Archives for category: – Projects
« Older Entries

My New Membership Offering: The Intermodal Spirit

November 18, 2022 //

Hello WCXC Subscribers, my apologies for the the lack of posts since the spring. In the balance between work life and personal life, WCXC has been taking a back seat. I have a new membership offering though that you may be interested in. It’s called The Intermodal Spirit. It’s a hub for stories, tools, and ideas at the intersection of exploring, relating, and being.

The first big piece I’m featuring is The St. Agnes Journal, collection of dispatches from the time I overwintered on a mile-wide English island. It’s also about how we relate to each other in community and one-on-one. It’s tools that help us do that better.

I hope you enjoy it and invite you to subscribe.

The Intermodal Spirit

Tags
Categories - Projects, FEATURES, The Library

DIY Overland Truck Drawer Builds

January 6, 2022 //

If you’re looking for a winter project in order to get ready for camping season, these two excellent drawer projects might be the ticket. The Blake Weber video details “the ultimate overland truck bed kitchen drawers for camping” and to me that seems like a pretty good description. The project incorporates a grill, propane stove, sink, and pressurized water tank, among many other clever features.

The GVM Corner video, below, offers a clever take on a fold-out bed and basic kitchen set up. Hat tip to Nathan Donnelly from Northwest Resilience for passing this video along.

My only suggestion, if you build one these is to make sure the silverware and kitchen tools are stored in a way that will keep them from banging into each other. Otherwise the rattling on rough trails may drive you nuts.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories - Projects, - Videos, FEATURES, GEAR, MEDIA

Wiring Harness Upgrade Brightens Headlights

February 10, 2019 //

If you have a Jeep and haven’t done this upgrade, keep reading. This wiring harness enables your truck to send power directly from the battery to the headlights via a couple of relays instead of routing the electricity into the dash and through the light switch. In Jeeps I’ve been told routing the electricity through the switch robs a lot of power and causes dim headlights.

In this excellent video from YouTube user BleepinJeep, he finds that this $25 upgrade more than doubled the light output from his stock headlights. That was even better performance than he got from his upgraded LED lights on the new harness (and the LEDs didn’t put out enough heat to keep themselves free of snow). He takes you through the whole install.

You can get this harness from a place called K Suspension Fab but they were backordered at the time of this post. Here’s a link where you can find it on Amazon. That link is for H4 headlights. Check first to see what kind of headlights you have.

Thanks to my good friend Nathan for the tip!

Categories - 4x4 / SUV, - Projects, - Videos, FEATURES, GEAR, MEDIA, SKILLS, VEHICLES

H2OT, a DIY, Pressurized, Solar, Rooftop Shower

January 5, 2018 //

If you’re looking for an interesting winter project, you could do worse than taking inspiration from this excellent DIY solar shower video. The shower is designed to fit on a roof rack, be heated by the sun, and provide a 30 psi stream of water with pressure generated by an air compressor. It’s reported to get to about 95˚F after a day of driving around in mixed sun and clouds. Not bad.

I don’t think I’ve seen a more well thought out project. And the project’s creator calls it H2OT. Watch him explain and demonstrate the whole thing in a sub-six-minute video. Excellent!

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories - Projects, - Videos, FEATURES, GEAR, MEDIA

How to Restore Lost Power To An Old Engine

September 17, 2016 //

Engines are said, as a rule of thumb, to lose one horsepower for every year of age. So for all of you guys with older trucks, here are a few tips to increase your horsepower back toward factory specs.

Another tip I learned recently from fellow overlander and experiential marketing expert Matthew Mangus (@mangai_rollin): a mass air flow sensor cleaner like this can improve mileage and horsepower by cleaning the wires of the mass air flow sensor. This provides the car’s ecu more accurate data as it determines engine’s the best fuel/air mixture.

Tags ,
Categories - Projects, - Videos, FEATURES, MEDIA

How to Repair a Cracked Dashboard

April 15, 2015 //

how to repair a cracked dashboard

Here’s a great photo series on how to repair a cracked dashboard.

The basics involve grinding out the cracks and damaged foam with a Dremel, filling the cracks with expanding foam, then sanding (several rounds of this), and few rounds of sanding and spraying with rubberized spray paint.

Links:
Here are the basic steps
Here is a Rennlist forum post with steps in detail

Tags , , ,
Categories - Pictures, - Projects, FEATURES, MEDIA

WCXC Pinterest Followers Top 20,000

September 10, 2014 //

WCXC on Pinterest

Although I haven’t been so great at keeping on the blog lately (though I will be changing that), I have been good at keeping my Pinterest account up. And through a fluke of nature (which was Pinterest recommending one of my boards to new users), I now have over 20,000 followers. Whoa.

If you like your overland, off-road, camp, and adventure information in bite sized chunks, check out my Pinterest page. I have boards on camping, truck mods, Land Cruisers, Land Rovers, Skills, and a bunch of other stuff too.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, you’ll probably dig it.

Links:
Here are all of the WCXC boards.
And here are all of the pins.

Tags , ,
Categories - 4x4 / SUV, - ATV / Side-by-side, - Campers, - Cars, - Pictures, - Projects, - Spotted:, - Trucks, FEATURES, FOOD & DRINK, GEAR, MEDIA, PLACES, SKILLS, VEHICLES

CARB Gas Can Modification

April 12, 2014 //

The CARB-compliant gas cans we get here in California can be difficult to pour and are generally a pain in the butt. Here’s how to mod one to make it easy to pour and still remain leak free.

Tags , , ,
Categories - Projects, - Videos, FEATURES, GEAR, MEDIA

ARB Locker Install from Overland Tech & Travel

February 19, 2014 //

.
I had front and rear ARB Air Lockers installed on our Montero last year. Since we were sailing all of last summer, I haven’t had a chance to try them out on the trail yet, something I’ll rectify soon.

Until I get that post up, you might be interested in checking out how an air locker is actually installed. Jonathan Hanson from Overland Tech & Travel recently had one installed on his Tacoma and filmed the proceedings. Towards the end of the video, there’s some excellent under-the-truck footage showing them in action.

The video comprises “Part 2” of the process. He also wrote about “Part 1,” installing the compressor and air lines to the run the locker.

Links:
Overland Tech & Travel: Installing an ARB Diff Lock, Part 1
Overland Tech & Travel: Installing an ARB Diff Lock, Part 2

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories - 4x4 / SUV, - Projects, - Videos, FEATURES, MEDIA, VEHICLES

Air Filter Pre-Cleaners

February 16, 2014 //

I have a Safari Snorkel on my Montero. I like the added measure of fording safety it gives me, but it takes in more dust than I thought it would. After only a day or two on the trail, I’m already blowing dust out of the air filter. To remedy that, I’ve decided to get a pre-cleaner.

A pre-cleaner replaces the air scoop that sits on top of the snorkel inlet. Once installed, it draws incoming air into a vortex, the centrifugal force of which causes the heavier-than-air particulates to fly out towards the sides of the bowl, where they’re trapped. According to my research this will keep 80–85% 75% of the particulate matter from ever reaching the engine air filter.

Pre-cleaners are rated at a maximum cfm (cubic feet per minute) of air flow. Make sure you get one that matches the needs of your engine. Too large a pre-cleaner won’t spin the air fast enough to remove particulates. Too small and it will restrict your engine’s air flow. And, of course, your engine requires more air at higher rpms.

For most trucks, a 7″ pre-cleaner makes sense. To check if that’s too restrictive at the high rpms typical of highway speeds, I’ll add a formula for calculating pre-cleaner size after the jump.

Donaldson looks like the company that manufacturers the quality pre-cleaners that other companies sometimes rebrand. I’ll include a link below that gives the specs on their line of pre-cleaners.

Update 3/3/2014:
The part number for the 7″  Donaldson pre-cleaner that fits a 3″ opening (the size of my Safari Snorkel inlet) is H001249.

Here are some local, Bay-Area sources to check for availability. I ordered mine from Opperman & Sons and they quoted me just over $30, less than half of the listed prices I found online.

Opperman & Sons, 707-433-4421
Healdsburg, CA

TEC Equipment Inc, 510-715-4358
Oakland, CA

Golden Gate Trucks, 510-632-3535
Oakland, CA

Links:
Donaldson Pre-cleaner PDF, see page 12
Donaldson Pre-cleaners from Metro Fuel Injection
ARB Pre-cleaner at 4WD Hardware
Safari Snorkel Pre-Cleaner Thread on Expo

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories - 4x4 / SUV, - Projects, - Videos, FEATURES, MEDIA, VEHICLES
« Older Entries