Meet SHERPAH, my Gladiator build...

Truck vault for the win!! Guessing yours was built on the east coast? I absolutely love mine and the programmable mechanical lock is outstanding. Can't be a lifetime warranty either. Mine was built in Sedro Woolley WA just an hour from the house.

Yes it was built in their East Coast facility, right here in VA. Communication was very good and the product is better than I could have hoped for (certainly better than I could have built!).
 
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Awesome looking Gladiator build! There was another one here that used our active off road bump stops in their build. Can't wait to see the finished rig and what you do with it!
 
Awesome looking Gladiator build! There was another one here that used our active off road bump stops in their build. Can't wait to see the finished rig and what you do with it!

What a coincidence! I was just looking at your site and the two options for the Gladiator. Do you happen to know the heights of the 2 options?
While I am doing everything I can think of to keep the weight down it will not be a terribly light build so I’m looking at what my options are for a little help..
 
What a coincidence! I was just looking at your site and the two options for the Gladiator. Do you happen to know the heights of the 2 options?
While I am doing everything I can think of to keep the weight down it will not be a terribly light build so I’m looking at what my options are for a little help..
Were you looking at the front, rear, or both? I will try and get you the dimensions.
 
That is a nice small head on the radio. I will add it to the watch for cheap used one list.... I have the Icom 208H in the 4runner I might steal, but we will see. Same idea of the small remote head.
 
Any chance you know what the length of the coax cable is of the antenna? Mine currently runs up the passenger 'B" pillar and I would like to route up the rear cargo door jamb but need 19' of length.
 
Alright, it’s been too long without some serious upgrade posts so ladies and gentlemen I present to you the process of installing a Long Range America secondary fuel tank. Yes you read that correctly I decided to install a second, 17 gallon fuel tank which will almost double our range without taking up valuable and limited storage space.

First off I have to say that this install is NOT for the faint of heart and should only be accomplished by a very experienced mechanic. There isn’t much that I haven’t done mechanically but this was beyond my capability so my local shop agreed to tackle the project knowing there would be some head scratching along the way...

So last fall I placed the order and little did I know the tank system was still in the Beta stage but that’s what I get for being anxious...Life being what it is we didn’t get around to this project until January.

Here is the package after unwrapping it off the pallet it came on.. actually this was just after the first test fit after removing the exhaust system. You can see where we had to trim the flange in the upper left of the picture to fit flush (one of several slight mods we had to do).
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The biggest issue was mating up the instructions with the parts that were sent to us.
We were sent several different versions of the instructions. In, what we thought were the most up to date version we had to install the large Tee pipe onto the top of the tank...Long story short this pipe is NOT for the Gladiator install (maybe for the Wrangler??) After much head scratching and several calls to LRA (who sent us the Wrangler instructions) we figured out that this part is not for the Gladiator!!!
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OK with that issue resolved the rest of the install went fairly well. We made a few changes along the way including flattening the flange that bolts up to the frame next to the driveshaft carrier group so that the tank was as high as possible. It now sits flush with the factory tank so we didn’t loose any clearance.. Another modification was that we opened the flange on the bracket on the other side to fit the factory hole better.
Finally we relocated the fuel transfer pump slightly to the passenger side to better protect it from the pumpkin on the rear axle and to make changing the fuel filter more accessible should that be necessary.
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Nice! Upgrading from a 19 gallon stock tank to a 31 gallon tank on my LJ was hands-down one of my favorite modifications.
 
This afternoon I trailered the truck to a local, respected muffler shop to reroute the exhaust as the tank has taken up most of the real estate. Hopefully I’ll get it back midweek next week and can post a few more pictures..
 
This afternoon I trailered the truck to a local, respected muffler shop to reroute the exhaust as the tank has taken up most of the real estate. Hopefully I’ll get it back midweek next week and can post a few more pictures..

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That would be a nice addition to any vehicle! It's a little late now, but over on iH8Mud, some of the Toyota guys are coating the tank with truck bed liner for some additional protection and rust preventative.
 
That would be a nice addition to any vehicle! It's a little late now, but over on iH8Mud, some of the Toyota guys are coating the tank with truck bed liner for some additional protection and rust preventative.

I was actually thinking of doing that with a roll on bed liner.
 
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UPDATE !

We’re almost done. My apologies for taking so long, life keeps getting in the way. Anyway as you may recall the last time I posted we dropped off the truck to the muffler shop. A few days later he called and asked me to drop by. He had installed a pipe from the main flared factory connection almost straight back to a smaller muffler above the rear axle and then on to the factory resonator. He handed me the keys and said to take it for a drive but you may not like it...It sounded fine when started and seemed to be a bit peppier but when the rpms got etween 2000 and 2500 there was an awful drone... no bueno!

So I brought it back and was talking with him and he said he didn’t have another resonator to fit in the space at the beginning of the secondary fuel tank. Fortunately I read on another forum had a similar drone issue and installed a Vibrant Performance resonator from Summit Racing. I ordered it and had it installed and it made a world of difference. Much better although there is a small drone at about 2100 rpm that I can live with ( I’m actually making a plan to fix that...stay tuned!).

So here are a few pictures taken from my garage floor this cold February day. I will put it up on my lift next week when I go to the shop but wanted to show everyone what it looks like now. It cost me $380 for the muffler work but I don’t have the bill for the tank install yet... there are 2 heat shields that came with the kit. One bolted to the straight section of the pipe and is about an inch away from the fuel tank. The second actually bolts to the rear outboard side of the fuel tank (with spacers) and is several inches away from the tank. I have ordered some additional heat shielding for the new resonator and front part of the pipe...

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