After 9 weeks of checking out other rigs and set ups, we’ve decided that ours should make the 4wd Action top 10 DIY fit outs for 2009.
This is the blog for a Friday arvo, or not at all if you couldn’t give a fruit batts if we have coils or leaf lift, Yokies or BF Goodrich. Grab a cuppa and something yummie to waste those dying hours of the day away with a virtual trip through our wee home. For the fruit batts, just scroll through to the pictures.
Here comes the trumpet…
We’ve had so many approving looks, raised eyebrows, comments like “nice fit out”, “who’s car is it?” and even a comment from a brutally honest but genuinely kind man “don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not meaning to be a condescending bast@rd, but, REALLY, this is your car AND you fitted it out yourselves!?”
What the bee hives have we done to get all these approving nods from men who lost sight of their toes a long, long time ago.
Firstly we named the car. The Desert Pearl or Pearl for short. She talks to us frequently and usually hangs on to the various bits and pieces we’ve left on the outside. Unfortunately the i-pood didn’t make it past Spring Yard Creek, nice wee spot on the Bullita Stock route.
Secondly, we got the injectors replaced and the leaky turbo inspected. Luckily Ms turbo has many more puffs left in her and the oil coating is apparently a good sign. David Ong kindly donated an ANZAC weekend and assisted in the all important joint reconstructions (ride pro suspension) and 3inch coils or lift kit, or for the uninterested… um…uninitiated raised the overall height of the car.
With new suspension comes new wheels. Initially, we’d planned to purchase BF Goodrich All Terrains, however between dec 08 and April 09 there was a serious hike in the price of these tyres. SO we went with Yokohama Geolander 12’s, as they came in cheapest at $315p/wheel. We almost remortgaged the house and bought 5 and had an old spare re-rimmed and secured it behind the driver. The ‘Yokies’ have side wall protection, and come with a 12 month replacement guarantee. So far so good. We drove over two sets of burst tyres today on the Bulita track in Gregory’s National Park. 3 cheers for Yokies!
Thirdly, we ripped all 5 rear seats out and replaced with a lightweight aluminium frame. The old metal v’s wood frame, many a camp nights are spent discussing the merits of a wood or metal fit-out. We went aluminium. More durable? Possibly. Lighter? Absolutely. More weatherproof? Definitely. Turns out this has is usefulness when crossing large rivers.
The two rectangular frames form the main base for the 12mm exterior grade plywood which were machine cut into two rectangular panels forming a bed base and table tops when required. Carole attached handles at each end which double as a hanging space. She also hunted down extra dense, antifungal foam cut to size from Clark Rubber (cheap alternative to a swag if your interested, as it’s the same foam), and followed this up with a sewing day with Margaret Kett on the farm. Carole returned clutching curtains and a bed cover, I hadn’t seen her smile that much in weeks.
We threaded 3mm steel wire around the top for our flashy curtain rail, turn clothes line. The rear area has 2 large plastic storage tubs for food and cooking utensil storage and a great hanging tool bag which acts as our (one of 3) toiletry holder.
All packed up and everywhere to goWater
To supplement our collection of hiking bladders, We purchased a big red 55L water storage bladder, in theory this should allow us to carry 70L of water, as it turns out big red a royal pain in the bee hive. She doesn’t fit in the car at full capacity and there are some serious design faults with big red in relation to access and anchor points, points and lack of a visible water gauge. Don’t even get us started on the friggy dig Sea to Summit 10L bag…grrrrr We currently have big red cradled from the aluminium frame in the middle. Our hiking packs, dirty clothes, undies and a weeks worth of cloths are stuffed under and round the bladder bag.
Keeping big weight low, and in the middle of the car is our primary concern. In essence we’ve tried to keep the big ticket items like fridge, water and spare tyre as close to the middle bottom of the car. Carole said is got to do with centre of gravity and …I was off thinking about the marshmallow chocolate blow your socks and undies off digestives …yummmm-bo-licious
Busted… there’s more… we keep our recovery gear on the roof, in case we stall mid river crossing. We figure we can climb up and access it, in theory. However, we are yet to cross a river that doesn’t have ‘salties’ (saltwater crocodiles), I suspect the ‘who goes up to get the stuff’ question will be decided by a game of paper rock scissor.
Power
Short of completing a cert1 in car electrics, Carole and I have become fairly nifty with things of electrical nature. OH my I hear you say, its ok, Carole always supervises me and reminds me to pop on my rubber soled shoes and unplug that starter battery before attempting works. With our various electrical devises (AA battery recharger, mobile phones, fridge, laptop, toothbrushes, camera battery, and the drill) we exceed the Volt capacity for our auxiliary. Bring on solar power!
Unfortunately its not as easy as it sounds. There are reasons solar power isn’t harnessed on a large scale, and we are starting to grasp this concept. Firstly, use it or loose it, it doesn’t store well. Secondly, the panel has to be squeaky clean (dust free) and angled towards the sun (which is harder than it sounds), plus, higher heat doesn’t necessarily equate to better solar power. In essence, our 20watt solar panel mounted to the roof at the rear of the car, feeds down to a small battery tucked into the rear side panel, we fitted a 12volt socket, however, it doesn’t get much use due to the above listed problems. This is a work in progress and we are considering making it more portable, but that’s next campfires musing…oh it’s a hard life!
AS previously noted, Pearl’s 2.4L capacity means that there was no room for a decent sized dual battery system. A cleaver solution was devised by Carole, Emily and the wee man from ARB…dry cell deep cycle battery positioned neatly behind the drivers seat. This beasts weighs in excess of 30kgs and powers our 38L fridge for 3 continuous days. The battery is completely sealed so it can be put in absolutely any position and isn’t going to poison us.
The Positive cable runs under the drivers step mat and through the firewall grommet near the existing electrics box and then up to the main battery. The isolator is neatly tucked onto the exterior panel and held on with a cable tie. Nice!
An extra power point was finally installed into the middle consol and runs from the auxiliary battery. Mr inverter also runs off the auxiliary so we can charge up our electrical devises such as laptop and the all important electric toothbrushes! Are we the only travellers with electric toothbrushes? I think so, but then again we’re probably the only travellers who have a lesbos fridge magnet attached to the rear door.
We trawled the Qu0kka for a roof rack and dually found one at the great wee scrap yard in Midland, Tony’s auto wreckers (not the dodgy one we went to first). Bargain price, aluminium frame and was even mounted by the wrecking boys who also searched for the missing nut.
During the re-pack we decided to move the frame further towards the rear, however the frame had other ideas and bounced her way back along my gutters… We trust it knows what its doing and left it where it is. Still holding all our crap, and we’ve taken it through some excessively rough terrain, rock crawling jump-ups and downs, don’t know what we’re talking about, don’t worry it’s a load of 4wd hog wash.
Waste Management System
Rubbish! Oh my hot pots is there lots of rubbish when you don’t have recycling or a worm farm. We rectified this in Darwin and purchased a Bokashi bucket, but I’ll let Carole elaborate on the Bokashi.
The red box… the red box is tucked in behind the driver’s seat and contains…. Yes, Emily’s crappy craft supplies! The swag load of books we seem to be carting around (all of which have been useful at some stage, especially given the seriously bad internet access most of regional Australia has…. Come’on Kev!!!
The control panel
As ‘chief catering officer’ (me) it is my duty to ensure snacks are for the day are plentiful, I’m seriously missing Jo’s cakes and Margaret’s scones and Janes cupcakes and and and and. Although Carole made the best ever scones on the campfire last night, no idea how and I’m not going to blog it as I think most of it happened from intuition and experience.
We bought 3 very funky buckets which are Velcroed to the dash, and cut some insulated foam bottle holders which fit snugly in behind the gear stick. Velcro has been attached around the glove box to secure the wee clock, cords and camera in place.
What an adventure!Preparing Pearl for a trip like this has added up. We estimate the total costs to be around $8,000 and its been worth every penny. Please send any donations you wish to make to the Em n Carole See Australia and Live foundation, all credit cards and personal cheques accepted (;
oooops yellowie cloth went for a wee ride on the outside
