January 2010

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2010 has started out great for new products for your Toyota FJ Cruiser! Aluminess just announced two new (and long awaited) products: a rear bumper and all aluminum roof rack.

Their Rear Bumper weighs just 70 pounds and has two swing arms designed to carry a spare tire and utility box. If you’re running tires up to 32” the box will hold 3, five gallon jerry cans. Larger tires will result in a smaller utility box area. You can also upgrade to a sealed locker measuring 18" wide x 24" high x 16" deep in place of the utility box.

The bumper can be ordered without the swing arms as well, which will lower the overall weight. As far as we can tell, you cannot use the rear window with the drivers side swingarm in place. It’s easy enough to swing that out of the way to use it though. Aluminess avoids the dreaded plastic cutting that many after-market bumpers require by building their bumper to wrap around the rear of the FJ. This bumper is com-patible with the backup sonar found on many FJ Cruisers, but the rear backup camera will take a little extra modification to install on this bumper.

Our featured rig for this issue started as a 2008 SandStorm AT FJC, but Nicholas has transformed it into the LandShark.
The mod list for this truly unique FJ Cruiser is truly spectacular. Let’s run through all the modifications by category:

Suspension and Tires

• Total Chaos 2” long travel kit
• Sway-Away front remote reservoir coil-overs
• Custom Sway Away long travel rear shocks
• Custom long rear springs
• Beard Limiting straps
• BFG KM2's 35-12.50-R17
• Walker Evans Rims

Armor

• Budbuilt stainless steel skids
• Outrider rear link skids
• Outrider shock skids
• Outrider rear differential skid
• Manik Tail light guards

As our family grows, properly organizing the limited amount of space inside the FJ has become even more important. When it was just Angie, our two dogs and I; simply dropping the seats down and stacking everything in the truck worked fine. With our first baby on the way, we decided to do a couple of quick mods to help us stay organized.

The first is one we’ve been thinking about for quite a while. We love the storage console between the front two seats, but the open top just increases the chance of that area getting stuffed with junk. The Roll Top Cover from Industrial Forming is a very functional, great looking, inexpensive way to organize that area. We chose the non-locking Panamint aluminum model, in black to match the TRD. Installation took literally two minutes, and the new cover works perfectly. We can now keep the bare essentials in the storage console, and all the junk can find a home elsewhere. The Roll Top Cover will also function well when the little one starts jumping around the FJ (when parked, of course), since it’s designed to hold up to 160lbs.