Sunday, June 14, 2015

Brush and Tree Guards

I decided to put some brush cables on the truck in order to save the windscreen from angry trees and branches. I originally purchased the brush cable package from Front Runner given it was pre-made and would theoretically be simple to install. As it is in life, plans and reality often look different.

The Front Runner solution came and ended up being about two feet two short to extend from the top of the luggage rack, as they recommend, down to the bull bar. I wasn't willing to drill holes in the truck itself or the bull bars for this effort. Solution fail.

After spending a bunch of time considering options, I ended up purchasing some existing mounts from Fourtreks because I like the clean look and the practical application. Since they didn't seem to have anything that immediately screamed, "these are designed for that", I purchased their CB antennae mount which I used a wee bit different than they designed or perhaps intended. Of course time will tell if my own design is good at version 1.0 or needs to be evolved. For now, thanks to the help of my ex-race car racing buddy, we fashioned a solution that will serve as the baseline until such time as we need to uprev the design.

Components included:

  • One (1) roll of 50' 3/16" diameter stainless steel cable that we cut down to 8' sections
  • Two (2) turn-buckles
  • Two (2) brass clips
  • Eight (8) wire rope clips
  • Four (4) thimbles

I also purchased crimping sleeves, but ended up not using them for now. Didn't seem to make sense. I may change my mind later. I'm still thinking on that one.

I cut up an inner-tube and placed it on the bull-bar prior to mounting the Fourtreks mounts. We attached both ends, hand-tightened the turn-buckles taut and took it for a drive. Worked fine. I'll only put them on when going off-road onto various trail types. They seem to work well, look good and I'm happy. Was a good problem to think through and I had fun building them out with my buddy.

No comments:

Post a Comment