Not so much today, but the last month or so…
I’ve been working on a Tailgate Refresh since ditching the Rugged Ridge Spartacus tailgate gear and installing the Bestop High Rock Overize Tire Carrier and their Cargo basket. I get out camping two or three times a month and load up the cargo basket for trips to trail heads. The rest of the time, the TJ is my daily driver and I don’t need or want the cargo basket installed. Fortunately it comes off with two 1/2“ wrenches in about ten minutes.
I needed additional lighting when at camp. I have two aux reverse lights mounted under the rear bumper which are great for reversing into camp (much needed because the reverse function in the Trail Tails is anemic at best), but wanted some side illumination and very much needed light under the InstaTrunk and on the tailgate where I setup a folding table.
The Auxbeam 8 switch controller added a host of ignition switched accessories, but I still needed were a few hot circuits so I installed the Painless Performance CirKit Boss. It adds seven additional fused circuits; four ignition switched and three hot.
Followed
@Woodrow and made a mounting plate that attaches to the door retainer pin in the passenger side footwell.
Sent one hot lead rearward to power two small LED rock light pods, one under the InstaTrunk and one mounted on the underside of the Bestop cargo basket shining down on what will be the tailgate table. Both are controlled by a pin switch mounted in the tailgate. Open the gate and the lights come on. Close the gate and they turn off. Initially I was going to put a total of four pods, but they turned out to be crazy bright so I went with one and one. With the gate open the lights are on and that would prove annoying in camp so I added an override switch under the InstaTrunk to extinguish the lights manually as needed.
Sent another switched power lead from the Auxbeam panel to a pair of rear facing LED pods mounted under the cargo basket aimed a bit outward. I now have plenty of rear facing aux lighting. When the Trasheroo is mounted on the spare, the third brake lights I have mounted in the spares holes is covered up, so I added another LED third brake light to the rear of the basket. All three sets of lights mounted to the basket are on a single waterproof quick disconnect so the power can be disconnected and the basket can removed with zero hassle.
A while back I rigged a doors off dome light switch that was mounted up under the passenger side foot well. It worked just fine, but was a bit of a pain since I had to operate it by feel. So, I bought a pair of the door pin switches from old Mercedes. In normal mode they work just like standard door pin switches, but if you pull the plunger it locks in the out position and defeats the dome light. I had to have a bits 3D printed to make it work, but work it does!
And last…. I swapped out the stock mirror for an auto-dim version from the TJ Mirror Company that also displays the outside temp and compass heading. The kit is very complete and installation was stupid easy. Happy surprise is that the mirror is about 50% bigger than stock and can be tucked up higher like the mirror flip mod. Once calibrated the compass is spot on and reacts very fast. Not sure about the temp though. The sensor is mounted behind the grill and using Apple Weather for comparison it seems to be a few degrees hotter than expected. And the display is a bit dim; still visible but with the sun on it, it’s just not the easiest thing to see.
