Category: Vehicle Prep

Disclaimer: this is how I put this together, it is not intended as a guide, and is based on my limited personal experience. I am not an electrician, nor do I accept any personal liability for any accidents that may occur after reading this post. Always speak to a professional and be aware that electricity kills.

Well the second battery has been a constant source of pain throughout the trip.  It seems to finally be resolved, however it’s been a long and exquisitely painful journey.

After arriving in Karijini I had some help from a friendly camper next to me with the cabling.  It turned out he was a sparky, so I let him loose and didn’t check his work, after all I’m just a tinkerer.  Turns out i should have watched this a bit more.

The Gibb River Road is pretty much non stop corrugations, which work electrical connections loose.  Cue one dead battery.  Pretty much every night I was having to borrow power from Brienne in order to keep my battery going.  At the end of the road we stopped in Kununurra and I bought an Optima Yellow Top.  I should have done this in the first place as you can run these until they have no charge, and then recharge them.  The one I ended up going with wasn’t like this and ended up in the scrap heap after a week.  A swap of the battery, check the solar works, and off again to Lake Argyle.  Where the battery was dead once more. Continue reading “Dual Battery Setup – Part Two”

New shoes!

Today the truck got some shiny new black shoes. I ended up getting six new tyres and two spare wheel rims, upgrading the steel spare to the standard Ford alloy.  After a bit of a chat with Scott at Richard’s Tyrepower in Osborne Park I’ve ended up going for new Mickey Thomson rubber.  It’s the first time I’ve had Mickeys, however all the online chat says that they’re pretty good.  Hopefully they’ll prove themselves on the road.

The tyres are a 285/70/R17 Baja ATZ P3.

I’ve spent a lot of today in the picturesque Avon Valley in the better halfs Land Rover Discovery Sport.  The day was run by Land Rover Australia and was a lot of fun, with the point of taking new Land Rover owners off the black top and into the bush.

The day kicked off with homemade scones at Moondyne Convention Centre, a brilliant spot that I hope to get back to soon. After a safety briefing it was onto the gravel and then into a field for our first challenge. Balancing the car on two wheels. There were a lot of nervous people who had just spent significant amounts of money looking at our instructors Ray and David as though they were nuts. Everyone had a go, and then the discussion was how easy it was. After a couple more run throughs, playing with the different modes on the car each time it was onto a gravel pit, then back to Moondyne and a fantastic lunch. Continue reading “Land Rover Experience Day”

Disclaimer: this is how I put this together, it is not intended as a guide, and is based on my limited personal experience. I am not an electrician, nor do I accept any personal liability for any accidents that may occur after reading this post. Always speak to a professional and be aware that electricity kills.

I’m a bit of a tinkerer, especially when it comes to electronics and electrical systems. A fair amount of my teens and early twenties was spent running cables through cars and mounting speakers in cars, and then swapping them out and doing them again after reading magazines on how to do this in a more professional way. It kept me out of trouble for the most part, and eventually I grew out of it.

Until now.

I had a couple of estimates for running a dual battery setup, and my inner Scot told me I was being seen over. Unlike fitting a bullbar, with the move of crash sensors and cruise control, this is something I could do myself. Cue late nights on YouTube and Google to see what had changed, and discussions with friends on what I should get. Continue reading “Dual Battery Setup – Part One”

Continue reading “Vehicle Prep”