Vehicle "Build" Thread...

Have done a few trips up the bush on hunting trips in it but a few weeks ago managed to get out about 3hrs west and down into an old gold mining area to camp on the river with my best mate....

 

My best mate owns the grey Hilux..what made the weekend was on the Saturday afternoon we heard a vehicle approaching where we were camped and were shocked to see my Godson (the mate's son) had driven out and found us in the middle of nowhere (his is the table top version of my 70 Series).....had a great night eating and drinking around the fire.....

 

The one thing I have hated in this truck since DAY1 was the factory "centre console". In all honesty it is just a plastic box between the seats and a little tower to cover the airbag module that they added a cup holder (that you can't easily reach driving) and a power outlet to....





The week before I went bush I ordered up the replacement for all this rubbish from a company here that specialises in 70 Series interior fittings, given we in Sydney are back in a temporary "lockdown" I was pleased to see this arrive last week knowing I would have something to occupy the weekend with ...

 

And with surprisingly little swearing and only one skinned knuckle it all fell in....






........this honestly makes me VERY happy, lots more space in that console box, that is also now at "arm rest height" (by design), usable cup holders, space for "junk" as well as 2x USB and 1x lighter power outlets. I think it also looks great !

 

Also just ordered six more of the black steel wheels identical to the ones on the trailer earlier in the thread, they should show up by the end of the month...not sure yet what is next, probably the fuel tanks but deciding on the right option for me has been harder than I thought, and all have a three month lead time just now.

 

Neat-o Andy, Have you tried you're hand at the Victoria gold mines?

 

Yep,, that's what I was thinking,, how much gold has he pulled out of that cave ??

 

Bet a dollar to a donut hes been mucking about for a little color once upon a time

 

…..no I have not been down to Mexico to look for gold, this spot in west the Great Dividing Range here in NSW. We had our own gold rush that was not on par with Victoria but still profitable. That shaft pictured was a test I am guessing that went in about 100yds and nothing. There was still a working claim back a few kms from this spot. Where I grew up (north east of this spot) we had more than a few gold mines and I tried my hand quite unsuccessfully at it !

….test shaft only. Out in this country those old shafts are known to contain the odd murder victim or other evidence of a crime.

….good eye. Normally I have a UHF in the cabin. It is sitting on my bench, I ran the antenna and cable in a bit ago when I had the auxiliary battery out for another job as getting the cable in is a complete bitch of a job. I ended up not being able to mount my existing set where I wanted so I am probably going to need to get a new set that has a remote handset/unit. I will put the actual unit in the dash concealed and just have a plug in the dash for the hand set/controller. GME make some great units I just have not picked one. I currently just use a handheld when away with friends.

….not since my 20s though.

 

Probably this radio….
GME XRS-330C XRS Connect™ Compact Hideaway UHF CB with Bluetooth Smart Technology | Gencom

 

Wheeling in the Outback is on the bucket list.

Awesome build. Unfortunately, you get to play with toys we can only look at. However, maybe the same applies here when it comes to modifying older 4X4's. It's getting harder around here to find anything older that somebody hasn't modified and/or beat the crap out of it. In such instances this is driving the price up on these type of vehicles.

Forgive my ignorance do you guys get enough snow to play in?

 

Yes there are parts which get well and truly enough snow to play in, there are alpine regions here in both Victoria and NSW that have ski fields/seasons etc. While never heavy, the Blue Mountains (the base of which basically define the wester boundary of Sydney) get regular snow falls across winter, I believe it was snowing in parts there during the week gone.

Of course out here the main vehicle rivalry is Toyota vs Nissan (Jeeps are quite inconsequential in the equation ) but I like to let my American friends feel a little involved...

 

Been doing a bit more with the "spare time" I have on weekends.....
Gear Bag for one of the spare wheels (I don't leave it on just add it when needed)...



Added Sound Deadening to all four front doors......







Speaker Pods and new speakers to the front doors.....




And last week, replace the alloy wheels with a set of black steel jobbies.....

 

A less than exciting and hopefully never required addition.

I have carried a fire extinguisher mounted on the cargo cage above behind the rear driver's side seat. Never needed it but hope I never do. Given it's age (though still showing it's fully charged) I was looking for a replacement and of course time has seen plenty of changed in tech. So my research lead me to this place....

Car & Vehicle Fire Extinguishers | Safety Equipment - Fire One

....and I ended up ordering the larger one for my truck, a smaller one for the kitchen and a couple of those suppression stickers for the power box.

While I was OK with the current mounting of the unit I have I thought it could also be somewhere more accessible to me, there are a couple of companies that make different vehicle specific mounts for my truck (down the sides of the seat or across the front generally). Settled on one from...

Premium Quality LandCruiser and Roof Rack Accessories

.... that mounts to the side of the drivers seat base. I have had the mount here for a couple of weeks but the extinguishers only arrived during the week. I was almost hoping this would take more time to fit than it did but alas they made it too easy.

Sooooo.....

No Mount....



The bike lock cable there is what I secure around my hard gun cases when I travel, it still works with the extinguisher mount in place.

Mount fitted.....



Extinguisher clamped on.....



....the extinguisher is supplied with a single C Clamp and they recommend that for boating or off-roading you use one or two more. I ordered a two pack that unfortunately didn't ship at the same time but when should land here on Monday. No big issue to add them while it is all fitted by the looks of it.

 

Just washed the other new four wheeled toy

 

A bit more work over the past few months.....

Went and got a new rack....dealer was useless and an embarrassment to the product that he is the agent for here in the most populous state of Australia. I will call the importer/Aus Agent during the week.

Anyway, as they had no interest in fitting the $2K purchase at their "workshop" (almost glad now they didn't) I left the old rack on to collect the new one.

Loaded it up alone (again they could not be bothered helping) and strapped it on for the 1.5hrs drive through Friday peak "hour" traffic in Sydney.....



I was happy that it was still safely attached when I got home....

 

After over a month I finally got around to getting that new rack on the roof !!!

Clean shaven with the old one hung in the roof of the garage and advertised for sale !!


Legs put together...


Big Box...


Inside....


Legs on....


Ready to lift....


Mrs Andy is just on five feet tall..... needless to say we needed a platform to assist !!

Test drive....

 

The one issue I have with the K9 Rack is that it is the least common of the best flat/modular racks sold here. This means that aftermarket suppliers cater less for it than they do for the other three comparable brands. Now I knew his going it so I can’t really complain. Eezi-Awn (maker) have a product for each of my applications so far (shovel holders and MaxTrax base) but they are less appealing than some of the local players and frankly, in comparison, a little clunky.

Anyway…..I love my Fiskars shovel so it was going to get attached. The brackets for this needed drilling for the 6mm hardware that the K9 Rack uses on the outside bars (most others use 8mm). I found a set that I figured would be close and they have worked out just fine….







I will in daily driving add a couple of cable ties around the handle and back to the brackets more to deter the random idiot in the car park from detaching it than concern over how secure the clamps are, also – better safe than sorry.

Now as @jeff Randall had already told me I could not consider myself a man at all if I didn't have at least one set of recovery boards hung off this thing I needed to act but the MaxTrax bases took a little more work, well care, I really wanted them to go across the rack and many want to run along. I got a set I hoped would have suitable mounting holes (as you can see there are many options) but none worked. I have actually mounted these facing inward as for other applications they should be pointing to the sides. When I was trying to find a way for these to work I found that the would perfectly centre the boards across the rack with about 1mm clearance for the nuts holding the pins to the brackets. Those brackets would need some new holes to align with the tracks, and it worked out at least...







And with the boards mounted.....





And finally, scattered a bunch of tie-down rings about (they can obviously be moved anywhere along the tracks to work for the specific needs)...

 

Just had to renew the bushes shackles/pins so I decided to add the parabolic springs I had been looking at while it was all out....