My partner Dixie fitted a snorkel to our 100 series Landcruiser. I must admit I was a little nervous when I could hear drilling coming from outside. Then my two year old ran inside and said “look what Daddy is doing, he is putting holes in the car”. Shh don’t tell but I was thinking to myself maybe a professional should be doing this. Turns out I had nothing to worry about as he did a great job.

Anyway I will let Dixie explain the process of fitting the snorkel.

Benefits of a snorkel

We decided to fit a snorkel to our 4wd.  There are a few benefits to fitting a snorkel and they relate to dust, water and air.  By raising the height of your air intake reduces dust going into your air filter and reduces the risk of water ingestion, water can be detrimental to a diesel engine.  The third benefit is cooler air into your engine.

Equipment needed to fit the snorkel

Most snorkel kits will come with everything required for fitting including template, bolts and instructions, obviously excluding hand tools etc.  You may need things like a power drill, hole saw, step drill, masking tape, marker pen, touch up paint and general tools.  I would recommend a battery powered drill as hole saws like going slow through steel.

Fitting the snorkel

I started by removing the air box from the engine bay and the plastic inner guard from the wheel arch to access inside the panel.  Using masking tape I attached the template to the panel making sure it is in the correct position.  Using a permanent marker pen mark the panel through the holes in the template.  I then removed the template and used the masking tape to cover the panel around the areas being drilled including where the upper bracket goes.  This may prevent accidentally scratching the panel with a slip of the drill or hand tools.

Next is the scary part, drilling holes in your panel.  Using a small pilot drill, about 4mm, drill all the marked holes.  Then using the step drill I drilled all the holes out to 16mm as specified in the instructions, with the exception of the large hole and the A pillar.  With our particular snorkel it requires a 114mm hole saw for the large hole.

Take off all the sharp edges of the holes, inside and out, using a deburring tool or whatever you have on hand.  The next step was to bolt the upper bracket onto the snorkel and temporarily place the snorkel on the car. Using your maker pen, mark where the upper bracket sits on the A pillar.  Remove the bracket from the snorkel & mark where the screws should go in the A pillar.  Drill the upper bracket holes & take off the sharp edges.

Use touch up paint to cover all exposed steel and let dry before installing the snorkel as per instructions.  The 16mm holes seemed excessively large, but I guess they allow for any slight error in the drilling or marking out positions.  The process took about 3 hours including distractions.

Don’t be afraid to have a go yourself.

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