The picture below represents the current state of my communications and controls as of May 2020. I guess it also reflects the level of my love for gadgets. There are about 5 things here that I consider necessities and wouldn’t go on the trail without, but that’s just me. Let’s go over what everything is and what it does for me and you can decide if these are things you need or not. It’s going to take me awhile to get through all these mods but I wanted to get this posted to at least give you some product links. This 4th post will be continuing as 4.1 and 4.2 so I can work through the list of mods.
- Vector Offroad JK-E Dock
- 67 Designs Vector Bar Clamps, Carbon Fiber Arms and Various mounts.
- Garmin InReach Mini
- GoPro Hero 7
- Owl Cam
- Apple iPhone XS w/Smittybilt Clinometer App
- Apple iPad mini w/Gaia GPS App
- Alpine iLX-107 – Crutchfield
- 4×4 sPod Source
- GraBarsUSA Solid Steel JK Series
- Vector Offroad JK-E Dock – This was something that I knew I wanted from the moment I took delivery of Lucy. I had seen this on various builds and admired the adaptability of this to accept all my future off-road gadgets.
I first purchased Vector’s JK-E Dock which is the bar that you clamp your mounts to. The JK-E Dock has the D-shaped extrusion that offers additional bar surface. Once I got it installed I felt that it protruded into the cabin a little too much for my tastes and also interfered with the use of the dash storage tray so with a quick call to Vector Offroad, I got it swapped out with a second model that they call the “Alpine Restyle JK-E Dock” as it’s designed to accommodate Alpine’s Restyle system made specifically for JK Jeeps as seen below.
The JK-E Alpine Restyle Bar deletes the D-shaped bar section and is what I have to this day. This is one of the easiest installs you can do. It consists of removing two plastic screw covers on the dash and screwing in the metal posts that the bar attaches to. The bar and posts are finished in a high quality textured powder coat.
TIP – Don’t over tighten these posts as you can break off the the screws that are located deep in the dash. They need to be firmly tightened but you’ll know when you have it as the bar will be very solid when you’ve attached all the clamps and arms with your gadgets on them. The whole system will vibrate a bit when you go over bumps but not to the point of seeming flimsy.
2. 67 Designs Accessories
This is the E-Dock Bar Upgrade Pack from 67 Designs. It’s a great first buy for your bar that attaches most phones.
67 Designs offers many different mounts and adapters for the arms so you can mount just about anything you can imagine to the Vector Bar with the .78″ ball on the Vector Bar Clamp. The Dam Adapter allows you to mount anything that has a 1″ ball like the Ram Mount EZ-Roll’r cradle that I have for my iPad mini.
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