WELL, I finally did it.
Took me a few months of planning, drinking and waiting for a decent day to get the Gecko on the KJ.
I was constantly waiting for either the weather to cooperate or some one to help out with lifting this beast. I FINALLY got the idea of making a "Canoe Lift" type of pully system to get the thing up in the air and drive under it. You can see part of that in this pic. Also here is where you can see (sorry for the clutter) is where I loosely mounted the right side to help more accurately locate the BF hole in my roof for the wires.
Once I got it half way mounted I went about measuring (About a dozen times) the hole location.
The first was a little pilot hole. After dropping the headliner only enough to get a hand and a shop vac in there, and to verify there were no wires anywhere around, I drilled a small 5/16 hole after using a center punch to give it a place to start.
That was the most painful part. So much for the "Body" part of my warantee.
Next came the process of making it bigger. Once I confirmed that nothing else was inside the roof, I used a step drill(Best invention since cordless drills in my book) and enlarged it to 1/2 inch (Yes, the BF Hole i was talking about)
Once I had that i needed to make sure the two holes lined up as well as i had hoped. I needed to enlarge the roof hole just a smidge to the front. Got lucky here cuz there is a spot weld RIGHT there and I didn't want to remove it any more than I had to. As it was I only encroached on it maybe 1 mm.
Once I got all the holes lined up I cleaned everything (roof and rack mounting foot) with an adheasive prep from 3M and primed and painted the bare metal. Then I dumped a 55 gallon drum of silicone around the hole. GOD i hope that is enough.
Once I lowered the rack that was the last time I could access the hole so it had to be right. I lowered the rack and tightened up and re-sealed all the bolt threads and presto the beast was on.
Next was connection the wiring I did inside the KJ (about 4 months prior). Wires came down the B pillar along the driver's side door sill and into the engine compartment to the waiting relays, one for each pair (inside lights outside lights).
Used Bullet connectors here and they worked ok, I think I am going to go back and solder the joints and heat shrink em later. Anyway the lights worked great, have an issue with the switches. Seam to be malfunctioing a bit. They have a little light on them that tells me they lights are on (Like I could not tell that 600 wats of lights are on) but they do activate the lights, just gonna get new switches and see if it is a wireing issue or the switches.
All I need to do is aim the retina burners and put a SWR meter on the 2 foot K40 whip I have up there and see what kind of signal I get. Might need to add a spring to the folding mount, Later. More pics coming soon,
MARTY Thanks dude, hell of a rack! Your Pics coming soon too, I promise.
