Percy - 2003 GX Love

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Picked up the new camper trailer Thursday before Easter down in Melbourne. Stayed with friends in Victoria for a couple of nights before heading back through the snowy mountains and back to Canberra. We were lucky to squeeze in on the banks of the Murray for one night on the way back. The drive around Lake Hume was brilliant and the drive through the mountains the next day was also fantastic. Percy did a great job of dragging the camper up the mountains, all the recent work on the brakes and clutch paid-off with a very smooth drive.

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

Camper looks great mcgonical, how did the clutch go on the tow, solid as a rock I hope. Cheers samo

[rags Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close rags]

Looks good,sets the GX off perfectly,and the camp spot looks nice. I am thinking off doing trip down along the upper murray over the anzac week.
I think you now need to update your tag,aspiring to own a Tvan,now that it is on the towball
Russ

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Hi Samo, clutch is great, lighter and easier than the original unit - the car feels great to drive. Earlier this year I had some high temp issues towing the rental TVan up some hills around home but no problems on the weekend over the snowy mountains - I think keeping the revs down and just letting it pull slowly up the hills is the trick.

Thanks for the reminder Russ, I've changed my sig. now. The TVan does look pretty trick hitched up to the Prado, glad I can get that rear door open while it's still hooked up. Also pleased that I don't have to unhitch the camper to get decent angles for sleeping, we're on an odd line in this camp (luckily no-one else wanted it) but the tvan bed and Lily's stretcher were pretty level.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Thought I should include a photo of one of our most important touring extras.



During our 2010 Lap around Oz and not long after this photo on the Karanji track in the Kimberly...



I was bitten by a brown snake, three good bites and a few glancing blows. It was about 4:30pm, we'd been driving all day and the feeling of remoteness was profound when I was moving back to the car flushed with adrenaline and wondering where we'd find help. The first aid kit was right there as it had been over the past 4 months of our trip and we got to work on the things we could do - strapping the ankle and leg of the bites. The going had gotten tough in this part of the track, lots of bull dust. Nadine hadn't driven for 4 months and now had to drive one of the toughest tracks we'd been on all the while feeling sure brown snake bites out here were fatal. Luckily for us we raised help on the radio and the message was relayed to Home Valley Station, they were amazing and sent 2 cars with adrenaline and defib. kit. We crossed the Pentacost and the cavalry arrived, from there we were in good hands. You don't need to be remote to be bitten and some people get very seriously ill very quickly after the bite. Nadine has stopped complaining about the cost and prominent location of the first aid kit and soon we'll be adding a HF radio to our touring gear. We had a Sat. phone but it was cumbersome to set-up and wouldn't have raise the local help we found using UHF.

First aid kits - worth the money and some prime real estate in your car.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Re-installed my 2 jerry cans for water today. I made a little platform on the side of the drawers for the jerry against the side of the car and strap them both in securely.



I have breathers rising off each Jerry to allow the water to flow out smoothly. Version 1 of the water storage solution had a small pressure activated pump but we found it noisy and not much better than simply allowing the water to flow out through a simple tap so I've ditched the pump.



Here's another shot of the breather, it's a tight fit through a hole I drilled in the jerry lid.



Getting the jerry's in and out of the car was a pain in my original version as the whole lot were linked and had to go in and come out as a single unit. This time round I've added a joiner to the line so that I can easily empty each jerry when we're back home.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

I made up a little filler cap to fill the system



When filling I remove the nearest jerry cap and replace it with the filler cap.



I picked up a filter from Bunnings. I don't usually fill with the filter in the car (too many drips) but here you can see how it all connects together. I have a length of hose and filter near the tap and then I connect it to the short filler hose into the jerry.



I found that with one jerry higher than the other that the lower jerry was under enough pressure to cause leaks so I isolated them with a value behind the rear seat. This is also means that if one springs a leak I only lose one jerry of water.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

With the fridge back in the car the water hose hooks up within easy reach and is long enough to fill bigger items off the rear of the car.



A single tank system from ARB or TJM is over $400 - this system for 40L of water was maybe $60 plus the filter (say another $20). The purpose built systems look great but are just too pricey for me. This solution worked without leaking with 6 months constant use on our trip around Oz. We added the filter after I spent a few days under the weather and got suspicious of our water supply. Hopefully the MKII version will work just as well. I had contemplated doing something fancy with mounting the filter in the rear of the car but I need to use it to fill the camper tanks too so keeping it mobile and the connections multi-purpose is the way to go for me.

Lily gives the new camper the thumbs up

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

I've ordered the new HF radio - it's a Codan 9323 and 9350 auto-tune antenna. It should come later this week, fingers crossed. Ordered a Kaymar wheel on door mount and HR antenna bracket from ARB last Friday and it came in today. I'm opting for the rear mount of the antenna to offer better protection from obstacles that could snap it off and because I'm lazy and want to leave it on the car - no way Nadine would be happy driving around with something like that on the bull bar.

The Kaymar wheel on door bracket is basically a mounting system that spaces out the spare wheel and provides mounting points for a rear work light and very solid HF antenna mount. Fitting it to the car is pretty straight forward.

Remove the spare and mounting point.



Clean-up the mess under there.



Bolt on the wheel on door mount using the original bolts.



As usual, I'm using plenty of lock tight.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

The kit is 2 parts, one is the wheel on door mount that includes the telescopic work light mount and the other part I ordered was the HF antenna mount. Bolted these other bits to the door mount using plenty more lock tight.



The Kaymar mount contours to the rear of the car.



The unit acts as a wheel spacer moving the spare away from the rear door. Extra leverage for the weight on the door is not desirable but it's practical for larger tyre sizes.



The plastic guard is also spaced away from the body of the car which looks a little odd.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

As an antenna mount it is a neat and strong result.



The spacing of the tyre out from the door will take some getting used to.



In all I'm happy with the quality of the Kaymar wheel on door mount and antenna bracket. I have their shovel and hi-lift holder on the ARB roof rack and they both look well thought out and strongly made.

[Madkore Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Madkore]

Looks great percy!

How far out does it space the wheel bracket?

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

The bracket spacer is a smidge under 50mm.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

The reconditioned HF radio from hf-radio.com.au arrived today - it looks in good shape for a second hand unit.



I collected the auto-tune antenna and quick fitted it to the new bracket and it clear the garage. Phew! Now I can be lazy and leave the antenna on there all the time.

Tomorrow is installation day for the radio, just reading through the manual tonight - looks like Codan want everything from the antenna to head unit and transmitter to be earth. I can see that I'll be pushing earth cables through the car all over the place tomorrow. Can't wait to get stuck into the install!

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

I got around to installing the Codan HF radio over the weekend. Car ready to go, rear drawers removed.



First job was to figure out how to run the antenna controller and coax out of the rear of the car. I found a grommet in the drivers side rear floor where a cable exited the car with no apparent purpose (GX model).



I pulled this cable into the car and used another grommet to run the controller and coax cables out of the car. I sliced the grommet up pretty well to fit the connectors through. As you can see in the next photo the alternative was to re-solder a lot of tiny little connectors - not one of my strengths.



Even the large controller connector fitted through the grommet.



Continued...