Fitting out... the finer details

 

Whilst our dash to Birdsville might still be a couple of weeks away, the time at home available to prepare for the trip can be measured in hours. 

And the list of little jobs I want to get done on the truck doesn't seem to get any shorter... but there is always time for a little play! 

Rocky shows the limitations of an independent front end!

One of the many little things to do was a maintenance run on one of the local RFS trucks.  The boys love to crawl all over the BRT (Big Red Truck) - and declared that travelling around Australia in a dual cab 4WD truck would be a great thing to do.

After becoming acquainted with the capabilities of these trucks last year, I would be inclined to agree, that they would be a fantastic way to get around the country, with enough space for all the comforts of home. They can crawl up and down just about any mountain... however the thought of getting one stuck in sand sends shivers down my spine!

A new sound system for Rocky!

Whilst the canopy on the back was my first priority to get fitted out into a useful space for us to use,  with the prospect of a long road trip ahead of us, in car entertainment for the family became a much higher priority on the list.

The Canopy is starting to be useful.

So the next thing to sort out was the in car entertainment.

For some reason the Trendline Amarok is fitted with a four speaker stereo... where all four speakers are in the front!! So our previous trick in the Terracan of fading the speakers to the rear, and putting on an audio book weren't going to work. Oh, and the VW iPod kit was about $1000, and blue tooth another $1000... yeah no thanks.

The original unit. Functional - but pretty basic

With the Terracan, a simple replacement radio and wiring loom for under $150 was a sufficient upgrade to give us all we needed in a radio, and a free Garmin GPS when renewing our NRMA membership kept us on the right track mostly. Unfortunately with the Amarok, nothing was going to be that simple, or cheap!

The first thing to sort out was to put some speakers in the rear door.  Thankfully this was something I could do - and as the space was already there - it was a simple task of removing the trim, installing the speakers and refitting the trim.  I did purchase a whole heap of new trim clips as the original clips are very brittle. I managed to break every single one when removing the trim.  Thankfully I wasn't he first to do this, and had new trim clips on hand.

After reading many forums and reading most people's opinions of aftermarket gear for the Amarok, we went with the Zenec 2011D. It essentially is the following:

• CD/DVD Player
• Radio
• Bluetooth Handsfree Phone Kit
• iPod connectivity
• Bluetooth music streaming
• Satellite Nav
• Reverse Camera

What impressed us is that the dash looks just like it rolled out of the factory. It works beautifully and seamlessly and more importantly intuitively. The guys who fitted it upgraded the reverse camera, and gave me the other one, which I will be able to fit to the Camper Trailer - perhaps not in time for Birdsville!

The funny thing is that whilst this unit will support the playing of DVD's, including screens on the back of the headrests for the kids, this is something we will not do.  We have lots of audiobooks on the iPod, and the kids (and big kids in the front) enjoy listening to the stories such as Wind In The Willows, Peter Pan and all the classics by Roald Dahl.

The other thing we fitted was the old UHF radio,  in the parcel shelf under the A/C controls.  it slotted in easily, and I picked up power from one of the cigarette 12v outlets just forward of the gear stick.

Fitted up - and about to plug the microphone in.

It is a 40 channel UHF radio - but still in perfect working order.  The aerial I mounted to the bullbar.  This is not my preferred position for the aerial, as it resonnates beautifully on the dirt road home, and I am not entirely convinced thousands of kilometres of corrugations, or the odd kangaroo strike will do good things for it.  Still the mount is there, and I didn't need to use a Z bracket under the bonnet (which didn't fit comfortably with the Amaroks tight seams).

The aerial is mounted on the bullbar

So, now you will be able to hear us coming.  We will be the Amarok with audio books such as The BFG blaring from the rear speakers as we barrel along the highways and byways of Australia!  Gloriumptious!

Shake down trip... Destination Birdsville

Whilst we were at camping at Boorowa a few weeks ago, campfire conversation turned to a forthcoming concert to be held at Birdsville in July.  It would appear that one of Australia's most popular and engaging entertainers was going to be hosting a sunset concert on the top of Big Red, the famous sand dune on the eastern end of the Simpson Desert.

John Williamson was going to be performing songs from his latest album - The Big Red, at Big Red... Something stirred inside me and said we had to make it happen.

We returned to civilisation, calendars and the cloud.  A quick check revealed the concert was going to be the middle weekend of the NSW school holidays.... and I had already planned to take leave! 

The clincher though was when I found out the concert was part of a bigger series of events, The Big Red Run raising money for Type 1 Diabetes.  As the Little Fisherman is a Type 1 diabetic, it was all the motivation I needed, so in a moment of madness I bought tickets to the Big Red Sunset Concert.

It was only once the tickets were booked that I realized that it is over 2000 km to Birdsville from home, and with the whole family coming along for the ride, a bit of planning would be necessary. In short a swag and an esky won't cut it.



Of course planning can be fun... particularly when you spread your trip over three maps!

 

Making Shade!

Being married to a meteorologist, I have worked out that I may not be able to make the sun shine on demand, however I am able to make shade!

With us planning on chasing the summer next year, the ability to make shade anywhere will be an important part of making our trip an enjoyable experience for everyone.  As such, we had determined that an awning was going to be an essential part of our travelling equipment.

Our camper's kitchen is well equipped, however if the camper is not set up - there is no shade to be had anywhere - unless you're parked under a shady tree.  And with trees not always conveniently sited, an awning was added to the shopping list. 

And so it was off to the local 4WD shop to get a price on an awning.

Fitting Out the Canopy for Camping

It seems that the closer we are to leaving, the more and more things there are to do… and somehow the time available to do them decreases exponentially.  After lining the canopy with carpet to reduce sweating, it was time to make the space useful.

For those who are interested, our canopy was made by Made 2 Order Toolbox in Melbourne, (www.m2otoolbox.com.au) and I am thrilled to bits with it.  

Thus last weekend I decided it was time to make a concerted effort to fit out the canopy in a useful and flexible way.  The real trick was to make it fit the equipment we have – in a snug way, whilst providing the option of carrying awkward or odd shaped items with minimum fuss.  It is worth noting that although we will be travelling with ‘Matilda’ – our camper trailer next year – we want to set the ute up to be able to camp independently too.

And so it was time to start turning electricity into noise, and plywood into sawdust. 

Measure twice, cut once... or something like that!

One of the many concept drawings

The basic concept was to have the right hand side of the ute fitted out with a multi – function space, whilst the left set up with a kitchen and space for the esky (or provision for a fridge).  The initial concepts  were sketched out and mulled over for a while – but ultimately it came down to experimentation, trial fitting and command approval from Jo.

Now it is worth pointing out that my lovely wife will tend to try to plan things to the smallest detail, before starting.  I tend to start work – and figure it out as I go along.  This usually means we need to compromise and meet somewhere in the middle – and on this occasion we were able to come to an arrangement that we are both happy with... I think!

The false floor is fitted - with the right hand side hinged

Design Meeting

The biggest difficulties we faced was working out how to stow the canopy jack-off legs, and how to arrange the kitchen – but I think with a bit of trial and error – we will get there.  The basic concept is now in place.

The Little Helper - adept with a screw driver and face painting!

Slots are cut to help position the legs - before strapping and wrapping in foam.

Oh, and did I mention we have power.  Not only do we have a 100 amp hour battery charged by Rocky as we travel, but we have a 1000 watt inverter to provide 240 volt AC current to charge laptops, printers and so on.  We also have 12 volt DC current available in the form of Hella Plug, Anderson Plug or standard cigarette lighter, as well as LED lighting throughout.  The cabling is all fused, and in addition everything feeding off a 100 amp circuit breaker which can also be opened to isolate all power. 

We have power!

The battery is charged by the car alternator, but our camper’s solar panel can be plugged in, if required to supplement the second battery.

The second battery is isolated from the main car battery with a REDARC voltage sensitive relay, but it also is fitted with an over-ride switch, so that if the car battery is flattened, I can jump start the car of the canopy (or camper) batteries if available. I am a big fan of redundancy – and hope that I have enough built into the circuitry to meet most eventualities.

Under the bonnet - dual battery cabling and isolation

And then it was back to geting the kitchen set up - and this was perhaps the most critical of it all.  Jo and measured her containers and gave me a 5mm tolerance for my cutting... a little too tight for my comfort. 

And so it was more thinking and more design work - before we came up with a design we hope will work for us.

I think she likes it... so far

All that is left to do is fit the bench

We have made the space for the esky big enough to fit a 40 litre fridge - but for now it also snugly fits our esky - and a 20 litre water jerry.  We will probably leave it in this configuration for now - and see if it works for us. If it doesn't, I can change it, but I fear that any changes now will be minor tweaks rather than major revisions.

But for now it seems to tick all the right boxes - and we will see how it goes. 

Next up - installing an awning!

*UPDATE October 2013*
So the past few months have seen us trying a few different options in the back.  We initially used an esky, but soon found an Aldi fridge proved the concept of the benefit of having a dedicated fridge in the back, so we hunted around and found a 12v compressor fridge on ebay. 

The kitchen is perfect for a quick stop on the side of the road.  Lunch can be easily made and everythnig accessed.  I don't have a tap or water in the back, other than in a 20 litre jerry - but this is something we are considering after our trip, where we hope to do more car based camping.

The awning is a great size, allowing food to be prepared AND a table and chairs for the family to be set up in shade. 

We have elected not to take the jack-off-legs with us when we travel, as they add about another 100kg to the weight we will be carrying, and we will be very unlikely to go anywhere without our canopy on the back.  It does open up the shelf on the right hand side for many other options - it is just a shame the canopy is only 1800mm long... and I an 1870mm! It works if I am on my own... just... on a diagonal!

The double swag - perfect for width... length can be a problem!

**UPDATE December 2014**

After 12 months of travelling and over 50 00km on a lot of dirt roads, the canopy has been outstanding.  It has remained dust proof, waterproof and has made camping so easy.  With careful packing we were able to keep all the most commonly used things close a hand thanks to the large gull-wing doors.  

I cannot recommend the guys at Made2Order Toolbox enough for the quality of their workmanship.  This canopy lived up to and beyond all expectations.  Check their gear out here:  www.m2otoolbox.com.au

It lived up to all we threw at it!