Now it’s time to accessorize! I never really stated the goals of the “build”: if I’m honest it was really to be more of a style and comfort exercise rather than a full on trail rig. I’ve since started using it more and more as a true SUV, but more on that to come. I started adding little bits here and there and whanged the rack back in shape and painted it and mounted it up as well as a few other light guards and the OEM trailer harness. Again, most of this came from the black one so next to nothing out of pocket.

 

So I was pretty confident in the machine by this time as it had been on DD duties for a couple oil changes and other than the rack killing economy, it was wonderful.

Of course the radiator decided to tank on a typical Home Depot run for flooring in the attic. I just thought this picture was funny as most people get SUVs for Home Depot type stuff, and then ours decides to be like a Disco and give an issue there.





It was only 10 minutes from the house, so I made it home before the danger zone was reached on the Ultra gauge. Black parts Disco to the rescue once again as it had a couple month old radiator and 180 T stat in there. Another good flush of 50/50 wasn’t a bad thing either.

 

 

 

 

 

I finally got around to mounting the roof top tent. I also put an old Yakima fairing on that I never got rid of. I used some Yakima bars as mounting points for the tent via some simple u bolts from the hardware store. I also put in some chicken coop flooring for the front part of the rack as well as some tie down points for gear up there to make loading quicker.

 

The last part were reverse lights and I was ready to load it up for full on little bike trips.

 

The last big ticket item has been to add an oil pressure gauge. Admittedly, I was lazy and did a sandwich adapter, but the point was to make it such that I knew if the pressure dropped a lot alerting to a bigger issue. The extra cool part was that after some research studying the electrical diagrams, I found that the same plug for the windshield washer was the direct match to the S12 port in the dash that is empty. No splicing! Thanks to a thread here I was able to make this determination. I clipped the one from the parts truck and ran the wires. I used the same grommet as the lighting wire harness and was all set. This is another one I’m pretty proud of as the wiring is super duper clean, fused, relayed, and very nice looking.

 

And I’m basically to a “done” state on the machine. I love it dearly and enjoy all the toys. It’s slow, but will cruise at 75. It gets horrible economy, but since I have so little $$$ in it, I could buy A LOT of fuel for something I’d have a payment on.

I’m now just enjoying it. Next steps are to put in some LEDs in the interior and then I can really say I’m done until I decide to do bumpers and sliders and winch and lockers and all that. But I have a Jeep that is disposable for that stuff. I’ll be using the Disco mainly for easy off road and camping trips all while transporting the little bike.