The 4WD and Caravan

For those of you with a technical bent, this is just a quick rundown on the gear we're using to make our travels more comfortable.

The Vehicle

About a year after we came back to Australia when we knew we wanted to go travelling, we decided that the best vehicle for our adventures was probably a well-built Four Wheel Drive (4WD). The short list was predictably confined to 3 types: Land Rover Discovery, Nissan Patrol and Toyota Land Cruiser 100 Series. All of these vehicles met our requirements to get 'off the beaten track' as well as being able to tow a van or trailer up to 3.5 tonnes. We do not necessarily think we're ever going to get a caravan or trailer this heavy, but think that a vehicle built to these specifications will be able to handle what we want to do without getting itself (or its driver) stressed.

Having read a lot, and talked to a number of owners as well as experience gained overseas, I came (rightly or wrongly) to the conclusion that the Toyota was going to win in the Ross Family Vehicle Stakes. The next problem was : Diesel or Petrol? At the time we were looking, a good Diesel 100 Series Land Cruiser was going to cost about $10,000 ~ $12,000 more than the equivalent petrol model. You can buy a lot of petrol for $12,000, and the costs of running the diesel were also higher. In the end, we found a really good, 2 1/2 year old Land Cruiser at a reasonable price with only 24,000kms. Three years later, we are still very happy with our choice.

Since we purchased the Cruiser, we've added the following items:

* 40 channel UHF radio with 2m antenna for use in talking to our friends if we're in convoy or to other travellers/trucks to keep track of road conditions, etc in the outback

* A replacement radio that allows us to plug in our MP3 player for when we're out of range of radio stations - CD players don't work well on corrugations!

* A snorkel to give the engine cleaner air in dusty conditions as well as allow us to ford streams and not drown the engine

* Electric brake controller to allow caravan and trailer brakes to operate automatically

* New wiring for the 2nd aux battery to allow recharging the caravan's battery on the move

* Fridge slide in the cargo area allowing access to our 60lt fridge/freezer - made by yours truly with the aid of an old IKEA shelf!

* Dedicated heavy duty 12v supply for the fridge in the back

* Rear suspension air bags to stop the rear end drooping under load

* High volume air compressor for inflating/deflating tyres and the air bags according to road conditions

* Wire roof rack for fire wood and other odds and sods (thank you, Peter J!)

* 'Charlotte', the Garmin GPS that we used overseas and has now been updated with the latest Australian maps (that are still wrong in places!)

We replaced the existing Toyota double-height radio and 6-stacker CD player with an Alpine AM/FM/CD/MP3 player and our GME UHF Transmitter/Receiver. It all fits together very neatly.

Update: 14-Apr-2010

There are a lot of roads in Outback Australia that are unsealed, especially the more "interesting" ones. Their condition depends a lot on the time of the year (wet or dry) as well as how much traffic has been across it since the last time the grader smoothed it out. Some roads are full of loose gravel and rocks that can get flicked up from passing vehicles as well as from your own car. One of the very real problems is that your own tyres will throw up a stone or small rock. Normally this wouldn't be a problem unless some unsuspecting vehicle was passing you at the wrong time. However, if you're towing a trailer or caravan there is a chance that the rock will bounce off the front of the van and ricochet into your back window. This can be an expensive exercise if it breaks the back window!

With this in mind, a friend and I decided to try design and build a new set of stone/mud flaps to deflect the worst of the stones. With a length of 25mm (1") square section steel, some retired rubber conveyor belt, steel screws and some 1/4" steel rod, we ended up with a hopefully serviceable solution to the problem.

The Cruiser comes with 2 "recovery" hooks firmly attached to the chassis below the back bumper. We decided to use these as our attachment points. Mike threaded, cut and bent the rod into 2 hooks that fitted over the recovery hooks. I cut and drilled the bar and the rubber. The rubber was cut into two pieces so that there was a clear air passage about 300mm wide along the centreline of the car. Hopefully this will cause less drag while not letting too many stones through from the wheels. We hung the whole contraption from the hooks, then did up the bolts to tension the whole thing against the tow bar. After I got home, I found that they were a bit too low to the ground, so I trimmed the rubber back so there was about 2" clearance between the bottom of the rubber and the ground when the caravan was attached to the Cruiser. We'll see how it works out on the Big Trip.

Update: 7-Mar-2011

Nearly ready for the next trip! We have done a few modifications to both the Cruiser and the van over the last month or so.

Rear Storage Area

The Waeco fridge was previously mounted in the cargo area on an old IKEA shelf that was in turn bolted to the body through the 3rd row seat mounting holes. While this worked well, it didn't really give us a lot of extra storage area area as the fridge sat in the middle and hogged most of the space. I figured that mounting it to one side would leave about 2/3rds more storage, so I broke out pencil and paper, had a think and then went to Bunnings for some inspiration. The result was a shelf system (what a grand title!) that can store all the 4WD recovery gear, compressor, air hose, tool box and ground sheet as well as a camping chair and table, all securely tied down via the same bolt holes - I figure if it's good enough for Mr Toyota to use then to keep a couple of humans safe, it's good enough for me to keep about 40kgs of 'essentials' plus the fridge.

For the DIY fraternity, it's 12mm marine ply for the base and 1st shelf, with steel angle iron, corner braces and 25mm x 3 mm aluminium strips for cross-bracing.

The completed item is shown off by my lovely assistant.

Bug Screens

The last trip saw us fighting our way through swarms of suicidal locusts/grasshoppers around Central Western NSW. While these are not much more than a nuisance while driving, they do tend to block the radiator which can lead to overheating and a subsequent dint in the bank account when the engine blows up. In an effort to avoid unforeseen expenses, I decided that something had to be done. As the Minister For Finance and Social Activities doesn't think that the Money Pit is bottomless, this was going to be a very cheap project.

We already had some fly-screen from a project to fix a couple of the caravan windows, so the remainder was put to use to fashion an effective screen against unauthorised insect-inflicted clogging of the radiator. The end result was cheap and (hopefully) effective. The grille was removed, the screen wrapped around, and then the grille was replaced thereby trapping the screen in place. All that was needed then was a way to keep tension on the screen and to stop it from flapping. The answer was in Sue's stationary drawer!

I bet you didn't know that you can get your 4WD accessories at OfficeWorks! :-))

I also used some more of the left-over aluminium strap to secure more screen from the bull bar underneath to the engine pan mounts to stop the little blighters from getting in that way. Hopefully, it'll also keep out grass seeds when we go off road.

Update: 6-Mar-2012

Because I've exceeded my download limit for this site, pictures of the modifications are at the start of the travel section for this trip.

This is:- Vehicle Updates for 2012

The Caravan

After Sue decided that we needed to raise our standard of camping from the camper/trailer, we started looking around for a van that would accommodate two, be comfy, enable us to camp away from civilisation for at least a few nights at a time and that would withstand being taken down the odd dirt track without falling to pieces. A few manufacturers in Australia make exceptional off-road vans, but all of these (even 2nd hand ones) were beyond our budget, so we started looking at ones a bit lower down the scale. Again, we talked to experienced friends to gather their views, read a lot and generally did our homework. After a reasonably short time, a Supreme Outback Pop-Top 'semi-off-road' van showed up on one of the web sites we frequent, so we went and inspected it. While it is not a new van, it certainly has been well looked after.

Sue inspecting the van before we purchased it.

It ticked all the boxes we felt were essential:-

* Will handle dirt roads

* Had single beds (we didn't want a double bed as it seems to restrict floor space in smaller vans)

* Was about the right size for us to handle (17' body and 1.8 tonnes)

* Had a shower and toilet (as far as Sue was concerned, this was ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY ESSENTIAL!!)

* Had air con (although it doesn't work all that well when it gets hot, as we've found out)

* Had sufficient water (80lt) and gas tanks (2 x 9kg) to let us camp away from caravan parks

* Had (just) enough battery capacity, but we plan on improving this with another battery and solar panels

Now after the first little jaunt around Qld (7500kms), we think we're getting to the point where we know we're happy with our purchase, and we think we know some areas that could use a little improvement. All that this takes is a bit more research and some more $$$ (if the Minister for Home Economics will let me!).

Update: 14-Apr-2010

Due to experience gained so far, equipment failures, personal preferences and general pig-headedness, we have changed and upgraded a few items on the caravan in preparation for the next Big Trip.

The Air Conditioner: The reason (referred to above) that it wasn't working very well was that the compressor was on its way out. As is the norm these days, these things cost more to repair than to replace, so it got replaced. We now have a working reverse-cycle air conditioner that doesn't shake the van to pieces when it runs.

The Fridge: This was a semi-failure. It gave up working on gas, leaving only 12v and 240v as options. As the 12v mode in a 3-way fridge is about as useful as using an ice block to cool a blast furnace, we needed to get the gas working. About a month of tests came up with the fact that it, too, was on its last legs from a gas point of view. As the whole reason for our caravan was to 'get away from it all', we couldn't rely on having 240v available, and this was the only mode that kept anything remotely cold (and even then, only in mild temperatures). The options were to repair it, replace it with the same thing or upgrade to something better. Repair was 75% of the cost of a new one, replacement wasn't really making me warm and fuzzy as it would only cool to 25C degs below ambient (so Sue's brandy and soda would be at 15C when it was 40 outside), so we looked around at more efficient fridges. We found that a compressor style fridge would cool to 40 below ambient on 12v and 240v (no gas), plus it was a bit cheaper than the replacement option. There was a small down side - it needed lots more power to run than the 85AH battery! So, this meant more power...

Power: There are only a limited number of ways to keep power up to a caravan: Mains Power (in a caravan park), Batteries (they go flat if not recharged) or a generator (noisy). The answer is that if we had sufficient battery capacity and recharged them by solar panels, then we didn't need either mains power or the generator. While this ended up as a bit more expensive than we had planned, it works a treat! We trialled the new fridge running purely on the batteries and solar and it worked brilliantly. For the techo minded, the specifications are:

2 x 110W solar panels

2 x 90AH gel deep cycle batteries

Morningstar MPPT solar controller

Ctek 25 amp battery charger

Update: 7-Mar-11

New Battery Box

This trip we decided that we'd take the generator, as we'd be venturing further off the beaten track than before as well as probably doing more 'bush camping' than last time. As space inside the van was limited, and space inside the car was already spoken for, this meant we had to find a way to add more storage outside the van. The battery box that came with the van was only big enough to cope with the existing 2 batteries and I have hopes of increasing this at some stage in the future if power becomes a problem.

A bit of thinking (that's what I'm doing when it looks like I'm asleep in front of the computer/TV) came up with the thought that we didn't need 2 x 9kg gas bottles as we no longer used it for anything but cooking (fridge is 12/240v), so we could get rid of one bottle (and its associated weight) and replace the battery box with a bigger one able to hold the generator and (potentially) 3 deep cycle batteries. A bit of research came up with a company that made custom 'checker plate' aluminium tool boxes and was within 10 minutes of home. I went to discuss my requirements with them and found them very easy to deal with. This resulted in a new battery box, custom built to my specs and ready to pick up in 5 days! We had an initial problem with leakage through the latches on the lid, but this was sorted very quickly.

The next problem was getting it fitted. Who else to do this but our friend Mike with his magnificently equipped workshop? Much grinding, cutting and welding later, and our nice shiny battery box was installed and wired up ready to go! Thanks, Mike!

Before.

After.

Inside.

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