A few months ago I thought it would be cool to convert my turn signals and brake lights to LEDs. I had seen them on my friend Greg’s truck and I liked the crisp on/off quality. I thought it updated the look of the truck and, of course, LEDs use much less power and last practically forever. In this post I’ll tell you everything you need to know to make the switch to LEDs, and I’ll also tell you why I opted not to do it, for now. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been very happy with my ARB Bull Bar bumper and its on-board turn signals, except for the fact that they’re not waterproof. Every now and again I’ll drive the truck through a stream, which inevitably rusts out the bulb sockets, corrodes the contacts, makes the bulb hard to change, and sometimes cause the light to fail.
My solution: waterproof the lenses.
The first thing I did was order a set of replacement lights. My friend Greg tipped me off that they’re the same lights as used on the Mark 1 VW Golf/Rabbit, so they’re easy to get. You can find them here at German Auto Parts. Read the rest of this entry »
All photos: Gregory McDonaldIf you have a Coleman military-spec lantern and are looking for a case to house it, my friend Greg has a solution. He takes it from here.
Sometime ago, I lucked upon an old army lantern, which I childishly coined as “The Lieutenant”; aka, “Lieutenant Lantern”; aka, the “LT”.
Tiring of the fleece blanket wrap to keep the “LT” from banging around in back of the truck during trips, I bought a black Coleman Lantern Carry Case. Designed to fit Coleman’s current line of lanterns, specifically the 220, 290, 295 and 3000000946, the hard case comes as two pieces – a cover shell and a base. The lantern slots tightly into the base, which has two tabs that the cover shell snaps onto.
Unfortunately, with the taller army lantern inside, the shell comes about an inch short of snapping onto the base tabs. The MacGyver voice within, promising a solution, kept the case from being returned. A few weeks of back burner mental engineering and a “I-wonder-what-to-do…” afternoon later, I took a ragtag team of tools and set to work.
The inner wall of the Case’s base held the lantern an inch above its lowest portion. If I could get the lantern an inch deeper into the base, then the cover shell would reach the base tabs. I sliced off the inner walls of the base, sparing the four protrusions that friction-held the lantern down. In order to get the lantern deeper in, the protrusions had to be sliced once more, at the horizontal. By chance, what was left on the bottom were four upright protrusions that would hold the inside lip of the lantern’s bottom while the upper protrusions, despite most of the inner structure sliced off, still had enough rigidity to friction-hold the lantern. With the lantern now sitting deeper in the base, the cover shell slides completely over and low enough to snap onto the base tabs. Challenge conquered!
Now I can use that fleece blanket to wrap the old Coleman stove.
More pictures after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s an informative video on 4×4-based desert survival, including tips and tricks for sand driving. It also tells the tales of others that have been trapped in the desert and made it out alive, and others that weren’t so lucky.
Thanks for the tip, Greg!
I’ve always liked the idea of PTO winches. Here’s an interesting video showing how one works on a Land Cruiser FJ60.
