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Figured it was about time to do a bit of a build up thread.
Having spent my teenage years in Tassie spending plenty of time in this Series 1 Landrover, a Lada Niva & Suzuki Sierra, I was very happy when my dad bought himself a fishing vehicle (read 4WD for his son).
We ended up with a pretty scrappy '76 FJ40 which did me until I moved to Melbourne to get married.
After we owned a Holden Berlina which continually had mudguards ripped off from my tendency to drive over curbs, we moved back to Tas and I bought this lemon:
'86 BJ73
I was Naive - it had a dodgy body lift and major overheating problems on road, but was unstoppable offroad.
We then decided to get a newer vehicle and bought this 3 door Rav4, moved back to Vic, by now had 2 kids & a dog. We bought a 4x5' trailer, made a DIY canopy and this is how we did things:
Eventually we sold our Tassie house and went on a spending spree.We realized lugging around 4 people, dog & trailer was a bit much for the 3 door. We were getting 13l/100Km's - worse than we get now.
A few years down the track I don't regret it one bit.
So, September 5th 2008 after much trawling through Pradopoint we bought this baby:
It had high Km's - 142K but was in fantastic condition. It had only been used by a pharmaceutical company on long drives and had full service history. It's a 1Kz 5 speed Manual GX (flareless).
As I've been a Uni student for 5 years, this is so far an absolute budget build up, I believe in doing it yourself if possible, buying cheap if the quality is ok. That'll be how the whole buildup goes.
"Vashti" as my sister has since named her came with:
Cargo barrier
Aftermarket cruise
and I had a few bits a pieces left over from my teenage years - High lift, snow chains etc.
Immediately bought Supercheap auto "mud & snow mats".
The cruise control fitted wasn't a fly-by-wire model so Toyota Geelong refitted an Autron unit straight away.
Pradopoint Sticker came soon after
After a while we bought this very budget $2500 Camper from Ebay:
It's been fantastic, done many trips in it.
After a while, I decided to ask what this little box was and found out it was a car alarm - had been on there the whole time, just needed switching on.
Found the roof bars from the Rav4 which weren't the right ones at the time we bought them, fit the Prado perfectly.
After having a number of tyres wear very quickly (and terrible offroad) I decided it was time to change to something a bit grippier. The GX 6" wheels only gave the option of Cooper ATRs (which I had & weren't suitable) so I went to 8" steelies.
Old:
New:
Bought a shovel
Bought a Big W "Binatone" 4.3" GPS - it gets a bit confused & doesn't know how to do a U-turn but it's quite handy. Plan to add Oziexplorer to it at some stage.
And one of these:
Absolutely fantastic - saves jacking out the suspension first.
Home made sand flag from a bike trailer flag and the broomstick handle from the camper
So finally after a few years of waiting, I have a new facelift
TJM T13 steel winch bar (winch will come one day...)
Airtech Snorkel
Next mod will be some DIY flares as the T13 bar isn't made for flareless vehicles and doesn't meet correctly at the wheel arches. I knew this beforehand and have some materials ready..
Having spent my teenage years in Tassie spending plenty of time in this Series 1 Landrover, a Lada Niva & Suzuki Sierra, I was very happy when my dad bought himself a fishing vehicle (read 4WD for his son).
We ended up with a pretty scrappy '76 FJ40 which did me until I moved to Melbourne to get married.
After we owned a Holden Berlina which continually had mudguards ripped off from my tendency to drive over curbs, we moved back to Tas and I bought this lemon:
'86 BJ73
I was Naive - it had a dodgy body lift and major overheating problems on road, but was unstoppable offroad.
We then decided to get a newer vehicle and bought this 3 door Rav4, moved back to Vic, by now had 2 kids & a dog. We bought a 4x5' trailer, made a DIY canopy and this is how we did things:
Eventually we sold our Tassie house and went on a spending spree.We realized lugging around 4 people, dog & trailer was a bit much for the 3 door. We were getting 13l/100Km's - worse than we get now.
A few years down the track I don't regret it one bit.
So, September 5th 2008 after much trawling through Pradopoint we bought this baby:
It had high Km's - 142K but was in fantastic condition. It had only been used by a pharmaceutical company on long drives and had full service history. It's a 1Kz 5 speed Manual GX (flareless).
As I've been a Uni student for 5 years, this is so far an absolute budget build up, I believe in doing it yourself if possible, buying cheap if the quality is ok. That'll be how the whole buildup goes.
"Vashti" as my sister has since named her came with:
Cargo barrier
Aftermarket cruise
and I had a few bits a pieces left over from my teenage years - High lift, snow chains etc.
Immediately bought Supercheap auto "mud & snow mats".
The cruise control fitted wasn't a fly-by-wire model so Toyota Geelong refitted an Autron unit straight away.
Pradopoint Sticker came soon after
After a while we bought this very budget $2500 Camper from Ebay:
It's been fantastic, done many trips in it.
After a while, I decided to ask what this little box was and found out it was a car alarm - had been on there the whole time, just needed switching on.
Found the roof bars from the Rav4 which weren't the right ones at the time we bought them, fit the Prado perfectly.
After having a number of tyres wear very quickly (and terrible offroad) I decided it was time to change to something a bit grippier. The GX 6" wheels only gave the option of Cooper ATRs (which I had & weren't suitable) so I went to 8" steelies.
Old:
New:
Bought a shovel
Bought a Big W "Binatone" 4.3" GPS - it gets a bit confused & doesn't know how to do a U-turn but it's quite handy. Plan to add Oziexplorer to it at some stage.
And one of these:
Absolutely fantastic - saves jacking out the suspension first.
Home made sand flag from a bike trailer flag and the broomstick handle from the camper
So finally after a few years of waiting, I have a new facelift
TJM T13 steel winch bar (winch will come one day...)
Airtech Snorkel
Next mod will be some DIY flares as the T13 bar isn't made for flareless vehicles and doesn't meet correctly at the wheel arches. I knew this beforehand and have some materials ready..
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