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Lighting
Lighting is very important to how we travel. Although it is much safer to travel in the daylight, to maximize the amount of time we get on trips, we often start a trip with a significant amount of night driving. For that reason, we insist on using high-quality lighting.
READ MORE ABOUT OUT LIGHTING SETUP HERE
Our favorite pair of lights on our truck is likely a surprise, but we LOVE the DENALI D3 Fog Lights. Like all of the DENALI lights, the fit and finish are understated and discreet but the lighting performance is fantastic. The beam pattern is 300 feet wide and has an extremely sharp cut-off that doesn’t blind other drivers. We wired our D3 Fogs to the factory fog circuit because the D3s only draw 3.3 amps (less than the stock halogen lights).
The most powerful set of lights and our most used set are the DENALI D7 Driving Lights. The DENALI D7s are not quite spot beam and definitely aren’t floods, but they offer a ton of light from such a small lamp. Honestly, I would prefer a bigger light for strictly esthetic reasons, but the power of the D7 is hard to complain about. The D7s are aimed at or above our high beam and are our go to for fast and flat driving.
We have toyed with the position and the lens color on the D7 and have found that they work best between the winch and the D3 fog lights. We will eventually add a set of 7 or 9 inch driving lights on top of the bumper (where the D7 is pictured above) but we certainly don’t need to with how much light the D7s produce.
A third set of forward-facing lights is not really necessary, but I have found that I really like having a set of DENALI D4 Driving Lights on the A-Pillar, pointed at the ditch on each side. Ditch lights really shine when you need extra coverage on the sides of your lighting path. I don’t love how they look on the hood line, but for the performance benefit, they are worth the goofy lines.
We have gone back and forth on our scene-lighting needs because we don’t spend much time at camp sitting with lights on. We originally ran the wiring for our DENALI DRL scene lights through the weather seal of the rear hatch and had developed some leaks. We have since removed the scene lights and just use small USB lights from Claymore. The lights are incredibly bright, but we just don’t have much of a use for them for the way we camp.
Exterior and Protection
We have a pretty conservative approach to the exterior of our vehicles and all of our modifications are based on experiences with the stock equipment. We took our stock vehicle out and if the stock equipment got in the way, we made a plan to replace it. For example, the front bumper on the GX470 is painfully low and on our first off-road trip, we drug it pretty hard on a couple of embankments and creek beds. We began searching for a steel hybrid front bumper that had tube work, a winch mount, recovery points, and a great approach angle and found one. Thankfully, we received our bumper from a fabricator without much trouble, but Explore Overland screwed over a lot people. The bumper works as advertised, but the customer service and business practices were terrible.
As I mentioned above, most of our trips require at least a day of driving and on a recent trip to Utah, we stopped over in Denver at a hotel. Overnight, our rear quarter window was busted out and the thief took our well-curated kitchen utensil kit. Meth is a powerful drug kids, understandably, Denver PD and the hotel were of no help.
Because the cost of a Lexus rear window is around $1000, we used this opportunity to upgrade to gullwing windows. The team at Rugged Bound Supply Co. was extremely helpful in getting us setup quickly. The gullwings are imported from South Africa from a company called Big Country 4×4 and the quality is ridiculously good. Install is a bit complicated and intense (drilling into sheet metal) but overall we are happy with it. Access to the back is much better and it definitely toughens up the look of the exterior.
We tend to bring along a bicycle or two on our adventures and during our school bus travels we learned very slowly that you often get what you pay for. We finally settled on a 1UP Heavy Duty Bike Rack and we couldn’t be happier. It simply works every time and we are never concerned about our bikes.
Because of the way the rear door swings open, a swing away is quite handy at times. We normally take bikes off the rack at campsites (because it’s so easy) but if we are really loaded down, we might take a swingout like the Kuat Pivot to make things easier.
Explore Overland Front Bumper-discontinued
Suspension, Wheels, and Tires
Soon after we bought our GX (and after bouncing around Moab for a week) our rear airbag suspension was starting to lean when left overnight so we replaced the rear airbag suspension with a coil spring from the V8 4Runner and a conversion kit from Southern Style Off-Road.
Our suspension is simple and proven with Bilstein 5100 shocks and struts and Old Man Emu 2885 springs up front and 2.5″ Medium springs in the rear. Honestly, the ride and performance are great, but I would have liked a bit more lift out of the front. I might raise the clip next time I have the front end apart, but with all of our gear and a trailer, the rear is lower and looks better.
We have gone through the entire braking system and replaced the front brake calipers with StopTech calipers and Raybestos rear calipers. All of the rubber brake hoses have been replaced with new Raybestos hoses and new brake rotors and pads were added as well. With fresh fluid and a solid brake bleed, the stopping of the GX is good as new.
When we bought the GX, it had street tires with really good tread, so we have been putting them through the paces. We found a deal on a set of TRD Off-Road take-off wheels and a set of 255/75/17 Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs and jumped on it. The tires are perfect for our style of driving and the terrain we like to explore.
We have recently moved from the the TRD Off-Road wheels to a set of AEV Salta XR wheels and we are beyond excited about putting these new wheels through their paces.
Camping and Living
The single most important area of our rig is the living area which houses most of our gear and our kitchen. The entire rear hatch area was based around our Dometic CFX3 95 DZ on our custom slide (see above). The Dometic fridge was really nice but we needed something a little smaller for our GX. We picked up a Snomaster Low Profile 65L and were able to move around our setup and get rid of the fridge slide altogether. We placed it behind the driver’s seat and have easy access from the rear driver’s side door instead of needing to open the rear hatch for food.
I built a very basic storage platform in place of the rear seats (both rows). Each half is removable in the event that we want to add the seats back in. The front section uses the middle seat attachment point to secure turnbuckles and the rear section utilizes the 3rd-row attachment points.
Our camping gear, recovery gear, and all of our personal luggage live in the rear of the truck with our camp kitchen and furniture in the rear-most storage area next to and under the fridge. Most of our gear is stored in various harbor freight and Pelican cases.
Our recovery kit is pretty simple and includes recovery boards, an assortment of ropes and straps, and a winch for a last resort. Be assembled our kit beginning with the ARB Recovery Kit and slowly added things as we needed them. The Rock Tamers Recovery Rope has been a pleasant surprise as has the Harbor Freight Tree Strap. We have used nearly every recovery board on the market and for the time that we spend using them
Rock Tamers Recovery Rope
Electrical System
Our electrical system is basic and simple including a 75 amp-hour battery under the hood with a simple 100-watt Renogy solar panel mounted to the roof. The solar power is run through a Renogy charge controller. We also installed a Blue Sea Automatic Charging Relay to charge the auxiliary battery from the alternator.
We have plans to add a lithium-ion battery eventually, but our current system is good enough for us assuming we are moving every couple of days or have good sunshine.
One of our first and most useful modifications that we made to our GX was the addition of a 7-inch carplay head unit. Our Alpine iLX-W670 has been an absolute weapon of a head unit and we have had exactly zero issues.
Originally mounted on the steering column and eventually moved to the A-pillar on the UpTop Mount made specifically for the GX, the Scan Gauge II allows us to monitor engine vitals like voltage, intake air temp, water temp, and much more. Not to mention, we can monitor trouble codes on the fly without a dedicated code-reader.
