Monthly Archives: April 2024

Grenadier – more build details

12 volt, 4X4, Anderson plug, Australia, guide, Uncategorised, , , , , , ,

Things done recently:

1. The Doc and his brother installed the rear roof shelf over the weekend and The Doc has been experimenting how to pack the shelf. At present, he is using it to store the Solar Screens, air compressor equipment, Nakatanenga rear Door Air Vents and the Blacksmith Camping firewood carrier. Minimal loss of rear vision due to the shelf.

Here is a photo – the Travel Buddy Oven will be installed on the left side under the shelf after The Doc fits the Anderson plug to the oven.

2. The bed extension is removed while ORS makes some refinements to the design. It did allow me to easily fit the BLE Battery Monitor to the main battery today.

3. The Bushman Fridge arrived for the Grenadier and The Doc gave the courier a guided tour of the car. 🙂

4. The Doc installed the rear Firestryker extinguisher next to the air compressor cylinder. Brian from ORS suggested the location; and I thought it was a good suggestion, so I used it. You can see the air compressor bracket created a little space between it and the window that I can use for storage. Still working out what to put there. In the image there is a red Drifta Power Towel Dispenser and the other canvas bag has a 240 volt extension cable. When camping I can hang the Drifta towel dispenser from the roof shelf. That worked out nicely! Finally, the tie down rings will be re-installed where you see the bolt and washer on the bracket, so I can use the raised tie down points on both sides of the car.

Image from Drifta website.

Grenadier – Travel Buddy Oven

12 volt, 4X4, Anderson plug, battery management system

TRAVEL BUDDY OVEN
Tasks today:
1. Wired the 50-amp Anderson plug to the Travel Buddy Oven. Fitted the KAON insulated door to the oven.
2. Fitted the KAON Travel Buddy mounting brackets to the rear roof shelf. The backing plates had been wrapped in black fabric tape to stop any rattles and let the backing plates blend into the shelf.
3. Fitted the Travel Buddy oven to the KAON brackets.
4. Plugged in and tested the oven – all working! The oven can be plugged into the rear power outlet shown below.
5. Placed spit tubing over the power cable to protect it, then tidied up the run of the power cable to the power outlet. When not in use, the Anderson plug is velcroed to the roof shelf.
6. After fitting the Travel Buddy, the driver loses some rear vision, but it is limited to part of the small rear door on the passenger’s side (RHD).

POWER TO THE CAR TRACKER
7. Used my rear power outlet to recharge the car tracker battery, which normally lasts around 6 months. Worked out how to lay permanent power to the tracker, if needed.

REAR JACK
8. Removed the jack and stowed it in the rear drawer. The jack keeps working loose.

The build is coming together nicely now.

TRAVEL BUDDY NOT PART OF THE ORIGINAL BUILD
The Travel Buddy was never part of the build, until The Doc fitted the rear roof shelf and thought of this upgrade. It offers some great options when driving around for better meals. When driving long stints The Doc tends to eat take away, now he can cook my own food.

TO DO
Building the fridge slide is the next to do. After that a visit to Expedition HQ for the final work and then off the remote Channel Country in South West Queensland and the dinosaurs in June.

MAYBES
Rocks sliders/steps and maybe a small front LED lightbar on the Roo bar. Still thinking about a Redarc EGT and Boost gauge as well.

UPDATE
The Doc just did a short trip with an empty oven on. The Doc will place some insulation over the top of the oven, between the oven and the roof shelf. He wants to minimize heat transfer to the shelf. He is glad he did this test before using the oven in anger for 2-3 hours, there was more heat and heat transfer than he was expecting.

The Doc thinks over time the heat transfer to the shelf needs to be monitored. Reminded once again why The Doc does a shake down test after an install. A few tweaks and she will be good to go.

Grenadier – ORS fitout

12 volt, 4X4, Anderson plug, Australia, guide, Uncategorised, ,

Offroad Systems (ORS) twin drawers, water tank, bed extension and ARB twin compressor are now installed.

The Doc wanted air flow around his compressor, so it was mounted on brackets over the driver’s side rear wheel arch. Trivia: there is a global shortage of twin ARB air compressors due to a surge in demand. ORS sourced the Portable Twin compressor and mounted that to the bracket over the wheel arch. That is why it looks so much like a twin portable compressor – because it is one. The compressor’s power cable was attached to the Grenadier’s spare stud on the 5 stud busbar (the supplied cable was not long enough to reach the spare on the 7 stud busbar). I sourced an 80 amp ZCase fuse, as the ARB has twin 40 amp MAXI blade fuses. The Sparky cut off the two MAXI fuses and ran the cables straight to the80 amp ZCase fuse.

Globalgregors inspired The Doc to add the bottle top opener on the drawers and go for a deeper drawer than originally planned, after he saw their finished setup.

There was another INEOS in simultaneously getting work down, and ORS asked if they could keep The Doc’s car an extra day and have their Pro Photographer take pictures of both (see some of those images below).

The rear roof shelf has been installed and will be covered in the next update.

Grenadier – build trivia

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Some fitout trivia:

  1. Aluminum drawers, not steel to save on weight;
  2. Double runners on drawers, as insurance against damage by corrugations (The Doc knows it works as my Patrol had the same for 12 years and it survived many, many corrugations);
  3. Removable bed extension, so anyone can access the battery box. Brackets on the cargo barrier for the bed extension, do not impede opening the battery box lid;
  4. Double drawers rather than a drawer/fridge slide combination, as The Doc mounts his fridge on the front passenger seat – not an option for most people;
  5. After seeing globalgregors Grenadier build, The Doc went for the deeper drawers, but the main reason was to give him more storage under the bed extension, an added benefit was more drawer space. Very happy with the results;
  6. The Doc may yet cut out part of the cargo barrier to allow him access to the rear between the two front seats;
  7. Drawer dividers not shown in the images, but they are important to have if the drawers are not full, to avoid things sliding all over the place. They just fit in where you place them;
  8. The vertical space to the battery box lid, is less than the vertical space to the seats in a 5-seater model;
  9. The stainless-steel water tank sits above and just behind the battery box. The tank sits in its own tray, that tray has drainage hoses to either side of the battery box, so any water leak does not spill onto the electrics in the battery box;
  10. The Doc did a lot of electrical work before the fitout, as the trim is now hard to remove in the rear (Dashcam, Anti Rust system wiring, Anderson plugs x 4 (including two solar plugs), Redarc TowPro, etc.);
  11. The water nozzle is gravity feed and accessible from the passenger door (RHD), but you can have a 12 volt version to some other location; and
  12. The Doc is pleased with the position of the twin air compressor. It was going to be wired to the spare stud on the 7-stud busbar, but the cable did not reach (the wiring cable length on the portable air compressor was already preset by ARB). We went to plan B, the spare stud on the 5-stud busbar as it was closer to the compressor. The Doc pointed out both options to ORS before we started (thank you INEOS for giving us this option). The twin compressor has two 40-amp circuits, so the wire ends in the battery box was not an option. Although they are fine for a single ARB compressor. The Doc bought an 80 amp ZCase MEGA fuse to use on the spare stud. The spare stud on the 7-stud busbar has a bolt, the spare on the 5-stud busbar does not (The Doc also sourced a bolt for the 5-stud busbar).

Grenadier build – Nakatanenga stuff

12 volt, 4X4, Australia, guide, Uncategorised, , , , , , ,

The Doc’s Grenadier build continues. The Doc installed the Nakatanenga Sun Visor Organiser today on the passenger’s side visor. He was running out of room in the lockable centre console. He also bought an emergency mirror that he mounted on the organiser killing two birds with one stone – a vanity mirror on the passenger’s side and an emergency mirror if needed. The mirror is visible when the visor is down. Image from Nakatanenga website.

The Doc also installed the Nakatanenga rear Door Air Vents on both sides. Driver’s side shown here (RHD car). As he will sleep in the car, The Doc needed air circulation throughout the night. Previously he used a window sock and put down the window. This is a better solution.

ORS rear drawers, water tank, bed extension and dual ARB air compressor go into the car over the next 2 days.

Grenadier build – JOOCLA Single Mounted Ensuite

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The Doc test mounted the JOOCLA Single Mounted Ensuite onto the Rhino Rack Pioneer Platform. The JOOCLA was mounted using KAON Universal Awning Brackets to suit the Pioneer Platform, two or three brackets can be used.

Here is an image of a Single Mounted Ensuite (image from JOOCLA website):

Here is the KAON Universal Awning Bracket used to mount the JOOCLA Single Ensuite:

The spacing between the JOOCLA bolt mountings was 51mm which the KAON bracket can handle without modification. KAON states the bracket spacing is 33mm to 50mm maximum (but it works with 51mm no problems). The JOOCLA supplied mounting brackets did not work to The Doc’s satisfaction. They would have mounted the JOOCLA , but corrugations would have moved and/or damaged the JOOCLA brackets over time, because of the manner in which the brackets fitted to the roofrack. Better to install it right the first time. An added bonus is The Doc can remove the KAON brackets easily if he wishes to remove the JOOCLA in under two minutes.

No image of the Ensuite on the Grenadier, as The Doc is waiting for some Nord-Lock washers for the final mounting. He did not have enough washers for all the mounting bolts. He then pretends the Nord-Lock washers do not cost as much as they do.

Grenadier build – Fire Extinguisher No. 1

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The Doc realised he never posted the install of fire extinguisher No. 1.

Quick Fist make a variety of rubber clamps which can attach items to your cargo barrier or rear roof shelf. The Doc used the 25-45mm version to affix the Firestryker fire extinguisher behind the driver’s seat.

The Doc bought some small metal plates from the hardware (plate size varies depending on the clamp used), covered them in black fabric tape and used it to attach two rubber clamps to the cargo barrier.

The black fabric tape makes the metal plates hard to see and cushions the plates to protect the paint and the fabric stops any rattles with the cargo barrier. The 25-45mm clamp uses a single bolt to attach. However, there is hole in the bottom and the top of the Quick Fist clamp, where The Doc used black zip ties, so the clamp was secured in 3 locations. The plates at the back were covered with black fabric tape to tidy them up, after the image was taken.

Grenadier build – a few mods

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FIRE EXTINGUISHER NO: 2
The Doc fitted the second fire extinguisher today, behind the cargo barrier (extinguisher No. 1 is in front the barrier). The Quick Fist 44-63MM rubber clamp was not big enough to secure the extinguisher, so The Doc had to MacGyver the clamp to make it fit. The advantage of a rubber clamp is that it grips the extinguisher nicely, even when you trim out the internal fins of the clamp. A sharp chisel helped the removal of the rubber fins.

The larger Quick Fist had two bolts, so there was no need to use zip ties this time. One clamp was enough.

REAR GARBAGE BAG
The Doc also did a test fitting of the Blacksmith trash bag. He worked out how to fit it without securing all the straps, so the bag looks a little loose.