Corey's 2007 FJ Cruiser Build-Up Thread

[Corey]

Thanks Paul. I may have to look into the air dam thing too. No, my son and I watched TV last night, then turned in. He talked to my older son in Iraq for a bit on his laptop, then hit the sack not long after me. The reasoning of having a stash of our own food is the cafeterias at work will run out of food. We also have on hand a few hundred of those cement block barricades like you see along the highway that can be moved. Guess who gets to move those into place if we ever have to bunker/hunker down there I carry a special chain and hook setup to go over my forks and I carry the big blocks that way. Nahhh, the boss would not want me to stay more than eight hours. I am pretty much 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday. He will ask to see it though, he parks next to me when he gets the chance. He drives a Lexus 300 car, but they also have a 4th gen 4Runner. He will probably be wondering if it would fit his rig.

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[BajaTaco]

Corey, you have been a busy man! The tent is fantastic. Congrats! With as much as hotels are going for these days, you can make some of your money back in pretty good time (same with the fridge too - eat more healthy food, less restaurant food).

I dig it!

[Corey]

Thanks Chris.
I hope to get some good use out of it.

Going to do a week or so vacation come August, but have not decided where I will go yet.

It is kind of nice being self contained.

[aviator]

Originally Posted by Corey

Thanks Paul.

I may have to look into the air dam thing too.

We also have on hand a few hundred of those cement block barricades like you see along the highway that can be moved.

Guess who gets to move those into place if we ever have to bunker/hunker down there

I carry a special chain and hook setup to go over my forks and I carry the big blocks that way.

Nahhh, the boss would not want me to stay more than eight hours.
I am pretty much 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday.

He will ask to see it though, he parks next to me when he gets the chance.
He drives a Lexus 300 car, but they also have a 4th gen 4Runner.
He will probably be wondering if it would fit his rig.

Gotta love those K-rail/Jersey Barriers...

8hr days M-F what a concept...

At least you have a known suspect if you come out one night and find it missing LOL

[wormhole]

Tent looks awesome.

[Corey]

Originally Posted by wormhole

Tent looks awesome.

Thanks.

I just filled up on my way into work, and I thought the gas consumption was going to suck, but it did not.

Here are the last five entries in my gas log I keep.

2/29/2008 13370.0 233.0 13.587 $3.459 $47.00 17.1487 Premium Safeway

3/7/2008 13537.0 167.0 9.717 $3.499 $34.00 17.1864 Premium Safeway

3/14/2008 13704.0 167.0 9.803 $3.519 $34.50 17.0356 Premium Safeway Wowwwwww, 167 miles exactly, same as last fill up.

3/21/2008 13866.0 162.0 9.716 $3.499 $34.00 16.6735 Premium Safeway

3/28/2008 14046.0 180.0 10.717 $3.499 $37.50 16.7957 Premium Safeway Up actually from last week before the tent was put on.

The last numbers before the word "Premium" is the MPG.
Not as easy to read in forum format as it is in the spread sheet.

[aviator]

I guess I'll ask since someone is going to anyways lol
what do the numbers rep.?
1st is total odo
2nd is trip odo
3rd is quantity to fill up
4th is $/gal.
5th is $ for fill up
6th is avg. mpg
is this right?

[Spence1016]

3rd is how many gallons it took to fill up

[aviator]

Originally Posted by Spence1016

3rd is how many gallons it took to fill up

Thanks I realisedthat just after I posted... D'OH! LOL

[Corey]

Yeah, I just copied the descriptions from the spread sheet.

Date - Odometer - Trip Meter - # of Gallons - $/Gallon - $ for Fillup - MPG - Fuel Type - Fuel Brand

A forum member made the file for me, if anyone wants it, I can put it up here.

[BT17R]

Corey, that's the slickest camping arrangement I've ever seen. Thanks (again) for being an early adopter and giving us your credible opinion, good or bad, about your mods.

I'm very surprised at the fuel economy. I thought the increased frontal area would hurt, but maybe little affects our FJ's already high Cd.

Have you noticed any roof deformation when the tent is full? How about after a hot date in the forest? J/K, but I guess the load is spread out enough.

I've reconsidered after realizing it would be difficult carrying the dog up and down the steps. I'm back looking at a small travel trailer.

[Corey]

Bob, you are welcome, and thank you for the kind words.

No roof deformation at all.
The weight is really spread out good with four crossbars.
I felt perfectly safe up there when putting on the bedding, and I purposely moved around a lot to try and shake it, and it was solid as a rock.
I am impressed with it.

The maker of these has been in the business since the 50s, they know their stuff, and I believe they are the only company making these.

I have been stocking up on camping supplies as seen in this thread.

Stocking up on propane bottles too.
I intend on getting lots of use out of this tent, and I am taking a one week or more trip with it this summer.

Getting your dog up there would not be to hard, as you can climb and hold him, and shove him through the door.
Now getting him down would be tricky, maybe a safety harness
I am sure it could be done.

Another thing you might consider is an off road trailer, something I will pick up when I get a garage.
Here is what I will end up doing with my tent, it will go on top of the trailers roof and tilt back via gas struts revealing a place to cram lots of gear, and fuel cans.
http://www.autohomeus.com/gallery/trailer.php



http://www.adventuretrailers.com/
http://www.adventuretrailers.com/trailers.html

It is called the Chaser model.
http://www.adventuretrailers.com/chaser.html
You can see the other tent style on the lid of the trailer.



Bob, if you went that route, it would be totally sick.
That is my future mod, but I need to move first before I can store a trailer.

But back to the tent, I think you would dig it.
There is a sense of coolness being up off the ground.
Here are some advantages too in a post I put up in another roof top tent thread yesterday.
http://www.yotatech.com/50795651-post7.html

PS, that Chaser trailer is the same unit as seen on our homepage for the raffle.
http://www.yotatech.com/index.php

[Corey]

OK, now this is strange.

3/21/2008 13866.0 162.0 9.716 $3.499 $34.00 16.6735 Premium Safeway

3/28/2008 14046.0 180.0 10.717 $3.499 $37.50 16.7957 Premium Safeway Up actually from last week before the tent was put on.

That was from a few weeks back, and below is the past two fillups.

Last Friday it dipped down into the 15s (15.5826), I suspect that was due to some 25 to 35 miles per hour crosswinds on the freeway going home from work yesterweek.

Todays fill-up before work yielded almost 17.5 MPG, not shabby at all. 17.3156 to be exact.

4/4/2008 14201.0 155.0 9.947 $3.569 $35.50 15.5826 Premium Safeway Ooops, this time it went down from the RTT.
4/11/2008 14362.0 161.0 9.298 $3.549 $33.00 17.3156 Premium Safeway Now it has gone up. I think a lot has to do with cross winds on the freeway.

Looking back through my MPG logs, I am actually getting about 1+ MPG better with the roof top tent on as long as I do not encounter any high winds blowing against me.

All I can think of is the tent acts like a spoiler of some sort, but the numbers do not lie.

[aviator]

It may be that the tent is actually reducing the overall drag coefficeint by covering up the roof rack, all those cross members and side pipes really add a lot of drag. I know from when I put my roof rack on my truck and now that it was decapitated I'm doing much better MPG wise.

[Corey]

Could be Paul.
I do have a big gap though underneath the tent.
I wish it sat lower.

There is a way, I saw an FJ Cruiser owner where he took off the factory rack and fabbed up plates to fit into the stock rack holes in the roof, and just used Yakima crossbars.

If I did that, the tent would sit about 10" lower.
I may look into that since the rack is pretty much useless right now with the tent on it.

Now I wonder if this Tacomas MPG goes up with the tent on it, in the down position of course

[aviator]

you could also fab up a "drop in box" to store needed but seldom used stuff under the tent that would fill up the space between the tent/roof.

[Corey]

Originally Posted by aviator

you could also fab up a "drop in box" to store needed but seldom used stuff under the tent that would fill up the space between the tent/roof.

Already have plans for that space
http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forum...duct-geri.html
The red one for gas on the spare tire, and a white one for water which will fit between the rack and the roof top tent.

These are funky looking, but cool at the same time.

Got a few snow pics a few weeks back, I wish I had my camping gear with me, I would have spent the night up there.

[aviator]

Boy that tent really does sit way the heck up in the air does'nt it...
Interesting link Corey... I think it would be better if the could come up with a method of attaching a hose/nozzle set up for the fuel can. 4 gal. + is a lot of weight to be manhandling [personhandling?] down off that rack particularly if it is wedged under the tent. Same applyis to the h2o can.
I've been thinking of fabbing up some kind of metal basket I could attach to the chassis at the back to hold my little gas can I'm tired of my cap/bed stinking of regular all the time. And I'd definitly want it out of there once I get all the camping gear in there.

[Corey]

I am pretty sure I will just get the gas one for the spare tire.
I already have some nice water jerry cans I have had for years.

There is a guy on fjcruiserforums site that made six custom plates that go where the stock FJ rack goes.
He then mounted three crossbars to his roof.

I have not looked for his thread, but I will sometime.
But it looked good.
If I went that route, the tent would almost be scraping my roof.
It would lower it down quite a bit.

This is still way more aerodynamic though than the other type of tents that require you to have the bag over them, plus they sit up higher.

[aviator]

hmmm... I wonder what effect if any there would be on the rear gate hinges with all that extra weight on them... I mean an oversize tire for example is extra weight but it is static weight... but the fuel tank would be dynamic weight when you consider the fluidity of the load moving around...

[Corey]

Not sure.
But I know there are a few FJ guy's at the big site running steel 5 gallon cans with no problems to report, and that is heavier than the setup I am looking into.

[KD7NAC_07FJ]

Originally Posted by Corey

Already have plans for that space
http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forum...duct-geri.html
The red one for gas on the spare tire, and a white one for water which will fit between the rack and the roof top tent.

These are funky looking, but cool at the same time.

Got a few snow pics a few weeks back, I wish I had my camping gear with me, I would have spent the night up there.

Lookin good there Corey. We'll have to plan an overnight run and watch all the tent campers fumble about for an hour after we crank up our tents

[Corey]

Thanks Wayne.
We have something in the works, but the date is not set yet.
http://www.yotatech.com/f15/yotatech...ter-wa-142527/

I finally washed the pig Saturday morning.
The tent had ice on top of it, it was 35 degrees out when I started in on it.
What a mess it was, it wash the first wash since last October/late September or so.

Was going to put the down comforter in there yesterday that I got awhile back, but I had other stuff going on.
Maybe next weekend.

I should test it out and see how comfortable it is.
I could sleep in it Friday night in the driveway

[DLaw34]

Hey man love the Cruiser! Really like what you have done with her! I had a few questions. 1) Did you fabricate the gear box in the back or did you purchase that? 2) Where did you purchase your rims? 3) If I was to do one thing to begin the process of fixing up my car what should it be? I just blacked out the emblems but what after that?

Thanks for all the hard work on this thread....lots of good stuff!

[Corey]

Thanks for the comps Dlaw, it is a work in progress for sure, and I really dig documenting the whole thing.

The cargobox was originally made for the back of my '91 4Runner I had prior to the FJ Cruiser.

A Boeing carpenter made it for me.
He came out at lunch one day, took measurements, and I had the box in about a week.
That was back around August of 2001.

The rims I got from www.4wheelparts.com
We have a vendor on the forum who works there, and can help you.
I think his username is masterwacker.

The rims I really dig too.
And, they hold up great!
My last handwash of my rig was around September or early October of last year.

You can imagine all the grit/grime on them from the winter and rain here in the Pacific Northwest.
I just handwashed it Saturday, and the wheels came out looking brand new wish just car soap.
The finish they put on them is great.

Not sure about number three, that all depends on what your goals are with the rig.
Mine is exploration/expedition, so I aimed my modifications towards that theme.