How to install a Snorkel - Hunty
Hi Guyz
I finally decided to give my JK some cool clean air to breath so I jumped onto Ebay and bought the "direct4x4accessories" fed through the top of the bonnet edition - delivered for under $300 plus they gave me a free tactical police style led torch!
I was very nervous about cutting into my beautiful JK body to install this so I applied the old adage "measure twice & cut once" - even still I was $hitting myself when I began to drill.
The instructions that came were very good! so I will just add my 2cents and hopefully anybody who reads this will benefit a little bit from my stress LoL
I held the Snorkel in place against my Jeep just to see how it looked and to discover if my light bar would get in the way - and I soon realised not only it would get in the way but also my Mirror relocation brackets would also!
So the mirror relocation brackets are up for sale $50 and there yours - (just pm me).
I started early this morning and the bonnet was still a little wet - which was good because when I laid the supplied template on the bonnet it immediately stuck!
The instructions said to lay it (the template) 19mm from the indent made for the hood latch - but I (stupidly) did not trust this - so I went to great lengths to move the template around until I thought it was in the perfect position wasted about 30min doing this and after I had finally placed it where I thought it looked best - i measured it to see how far different I had it compared to the instructions and %uck me it was exactly 19mm from the latch LoL LoL.
I then got my pocket knife and traced out the template pushing just hard enough to scratch my Jeeps bonnet - see picture - I also centre punched the jeep for the hole saw!
Next I cut the holes - and yes people I know I used a wood hole saw D'oh! its all I had!
I went to bunnings and bought an angle grinder and very thin cutting disc - both on special cost less than $20 for both!
Tip 1 I removed the bonnet insulation so I could see what I was cutting into - it was quite easy - just carefully prise off the 3 stupid plastic christmas tree type fasteners.
TIP 2 when cutting with the angle grinder the steel of the bonnet will get very hot so I chose to cut with the garden hose running water onto the bonnet to keep it cool and prevent the paint from melting! - which I can assure you will if you don't keep it cool and then there will be tears LoL
I assembled the snorkel and attached all the mounting hardware - sealed it all with heaps of black silicon type stuff - also from bunnings
Lastly I riveted the supplied trim to the bonnet to finish off the job
Best of all - I have been driving around Sydney this morning for work and
I noticed on my scan gauge that the air temperature flowing into my engine was around 29 degrees C - the abient temp in Sydney at the time was 26C - which got me a barred up because I normally observe the air temp going into my engine any where from double the ambient to 86 - 90 degrees C !!!!!!!!!!!!
So if any of you have any smarts when it comes to the fuel efficiency of colder more dense air - I would certainly like to know if I can expect better performance and or better economy? now my engine is sucking down air thats at least 50C cooler
Lastly as you can see from the pix I need to make up 2 little black spacers for the windscreen pillar mount to keep the snorkel of my light bar - I just used 2 packets of washers this morning - so technically its still a work in progress!
Cheers Hunty
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