Location: 2.5 metres from computer.
Kms so far: more than last post, but less than next post.
As far as bandwagons go this one left the parking lot a while ago and is a fair way down the parade route, but i've finally caught up and jumped aboard. You are now reading the blogging equivalent of me picking up a banjo and playing out of tune on the aforementioned wagon.
Thats right, i'm writing this on a phone! Three cheers for mobile browsers! Some would question the point of laboriously tapping out a post on a mobile when I am at home, a mere handfull of metres from a perfectly good computer. To them I say word not in dictionary.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
The car called Cindy part II: Pimp my 4wd.
Location: Glendower Street, Perth WA
Kms so far: 16000 ish
So I rambled on at length about picking a car for this trip last time, and no doubt I bored most people to death. Now that I’ve done my bit for overpopulation, I’m going to follow up the last post with a bit of a rundown of what I did to Lauper in the 12 odd days I had between picking her up and setting off. Pretty much everything was focused on making sure that she’d make it past the Western Ring Road, and that once we were beyond the outer reaches of civilisation (read: the western suburbs) that she’d support our epicurean lifestyle.
The first thing that dad and I did was tackle a full service. All oils (diffs, gearbox, engine) were replaced, along with appropriate filters. The tappets were set. The front wheel bearings were removed, inspected, accidentally crushed with a drift, replaced and reinstalled. We ran out of time to check out the rear wheel bearings, but judging by the as-new state of the front ones (including the nice fresh grease that they were rolling in when we first disassembled the front hubs), the rears would have been looked after by the previous owner. Finally, we gave the car a full grease and we were in business.
Then I attended to the required accessories. Lauren’s dad assisted with the manufacture of some 8mm plate steel recovery points for the front of the car. I added a $50 hand winch, which should provide a little insurance to get us out of any tight spots... It may not be a super piece of recovery kit, but it’s better than nothing.
Next was a pretty serious attack on the electrics. First up was a second battery- acquired from Peninsula batteries for $230 odd was a nice little 70ah AGM deep cycle battery. This provides power to the fridge and accessory points at the rear of the car. Fitting this battery was a bit of a mission though... the original intention was to have the 2nd battery under the bonnet, but space was tight, and we didn’t have enough time to fart around moving air cleaners, etc to make it fit. So I mounted it under the rear of the driver’s seat where it’s held in perfectly by the seat frame and a tie down strap.
Along with the battery was the appropriate cabling and isolation. The whole idea of the second battery is that you can run the fridge all night and all day without fear that it’ll flatten your main battery, leaving you stranded when you wish set off in the morning. To achieve this, I used a simple isolator switch (the same kind you fit to race cars so that marshals can isolate the battery should you crash) which the old man had lying around in the shed. They can be bought for about 15 bucks if I remember correctly. I then wired this to the positive terminal of the main battery, and ran some sturdy 4age cable through the engine bay and across the cabin to the driver’s seat and finally wired it up to the second battery. I earthed the second battery back to the chassis.
I also ran 50 amp wire back to the rear of the cargo space, where I fitted two outlets- one BMW style 12v outlet, and one cigarette lighter outlet. The BMW outlets are excellent- the plugs click in really firmly so they do not risk coming out over bumps or when you’re loading the car. Very important, when you consider that this connection is all that stands between you and rotten food!
I added another one of these plugs under the dash, wired to the main electrics so that I can run tyre pumps, lights, etc when the car is running.
I ripped out the original equipment tape player and replaced it with a Pioneer single disc head unit. This involved wiring in an additional fuse box and running cables to power the head unit- I used 20amp wire to minimise voltage drop so that the head unit’s amp could perform at its best. The head unit has a front USB input that supports FAT32 drives, so I got my trusty 60gb portable hard drive, built a 60gb FAT32 partition on it (this is possible using Linux) and loaded it up with MP3’s. I then ditched the front speakers in favour of Pioneer 4” splits, mounting the tweeters on top of the dash. In addition, I shoehorned in my trusty 8” DEI subbie, which was previously owned by a world famous bass player who built the best enclosure possible for it. Once this was wired in (with my old Jaycar 200 watt RMS amp) we now had one of the best budget car audio outfits I’ve come across. Considering I already had the sub and amp, the total expenditure was around $300 for the head unit and speakers. Seriously, this is the best sounding car stereo I’ve installed, and I’ve done about 15 or so!
Next came a replacement rear door, as the original one did not have a spare tyre carrier and the tyre was in the rear luggage space. I got the replacement door off a bloke in Geelong for $20, so chucking that on gave us a load of extra space in the back of the car. In addition, a pair of roof racks were borrowed from Lauren’s parents, which allowed a second spare to be stashed on the roof. Two spare tyres are very important when you go into the outback- first of all, a second spare may get you out of trouble when you experience a number of flats, and if all else fails, you can burn the tyre and the smoke can be seen from miles away. Also on the roof are two 10 litre jerry cans, giving about 150 kms of emergency fuel, and the tent.
Also, a large box of spares went in, including a spare uni joint, front and rear wheel bearings, cv joint cover, filters, oil, coolant, fence wire, recovery equipment, chemiweld, 5min epoxy, etc etc etc.
So after all that, we have a very comfortable, reliable (touch wood!) and resilient car which we can rely on no matter what we come across. So far, Lauper has proved to be unstoppable, eating up all kinds of terrain and delivering us to parts of Australia that not everyone gets to see. We are very lucky to have her as part of our little expedition!
Kms so far: 16000 ish
So I rambled on at length about picking a car for this trip last time, and no doubt I bored most people to death. Now that I’ve done my bit for overpopulation, I’m going to follow up the last post with a bit of a rundown of what I did to Lauper in the 12 odd days I had between picking her up and setting off. Pretty much everything was focused on making sure that she’d make it past the Western Ring Road, and that once we were beyond the outer reaches of civilisation (read: the western suburbs) that she’d support our epicurean lifestyle.
The first thing that dad and I did was tackle a full service. All oils (diffs, gearbox, engine) were replaced, along with appropriate filters. The tappets were set. The front wheel bearings were removed, inspected, accidentally crushed with a drift, replaced and reinstalled. We ran out of time to check out the rear wheel bearings, but judging by the as-new state of the front ones (including the nice fresh grease that they were rolling in when we first disassembled the front hubs), the rears would have been looked after by the previous owner. Finally, we gave the car a full grease and we were in business.
Then I attended to the required accessories. Lauren’s dad assisted with the manufacture of some 8mm plate steel recovery points for the front of the car. I added a $50 hand winch, which should provide a little insurance to get us out of any tight spots... It may not be a super piece of recovery kit, but it’s better than nothing.
Next was a pretty serious attack on the electrics. First up was a second battery- acquired from Peninsula batteries for $230 odd was a nice little 70ah AGM deep cycle battery. This provides power to the fridge and accessory points at the rear of the car. Fitting this battery was a bit of a mission though... the original intention was to have the 2nd battery under the bonnet, but space was tight, and we didn’t have enough time to fart around moving air cleaners, etc to make it fit. So I mounted it under the rear of the driver’s seat where it’s held in perfectly by the seat frame and a tie down strap.
Along with the battery was the appropriate cabling and isolation. The whole idea of the second battery is that you can run the fridge all night and all day without fear that it’ll flatten your main battery, leaving you stranded when you wish set off in the morning. To achieve this, I used a simple isolator switch (the same kind you fit to race cars so that marshals can isolate the battery should you crash) which the old man had lying around in the shed. They can be bought for about 15 bucks if I remember correctly. I then wired this to the positive terminal of the main battery, and ran some sturdy 4age cable through the engine bay and across the cabin to the driver’s seat and finally wired it up to the second battery. I earthed the second battery back to the chassis.
I also ran 50 amp wire back to the rear of the cargo space, where I fitted two outlets- one BMW style 12v outlet, and one cigarette lighter outlet. The BMW outlets are excellent- the plugs click in really firmly so they do not risk coming out over bumps or when you’re loading the car. Very important, when you consider that this connection is all that stands between you and rotten food!
I added another one of these plugs under the dash, wired to the main electrics so that I can run tyre pumps, lights, etc when the car is running.
I ripped out the original equipment tape player and replaced it with a Pioneer single disc head unit. This involved wiring in an additional fuse box and running cables to power the head unit- I used 20amp wire to minimise voltage drop so that the head unit’s amp could perform at its best. The head unit has a front USB input that supports FAT32 drives, so I got my trusty 60gb portable hard drive, built a 60gb FAT32 partition on it (this is possible using Linux) and loaded it up with MP3’s. I then ditched the front speakers in favour of Pioneer 4” splits, mounting the tweeters on top of the dash. In addition, I shoehorned in my trusty 8” DEI subbie, which was previously owned by a world famous bass player who built the best enclosure possible for it. Once this was wired in (with my old Jaycar 200 watt RMS amp) we now had one of the best budget car audio outfits I’ve come across. Considering I already had the sub and amp, the total expenditure was around $300 for the head unit and speakers. Seriously, this is the best sounding car stereo I’ve installed, and I’ve done about 15 or so!
Next came a replacement rear door, as the original one did not have a spare tyre carrier and the tyre was in the rear luggage space. I got the replacement door off a bloke in Geelong for $20, so chucking that on gave us a load of extra space in the back of the car. In addition, a pair of roof racks were borrowed from Lauren’s parents, which allowed a second spare to be stashed on the roof. Two spare tyres are very important when you go into the outback- first of all, a second spare may get you out of trouble when you experience a number of flats, and if all else fails, you can burn the tyre and the smoke can be seen from miles away. Also on the roof are two 10 litre jerry cans, giving about 150 kms of emergency fuel, and the tent.
Also, a large box of spares went in, including a spare uni joint, front and rear wheel bearings, cv joint cover, filters, oil, coolant, fence wire, recovery equipment, chemiweld, 5min epoxy, etc etc etc.
So after all that, we have a very comfortable, reliable (touch wood!) and resilient car which we can rely on no matter what we come across. So far, Lauper has proved to be unstoppable, eating up all kinds of terrain and delivering us to parts of Australia that not everyone gets to see. We are very lucky to have her as part of our little expedition!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
