Thanks for that info. I always noticed the difference on the rear hatch, but never noticed that there was a difference on the side windows. Mine's an '09, but I bought the hardtop second hand so I'll have to look and see what year it came off, but I believe it's the smaller-windowed version.

 

Latest project, haven't posted much about it in this thread but since it's an "accessory" for the Jeep here are a few photos...

 

Wow, that trailer looks great. Any chance you have any interior photos of that thing? I love the way the windows match the shape of the Safari Cab windows. Paint it deep cherry red and you've got yourself one killer setup!

 

Thank you. But I've got 3 Jeeps to tow it with and only one is Deep Cherry Red .

The interior is pretty much empty at this point, that's the next part of the project. It'll look something like this:



Here's what it looks like now, the only thing I've done so far to the interior is put blinds on the windows.



Next I'll be installing the slide-out Trail Kitchen, it'll slide out of the front tailgate. Here's photo-edit simulation I did while the shell was under construction:

 

I spent the morning at MORryde today meeting with the product engineers and the sales/marketing people. We blessed the final preproduction HD Door Hinges to go into production so they'll be available very soon.

Other topics from the meetings today:

- Overland Rack. Reviewed the changes the engineers made after the first prototype they were showing at SEMA. Product looks great and they expect it will be available for sale in time for them to have final product available at Easter Jeep Safari.

- Trail Kitchen. Reviewed their 3D CAD model for their production design. They've made some improvements to my design that I really like and we also discussed several additional options for it including the powered sink I've been working on. I also reviewed my designs for the Trail Kitchen Power Panel and Charging Option with them, and they'll be moving forward with those. I brought 2 the Power Panels I prototyped to show them and they wanted to move so quickly on them that they kept one of my prototyped even though there was more work I needed to do on it. Their goal is to have The kitchen for sale by Easter Jeep Safari, or at the very least will be showing the final production version in their booth at the EJS Vendor Expo.

Speaking of shows, in addition to the EJS Vendor Expo at the end of March, they're likely to be an exhibitor at Overland Expo West to show the new overland and kitchen products. If they do that show I'll probably attend it as well. I told them they can use my JKU Safari in the show and I'd use that as an excuse to plan a short camping trip after the show. If that happens I'll have my Jeep outfitted with all the overland gear; hopefully I'll see some of you there.

 

The new JL hardtop has the wiper at the bottom of the rear window rather than at the top, which greatly increases rear visibility. To support the weight of the wiper motor, the JL rear hatch isn't just a piece of glass like the JK hatch, it's got a fiberglass shell:



Same thing could be done for the JK hardtop using the barn door shell. In these photos the fiberglass hatch with a wiper at the bottom is installed as a barn door, rather than as a swing-up hatch, but the same fiberglass hatch could be hinged at the top and configured as a swing-up.





And for the JL, an idea I'd like to build is a kit to convert the JL hatch to a barn door configuration so the JL can have a full barn door instead of the swing-up hatch.

 

I tested the Trail Kitchen sink setup today. The water source is the white 2-gallon Rotopax mounted to the side of the kitchen and the sink drain is running into a second container sitting on the ground below the kitchen (it's not visible in the photos).





The pump automatically starts when the faucet is turned on and stops when the faucet is turned off:


I think it's going to work very well in the wild.

 

I've been testing the ammo can compressor with the 2-gallon tank the compressor company gave me. I've configured the tank with a pressure regulator with output pressure gauge and the larger gauge shows the pressure in the tank.



It takes less than a minute for the compressor to get the tank up to full pressure. Airing up a tire is a bit quicker with the tank, but since a typical 32" tire has a volume of about 12 gallons, the tank doesn't go too far before the compressor has to kick in. I'm going to do some air-up timing tests with and without the compressor, but based on my preliminary tests with the tank I predict the expense and effort of installing a tank this size may not be worth it. It would take a much larger tank to air up a tire more quickly, but that would only affect airing up the first tire, once you used the full pressure on the first tire the compressor would be running constantly for the next 3 tires.

 

I have a similar compressor and the 2.5 gallon tank- it's great for filling up "normal" car tires. The compressor starts to fill the tank as I'm unloading the hose. The tank also gives you the space to create a small reserve in between tires.


Here would be the truly curious part- jchappies (member here) crafted a filling system that latches on to all 4 tires and fills them all at once. With the higher flow of your compressor and the room in his system to allow the air to flow with very little restriction, you could have tires filled with no tank and have it take up less space (and time).


As always- I'm following everything you do

 

Interesting idea, but wouldn't it be a lot of air hose to carry around?

Everything? But everything I'm doing isn't on this forum, some things I'm posting elsewhere... like my Jeep-tub camper project ...