Velociraptor
New member
I'm getting a late start with this build thread but here it goes...
Last November I purchased a lightly used 2011 FJ Trail Teams with about 32K miles that was a mall crawler. I purchased it in MS and had it shipped home. Here are a few pics from taken at the dealer.
I named her Velociraptor because my youngest daughter said it reminded her of Jurassic Park. Shortly thereafter I sent her to Jason Demello's shop in Riverside, CA for some surgery to make her more trail worthy. Jason's team fabricated a custom front bumper to accommodate lighting, installed a new rear bumper and sliders, and they installed an Icon suspension. I also had a winch installed and a body mount chop done. Here she is with a facelift and new legs.
The factory washer reservoir had to be removed during the facelift so I went ahead and put in a Shrockworks relocation kit since I was planning to later implement a dual battery setup. The workmanship of this item from Shrockworks is amazing.
In January 2015 I put some new shoes on at a local Discount Tire. I picked the Goodyear MT/R with Kevlar in 285/75-16 so I could have 33in wheels on my existing rims.
I wanted to replace the factory rack with a flat utility rack so I removed it. This is a major PITA because several of the OEM bolts were over tightened and stripped when I removed them. One fell down in the headliner which became a major rattle in the rear of the vehicle. Until I am ready to install a new rack, I will install a rack delete kit to cover the rack mount locations. Once I figure out how to remove the headliner, I will replace the brackets under each rack mount that was damaged.
After reading SpeedRye's sPOD? Ha! thread on the FJCruiserForums, I started on a dual battery install, and aux wiring implementation using a Bussmann relay/fuse box with help from Skygear from the Tacomaworld forums. More on this later.
Here she is ready for her first outing with some local FJ folks in the mountains next to the Mexican border. Just before our outing, I installed a Midland portable CB with a Bandi mount from Walcott Radio.
After the first outing I decided I needed to get some armor so after consulting various folks I decided on Budbuilt steel skids. This FJ is my daily driver so I need to make sure that weekend outings are not going to result in mechanical carnage. I also installed a Boztec rear diff skid. The Budbuilt skids are beefy so I had to get a hydraulic lift to get some of the larger plates into place so they can be attached. One nice thing about these skids is that there is a dedicated access panel to enable oil changes without removal of any skids.
In April I test fitted a BajaRack utility rack. I still need to replace some of the under roof brackets that have built-in nuts for the rack bolts (this requires removing the headliner). I also picked up some Maxtrax recovery ladders. Here is a pic from an outing to Redington Rd near Tucson.
Last November I purchased a lightly used 2011 FJ Trail Teams with about 32K miles that was a mall crawler. I purchased it in MS and had it shipped home. Here are a few pics from taken at the dealer.
I named her Velociraptor because my youngest daughter said it reminded her of Jurassic Park. Shortly thereafter I sent her to Jason Demello's shop in Riverside, CA for some surgery to make her more trail worthy. Jason's team fabricated a custom front bumper to accommodate lighting, installed a new rear bumper and sliders, and they installed an Icon suspension. I also had a winch installed and a body mount chop done. Here she is with a facelift and new legs.
The factory washer reservoir had to be removed during the facelift so I went ahead and put in a Shrockworks relocation kit since I was planning to later implement a dual battery setup. The workmanship of this item from Shrockworks is amazing.
In January 2015 I put some new shoes on at a local Discount Tire. I picked the Goodyear MT/R with Kevlar in 285/75-16 so I could have 33in wheels on my existing rims.
I wanted to replace the factory rack with a flat utility rack so I removed it. This is a major PITA because several of the OEM bolts were over tightened and stripped when I removed them. One fell down in the headliner which became a major rattle in the rear of the vehicle. Until I am ready to install a new rack, I will install a rack delete kit to cover the rack mount locations. Once I figure out how to remove the headliner, I will replace the brackets under each rack mount that was damaged.
After reading SpeedRye's sPOD? Ha! thread on the FJCruiserForums, I started on a dual battery install, and aux wiring implementation using a Bussmann relay/fuse box with help from Skygear from the Tacomaworld forums. More on this later.
Here she is ready for her first outing with some local FJ folks in the mountains next to the Mexican border. Just before our outing, I installed a Midland portable CB with a Bandi mount from Walcott Radio.
After the first outing I decided I needed to get some armor so after consulting various folks I decided on Budbuilt steel skids. This FJ is my daily driver so I need to make sure that weekend outings are not going to result in mechanical carnage. I also installed a Boztec rear diff skid. The Budbuilt skids are beefy so I had to get a hydraulic lift to get some of the larger plates into place so they can be attached. One nice thing about these skids is that there is a dedicated access panel to enable oil changes without removal of any skids.
In April I test fitted a BajaRack utility rack. I still need to replace some of the under roof brackets that have built-in nuts for the rack bolts (this requires removing the headliner). I also picked up some Maxtrax recovery ladders. Here is a pic from an outing to Redington Rd near Tucson.