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Snorkel Install on a YJ?

Greetings once again. I am about to check my reluctance to inflict damage unto my YJ at the door, and put a big freakin' 3" hole in the left side of the tub! Question is, has anyone that has spotlights and Sun Performance windshield hinge light brackets installed (stuff looks like this:

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- I've got the YJ bracket shown, and the lights shown on the TJ bracket)

done this (install the ARB safari snorkel, that is), and if so, were there any issues in installing the snorkel bracket at the windshield hinge (not enough room because of the spotlight, ARB bracket wouldn't fit over the Sun bracket, etc.), or any other concerns that you had in your install? I haven't received the box with the goods from Quadratec yet, but I'm trying to do some advance work in preparing for the install.

Two surprises that I had after ordering, and talking ARB USA to e-mail me the kit instructions, were that on the YJ, that the windshield washer reservoir MUST be relocated onto the diagonal brace that holds the factory battery tray bracket to the firewall, on the opposite side of the engine compartment, and, that the windshield hinge mounted spots might have to go in order to mount the snorkel.

First off, I've got the NW Wrangler dual battery tray with 2 yellow tops installed, so the factory battery tray (and diagonal bracket) are long gone. No gratuitous existing factory hardware to mount the reservoir bracket (provided) onto, as shown in their instructions. Hmm...

Second, the small bracket that holds the snorkel upright alongside the vertical portion of the windshield frame may not fit on my Jeep, without me first losing the left spot and bracket.

So, has anyone else already done this (with a similar configuration on your YJ)? If so, any comments and suggestions are appreciated. If I'm going to blow a hole in my fender, I want to make sure that I plan, measure, measure, measure, and do everything else as well as possible, so as to never regret my bold decision... :-{

Regards,

Doug Gavilanes GArden Grove, CA.

Reply to
Douglas Gavilanes
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Reply to
L.W.(ßill)

If you have the snorkel set up then it makes it much harder to catch you. not to many police cars have the snorkel installed.

Reply to
Dan Ferrell

You can't drive on any beaches there? Not even Pismo?

Jerry

Reply to
Jerry Newton

They haven't closed Pismo, have they? Bill, in my region we have these things called rivers and creeks, and they dont have concrete liners and dust on the bottoms. I've had the floorboards awash many times. Don't forget to extend the vents on axles,trans, T-case, and a distributor-less ignition can be made submersible fairly easy.

Reply to
Paul Calman

Reply to
L.W.(ßill)

Reply to
L.W.(ßill)

Point of reference - most tree huggers not in Oregon live in California, and they have methodically shut down more and more trails to anyone but hikers. The beaches were some of the first non-trails to go.

Pretty funny, Bill, but Dan busted me up with his comment.

Actually, some parts of Orange County are legitimate water crossings when we get a heavy rain. Earlier this week, I was out on Beach Blvd. in Stanton doing 25mph during a 9:30PM downpour, and hit some spots where the water was spraying up continuously over my softtop and windshield (and I have a 4" lift and 32"s). I actually ingested a bit of water, but the K&N held it back long enough in the filter box (for a couple of seconds), so that I felt a slight drop in power, but never hydrolocked or suffered damage. At that moment, I decided that I was never going to let standing water splashing a couple of feet over my hood destroy my engine. I've made water crossings before, v-e-r-y slowly, but never deeper than 18" to 24" deep. And that was by choice. This will be one less thing to worry about, no matter where the water I'm in came from.

Thanks,

Doug

Reply to
Douglas Gavilanes

There may be issues with the installation you're about to undertake Doug. I've done sort of what you describe, and the whole thing required re-engineering to work. However my application may have been more difficult because there were TWO things I needed to clear, the windshield light mounts and SunPerformance mirror mover brackets.

To make the snorkel fit I had to position it FORWARD and ANGLED OUT from the prescribed mounting position. Forward to clear the lights, and angled out to clear the mirror brackets. Here's what I changed to make the snokel fit:

  1. To angle out the snorkel I discarded the door-mounting bracket and fabricated a mount that attaches the snorkel to the mirror mount itself. Also, I had to add washers to the body mounting bolts to act as standouts, ie.e the lower body of the snorkel does not fit flush to the jeep body.

  1. To make the snorkel mount forward I had to cut the 3-inch hole forward of the prescribed position. This was the scary part. It's bad enough following the template for a textbook install. But cutting in a different place? I measured carefully for 2 solid days before I took holesaw to metal. I was lucky, nailing the hole exactly where I needed it. Whewww!

  2. There still wasn't quite enough clearance with the lights, so I had to actually reshape the snorkel itself with an indentation. I did this by holding the snorkel tube over a gas flame and slowly derpressing it. For cosmetic purposes I then covered the indent with Bondo and painted black to match.

If this sounds like a lot, it was! Took all of 4 days. Here's some pics of the final product, which turned out just fine. Your install may be much easier since you're only trying to clear light mounts, but I wanted to share my eperience just in case you find something useful.

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Kevin in SF

Reply to
Kevin Kina

Oh, forgot to mention, I didn't like remounting the water bottle near the battery, fabricated some brackets and found a little nook to the right (pass side) of the radiator to mount. Easier to refill there too!

Reply to
Kevin Kina

Kevin,

It takes big ones to make it fit the way you did. With my luck, I'll be buying a second (replacement) snorkel body after destroying the first one. I've talked to ARB USA and Sun and neither party knew that the other's product was popular enough and incompatible enough to be a problem. I have suggested to both of them that the two inner Torx bolts in the top and bottom of the left side hinge are well exposed and available as anchor points for a modified mount, once the ARB is in place. I wish I knew someone at a machine shop that could fabricate something appropriate for me to mount the lamp on... Two spots are better than one.

No way I'll have this installed before my trip to Oceano Dunes this weekend. Oh, well. I'll have to skip the water crossing. Thanks for the help.

Regards,

Doug Gavilanes Garden Grove, CA.

Reply to
Douglas Gavilanes

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