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Powhusku
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Nick Taylor
Halfmoon Creek, Colorado
Words by Perry Mack
You can leave for your next overland or trail adventure without the following accessories, but you can dramatically improve your chances of an epic experience if you invest in these items before you hit the road and trail. We’ve provided prices we found from retailers online in Canada, and the USD prices are the manufacturer list from the RuggedRidge.com. Your local dealer in either case could sell for less.
Skid Plate – Transfer Case
SKU 18003.32 - $260 CAD, $150 USD
As you’re aware, there are some very important components under your vehicle that will never be in danger on-road. The fun starts where the pavement ends, which is why adding skid plates to protect these parts increases your odds of continuing your journey and eventually getting home, which is much better than dead on the trail and the end of your trip. These Rugged Ridge skid plates are all made from 3/17-inch steel and the design uses existing factory bolt holes to mount the skid plates to the frame. Shown here is the skid plate we installed to protect our transfer case. The OEM skid plate (in the foreground) has taken some hits so we were happy to see the extra coverage from Rugged Ridge. The larger solid plate should allow us to slide over obstacles more easily.
The install was very easy and took less than an hour. Install Tip – spray the bolts with a penetrating oil/rust remover overnight for easy removal.
Perry Mack
Skid Plate – Transfer Case SKU 18003.32
Dual Battery System
Isolator - SKU 17265.01 - $243 CAD, $200 USD
Tray - SKU 11214.54 - $180 CAD, $100 USD
Lights, fridge, winches, compressors… action! They all draw power from your battery. Although the smarter items promise not to drain your battery dry, and some can be helped by solar power, or by keeping your engine running, ultimately your trips’ success depends on that tiny plastic box under the hood not being drained dry. The best back-up plan is a dual battery system. Your 4x4 is like a miniature RV; it has a power plant and accessories to get you places, and home amenities to enjoy when- and where-ever you stop. Every RV has a battery system to run appliances that is isolated from the power plant, so when you are cooking, listening to music, have your lights on, keeping food cold or frozen – you eliminate the possibility of a dead battery when you want to continue on your journey. This should be a factory option for every vehicle that is marketed as ‘off-road’, but it’s not.
One great option is the dual battery system from Rugged Ridge, which consists of three parts; a battery tray, a battery saver relay to isolate the second battery, and the second battery itself (which you buy separately). The tray is constructed from a heavy gauge steel plate and finished in a black powder coat. It comes with the necessary mounting hardware for the tray and retaining straps for the battery. The isolator kit includes the relay, switch and wires.
It takes about five hours to install the tray and isolator. You do have cut the original battery away (saving the fuse box mount). It’s not an especially challenging install but you should take your time. We will show the full install in a future issue.
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Rugged Ridge
Dual Battery - Relay
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Rugged Ridge
Dual Battery System - Tray
XHD Snorkel Kit
SKU 17756.21 - $585 CAD, $450 USD
You could spend your entire life wheeling, and never have a snorkel on your vehicle, but you could say the same thing about a lift, larger tires etc. While you may never ford hood-high rivers and streams, or even get the water to splash that high, every time you turn the key your engine wants cool, clean air. The snorkel relocates your air intake from inside the hot, dusty engine compartment to outside in the cooler, cleaner air.
From a maintenance standpoint it means you shouldn’t have to clean out your air filter as often, resulting in better fuel economy and power from your engine. From the standpoint of DOA, not getting water into your engine will prevent hydrolocking – a condition caused when the amount of water in the engine cylinder is larger than the minimum volume remaining when the piston is at the top of its compression stroke. Since liquids are not compressible (like the fuel and air mixture your engine was expecting), the piston can’t complete its stroke. If you are lucky, the engine just stops, if you’re not, something breaks, then the engine stops. Either way, your engine is ‘locked’ and will not start – how far are you from CAA?
Odds are you are farther than $585 CAD, and now you see the value in mounting a snorkel. It provides improved engine performance every day and provides that ounce of prevention on that high-water day when you decide to ‘go for it’ rather than turning around.
We chose the Rugged Ridge snorkel for our Wrangler as it still allows us to fold down the windshield, remove the doors, works with our dual battery tray, and windshield mount light bar. It is molded from a tough, lightweight thermoform plastic, bent aluminum and high temperature silicon hoses, and comes with two interchangeable options - a low or high mount. If heavy rain is a concern in your neck of the woods, fear not, a built-in manual drain valve prevent excess water from getting sucked in.
There are some minor modifications needed to the fender but no major surgery. The install is completely reversible. The snorkel enters the engine bay by replacing the corner cowl cover. Using the low mount, most folks won’t know you have a snorkel – stealth mode. The system is modular so you can switch to the high mount if you think the going - is going to go deep.
Rugged Ridge says the install time is four-plus hours. Plan for six hours as there is some minor cutting involved, and you’ll need some lunch, so you don’t get ‘hangry’.
Rugged Ridge
Sherpa Roof Rack
SKU 11703.02 - $725 CAD, $530 USD
I think most overland and trail enthusiasts will agree that you can’t get everything you want inside your vehicle – unless your vehicle is the same price as a nice home, and almost as large. Wrangler owners have a unique situation in that we like to run removable soft tops, which means you can’t mount a traditional roof rack. Mounting a Sherpa Roof Rack was our answer. The rack works for both 2 or 4-door Wranglers, holds up to 136 kg (300 lbs), tilts so you can work your soft top or remove your freedom panels without removing the rack, or in our case, opening our Bestop Sunrider for Hardtops. We liked the fact that there are no modifications required to the Jeep’s body. As an added bonus, the forward mounting bar also acts as a light mount bar.
The rack works with standard Yakima and Thule crossbars or anything with a 1.25” tubing. The one downside is that Rugged Ridge doesn’t recommend using it with a roof top tent, stick to carrying cargo. Rugged Ridge designed it to work with the Rugged Ridge and OE bumpers. If you have an aftermarket bumper, you may have some extra work to get the rack installed.
The Sherpa Roof Rack installs in a few hours.
Rugged Ridge
Trailer Hitch Cargo Rack
SKU 11580.20 - $221 CAD, $170 USD
Looking to add an additional 90 kg (200 lbs) of outside-the-vehicle-storage? We were. The cons of this type of cargo carrier is that it blocks access to your rear tailgate when it’s loaded. Unless, like us, you have a Yakima Backswing (or equivalent) which swings the load out of the way so you can access your tailgate. If you don’t, make sure what you load on the rack is the type of gear you want to unload before you need to get inside. The pros include the fact that you don’t have to crawl on the roof to access gear stored here. The kit includes the cargo rack and a 2” receiver hitch (but no wiring harness although it is in the image on the Rugged Ridge site).
We would also recommend you find a cargo cover large enough for whatever you plan to store here as it will get covered in trail dust and moisture from wet roads and rain.
You can assemble the cargo rack in roughly 20 minutes and install the receiver hitch (if you don’t have one already) in about an hour.
Perry Mack
Traction Recovery Kit
SKU 15104.46 - $170 CAD
Sometimes 4-wheel drive isn’t enough, especially if you’ve opted not to spend the bucks on locking differentials. A much less expensive option (though not a replacement) is a good old’ shovel and a pair of not-so-old traction boards. It’s a folding shovel to help you get the boards in the right spot to get you out of that nasty sand, snow or mud that lured you astray. The boards are a high visibility orange, nice for night and mud work, ready to handle up to 9,000 kg (20,000 lbs) of pressure. Load and go – just in case.
Rugged Ridge
Jack Mounting Bracket
SKU 11586.01 - $162 CAD
Love‘em or hate’em. Most folks with a lifted 4x4 should carry an off-road jack, and if they don’t have one, when the day comes and they need it, they’ll wish they did. Aside from the dangerous nature when not used properly, off-road jacks (also called farm jacks) are cumbersome to carry. Rugged Ridge has built their jack to work with most heavy-duty aftermarket tire carriers (as long as they are not bumper mounted). We hate when gear rattles on the trail and this mounting bracket secures the jack in two spots to prevent this. We hit the trail to test Rugged Ridge’s claim (great excuse for a trail run) and they don’t lie. Well built, silently running.
Install time is less than two hours. Ours could have taken 20 minutes, but we weren’t that smart on install day.
Now you have some ideas to get more out of your trail and overland adventures, whether you decide to make it a DIY project, grab them from Rugged Ridge or find them to suit your model of rig. Look for the complete install and review features next issue.
Perry Mack