Black Out project

After looking at the forum for quite a while I found that Demello was selling off some bumper parts. I picked up a full set of wings and the middle valance in the front. Purchasing some satin black paint at Home Depot was very cheap. I did the whole set with four coats with three cans. I also re-painted the off-road rims with flat black and put on a few coats of clear coat on top.

The results:

Full black out with rims. No mall cruiser here! :)

Front bumper wing/valance with stockies.

Both wings and center valance

Rear wing

Hitch Bike Rack

After looking around for another bike rack to put on the roof and finding out that the same USED one that I had already was selling for $50-$80 on ebay I decided to look around for a nice hitch rack. I came across a website that was selling a Yakima swing arm 4 bike hitch rack that was only $200 SHIPPED! So I bought one. I wasn't expecting it to clear the FJ door but, to my amazement, it did. I was very pleased with the quality and like that I can use it for both a stand to tune my bikes and as a transport. The best thing is that it came with a hitch pin lock and the integrated bike lock!

Some pics:

Tow Hitch Wiring Harness

I finally decided to pick up the wiring harness for the tow hitch which was my very first modification. It was fairly simple to install and didn't take much time. Here are the final pics of all the parts installed:

This is underneath the dash on the driver's side. The top arrow is pointing to the converter. You have to put the packing around it(sponge looking stuff) and then screw it into the hole above it on the body panel. Unfortunately I was using that hole for a grounding point for the auxiliary light switches. Since the bracket was metal, and the converter was completely surrounded by the plastic box it was OK to leave the ground point. So once the converter was screwed in I took a look around for the plug that goes into it(second arrow). It was the white plug with all the different colored wires that was taped to the main harness coming out of the firewall plug on the right. The third, bottom arrow is pointing to the sponge packing material that the instructions said to wrap around the part of the harness that goes up near the converter. I think this is to protect the converter plug wires from rubbing. I have a bunch of wire loom from the auxiliary lights tucked in there so your FJ will probably have more room to work around.


This is beneath the rear bumper. The plug is on the driver's side and it was a pain to get that cover off. I had to use two pliers and had to be careful not to break the white tab that was holding it in place. I then plugged the harness that came with the package into the harness that was already there. After that I inserted the brown zip tie that came with it along with another black zip tie(mine) to hold the harness up higher on the bumper. I didn't want anything to hang down.

And finally the plug screwed into the plate that came with the hitch. The white zip tie is mounted on this plate and holds the harness nicely.

The final step was to put in the two fuses and the relay into the large fuse box that sits right behind the battery.

All finished in about 30 min. The longest part was taking off that cap on the rear of the harness.

Homemade Axe and Shovel Mount

I bought a couple of extra race weights when I made the Hi-Lift mount and decided to make an axe and shovel mount using these. First I made the roof mounts as shown in the roof rack mounts posting. Then I walked Home Depot to see what I could use to make something to fit them. After I came across the shelves where the Stimpson brackets were, I tried bending the metal it it looked like it would work. So I bent and drilled and came up with a mount. Here is the result:

One large Stimpson bracket with two smaller ones. Drilled a 1/2" hole in the middle of the large one and two smaller 1/4" holes on the end. The smaller bracket is bent and the same size holes are drilled with the smaller hole being on the shorter end. These brackets were painted flat black and the edges rounded since the corners were very sharp.

Side view of brackets bent into an S shape.

Put in the 1/4" bolts and wingnuts. The 1/2" holes should overlap on the two small brackets and line up with the 1/2" hole on the large bracket.

Side view.

The middle bolt is tightened with a wingnut. There is one 1/2" bolt missing. It should be placed on top of the large Stimpson bracket and below the two smaller ones. Tighten it and it should hold the bracket assembly nicely. Two of these mount systems are used and spaced about a foot apart. The shovel and axe can then be removed by taking the small bolts off and pulling on the axe or shovel. The curved end will not dig into the axe or shovel and is easy to take off. I will post a pic of them mounted later. The axe required using something around the handle to make it clamp better and not be so loose.

All this was done for about $13 for the roof clamp and 1/2" bolt and about $5 for the remaining hardware. So $36 for both.

Cheap Off-Road Wheelset

Well, after going to Green Ridge I decided to see if I could get a cheap set of off-road rims/tires that I can beat up without having to deal with scratched aluminum rims. I also wanted to keep my stocks for daily driving so they would have to be cheap. So after much research, pricing rims/tires, and some luck, I came across someone who was selling a set of 4 2003 Toyota Tundra steelies 16x7. They were painted black already, which saved me some time as well. Then I bought a locking gorilla lug set from Wheeler's off-road. Nice people to deal with. And then came the hard part - finding cheap tires. After looking at all the used tire places I finally came across one that had some tires with decent tread on them. Two were Cooper Discoverer STT's and the other two were BFG AT's - 265/75/R16. I was trying to get 4 mud tires but every place I went didn't have ones with decent tread left. Since they're for off-road use only I didn't really care that they were different. Once mounted everything fit in place without any caliper clearance or rubbing issues.

So the final result:

The wheels actually look shinier than what they really are. The rims are rough and flat black.
The front wheel with Cooper STT. The hub perfectly matched the color of the rims. The tire was used off-road, as you can see, from the mud stains on the sidewall. The tires and rims do not look this drastic in difference. It's due to the flash on the camera. I'll have to take some daytime shots to show how they actually look.

The rear wheel with BFG's AT's. The hub was a dull brown(probably from the dirt from GRSF) which I wiped clean and then sprayed black. I also sprayed all the balancing weights black.

The rims and tires cleaned up and armor-all'ed.

Overall, a set of 4 off-road wheels for $335. Not too shabby and just what I wanted - something that can take a beating off-road.

First Off-Road Excursion - Green Ridge State Forest

Larry, Chris and I decided to go out to Green Ridge State Forest out in Flintstone, MD. We had a great time and it was really muddy out there due to all the rain we've been having. It made everything more fun. I was worried that I only had my stock Dunlops, but keeping it in H4 all the time did the trick without any issues or slipping. It could have been that the tires only had 15k miles and had deep treads.

Here is some info. I collected using the GPS:



We lost our way a little on the bottom and top of the loop. The views were spectacular but the gnats weren't. :)

Some pics of the run taken by Larry and Chris:














FEAR THE TURTLE!





FJ at home:

Future Mods

My list of things to do so I don't forget.

1. Lucrum winch mount - http://www.lucrumind.com/ - might forego depending on price.
2. Winch - http://titanwinches.webs.com/tw1010000lbwinch.htm - dependent on Lucrum
3. Black Widow cargo basket - http://www.discount-trailers.com/roof_rack.htm - Basket won't fit to my standards. Need a small basket that will fit between bar lights and front bracket ~31"x39".
4. Brackets for mounting the shovel and axe - currently making a set from scratch. Might not work as I originally intended.
5. Box for all lighting relays that are under the hood to make everything look neater
6. Possible pexiglass wind fairing for the front of the light bar
7. Offroad tires
8. Hitch wiring harness
9. Subwoofer

TRD Exhaust

I found a great deal on a TRD exhaust and picked one up. Since Larry had installed his already, and I liked the look, I decided to put one on mine.

It took about 2 hours including using the rotary tool to break off the rear bolts which was the first thing I did. The front bolts with the springs were easy to take off. Next, after the 4 bolts were removed, I took some silicone spray and sprayed the rubber hangers. They were a breeze to take off. Then all that was necessary was to put the new TRD exhaust in place and hang it. The four bolts were very easy to install along with the rear gasket.

This is a picture of where the front part of the exhaust is bolted to the old pipes. The two bolts are spring loaded and torqued to spec.

This is a pic of the new muffler. The heat shield above doesn't need to be so large now. This TRD muffler is much smaller than the stock.

This is the rear pipe that bends over the rear axle. The right hand side is the tip shown in the following picture.

And finally the TRD tip. Nice!

Photo Shoot

Well, after I put everything that I'm going to do on the truck, washing it with the kids, and putting the Hi-Lift on the rack, I had Larry bring his nice digital camera out for taking some pics with the FJ. Take note of Larry's artistic abilities on the last picture. Here are the results:

Hella 500 Auxiliary Lights Bar Wiring

I thought it was time to wire up the light bar and decided to poke around to see how I could set up the wires without having to drill through the roof. There was a spot down the channel of the window where it looked like I could pass two wires without any issues. From there I was able to pass it through the engine bay.


First I had to take off the plastic cover so I could grab the wires. I broke off the tab on one of the fasteners closest to the window but I just used a regular fastener and it worked fine.

Plastic cover taken off. The relays were just mounted in the same spot where the brush guard relays were. I just wound some electrical tape around them and they were fine.

This is where I channeled the wire through. There's enough depth on the window seal to squeeze two wires in. I then found some 3M door edge guard that was chromed, spray painted it flat black and stuck it on. You can't even tell that the FJ isn't made like that unless you look at the other side. It's very unnoticeable.

I loosened the bolts on the roof rack and passed the wires underneath the rubber part. This actually held the wires tight enough to hold them in the groove between the white panels. At first I had the ground for the lights going to a bolt on the light bar. Since this didn't work, I decided to take out my multimeter and check continuity on the bolts for the roof rack. The bolt worked great. I took off the rear one and screwed the connector into it.

The results. When I was standing in front of them they were so warm that it was almost like having a small heater. I haven't tested them in the dark yet, but when I do, I'll take some pictures.

Tuffy Light Bar Install

Right side before bolting lights on bar. I used some loom from Home Depot and electrical tape to make it look decent.


Left side. The rear cover is held in place using the bolts from the lights. Once it was in place, all the loom is not visible. The curved part of the loom was a little hard to tuck in so I suggest that you don't leave any slack as I did.

Finally mounted and aligned. Had to measure each side to make sure the bar was level on the roof rack. I used a couple of towels on the roof to make sure that the bar didn't scratch the paint. I used a smaller towel that I folded to lift the sides of the bar to the correct height and then tightened the bolts. The lights were also aligned so that they were perpendicular to the roof. The covers were again sprayed with black plasti-dip so that they match the brush guard lights.

Another pic from the front.

Side shot of clamps and bolts. Looks good besides the silver bolts. I might eventually swap them out for black ones.

Angled picture. The electrical tape on the right is just holding the wires where I plan on making a plug. Wiring them up will be sometime in the near future when I can find a non-drill method that looks clean. If not then drilling will be my second option using some silicone auto sealant that one of the members of fjcruiserforums suggested using. One nice option about this bar is that you can mount it on the top of the roof rack using the holes you see on the bottom of the bar so that the lights sit a little higher. The option I chose actually gives me about 5 inches to the top of the garage door. So if I want to lift the FJ a few inches it would be feasible.