Those were rose welds to keep it all fairly neat, yet super strong. The fuel can fits right on and inclines the gas can intoward the vehicle at the top to follow the contour of the front of the vehicle. I am not done yet, but just this slight tilt should help it clear some wait-a-minute vines.

Next up was the mounting of the 3 gal gas can.
I am not allowing convention to drive the train here. I will think out of the box whenever I think I need to and with regard to the gas can mount I did just that.
You would think I should mount it in the bed. But if I did that, then less room for the Rangers and stuff like sleeping bags, 81mm mortars and things like that. So I decided to go outside but try to place it in such a way as to flow into the vehicle lines affording it some protection while not taking up valuable space. I wanted to keep the CG of the thing between the wheels and close to a suspension point so I wouldn't have unusual gyrations with the 20 extra pounds hanging on out there.
Here's where I decided to place it. Passenger side outside of the bed, above the brush bar and slightly forward of the rear wheel. I wanted it to be strong so I started with a sheet of stainless steel and bent it into the piece you see here:

The mount boss and locking handle mounts to the base the same as the non locking handles do:

FYI folks, I was talking to brother Holton about getting the little rangers guns for Christmas. I suggested M4's th which, well saying it mildly, Holton our Marine disagreed. Now I have learned to trust Marines on all things gun. So this MArine says get them Ruger 10-22's.
He sends me some links
I get to lookin
Next few days I'm down at the gun shop. The guy there says I get $269 for a wood stock one and they are drying up! He says I only have one. So me thinks, hmmm, better act quickly so I bought it. But that left one Ranger out in the cold. So I purchased him a hunters series Marlin .22...nice gun.
Then Holton sends me this pic of a new breakdown 10-22 which actually breaks down to 2 short pieces!
Hmmm, this was supposed to be about the boys, but Holton infected me. This morning my buddy teh black hawk pilot calls and says Dick's sporting goods is running a sale on ruger 10-22's! They are only $180 ea!
So I rush over there and snag one up.
Great both Rangers now have their proper squirrel assault rifles! Then I get the idea of giving the Marlin to momma! She would like to kill tree rats as well. WHile there at Dicks, I mention I might order one of those break down 10-22's in the future. The sales guy asks if I want to see one?
You have one? Yes sir, I actually have 2!
So he shows me the one and weakness overcomes me. I start shaking and talking irrationally. SOmewhere in the dribble that followed I mush have said I'll take it, but I know I did not do that from any conscious state, or any other state in the country for that matter!
Anyway here it is on my floor.
Thanks Holton, now I have 2 Ruger 10-22's

So, now you have to help me with the optics!

The winch can be operated through a rocker switch or by plugging a hand held controller into the circut. Initially, I opted for option one, while retaining the option of also dash mounting the rocker switch at a later time.

I wanted to double fuse that critter so I dropped a 450 amp mega fuse inline and installed it under the factory console. That way, I also have a power source for future electrical growth. IR spot light???

When it comes to electric wiring and cables and in an off road application, I always pay close attention to routing and chafing points. My favorite technique is to use a rubber donut to secure a cable to adjacent solid mounting points. Here is how I did that with the winch cables:

The winch plate goes on first, then the winch bolts to the plate with some bolts going through the bumper and plate. I substituted longer bolts instead of using the too short Pro-Mark supplied fastners.

I just got finished installing the ProMark 4500 winch.
It's a good install, but not nearly as fast as I was hoping.
Anyway I started thinking I could drop it in from the front, but that was not to be. The winch installs from the backside very much complicating things.
I have had the winch for weeks. That was one of the boxes partially obscuring the red maple tree outside the garage windows. I like that tree, so that motivated me to actually tackle this particuliar project. Here's the winch plate and where it fits:

Nate Wrote:

i dont think don is speechless, i think another 100 ideas just rolled through his head and is now trying to work it all out. lol

Hmmmm....

From the last pictures you can see I paid a great deal of attention to detail. I welded a bolt to the vehicle frame where I connected the aux battery ground and the ground strap from the electrical control box. I found a switched hot lead for the solenoid and plugged that wire in. I ran a hot to the battery, and onother to the main vehicle battery.
Additionally I canned the Inverter cigar powered connection in favor os hooking it directly to the mega fuse block with some heavy wires. It will have no problem drawing all the current it (I) need.
I did find an interference issue with that access I cut for the control box through the head guard. the Cables were touching when I raised the bed, so I cut another corner off that square access and welded in a 45 degree angle brace. I will finish grind it and pretty it up in the morrow.
That leaves me with building the front cover/lid tomorrow and this project is officially in the bag!

Today, I got it almost finished. At this point the whole thing is installed and working as advertised. I started with fitting the battery frame and box and final welding it in place:

I then mounted it to the front of the bed on the steel bulkhead. I drilled 3/8" holes then used 1/4" bolts on rubber sway bar bushings. Remember that helicopter pilot vibration sensitive thing? Well, that's going on here. Don't like things to vibrate in harmony. Harmony = Buzz!
With that all snugged up, we might recall the bed tilts.
We might also remember one of newtons laws of physics. I'm refereing to the one that states two pieces of matter can not ocupy the same space at the same time. OK that meant that if I tilted the bed, either the electrical box would be scraped off, or that pretty head cage thing would get all mangled, or perhaps both. So one had to go. Since I just built the box, I decided it should stay. With the handy cut off wheel. I adjusted the rear piece. then welded stiffners back to it.
These pics actually show when I was pre fitting it without the pretty box condition (PBS) existing.

The wiring build up continues. There will be a cable coming in from the main vehicle battery which will charge the second battery through the solenoid. There will be another cable coming in from the aux battery which will do all the stuff it will do. Then there will be that big honkin ground to get us to earth as the europeans would fancy saying.

Next the dual battery solenoid was mounted and I added a 2 gage ground strap with soldered brass ends

All right knuckleheads, lets get on with more of this ever widening aux electrical power project.
Last I was building the electrical box. Well finally, except for it's front cover, it's done and mounted with a lot of stuff inside all neatly organized.
So I continued to build the thing up, adding a solenoid, some mega fuses, and cables out the yazoo. Here's some build up pics:

From Ashley:

How about that electrical box build? Pretty impressive there. Have to admit. Why move our jobs to china, when we can move the production to Don's ? Build him a new shop, hire a few labor hands, and before long, Don will have the assembly line re-invented... He would be turning out products left and right, quality parts that is, built right here in the U.S.A. Don could just work for free, save the company money, and donate the proceeds to Wounded Warriors... But, then the libs would step in and tell him he cant donate his money to a good cause, need to give it to the neighbors that sit on the porch, and watch. They are complaining, because they can't feed themselves. Don has to give half his earnings to the neighbors so they can survive as well..... Where was this going anyway??

And here is about where the master battery disconnect switch will fit:

Back to the electrical box construction. There were a bunch of rivets to pull. I did not buck these, but used steel pop rivets which are more than adequate for this construction. It has taken over a hundred so far and the front cover is not yet built!

Speaking of knuckleheads,
Today I worked on Gator rear defense.
Picked up some Army ACU's and a Ghillie suit.
I'd say Those two have it going on!

And a couple more:

Here's where the box will be mounted

The sides
You may notice a ton of special tools. Clecos are aircraft sheet metal holder together thingies that do a pretty spiffy job, of, well, holding things together. Drill your 18" hole, then using the cleco pliers, insert a cleco. Now no force in nature can remove said parts without those nifty pliers

With 110 VAC now available, mostly for contingiency stuff, on to the battery mount.
I began with exactly that, a battery mount using a heavy duty plastic group 27 battery box. I constructed a frame of 3/4" square steel tubing around it, and I will weld that inbetween the seats in that now dedicated dead space.