Our Alu-Cab Canopy (cap), questions, pics, and maybe future mods...

[steven1955]

Hi JT folks,

I am starting this thread to share information on the, actually our, Alu-Cab Canopy. (I don't know why Alu-Cab call it a Canopy... It's really just a cap.)

Before we bought ours we were only able to get some of our questions answered, but now that we have it any concern we had is gone.

Our JT has the factory folding soft top, and any cap we bought had to play nicely with with our roof folded. We found out a vertical flat front on any cap worked better in that regard, so that pretty much limited us to the metal caps. Which was OK because personally liked the utilitarian look of the metal caps.

I reduced the choices to RSI and Alu-Cab due to availability. We chose the Alu-Cab because:
1) It was lighter,
2) It was one piece meaning no assembly required and no gaskets between the major pieces that might leak in the future,
3) It was locally available from stock, and,
4) It was a few hundred dollars cheaper than the RSI.

So here are a few pics...

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[steven1955]

Some things I need or want to do...

1) Unlike the RSI you cannot unlatch the windows from the inside. I am going to have to modify at least two of the locks or make a special tool that allows me to unlatch the locks from inside the cap.

2). We carry bikes on a rear hitch mounted bike rack. This covers the tail lights. For safety reasons I am considering adding 10 inch long by 1.2 to 1.8 inch wide surface mount LED tail lights just above the rear cap opening. (If I end up doing this it will be documented in this thread.)

3) I don't like the dark tunnel vision looking rearward through the Alu-Cab. I am considering removal of the CHMSL and installing a rearview camera along with a display that functionality replaced the rear view mirror. In order to be 50 state legal I'd have to first have high mounted tail lights (see #2 above). (As above, if I end up doing this it will be documented in this thread.)

If anyone can recommend a rearview camera system, please do so.

 

[steven1955]

Lastly, several weeks ago fellow Gladiator owner "dutch7" asked for pics of how the Alu-Cab rear cap door seals on the tailgate. So, way late, here are some pics. Please ask for others if these don't help.

 

[Tennessee Gobi]

I have an AluCab Canopy for my JT and love it. I’ll provide more info on things I’ve done with my setup, but wanted to offer a suggestion regarding replacement of the Rear View Mirror with a Camera.

Check out the Mirror delete option from CMM Offroad. I personally don’t have it, but have seen it in person and it’s an excellent setup.

https://cmmoffroad.com/products/gladiator-jt-rearview-mirror-delete

 

[steven1955]

First mod... A simple one... At the top of rear interior of the cap is a pop riveted on cover whose purpose is to cover and protect the wiring to the three interior lights and the CHMSL (Center High Mounted Stop Light). I will need to access that space to run new wires.

So I drilled out the seven pop rivets and removed the cover. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the cover pre removal.)

I then drilled out these seven mounting holes to install some aluminum rivet nuts with a #10-24 internal thread. (Marson Klik Rivet-Nuts number 47230.) The rivet nuts I have required that I use a 1/4 /(0.250) inch drill. (The next drill size smaller was a letter D drill (0.246 inch) which was too small.). I also smeared a small amount of steel reinforced J B Weld on the flange and body of the rivet nuts because in the past I have had rivet nuts, installed by other people, come loose and spin in their mounting holes. Probably not necessary, but I look at it as cheap insurance.

Here's a pic of the rivet nuts installed. You can see the elongated slots to access the wiring and some of the Alu-Cab factory wiring.

I then re-installed the cover using seven 10-24 x 1 inch stainless Phillips head screws with flat washers. No Loc-Tite or lock washers were used at this time because I will be removing the cover in the short term, but blue Loc-Tite will be used later on. I did have to slightly enlarge the holes in the cover as there was a slight interference between the screws and the sides of a few holes. A 15/64 (0.234) inch drill enlarged the pre existing holes just enough.

Here's a pic of the cover re-installed.

One screw is hidden by the light.

I could have used metric rivet nuts to keep our Alu-Cab all metric, but I didn't want to buy another tool.

 

[Jaxmax]

Why not install the lights on the bike rack and use your hitch wiring to power them, would give you reverse lights that are not blocked. I’ve mountain biked for years and settled on a Draftmaster vertical rack and have had it for years four mountain bikes front tires off lots of ground clearence, tires in back. Yakima also makes one . On the Draftmaster the bikes are staggered up and down every other one so handle bars overlap, it is a good way as narrower then one bike horizontal. Taking the wheel off is needed, and if using lazy electric bikes maybe that’s more work. Either way whatever rack system you use the third brake light in tailgate will be blocked Aluma used to come with one.
I hated looking through two tinted windows out the back and swapped my tinted hardtop with a guy with a base sport that has an untinted window ,review restored!
Nice Jeep neighbor!…..Jack

 

[steven1955]

Hi Jack,

Thanks for your thoughts, but we are set on our plan for a few reasons that we think solves all of our issues.

Why not install the lights on the bike rack and use your hitch wiring to power them, would give you reverse lights that are not blocked.

High mounted rear tail lights are a bonus. The real first issue is the very dark tunnel vision we get from having the Alu-Cab cap mounted pretty much permanently. The rear view mirror looks through three windows, the Gladiator soft top window, and the front and rear TINTED Alu-Cab windows. We want to install a rear view camera whose screen will take the place of the interior rear view mirror. Theoretically we don't need the continuous on rear view, I can drive with only the side view mirrors, but I like to know what's going on behind me. And it will help backing up. So we have decided to install a rear view camera permanently up high on the back of the cap. And the CHMSL on the Alu-Cab cap has to go in order to do that. (The CHMSL on the tailgate is pointless with bikes on the back.)

Draftmaster vertical rack and have had it for years four mountain bikes front tires off lots of ground clearence, tires in back.

We already have a 1UP bike rack that is super secure and super easy to use. We don't feel the need to buy another rack.

Taking the wheel off is needed, and if using lazy electric bikes maybe that’s more work.

Well, we do have "lazy electric bikes"... They are Specialized Levo Comp eMountain bikes, class 1 ebikes where pedaling is always required. I am 69, and my GF is 67, and these ebikes have made biking fun again. We regularly ride 30-40 miles on rail trails or do 15-20 miles of mountain biking.

Either way whatever rack system you use the third brake light in tailgate will be blocked Aluma used to come with one.

In our case our bikes on our 1UP rack would not block tail lights or a rear view camera on our Alu-Cab cap if they are mounted high.

So now that I have made the Alu-Cab's wiring cover removable I can more easily add wired components to the cap much more easily.

 

[jn2275]

First mod... A simple one... At the top of rear interior of the cap is a pop riveted on cover whose purpose is to cover and protect the wiring to the three interior lights and the CHMSL (Center High Mounted Stop Light). I will need to access that space to run new wires.

So I drilled out the seven pop rivets and removed the cover. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the cover pre removal.)

I then drilled out these seven mounting holes to install some aluminum rivet nuts with a #10-24 internal thread. (Marson Klik Rivet-Nuts number 47230.) The rivet nuts I have required that I use a 1/4 /(0.250) inch drill. (The next drill size smaller was a letter D drill (0.246 inch) which was too small.). I also smeared a small amount of steel reinforced J B Weld on the flange and body of the rivet nuts because in the past I have had rivet nuts, installed by other people, come loose and spin in their mounting holes. Probably not necessary, but I look at it as cheap insurance.

Here's a pic of the rivet nuts installed. You can see the elongated slots to access the wiring and some of the Alu-Cab factory wiring.

I then re-installed the cover using seven 10-24 x 1 inch stainless Phillips head screws with flat washers. No Loc-Tite or lock washers were used at this time because I will be removing the cover in the short term, but blue Loc-Tite will be used later on. I did have to slightly enlarge the holes in the cover as there was a slight interference between the screws and the sides of a few holes. A 15/64 (0.234) inch drill enlarged the pre existing holes just enough.

Here's a pic of the cover re-installed.

One screw is hidden by the light.

I could have used metric rivet nuts to keep our Alu-Cab all metric, but I didn't want to buy another tool.

Thanks for posting this. I had the idea to remove the Alu-cab brake light and replace it with a brake light that also has white lights that could be powered while in reverse or with one of the aux switches as a rear porch light for camping. I also have a rear dash cam on the back window and would like to re-route that wiring through there too to clean everything up.

I tried loosening the brake light mounting screws but found they just spun so I'm assuming there's a nut on the backside? I never got any further than that and I'm still looking for a light that'll fit back there, but I'll probably copy your idea of reinstalling the cover when I get it pulled off.

 

[steven1955]

Thanks for posting this. I had the idea to remove the Alu-cab brake light and replace it with a brake light that also has white lights that could be powered while in reverse or with one of the aux switches as a rear porch light for camping. I also have a rear dash cam on the back window and would like to re-route that wiring through there too to clean everything up.

I have found some inexpensive surface mount LED tail lights in both 10 inch and 15 inch lengths, about 1.2-1.5 inches wide on eBay. These will fit nicely above the rear window and will not interfere with the window opening.

They are available in red, amber, and white. The red ones have three wires and function as tail lights and brake lights. (I am unsure as to the wiring or function of the amber or white lights.) I have not found any combo red/white lights. I have found red/amber/white combination lights that will fit, but in our case the amber is wasted.

Can you tell me about your camera? Mounting? Inside or outside of the glass? Assuming your camera is not the OEM camera remounted, any other details about your camera would be welcome.

I tried loosening the brake light mounting screws but found they just spun so I'm assuming there's a nut on the backside? I never got any further than that and I'm still looking for a light that'll fit back there, but I'll probably copy your idea of reinstalling the cover when I get it pulled off.

It is interesting about your rear light not coming off. I assumed they used self tapping screws. As I am not going to use the Alu-Cab CHMSL I will be removing mine. A CHMSL is not a legal necessity if you have high mounted stop or tail lights.

 

[jn2275]

I have found some inexpensive surface mount LED tail lights in both 10 inch and 15 inch lengths, about 1.2-1.5 inches wide on eBay. These will fit nicely above the rear window and will not interfere with the window opening.

They are available in red, amber, and white. The red ones have three wires and function as tail lights and brake lights. (I am unsure as to the wiring or function of the amber or white lights.) I have not found any combo red/white lights. I have found red/amber/white combination lights that will fit, but in our case the amber is wasted.

Can you tell me about your camera? Mounting? Inside or outside of the glass? Assuming your camera is not the OEM camera remounted, any other details about your camera would be welcome.


It is interesting about your rear light not coming off. I assumed they used self tapping screws. As I am not going to use the Alu-Cab CHMSL I will be removing mine. A CHMSL is not a legal necessity if you have high mounted stop or tail lights.

For my application the light I was thinking something similar to what most trucks have that's a combination of third brake light and bed lights. I really don't need the third brake light for my application (I never wired up the Alu-cab light) since I don't have anything blocking the light on the tailgate so I guess I could go with just a lightbar.

I currently have a Garmin Mini 2 mounted to the inside of the rear Alu-cab glass. I'm also liking the CRMM product @Tennessee Gobi posted above and using it to display video from a rear camera. As you noted above it does feel like your looking through a tunnel when the Alu-cab is empty and it would be really nice when the bed is full of gear and you can't see anything out the back.

 

[steven1955]

I finished the tail lights I mounted above the rear hatch. It took some bravery as I had to drill out some rivets and replace them with rivnuts and also drill and tap some holes. I used 10-24 rivnuts to replace two rivets, one right and one left, and drill and tapped two holes for a 10-24 thread, again one right and one left. I also had to drill a hole on each side for wiring

Below is one of the 1.2 inch x 10 inch eBay tail lights.

Below is the back side of the tail lights and a gasket I cut from black rubber. I needed the gasket, not for sealing, but to clear one rivet. You'll notice the gasket has four holes, two for mounting screws, one for the wires, and one for pop rivet clearance.

This last is how the tail light looks after installation. These tail lights are not yet wired in this picture, but they are wired today. Details on wiring to follow.

 

[steven1955]

In order to operate my cap mounted tail lights I wanted to tie into the trailer towing lighting circuit. I didn't want to cut in to the JT wiring harness, but I also didn't want to use my trailer towing connector. Instead I opted to use an adapter, as suggested by another member here, that had male and female USCAR trailer towing connectors that I could modify thereby avoiding cutting into the factory harness.

In my case I selected a Curt p/n 55384 which had both the 7 pin USCAR male and female trailer towing connectors and a set of 4 wires roughly 3-4 feet long, running off to the side to a 4 pin flat trailer towing connector.

I needed 5 wires, but this adapter only had 4 wires for ground (pin 1, white), left turn and brake (pin 5, yellow), right turn and brake (pin 6, green), and tail lights (pin 3, brown). I needed a non existent 5th wire for a continuous power to operate the LED lighting inside the cap. So I had to splice into the wire that ran between the number 4 pins (normally red, but the Curt adapter used white) on the male and female 7 pin USCAR connectors. Here is the final configuration:

Here is the right angle end adapter plugs into the rear of the JT trailer towing socket. The straight end (not shown) plugs into the JT wiring harness.

Also not shown because it isn't cleaned up yet, is the wiring run to the cap. The pigtail off my customized adapter runs into the bed using a pre-existing hole on the lower driver's side of the bed, and runs up the corner of the bed and cap up to the rear top of the cap. This is where all the final connections to the tail lights and interior cap lighting are made.

 

[steven1955]

Now, on to mounting of the camera for the rear view camera. What I purchased was a refurbished Wolfbox G930 mirror camera, their upgraded WDR rear view camera, a 33 foot (10 meter) rear camera extension wire, their hardwire kit, and the OEM mounting adapter.

Notes on the Wolfbox:
1). I chose the G930 because it's only a bit more than 10 inches wide. All the other current model camera mirrors are 12+ inches wide. The 10-ish inch wide is slightly too wide, but the other bigger mirrors are way too wide. Too wide means the interfere with full movement of the windshield visors.
2). I did not use the included rear view camera, but instead used the improved WDR camera at additional cost. The reviews were better at night. We'll see.
3). The 33 foot rear camera extension cable. I only had an extra 18-24 inches when done. The stock cable will not be long enough if you want to rear mount a camera at the top rear of a cap.
4). Detailed in a different thread... The fuses my hardwire kit were 15A. 2A to 3A is more appropriate.

Mounting: I was able to use the holes for my unused CHMSL (Center High Mounted Stop Light). The two CHMSL mounting screws had two Nylon locknuts inside the cap, so I needed to grab them with small vice grips, and then just unscrew the two mount screws.

I drilled out the CHMSL holes with a 10-24 tap drill, and then tapped 10-24 threads. The hole for the wire had to be enlarged with a 5/16 inch drill bit to have clearance for the camera connector.

The camera mount itself I made with some 1/2 inch thick PVC board screwed together with stainless steel wood screws, and painted black with Krylon Fusion black paint. It nicely clears the rear hatch when open, and protects the camera from rain and sun from above. I may need to add a drip edge.

 

[Glad Newbie]

How did you route the camera wires back to the mirror?

 

[steven1955]

How did you route the camera wires back to the mirror?

Bear in mind the our JT is a diesel Rubicon. Your Jeep might be different, especially if a manual transmission. Sorry, no pics.

So, here's how I ran the camera wire:

1) From the mirror camera to the left and down to the dash behind the left A pillar grab handle.
2) Previously I removed the plug in the firewall that plugs the hole for the clutch cable not used in the auto tranny JTs and JLs. I punched a large hole in this plug and installed a large rubber grommet. This grommit is used to route several wires from the cab to the engine compartment, including the mirror camera's camera cable and power wiring.
3) I ran the camera cable along the left side frame rail and tie wrapped it to whatever I found that would keep the cable from heat or mechanical damage. Mechanical damage from both moving Jeep parts and rocks being thrown up.
4) Wherever the camera cable was outside of the cab it was run in 1/4 inch black corrugated wire loom.
5) Once at the left rear corner of the bed I ran the cable through the small hole at the rear lower left of the bed. This was a roughly 7/8 inch hole, and I installed a rubber grommet to protect the camera cable from the edges of the bed sheet metal. The cable is still in wire loom.
6). I positioned the cable as close to the corner of the bed as possible all the way to the top of my cap.

The way I ran our mirror camera camera cable and also the cap's wiring for interior lighting and the permanent high mounted cap tail lights I cannot remove the cap. If I need to ever remove the cap I will add wire plugs at that time.

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