Cooler upgrade: lift, axle, tires and wheels

Posted: August 1, 2025 | Author: Rubicon Ronin | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cooler, project |Leave a comment

So, I got bored.

I’m involved with a few clubs, not all Rubicon related. Many gatherings are BYOB at someone’s house or outside at a local park. Rather than continue to carry a cooler full of beer, I mean soda, no, I mean beer. I picked up a rolling Igloo cooler from Facebook Marketplace.

Like almost everything else in my life, I can’t leave anything stock. So, how to upgrade an Igloo?

Let’s start with a tire/wheel upgrade. The stock wheels were only 3.5″ tall.

The new tires are 8″ tall. That’s more than twice the height of the original tires.

Now you can’t just slide on the new wheels, you have to upgrade the axle. What I did was like going to one-tons on a Suzuki Samuri.

I welded a 1/2″ all thread rod along side the original axle. You can see the really bad tack weld. (Let’s not talk about my poor welding skills.)

With larger wheels you need to lift the rig. In this case, you at least need to lift the front end to level the cooler. So, technically, it’s probably more of a leveling kit.

At this point, you’ve probably noticed that the wheels are no longer white. Although the white wheels matched, I need to take it a step further. I wanted to create a “cooler” cooler. What other way to upgrade a wheel than to make it “HOT”? So, I made a cool Hot Wheel, redline and all.