The Basics of Outfitting an Overland Vehicle

Intro

Overlanding – a much over-used phrase in today’s landscape, one that means something different to pretty much everyone. To me, overlanding means using your vehicle to go out and explore while carrying your essentials and supplies. That’s it in a nutshell.

The amount of adventure and what everyone deems essentials and supplies is going to also be a hugely independent variable as well, and that’s one no blog, forum, or social media post can answer for you; you’ll have to determine that yourself. Are you looking to hard core rock crawl during your trip, or are you only sticking to forest roads? Are you camping for a week straight, or maybe just one night and then hitting a cabin?

Whichever part of that spectrum you’ll fall on, there are a few basic universal categories to consider for your vehicle: cargo capacity, capability, recovery equipment, and food.

Cargo Capacity

First, we’ll start with cargo capacity. Basically, how will you carry your stuff? This will look different for someone traveling solo vs traveling with a family and dog, and if you’re camping or “glamping”. Self-explanatory, but there’s two basic cargo areas -interior and exterior. Interior storage will be dictated by the passengers you take with you, if you’re by yourself obviously you have more room available. The key with interior storage is keeping the gear organized and secure. You don’t want a heavy bag of recovery gear flying around when you have a sudden weight transfer on an off road obstacle. Bags, cargo boxes that can be strapped down, up to expensive drawer systems all are solutions. Choose what fits your packing style and long term plans for the vehicle.

For exterior storage, the most common area is the roof, or bed if you have a pickup truck. Before putting cargo on the roof you need a roof rack. Thankfully, this is an area where there’s just about every option imaginable. Key things to consider here are your cargo type and size. Anything you mount on the roof raises the center of gravity of the vehicle, affects aerodynamics, and has to be put up there in the first place. If you have a shoulder injury, don’t plan on putting anything heavy up there! Common items carried on racks are tents, either hard mounted roof top or larger ground tents like a Gazelle or Oz Tent (we can discuss the pros and cons of these in a later article), recovery gear such as Maxtrax, and cases for gear. Determine the rating for your vehicle’s roof by referring to the owner’s manual, and then decide what you are putting up there. A large roof top tent looks cool on social media, but you’ll lose the rest of the rack for any other cargo.

If you have a pickup truck, then you’ll gain the option of bed storage as well. Overland style bed racks can be installed over the bed, and support a roof top tent or large cargo boxes without losing the ability to carry cargo in the bed itself. The thing to keep in mind there is water proof carrying cases or bags, unless you add a weatherproof bed topper.

Vehicle capability

What do you want your vehicle to tackle? Are you planning to stick to gravel forest roads, or are you hitting harder obstacles and trails? A modern 4x4 vehicle staying on gravel roads really doesn’t need much in the way of modifications – some decent all terrain tires, maybe some aluminum skid plates upgrading the OEM skids, and possibly some additional lighting. Otherwise, the only main modifications would be a rack system to carry extra gear.

If you are considering hitting harder obstacles, good skids and rock sliders are the next modifications to add. Rock sliders might look a bit like running boards, but they’re vastly different - they are much stronger and designed to be able to support the weight of the vehicle, and add protection to the rocker panel and lower doors as well. They can be used to “slide” around larger rocks and trees, or used in recovery paired with a Hi-Lift Jack to lift the vehicle from the side and perform many different recovery techniques.

Harder trails begin to also start making additional vehicle armor make sense, things like metal front and rear bumpers. The metal bumpers provide additional protection and recovery options, and in the case of rear bumpers can provide additional cargo carrying options as well.

We’ll talk more about winches in recovery, but many overland vehicles will add a winch. Hidden winch mounts are a nice modification that allows you to install a winch but keep the vehicle’s factory look. They don’t add too much weight and fit nicely for a vehicle that might see more time daily driving than exploring. The downside to a hidden winch mount is accessing the winch; typically you have limited access to the clutch, which is used to engage the winch drum or set it to “free spool” where you pull line out, and you don’t have visibility of the winch line, which can be important to verify the line is properly dressing on the winch as it spools in.

The other option is a true winch bumper, which adds a metal shell to the winch mount. These offer better protection, but come at an increased weight. Many on the market do not give great winch access still; we recommend finding one that allows good visibility of the winch drum and clutch access. If you want to learn more about that, reach out to a member of the International Four Wheel Drive Trainer’s Association (I4WDTA) to find out about educational opportunities near you.

Metal winch bumpers come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. Small bumpers provide protection for the center of the bumper, but typically leave the sides of the bumper unprotected. They are lighter though and again work well for a daily driver vehicle. Large full metal bumpers provide the most protection, and paired with a “bull bar” tube can add serious headlight and radiator protection as well. They’re often very heavy though and require more suspension modifications, and are not as daily driver friendly. They look dang cool though.

All these things are heavy though, and your factory suspension is not designed for that much weight. Determine which patch you want to go with your vehicle, and talk to a knowledgeable suspension shop about upgrading your suspension to handle the extra weight, and often add some height to the vehicle as well.

Recovery Gear 

When you’re on trail, stuff happens. I’ve used recovery gear on the trail to remove fallen trees or help other vehicles out just as much as I’ve used it to get myself unstuck. Even for a vehicle hitting basic gravel forest roads, you can find yourself out in the middle of nowhere with trees down, and there’s nothing as handy as a good winch and chainsaw in those situations.

Winches are one of the first mods I’ll do to any new 4x4 I buy. It’s the ultimate self recovery tool, and given enough gear (pullies, extensions, etc) the possibilities for recovery options are endless. I highly recommend one on any vehicle venturing off pavement.

Secondly behind a winch is a Hi-Lift jack. These old school farm jacks are built tough, and have a ton of uses off road. They can be used as a manual winch to pull a vehicle (tough work, but doable), as a jack obviously to lift a vehicle, and as a clamp or spreader in a bad situation. Lifting a vehicle requires proper hard points (like sliders or metal bumpers) or attachment gear, so its not quite an easy “throw it on” tool, but if you are properly built it’s an invaluable tool. They are heavy though, and require consideration for storage – don’t just throw it in the trunk and go. A Hi-lift should be hard mounted to a roof rack or bumper for safe transport. Again, seek training from an I4WDTA instructor if you’d like to know more about its uses.

Traction boards like Maxtrax are another basic piece of recovery gear that has many uses. You’ll see them on most of the Instagram rigs, probably in mint un-used condition. Don’t be afraid to pull them off the roof rack or bumper and throw them down in the dirt and mud, its what they’re for! They are typically placed under a tire or in a hole, and can be used in rock, mud, sand, snow, or to fill holes or make a bridge. I’ve used mine more leaning them on a muddy ledge to climb up than anything.

Don’t forget Tree savers, kinetic ropes, and shackles to connect things together. All these things swing back to the cargo capacity topic – how do you plan to carry them?

Food

Everyone likes to eat obviously. An easy solution for food are the popular freeze dried packs where you add boiling water and in 10 minutes have a cooked meal in your pouch. Simple to pack, just need a way to boil water. They are extremely high in sodium though. If you want to do more cooking, that typically means carrying cold food. The two options are a cooler or a vehicle refrigerator. Yes, they make refrigerators that can go in your vehicle. Game changer, I know! The negatives are they’re expensive, require a power supply, and a means to recharge that power supply. Power stations by brands such as Jackery and Ecoflow offer a stand alone battery box that can power the fridge, but they drain fast. You’ll need to replenish the battery pack from either your vehicle when running or a solar panel. Another option is to install a dual battery system in your vehicle, but that’s pretty complicated and I recommend working with an outfitter shop to get that done properly. Comparatively, a cooler requires ice or a cooling pack, and needs to be topped off more frequently. Melting ice can make a mess as well and get into food bags. Deciding which way you’re going with your food storage will determine what supporting modifications you’ll need.

That’s it! Those are the main points to consider for setting up a new overland build. You can go as deep down the rabbit hole as you want, but those are the four main areas to consider. Good luck, and go embrace the spirit of adventure!