Thread: Tuff terrain snorkel (raised air intake)

So I purchased a turf terrain snorkel to see if all the online criticism was correct. I have found that people jump on new/cheaper manufacturers prettt hard. A classic example is my MCC bullbar. For the record, I’m happy with it (at half the price of a ARB/TJM).
Anyway, thought I would do a write up so people had a real-world idea of how it went.

I bought it online from a local Brisbane supplier. Cost was approx $100. They also had safari snorkels for sale. I ordered Saturday night, it arrived Tuesday morning.
The mouldings look good. No obvious seams or defects etc and feels quite robust. I haven’t measured the thickness of the moulding. The kit came with everything I needed (parts wise). The template matched up to within a few millimeters of the studs (when I eye-balled it). I also made a copy of the template with butcher paper to double check- the cardboard template is quite firm and didnt allow me to follow the contours of the snorkel when checking for alignment.
Out of interest, I thought the template was missing some drill hole cutouts so contacted the company by phone to get another template. I left a message in the morning and received a return call at lunch. The asked me to send in a photo and they could check it and would post another. It was actually me not looking properly and the holes had been punched in the template, but the paper hadn’t pushed out. But it’s good to know the company had a reasonable response time and were helpful.

There are very little instructions with this product. It basically reads;
-you will need these tools
-make sure your template matches the snorkel
-align the template to the car.
-drill and cut the holes required
-use a safe sealant
I’m not sure if this is the same for all manufacturers, but thankfully there is plenty of info on the internet to back you up.


The template aligned to the guard fine and holes were marked up and punched. I used a 68mm hole saw and the Dremel to make the large opening.
I noticed that the tuff terrain snorkel only has 4 studs, in a line. On another members safari write up the safari snorkel has more studs and they are not all in a line- they have a “hop-scotch” pattern ( 1 then 2 then 1). I would think this is a more robust/secure configuration. But it doesn’t seem to wobble around.

I initially tried to drill the stud holes the exact size of the studs, but you do need some wiggle room. You’ll see why shortly.
I test fitted the snorkel with the studs and everything attached fine, but the intake pipe didn’t match the hole going into the engine bay. There was a slight misalignment.

I did the test fit again with the cast intake joiner and nothing lined up. The snorkel wouldn’t mate against the car body, the stud holes wouldn’t align. (Insert me panicking).
When I had a closer look, the cast inlet mould was hitting on some bodywork inside the guard. So I had to hammer it in (only a small amount). You can see the area bottom left of the photo.


I also enlarged the stud holes 2 more sizes on the stepped drillbit. This allowed more wiggle room and the snorkel mated to the fender nicely.
The cast inlet still wasn’t perfectly lined up with the inner guard cutout. But there was nothing I could do about that.


I did a complete test fit to check how it mounted to the door pillar.
It stuck out from the vehicle a few inches. Enough space to get me hand in. It needed a reasonable bit of pressure to press the snorkel against the pillar. Also, the mounting bracket is a flat piece of steel. This didn’t align with the angle of the pillar and would have meant the door would contact the mounting bolts.

An easy fix. Put the bracket in the vice and have it a little flex and all was well.
.

I drilled and pop riveted the bracket in place. They provided black rivets which was great.
Whilst here, I drilled the hole to rivet the cast inlet piece in place

The guard was polished, surfaces prepped for sealing.

The rest of the job went fine. Sikaflex applied to the cast inlet piece and pushed into place with the pop rivet stuck in. But I didn’t rivet it until the I had sikaflexed and inserted the snorkel into place. (Just in case something didn’t align and I had to quickly pull it apart!)
Once all the bolts were done up and the pillar mount bolted in place, I applied more sikaflex from inside the guard.
I haven’t got a photo of this but it was to cover the misaligned inner guard piece. It probably wasn’t necessary, but didn’t want there to be any gaps.
I sealed up a few gaps in the air filter box (I left the duck bill unsealed-not sure if this is recommended).

Overall I’m happy with the product. I haven’t had any experience with these before, so have nothing to compare to. I was concerned about the misalignment of the inner guard/inlet. But don’t think it was dramatically impact airflow. At higher speeds, the ram-head will hopefully counteract this. I could have cut some of the inner guard out to open up the airway. And I still could do this at a later date. But at 10pm on the street, it was a bit late for starting up the Dremel.

The build quality of the snorkel appears good.

I will be providing the supplier with some feed back about the issues I had. Maybe they can modify some things before they are sent to the customer.


These are some shots of it in the daylight.
From drivers side. No vision intrusions.

Originally Posted by knuts2au

My snorkel is identical, if you you look at the pictures on various sites they all have the same number "cast" in them, just sold under different names. I had the same problem with the inlet lining up, i even trimmed the cast down with a grinder for it to fit better but just doesn't quiet line up. The A pillar support on mine was fine though, fitted tight and the bracket was flush with the pillar, you might have needed a bit more fiddle factor with your holes to get it to line up better, the hole sizes are big compared to the stud sizes. My duckbill was deformed and didn't seal up normally, so just silicon it shut, others have fitted a blanking plug so you can't suck water in if submerged on a creek crossing. Don't forget to seal the guard to airbox joiner pipe.

My experience was about the same as above but i think i got mine cast inlet to line up in the end. It doesn’t have to be perfect - its not like you are achieving laminar flow (and then there’s the air filter to pass through anyway). For the price - cant argue.

One of my former vehicles (75 series Troopy) had a Safari snork which did crack but was able to be plastic welded.