with the others that have reported similar experiences. I'm sure someone has to have spoken with Christo prior to today on something like this.

 

[NLXTACY]

X2 on notching the vertical bracket to prevent the cruise control cable from being torqued. It very well may be perfectly fine but it does make me nervous. Maybe its fine now but down the line...

 

[Skillet]

Mine was simple as pie, once I held everything up and figured the bolt lineup.

Of course, this was two years ago.

 

[Grench]

I remember having to look at it sideways twice and flip a bracket or two the 'other' way before it all lined up.

Assuming the jigs haven't changed, yours will fit, you just have to look at it sideways again and flip the bracket the way it doesn't look like it should go.

 

[RescueU]

I remember having to look at it sideways twice and flip a bracket or two the 'other' way before it all lined up.

Assuming the jigs haven't changed, yours will fit, you just have to look at it sideways again and flip the bracket the way it doesn't look like it should go.

Grench,

Are your brackets positioned or aligned in any way different than shown above in 96r50's post?

 

[NorCalDoug]

Mine was simple as pie, once I held everything up and figured the bolt lineup.

Of course, this was two years ago.

I don't suspect the design changed...

odd.

 

[96r50]

My guess was that it would pull the bottle back in more snug to the Cruise Control box, but what did you do to accommodate the hole on the vertical bracket being almost a 1/2" higher than the bottle's mounting tab? Did you just loosen all the bolts everywhere, torque the bottle up enough at an angle to line up the holes, and then go back and secure all the bolts as the were?

I've been considering drilling some new holes in the horizontal mounting bracket (down and to the left by 1/2" equally) to try and realign everything, but thought it prudent to wait and see if anyone else has attempted this so far.

The bottle is still far enough from the CC module that I can get my fingers down to pull off the cover without any trouble. I remember that front hole on the bottle not wanting to jive with the vertical bracket so I put all the bolts on loose and tightened them up bit by bit to ensure even tension all around. I wouldn't bother drilling a new hole for it.

I was just out looking at it again and there is no way I could have had that bushing set up as per the instructions. The wiring harness coming out of the firewall is still currently in contact with the bottle; another 1/2" would have been tough (I have wrapped the harness with a layer of header wrap though). The way I have it now is fine, everything works.

 

[jomo]

Photos of my install yesterday

Here are some photos of the install I did yesterday. Everything lined up perfect on my 97. There is about 1 inch of clearace around the cruiser control box. Only think I don't like is the vertical bar us pretting tight against the cruiser control cable. Notching the bar would fix that, but I did not bother.

My suggestion is to just install it and see how things line up once you do. When I was installing it I thought I would not line up and things came together better than I expected.

BTW, a random question for anyone still read this thread. I installed the second battery tray this morning. Got it cut and installed fine. But I only mounted 4 bolts, two on bottom two on the side. I did not see where the fifth bolt is supposed to go? Anyone know?

 

[jomo]

Photos 2

Second set of photos

 

[Waggoner5]

****Rebuttal (with due respect to Christo and his company)******
Waggoner, you've been around here long enough to know exactly why I posted this request for help. I did happen to put a call in to Slee OffRoad's business line this evening, just on the hope someone was there, but as their website says, they're open Mon-Fri and Sat by appointment.

When someone puts "real time help needed", that says it all, and the expected response when someone's in such a moment is anything but your statement. This was not a rant, but a detailed description in lieu of pictures being available. This "public forum" is EXACTLY where this post belongs.

Did you read my post in its entirety before posting?

"...my initial impression is that something's amiss on my part and there's a simple explanation to correct this. " <=- this kind of states clearly that I'm giving the manufacturer the benefit of the doubt...but if I've paid for a product and encountered what I have, with non-illustrated instructions dated "Revision 1.0 - November 2005" as my sole guide, then you better believe I have the right and responsibility to identify clearly what's been encountered, and request for assistance. If at the least out of my experience, due to my own bumbling or not, someone else may have an easier time on their project, then that's why I thought ih8mud existed.

I think I've made my point clear enough. I'll ask that if anyone as any objections, just PM me so we can get the technical and timely point of this thread back on track.

*******************************

I understand the real time help thing completely, but I have installed many of these bracket kits and they all installed the same without any re-drilling or remanufacturing of the kits. Your post depicts a problem, when hundreds of these kits have been sold and to my knowledge no one has had to modify them to make them work. Questions about helping with an install is different than a thread about having to modify a vendors product to make it work. I do agree that the instructions could be clearer though.