With most of the Subaru’s “big” interior alterations complete, we next turned to exterior additions. These consisted of attaching a mount for a second spare tire and installing an extendable awning to our roof rack so that we could have a covered patio of sorts.
First the spare tire mount. We needed the second tire so that we could, at the very least, throw two full tires into our rotation in an attempt to keep the tire tread as even as possible so that we minimize any damage to the drivetrain on our AWD Forester. Since only one spare fits inside the car, and our rooftop is occupied with the Yakima cargo carrier, we had to find a rear hitch mount for the hatchback.
We did a lot of research, and determined that the weight of the swinging hitch mounts that are commercially available would put too much stress on our Taiga’s tail end. Jordan ran across what appeared to be a relatively light-weight, and simple hack that would cost under $100, brought to you by the guys (or gals) at BroncoIIcorral.com.
We ordered a spare tire mount from Curt Manufacturing, which also manufactured our hitch, and a Masterbuilt folding receiver hitch-haul mount. Before we could connect the two parts, we needed to
modify the spare tire mount by cutting the receiver bar completely off, then drilling two holes into the mount so that it can be bolted into the folding receiver mount. Since the tire+mount weigh around 60lbs and we anticipate going over some rough terrain, we drilled thick, 5/8″ bolt holes to support the weight and withstand stresses. Our 5/8″ drill bit might not have been optimally sharp and
had a bit of a hard time going through the metal. As a result, I got one hole straight, but one slightly crooked, which required a good bit of dremmeling to widen so that we could fit the locking bolt through it. Once done, however, we had a fully operational spare tire mount. 🙂
Since we plan to do a fair bit of car camping, we attached a roll-out awning to the side of the car. We found an awning that we liked and that would fit on our roof from ARB. Their awning was made to fit a runner-style roof attachment, whereas we have the Subaru racks that go across the width of the car, which we need to attach the storage pod, so we needed to do a bit of building.
Greg found some strong metal strips in his workshop that we were able to bend into an angular U-shape and planned to fit onto the bars of the roof rack. As they were quite long, I cut them down to size with a metal grinder and drilled holes into them along the bottom, to be bolted to the rack bars and the sides, to be bolted to the awning.
After that, it was a pretty simple matter of just screwing everything into place.
While Greg and I worked on the metal bits, Jordan made mosquito nets for the windows and some organizational pieces for the interior of the car. The mosquito nets are a key piece, as we plan to do quite a bit of car camping in buggy places and would like to let in the breeze without being exsanguinated. (Also, bugs love Jordan. Like, really, really love her.) An expert seamstress, who made her own wedding dress and the bridesmaids’ dresses, Jordan made short work of the window nets.
To give the car some privacy and a more homey feel, she also made some curtains from vintage kimono fabric, and created a few options for hanging the curtains as each window presented a new challenge.
The back curtains are in two panels, secured by 550 cord at the bottom of the window and attached to the bed platform. The top of the curtains attach to a dowel with two s-hooks that hook into the two baby seat security attachments protruding from the ceiling. As for the side windows, the two back windows are attached via small binder clips and more 550 cord that can be easily released when driving, and the back seat passenger window curtains are secured by super strong magnets around the window frame. The front seat has a cord strung from one side to the other where we can drape a towel or anything else to block out the light when necessary.
The last thing on our agenda was window tinting. This is both to help manage heat in the car and to make our possessions just a little less obvious. We can only make our car so secure, but there’s no sense in making the interior more obvious than necessary. This was the first time applying window tint for both Greg and I. The first attempt was rather abortive, as I misunderstood the percentage rating used to quantify tinting. I bought the 20% tint, as very dark tint is illegal in most places. Being a policeman himself, Greg mentioned that my roll of 20% tint was actually darker than is legal in Texas. You’re sure it’s legal in Mexico, he asked? It turns out that the percentage on the label refers to the amount of light
let in, rather than the amount blocked. 20% tint is actually quite dark. It is also darker than is legal in Mexico and many other countries south of the border. Oops. Fortunately, I had kept the receipt, so this problem was fixed with a quick trip back to the store.
Cutting and applying the tint to the side windows turned out to be pretty easy, even though the cuts we made were slightly less than expert. The rear window was another story. Curving in two directions rather than one, as was the case with the side windows, we had a rather difficult time of applying it. In the end, it stuck and it works, although the first-timer nature of our work is evident. We decided that this just made our car look less like a target. I mean, some would-be thief might think, did these people do their own tinting? They couldn’t even afford to have it done at a garage? Anyway, we hope that’s what a would-be thief will think.
We’re still sorting out the packing logistics for when we really start living out Taiga (as we named our car), but we have a few months in Mexico to think that all through. Otherwise, Taiga is ready for some serious outdoor adventure! Happy overlanding!
