Perentie Long Range Camping Vehicle - LRCV

[Carzee]

Some other camping items came up in conversation today -the pros and cons of folding chairs and tables...
We did not take a folding table and chairs. Perhaps thats a small weight saved but mainly it saves space.

In nearly all places we visited there was a table and seats 'supplied': rest stops, C'van Parks, city parks, NParks and cliff-top lookouts.
Most places even have free BBQs as well. We give the BBQ a quick wipe if necessary then put down 2 baking paper sheets and cook on that. You can fold up the edges to make cheese and tomato omlettes (a fav) and when you finish you just chuck the paper. All done. Baking paper is gold for camping, used it heaps. http://glad.com.au/glad-products/food-management/glad-bake-and-cooking-paper/index.html Also note that a roll of good rubbish bin liners was gold.

When there is no table or chairs 'supplied' we can use Trimcast boxes topped with a small section of thick ply. The ply bit fits inside the rims of the BBQ plate, which is roughly a Primus "triple burner" stove size. Bunnings sold us the ply offcut for $4. (BTW, we have used other metals. Found that aluminium warps and cast just cracks. Steel 'plates you simply have to maintain.) The ply piece is wrapped and kept clean enough to use as a cutting board or prep board and it also acts as a base for the LPG gas cooker when sitting the LPG single burner stove on the Trimcast. The ply sits in the BBQ plate as I said and the BBQ plate is stashed between the driver and pgr seats right under the "console" (a Nylex jerrycan at this time).

For making a roadside cuppa we also make use of our 900mm wide aluminium panel that fits in the FFR scoop to act as a tailgate. It sits across the rear step.

We left our folding chairs at home and used our lightweight 3 legged stools. We do have some camp chairs and tables, and for an event like Corowa we do use them, but for those events we also take a trailer.

As mentioned in the previous gear review, a proper wash-up station would be a real luxury. Today we looked at a Mulgo table fitted to a D90. Very interesting... https://www.frontrunneroutfitters.com/en/au/camping-gear/chairs-tables/front-runner-stainless-steel-vehicle-side-mount-table-with-basin.html

[Carzee]

More gear talk: the flatpack firepit.

We carried the firepit and assoc. gear in a old ech bag. After a trial and error thing, we settled on packing it in last, on its edges, aka sideways, right at the FFR scoop tailgate panel. You can see the top of the bag in the photo above.

The lower venting holes in the sides give air access to make a less smokey burn. The firepit showed a tendancy to minimise sparks being blown off the fire by gusty conditions. A circle of rocks, an idea from before the ice age, is not so good as a windshield.

For cooking the firepit is very good support for grilles, pans and bbq plates. And for the older cooks... you don't have to bend down quite as far. I was cooking while sitting on a stool.

One factor is the water saving advantage. The steel baseplate is perhaps 50mm off the ground and cools the coals overnight as it lets air under the base of the ash and coals. They weren't even warm, so no water used to put the fire out before I buried the ash. Not an issue if you are beside a river or something, but most times we were not. We only carried 40 litres of water. The ash slides off the baseplate once you have dismantled the firepit. Looking at where we camped, after pack up, you would find it hard to prove someone had camped there.

It weighs about 8kg, 9kg. Is it worth the weight? I think so.

[Carzee]

Here's the video of "LRCV trip 1":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnFo01_xICA

I hope youtube serves it up with high res. for you. It supposed to be 1080HD. I heard you don't get that unless you have an established name on YT...

[wpalmo]

Great little film of your recent trip Carzee! Thanks for sharing. 

Love your setup especially the rooftop tent. Probably do something similar with my RFSV. Just have to find a good second hand Maggiolina Airlander at the right price. Not an easy task as you probably all ready know.

How did the rivnuts hang in or did you end up bolting the tent down?

Regards Warrick.

[Carzee]

We found the rivnuts were up to the job. I already mentioned the corrugated road issues, this was very much a shakedown trip. At home we got out the 13mm socket and checked the bolts. We nipped up two out of the four ROPS mount bolts that go through the rubber bushes into the 1990 rivnuts. We found that one of the roofrack (side) mounts nipped about a quarter of a turn like the others. So, I would say the rack was very well built and congrats to Wayne T. who nutted it out and welded it. Its strong, as low as possible, adaptable to the extras at each end, and it appears to be rock solid after the shakedowns. Awesome result.

We could've gone for lighter weight and a faster build design or even used a production rack (Rhino etc) off the shelf somehow, but taking the time to do it the way we did gave us a good result. So thanks again Wayne.

Wayne would like a Maggie as well. Just about everyone who sees it set up wants one. What we were waiting for was a spell of bad weather to be able to 'test out' that situation. In 12 nights in Maggie all we got was one hour of semi-gales as a change went through. The canvas walls are taught and they moved with the blows a bit but didn't flap around or make noise.

[Carzee]

Also mention we were flexible about where we camped. We stayed at a few caravan parks, a farm stay (my new fav place), a few roadside free camps, and in a National Park.

On the highways I saw a lot of camper trailers, campervans, camper utes (slide ins) and of course 3 million caravans. I got the impression at one caravan park that what we all do is go travelling in our 4 door HiLux towing a big box we can sit in and watch footy on 40in TVs, have a freezer and a microwave etc and have to run a genny to get thru dinner time. Same with the Motorhomes. I hate the gennys. I asked one guy why he didn't just pay the extra $6 or so to get a powered site? "Nah we got the genny so we can pull up anywhere." We moved camp. At another place the only other camper at the river had one running and in the bush its quiet ...so its all you could hear. The manager came along for a chat and asked them to switch it off as it was against the rules after 3pm but they said they were a bit desperate to re-charge a flat fridge battery. "Just another couple of hours?" "Ok". They had floods and a CD player and everything going so that excuse they always use gets them through another dinnertime in another caravan park and other patrons who paid up for a advertised "Quiet secluded bush setting on the river 3km out of town" get some aggro. Ughh. At 8.30pm I had enough waiting for the manager and went to chat with the guy. I stood by the drivers door and chatted like we were old mates but I kept moving to the back. The genny was on the passenger side and I gradually moved around there were the noise was (facing our camp) and we both had to talk up. I said if the genny was so quiet how come it was on this side of his ute for us to listen too? Why wasn't it on their (camp) side? He considered my POV and without much delay and turned it off. Should've done it hours back. I'd been having a run of this sort of stuff that began in Corowa.

The main thing in a caravan park for us was too do was to hit the showers, do a load of laundry (we could've found a laundramat I suppose), charge camera batteries and use the internet (when they had it which they didn't mostly because there was no mobile network in the outback towns we visited).

All that brings we to the idea of trying to avoid caravan parks and use farm stays more. I can rig our own shower up if there is enough water. I can find laundromats. I can break free LOL.

So it begins. Solar. I want a panel rigged to twin old school wet lead batteries. The panel would charge the batts to replace power used by the Engel and a small, low draw 300w 240v pure sine inverter (to power a laptop and charge camera and drone batteries etc).

I have read a load of stuff on the web but ended up trusting Handybob. https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com

Bob has a decade of grey nomad life on solar, no generator, off grid as they say. He's in the USA of course but 12v batteries and sunshine are the same up there as they are down here. I have ordered the Morningstar controller and the Bogart monitor he has found to be the most reliable. Nothing fancy. Its all on feebay. The panel I have (ebay again) I will use as a starter into this aspect of camping.

So thats what will keep me busy through winter as I save up some more money.

[Carzee]

Haven't posted here for a month or so.

I have removed the FFR cubby box that is installed in the rear tub against the bulkhead to get more space. Also I have been spending money on bits to assemble a "power box". This started once I saw Ronny Dahl on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BvtTdaDeXk
The box in the Dahl video is way bigger than what my needs are etc, but the takeaways for me from the video is that its all together as a unit for the most part, that its clean and not dusty or rusty and that its installable and removable as a unit. The console box can be dust sealed. Air can be vented thru a little filter, maybe a Victa mower handle snorkel salvaged from the tip aka dump (or new https://www.allmowerspares.com.au/victa-air-filters )

Power lines to batteries, the Engel and the solar cell can all be connected by Andersons on the outside of the console. Inside maybe the inverter, the solar controller, the battery monitors, the USBs, the 240 GPO, assorted fuses, shunts, circuit breakers. And in the forward section inside will be a neoprene container for charging phones, laptops, cameras etc. I don't think the ARB compressor will fit in there. The ARB and tyre gear may be installed in the RFSV stashbox in the driverside Aux Batt locker. We'll let the whole thing evolve as we go.

I have a inverter now, a Projecta 600w (after much research and forum chats) and will install it and the solar controller soon.
http://www.projecta.com.au/site/DefaultSite/filesystem/images/Inverters/Pro-Wave/PW600/PW600-large-image1.jpg
The Projecta is bulky/large: the heatsink is large and the venting fan works well, and only on demand. 'Boosting' 12v to 240v makes things heat up. In general, the cooler things operate, the longer they live. So many inverters die early...

I also called in at KLR and purchased some more bits. Pics soon.

In the meantime I have fitted a sedimentor replacement. I posted it on the "What I did Today" thread but will paste it here as well----

Fitted a new Ryco sedimenter/filter "R2132UA" -$62- after some Perentie owners on the facebook group talked them up. One owner had fitted 15mths ago, no probs.

The Ryco specs checked out for flow rate etc so I purchased one on feebay.

I should say my Perentie was recently serviced and the small gauze filter under the hand pump aka primer aka lift pump was nice and clean as was everything else. So I went with the idea of keeping the fuel side as clean as practicable. The Ryco has a transparent fuel bowl which is nice too.  The fuel connections, threads, and mounting to the chassis bracket is all correct. We used the original bolts. Replacement filter cartridges are $12 at SCA.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Ryco-Fuel-Filter-R2132UA/262575672851?

Fitting should've been straightforward. We checked the connection "fuel direction arrows" on the old sedimenter top and set the Ryco connectors the same. Wayne helped me do the job in the carport, in the 3,4,5,6 degree temps before midday. It was cold.

As it turned out, we had a hassle bleeding the system, and that was our own fault as it turned out. Oh well.

Long version:
First thought was with the original old primer hand pump. Fuel came out the bottom of it. I replaced that with the Bosch unit that is available and on-hand as I got one weeks ago after Johnny noted it was nearly dead. But still... it wouldn't run.

Second thought, fuel level. We put 20litres of diesel in tank thinking a quarter of a tank could be too low. Still wouldn't run.

Third thought, phone-a-friend time: Johnny from Series Workshop. "Re-check everything from the tank forward". We checked we had fuel via the hand pump at the cartridge filter near the tappet cover and then we cracked the fuel line into the Injector Pump to check there as well. Fuel pulsed there no probs.

Fourth thought, had we put the wrong fuel pipe, i.e., the return line, into the new filter input side? Were the input and output of the filter ass-about? I pulled the seatbox plate under the driver that covers the top of the fuel tank and then got under the Landy and traced the fuel pipes to the new filter. Bingo! Found the problem: pipes into the new filter were loose and sucking air

Short version:
Classic. Don't assume the pipes were tightened by the other guy LOL. We had both been under to look it over and fit up the lines into the correct connectors, but I thought Wayne had done them up and he thought I had done them up

Back on road:
A few pumps, a engine turn over for 10seconds and it fired up. We cracked the air bleed bolt near the engine fuel filter under the bonnet, some air bubbles appeared, then we warmed it up for 10 minutes. I went for a run down the main road for 30mins at 100kmph etc. No further probs.

[Carzee]

Here are some pics of the RFSV stash box. Note the Ronstan drain plug is the same as used in the No. 5 trailer.

I used the driver-side aux battery locker as a place for the 4kg LPG bottle but after Corowa and the shakedown trips I am moving on and choosing the butane disposable cookers.

[Carzee]

I got both the RFSV stashbox and the AWOL console from KLR last week. I also got a complete snorkel and a jerry stash bin for under the rear.
Here are the pics of the AWOL Console. Its aluminium. A lot of the 30+ AWOL Perenties had the console, custom fabricated by someone. A member here will know who made them (for sure) ... Seems to be a great unit. The ex-AWOL RFSV in the photo is 51-704.

[Carzee]

Been a while but we got a camp last weekend.
Goldilocks Saturday and mixed for Sunday.
Very green spring on the Monaro. Still miles of snow along the tops in the distance. Chatting to locals and the topic is land sales -very busy down this way with some listings selling inside a day or two. Conveyancing is doing overtime. Mysterious.

[Welby]

excellent photo

[Carzee]

This weekend in Canberra is the Caravan/Leisure Show and I may go for some ideas. I am talking to fibreglass shop at the moment to do some DIY work for a cold climate camper trailer. The wind on the ranges just cuts right through. Or maybe we're soft. (Hats off to the pioneers in the high country.)

[Carzee]

from the post for 25th October: "Chatting to locals and the topic is land sales -very busy down this way with some listings selling inside a day or two. Conveyancing is doing overtime. Mysterious."

Mystery solved? I think the locals are getting in before the "Snowy Scheme 2" gets approved:
http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/our-scheme/snowy20/

[Carzee]

After the 2018 Corowa Swim-In and the 70th Anniversary of Land Rover Celebrations at Cooma over Easter 2018 we got busy with different things...

one of the things -- we are currently fitting up a set of Kingpin Fabrication's "Ultra-slim" rock sliders to the LRCV.

https://www.kingpindesignandfab.com

Today was a acetone cleanup followed by a 180grit sand down and then the first coat of Cold-Gal (Killrust brand) by brush. There was enough sunshine (+15C) to set off the well-stirred cold gal.

Another coat tomorrow and then some primer in the afternoon. Should be fitting them Sunday.

[Calvinmiddle]

Carzee

Thanks for send me the number for the AWOl awning, do you mind posting up some pictures of them fold stowed and erected?  They look good from the photos I've seen but would like to see some close ups as well first.

Thanks