What did you do TO your Gladiator today? [ADMIN WARNING: NO POLITICS, NO GUN TALK]

[Jeepmonster]

I was looking for a decent dead pedal, but there seemed to be only two types: the one that bolts to the single bolt on the firewall and the one that bolts to the side. After reading some reviews, I went with one that mounts to the side, as they appeared to be sturdier. However, upon installing it, it was way too high, it needed to come further down (unless you have a very large foot). The Jeep logo with the paws was cute, but still somewhat impractical. It cost me $40 on Amazon, and I didn't really like any other. You can see in the picture that the dead pedal is so much higher.

I looked for other pedals to put on top of it, but most are very flimsy, so I ordered a piece of aluminum diamond plate (,125 thick) through Amazon ($18). I cut it to 3.2" wide and 9" long.

I then sanded the rough edges, and drilled a couple holes that lined up with the Jeep logo. Then I attached it with a couple stainless M5 button head screws, washer and nut.

Once bolted on, I hit it with fine steel wool since it will get scratched up by my shoes.

Here it is installed. Feels like it should've always been there.

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[Mark Doiron]

Installed an ARB snorkel on my Gladiator. This is my third snorkel install, and was by far the most difficult--and I'll have some words about that as appropriate throughout this post (if I remember once I get down there, LOL). Anyway, I started at 5 a.m. hoping to finish by lunchtime, but two things would not happen today: Finishing as planned ... and lunchtime. Anyway, my neighbors already figure I'm nuts, and seeing me later this morning using a reciprocating saw on my Gladiator would just further confirm their suspicions. But going outside at 5 a.m. to begin work was probably pressing my luck a bit far before someone called the cops (I really wish I had a three car garage).

So, started off by fabricating the custom body saw blade as per the ARB instructions. This only took me three tries. The first time I cut the wrong side out, making a perfectly shaped body saw with no teeth. The second time I cut another perfectly shaped body saw with the teeth facing the wrong direction. I did succeed the third time, and this blade worked surprisingly well. After the cutting was all finished I did notice that somewhere along the way I broke off about a quarter inch of the tip.

By this time the sun was breaking over the horizon, and since it was Friday I figured folks should be awakening and heading out to work. And it was trash day, so the neighborhood would have those two noisy trash trucks working their way through, so I was good to go. The instructions said to remove the hood insulating blanket and tape up the hood. I was hesitant to remove the insulating blanket, especially since it already had a cutout for the snorkel. Came from the factory that way. I tried removing one of the plastic plugs with one of those special body tools and ended up shredding a corner of the insulating blanket. All the prying that was necessary to pull the plug just tore up the blanket. I figured screw that, and left the blanket in place. It should be noted that I never came across anywhere that the blanket being in place was a problem. And the instructions never mentioned it again, not even to reinstall it. Anyway, I taped up the hood, both to protect it and for marking purposes, and then attached the supplied template for cutting the hood.

This is where the instructions, which are actually impressively detailed, got a bit inconsistent. They had me tape up the engine bay sill area to protect against damage when test fitting the snorkel. But they never had me test fit the snorkel. Well, the old adage, "Measure twice, cut once" is good advice when you're cutting a 2x4, and even more so when you're cutting the hood on your Jeep. I therefore mounted the snorkel and grabbed the trim bezel and test fitted it against my markups. And boy was it way off--about a half inch. I double, even triple-checked the template fit.

Something was amiss.

I decided to ignore the template and use the trim bezel and mounted snorkel to determine where to cut. And I cut small, expecting this would likely mean several cuts and trimming to get a good fit.

I would not be disappointed. But, after three cuts and a lot of grinding for fine fitting, I had a well-shaped opening for the bezel that cleared the snorkel.

However, I still wasn't convince everything was good because the snorkel does allow some slight fore/aft adjustment once the air box is fitted in place. So, before I drilled any holes, which was the point of no return, I wanted to fit the air box. This meant fitting the new adapter for the snorkel.

The OEM air box is essentially three pieces (ignoring the filter, that is): You have a bottom, a top and an intake "hose". We're going to remove the OEM intake and replace it with an adapter that will mate with the snorkel. Sounds easy, and on two previous snorkel installs (AEV on my JK and not sure what brand on a Defender) it was pretty easy. Basically just glue the adapter in place of the original piece. But that was not the case for this one. It required cutting out some of the ribs on the inside and outside of the box, drilling a dozen or so holes based on supplied templates, using a dozen or so "pop" rivets and a couple screws and nuts to attach the adapter, along with liberal amounts of RTV sealant (note that my hands will be dirty for all remaining images after that step below--it took a good 30 minutes of hard scrubbing that evening to get most of it off. One of these days I'll remember to use that supply of disposable gloves I keep in the garage for just this purpose. Maybe).

Anyway, trimming the ribs ...

Drilling the required holes as marked with the templates ...

Cutting out a rib from the inside of the box. This didn't actually interfere with mounting the adapter, but it obviously opened up the air flow path. I suspect this is why AEV has you do this ...

Setting the "pop" rivets (note dirty hands). Now, I place "pop" in quotes because these aren't really pop rivets. Well, at least not like any that I've ever set before, I could never get my pop rivet gun to cut the stem. I thought perhaps something was wrong with it and tested it an a couple rivets from my benchstock, which set just fine. Unfortunately, the supplied "pop" rivets are longer than any I keep on hand, so replacing would mean heading to the hardware store. Besides, I already had several set when I decided something was amiss (I do expect someone with stronger hands may be able to set these rivets just fine--I couldn't however).

I decided to press ahead and manually trim the stems. To be clear, these are made from stainless steel, not the usual aluminum. I understand the SS for the hood bezel trim piece, but not inside the air box. Why make the job more difficult? For that matter, why the heck didn't ARB just provide a new air box with the adapter hose fitted in place? I'd gladly spend $50 more for the purchase price for that air box just to avoid the four frustrating hours doing all of this work on the OEM piece. And, on top of that, now my air filter wasn't fitting snugly into its channeling because those rivets were in the way. I didn't learn this until late yesterday when I tried to place it in and the rivets were jutting in the way, which meant yet more trimming when I thought the job was finished. For these reasons, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THE ARB SNORKEL for the Jeep Gladiator (or JL).

Obviously, that was not an option for me at this point. So, back outside and secured the snorkel in place with the modified air box ...

And I used the bezel itself as a drill guide. Some folks would point out that leads to damaged finish inside the holes. And I would respond that it's easier to touch up paint than it is to move a hole that was drilled in the wrong place ...

I carefully cut off the stems to avoid damage to the rivets, bezel or my hood ...

And then used a grinding stone to smooth out the top of each stem ...

A little touch up paint, and viola (LOL, voila!) ...

Bottom line, I am glad that this job is done. As I said above, I cannot honestly recommend this snorkel because of all of the work involved. Several times as I was doing this I wondered what would happen if most of the rivets were left out and just the sealer used--which is basically what you have with the AEV JK snorkel. Or maybe, where access permits, screws and nuts were used. Or, best yet, AEV provides the new air box bottom piece in their kit. I'm even curious how Mopar does their snorkel, which I originally had planned to install until I saw that I couldn't replace the dust collector scoop with a proper one for overlanding (look at the JK above).

Anyway, if someone is a glutton for punishment, this is one way to achieve that. Best of luck, and I hope that what I've shared above helps you out.

P.S.--After I moved the Jeeps back into their usual parking spots, I knew I needed a picture from the driver's seat of the snorkel interference to the outside. I'll shoot that today--didn't last night because I was whooped and just wanted to get inside the house and have a beer and neither the camera or phone were immediately at hand. Check back right here and I'll edit it into this post. Meanwhile, the interference is pretty slight. Not quite as slight as with the JK AEV snorkel, but really not very much.

Okay, here's the promised windshield view ...

And, bonus material, here's what this sounds like with the GoPro mounted outside near the snorkel. It will be so much easier to know when to shift (if I turn down the music, LOL) ...

 

[RSK]

“I DO NOT RECOMMEND THE ARB SNORKEL”

You have certainly convinced most of us to heed your words of wisdom. I did enjoyed reading your write up though.

 

[Gatorized]

It’s a shame they eliminated the snorkel cut-out that was engineered into CJ era Jeep hoods.
Does the snorkel interfere with the passenger mirror when opening the door?
I see you have the windshield sun shade - does it fit well around the safety cluster on the mirror? The stock pictures found on mopar parts web sites don’t look like it will fit well without some cutting. Do you have the part number? Thx!

 

[Mopar King]

I’m currently running topless except for a bestop sunrider... I have had many different tops over my jeeps. My favorite so far is a nx plus for JKU, and I wish bestop would make something like that... by the way I was just answering to the OP With my comment.

I had 1 for my JKU as well and always just ran with the sides and rear window off ... basically just a bikini. Then had a cargo cover one as well so everything was mostly rain proof.

 

[Mark Doiron]

It’s a shame they eliminated the snorkel cut-out that was engineered into CJ era Jeep hoods.
Does the snorkel interfere with the passenger mirror when opening the door?
I see you have the windshield sun shade - does it fit well around the safety cluster on the mirror? The stock pictures found on mopar parts web sites don’t look like it will fit well without some cutting. Do you have the part number? Thx!

The snorkel does not interfere with the door. However, not sure about with the pre-filter. It is close enough that I'll be taking some measurements before ordering one. The Jeep sunshield fits great. It's close, but no cutting necessary. Unlike with the JK, it's slightly awkward getting it into place because of the grab handles on the windshield frame, and clearing the tweeters. But once you figure it out, becomes pretty automatic. I don't remember part number, but I ordered from some website that came up offering it, not from Mopar.

Edit: Oh, lookie what my trash bin turned up ...

 

[stingergray]

Carbon fiber wrapped the hood and emblems. The emblems are a two piece design.

 

[Deleted member 30519]

Carbon fiber wrapped the hood and emblems. The emblems are a two piece design.

Looks good .. link to the hood decal ?

I just ordered this on eBay

 

[Deleted member 30519]

Looks good .. link to the hood decal ?

I just ordered this on eBay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264596081306

 

[stingergray]

Looks good .. link to the hood decal ?

I just ordered this on eBay

We cut the wrap from a full sheet of carbon fiber wrap. Emblems and hood done by hand.

 

[Fortes89]

I took the piece off between fender bumper and ordered this grill insert

 

[cowstippin]

Today I was able to install a headliner for about $80.00. It took a few hours to install but it was worth it.

 

[Dwosgood]

Today I was able to install a headliner for about $80.00. It took a few hours to install but it was worth it.

That looks awesome, any details on how you did it?

 

[achandlersc]

Rugged bed liner

Looks great. Where did you order it from?

 

[JBTXMIA]

Looks great. Where did you order it from?

Thank you, I’m in south Florida, offer up for 100.00

https://offerup.co/dz7wKX2qj7

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