3rd Gen. Dobinsons Snorkel

...and that was the second time I cut a hole in a perfectly good fender.
So I pulled my air box and I found this. I, like may have pulled fender liners to accommodate 35's, and this was the result.


The template seemed pretty straight forward, I lined it up as good as my eyeballs could see.

Holes marked and ceter punched, too late to turn back now. I punched several holes around the large opening and started to drill

The holes were opened up to about 15 millimeters.
For the large hole I used a combination of saws, a jig saw, a sawzall, and a grinder with a flap disc to smooth the edges.

After thread locking the studs in the snorkel body I test fit to the truck, only to find one of the holes was about an inch too low, WTF!

I re-drilled the hole about an inch up and hoped to hell the snorkel body covered the gaping hole in the fender.
To be continued....

 

Getting the rubber S shaped hose was a royal pain, and still is not ideal the way I have it installed, but it's on there. The hose was a bit short, or maybe slightly shaped wrong. I was able to get the hose to seat well on the bottom of the snorkel body, but barely attached on the top side. I may revisit this later and try to make it fit better.
After getting the hose on the snorkel body was snuggled up to the body.

As for the A-pillar mount, I left it off. After finagling the snorkel body to the truck as well as I could, the rising part of the snorkel would not mount with the bracket supplied with the kit. It seems sturdy without it, although I may add a cushion of some sort between the top most section and the truck, in case they want to get friendly.
...and there it is.


I'll do an apples to oranges comparison to the FJ Cruiser ARB snorkel later.

 

Maybe drill holes in the hood next time?

 

Yeah, maybe.

 

looks good man, i went with the arb, and had the same issues lining up the bolts with the template holes, and also the tube over tube with clamp was a bitch.

 

does the plastic "feel" cheaper than the arb?

Also, we (I and @3pooches) used 3m construction grade tape, and sealed around the tape with silicon up at the a-pillar . We didnt drill, and I have hit plently of branches and brush with it and it has been fine

 

Installed mine today as well and found that same hole to be off by a full inch. Luckily, I had not yet drilled the hole just marked it on the fender so it was an easy fix. I found the template error by placing the template onto the snorkel body to double check the holes. So glad I did!

 

The plastic doesn't necessarily feel cheaper, but the texture looks cheaper.
The Dobinsons, spray texture-ish

ARB, more sand paper-ish
I think I'm going to like the Dobinsons texture more, actually. The ARB collects fibers from my microfiber cloths when I'm drying, and I dont think the Dobinsons will...

 

Wondering if they are both injection molded

 

Not the biggest fan of snorkels but I kinda like this!

 

Thanks OP for sharing, on the fence about getting one. Interested to hear your thoughts after driving with it a while.

 

@07taco

Lets not forget to check the template against the snorkel body first.

 

Definitely do that.

 

Wonder if one for my 2nd gen is same issue.

Edit: template matches

 

I think the only thing that needs revision with the kit is the template. The one hole needs to be fixed and I think everything would have worked better if the snorkel body was moved forward somewhere between 1/4 and a 1/2 inch forward, ymmv....

 

I'd definitely check, I'm pretty annoyed with the template not being right.

 

I appreciate the write up. I will be installing mine soon.

So what’s up with the bracket on the A pillar not working? Could you elaborate on that?

Also who wants to send me their used revised template

 

Send me that used template son! I will send you something back for the favor! LOL
I
Am going to reach out to mike at Dobinsons

 

I'm not entirely sure what went wrong with the A-pillar mount. I may have had the template too far back, but at the same time I lined it up pretty damn perfectly with the fender. I wasn't about to drill holes in my irreparable A-pillar for something that didn't line up quite right. I'm waiting on others to chime in to see if they had similar issues. With how mine lined up, there was no way to get it to mount the way it was intended.