Hi guys,
Bought an MQ earlier this year and have slowly been tweaking it to make it more useful. I have a large list of stuff that i want to do but I'm yet to find that all elusive money tree to fund everything.
2015 MQ GLS auto in Titanium Grey
One of the first things i did was fit a big storage box and rubber liner into the back. I needed somewhere to store things like recovery gear, compressor, tie downs, tools etc relatively securely. Picked the box up from Bunnings which fits perfectly between the wheel arches and the rubber mat from Clark Rubber.
Next on the list after a couple of country night drives was a decent light for the front. The standard headlights are good if you stick within the city limits but at 110km/h on country roads they are pathetic. Picked up a 22" light bar from STEDI with a combination spread/spot beam which seems to work pretty well. It will get a workout over the Christmas period when I head down the south west though. For the relay I made a little bracket to hold 2 relays and a circuit breaker (for the battery in the tub).
Next up was a 2nd battery. Its a little cramped under the bonnet and I was unable to work out a way to fit a large 2nd battery so to the tub it went. I ended up getting a 120AH AGM deep cycle battery and box from Australian Direct and then a mate sold me a Redarc BCDC1225 at a good price which I mounted to the lid of the box. I have 6B&S cable running from the battery up front to an Anderson plug mounted under the lip of the tray. Also have a 50amp circuit breaker up front shown in the pic above. The battery box then ties down into the ute and the BCDC connects to the anderson via a small flylead i had mate up and presto, dual battery in the back. The battery box also has a switch which changes the input type on the BCDC so i can hook it up to a solar panel if needed and use the BCDC to charge via a solar panel. Have only really used it proper once a couple of months ago but worked a treat.
Next up was a fridge and some better tie downs in the tub. The factory tie downs are crap for tying anything down that doesn't fill the entire tub, in this case a car fridge and battery box. I ran through many different options for installing new anchor points from the aluminium rails with movable tie downs, to installing removable eye bolts but in the end I went with galvanised D ring anchor points from Bunnings. Supposedly each one is rated to 100kg with a 200kg breaking point. These are bolted to stainless steel rivnuts which i installed into the tub itself which have a pull out rating of ~20KN (2000kg force) according to the spec sheet, so should be plenty strong.
The rivnuts installed in place
With the anchor point bolted in place, rubber is to stop the D ring rattling and rubbing through the paint causing rust spots.
All anchor points installed
and with the rubber mat and fridge in place. The battery would normally sit on the leftside.
That's it so far, next up on the list is a proper steel bullbar, all terrain tyres and a small lift.