Post expedition report and pics

[Azrocks]

Both!

[Mickldo]

Originally Posted by Azrocks

Both!

OK

[Mickldo]

[Mickldo]

I did a birf job on my mates HZJ80 on the weekend in exchange for his roofrack. The roofrack is the one in all the pics of my trip. The rack was only on loan for the trip but now I own it so I'm going to add a roll out awning, axe and shovel mounts and a set of roof lights.

[matt 105]

Nice one, Mick.


Cheers.

Matt

[Mickldo]

Originally Posted by matt 105

Nice one, Mick.


Cheers.

Matt

Thanks Matt

Did you notice I went for the Hella 4000's?

[matt 105]

Ha, yeah mate.
On my 80srs, (ARB non winch bar), I cut off the old mounts and welded new, wide ones on. They are flush with the bottom of the bar, and are 75 x 6 flat bar - 70mm long. I put 6mm rod in the fillet to weld into, as well.
Sure was a memorable trip, wasnt it.
You never plan for weather like that.
Funny that you got moved from your comfy campsite to the shearing shed - Classic.
Youve got some great photos there.
Quite a few of those cars are familiar to me as well.
Personally tho, I dont know if I could work all year to save up 4 weeks holidays LOL
Excellent read - thanks Mick

Cheers

Matt

[Mickldo]

Originally Posted by matt 105

Ha, yeah mate.
On my 80srs, (ARB non winch bar), I cut off the old mounts and welded new, wide ones on. They are flush with the bottom of the bar, and are 75 x 6 flat bar - 70mm long. I put 6mm rod in the fillet to weld into, as well.
Sure was a memorable trip, wasnt it.
You never plan for weather like that.
Funny that you got moved from your comfy campsite to the shearing shed - Classic.
Youve got some great photos there.
Quite a few of those cars are familiar to me as well.
Personally tho, I dont know if I could work all year to save up 4 weeks holidays LOL
Excellent read - thanks Mick

Cheers

Matt

With a mickldo jnr on the way it might be a while till I get a chance to go on another big expedition. I'll have to make do with weekend trips and long weekends in the meantime. At least I'll have plenty of time to plan my next big expedition.

[busiboy]

2 words

F*&^%$ awesome!!!

I have to get my old girl going and comfortable to start thinking about more than weekend trips.

Great trip, great thread, amazing pictures.

[lulo]

WOW !, very good pics and report mate !, your country is great, i live to far , hahahahaaa,

[Mickldo]

Originally Posted by busiboy

2 words

F*&^%$ awesome!!!

I have to get my old girl going and comfortable to start thinking about more than weekend trips.

Great trip, great thread, amazing pictures.

Originally Posted by lulo

WOW !, very good pics and report mate !, your country is great, i live to far , hahahahaaa,

Thanks guys for your kind words

[beno]

Great report Mick.

Of course, for us Cruiser fanatics, Australia is a Mecca of sorts and we rely heavily on the reports you all from down under provide us.

Thanks for a great thread. Good luck with the 105 build up.

Cheers.
-onur
Corrales, NM

[Mickldo]

Originally Posted by beno

Great report Mick.

Of course, for us Cruiser fanatics, Australia is a Mecca of sorts and we rely heavily on the reports you all from down under provide us.

Thanks for a great thread. Good luck with the 105 build up.

Cheers.
-onur
Corrales, NM

Thanks beno

For those of you that haven't figured it out yet I am building another rig. The thread is http://forum.ih8mud.com/expedition-b...ion-build.html

Hopefully there will be plenty of fresh trip reports from OZ in the near future.

[TachedOutOffRoad]

Thats really, really cool. Every truck in every picture was badass

Thanks for the writeup.

[Russ in California]

Nice, very nice. Lucky to have such an abundance of open country.
Thanks very much for sharing.

[r3run33]

great write up I had a chance to go to broom a few years back on a month long trip but i could not get off from work with some people from the overland mag; I wish i had went b/c now I'm back in the usa. Hey some questions for ya? How did your tires hold up and puncturs or tires coming off the rims? Also how about lights t night time; did you see any good set ups for roof top set up? As for the shower under the bonet; I looked for the write up for that one did the water come from the tank in the back? I know you did not use it but was it set up for hot water? ifso what was used to heat the water? thanks for the write up great pics.

[Mickldo]

Originally Posted by TachedOutOffRoad

Thats really, really cool. Every truck in every picture was badass

Thanks for the writeup.

Originally Posted by Russ in California

Nice, very nice. Lucky to have such an abundance of open country.
Thanks very much for sharing.

Originally Posted by r3run33

great write up I had a chance to go to broom a few years back on a month long trip but i could not get off from work with some people from the overland mag; I wish i had went b/c now I'm back in the usa. Hey some questions for ya? How did your tires hold up and puncturs or tires coming off the rims? Also how about lights t night time; did you see any good set ups for roof top set up? As for the shower under the bonet; I looked for the write up for that one did the water come from the tank in the back? I know you did not use it but was it set up for hot water? ifso what was used to heat the water? thanks for the write up great pics.

Thanks for the kind words guys

r3run33 - The MTRs did very well as far as puncture resistance went. I didn't get one puncture all trip. I did adjust tyre pressures to suit the conditions for every change in conditions. I don't like the MTRs as a tyre though, I'll be looking for something different for the 105. I'm thinking Mickey Thompson MTZs or some Pro Comp Xtreme MTs.

I replaced my small IPF rectangular lights at Broken Hill because they wouldn't light up enough of the road, too many roos out there not to be able to see them. I bought the Hella 4000s and they were brilliant on the long straight outback roads. I probably need more spread now I am back near the coast. It is a bit hard to see round the corners, maybe I will get some other lights and aim them out each side or get some HID upgrades for the headlights.

I have had bad experiences with roof top tents in the past but I think I should give them a second chance. The one I borrowed to use was a huge one. It was heavy, it caught the wind, it was a pain to set up, the roof rack couldn't be used for anything else. I like the ARB Touring tent though, it is only a fraction of the size and is a lot simpler.

I never used the hot water system on the trip. It wasn't hooked up to the tank in the back normally but it could be easily. The whole system used push on garden hose fittings so the intake could be hooked up to the tank, mains water via a tap, a bucket or straight out of a creek, river or lake. Out of a bucket is best, this way less water is wasted as you can stand in the bucket and recycle the water. The pump works at 17Lpm so the 40L water tank would be emptied in just over 2min. In the desert you just don't have that sort of water to waste on a shower. It should be good camping down at the beach where the freshwater creeks supply unlimited water though.

The heat exchanger is a copper tube with a copper coil inside. The coil carries the shower water and the rest of the space in the tube is filled with coolant that is tapped from the heater circuit under the bonnet. The shower water is heated by the engine coolant but they are kept separate from each other. Water temp is adjusted by using the heater tap inside the cab, it adjusts the amount of coolant flow through the heat exchanger.

I hope that answers your questions.

[r3run33]

thanks that does answer alot; i would use it for showering after surfing so conserving would not really be needed; sorry if that is not a very nature friendly statement. by the way how has the water problems there in oz gone; when i was back there we had to conserve all the time. Also do you remeber what company you used for the water heater system? Currently I used a jug with water and rinse off as much sand as possible for the trip back home. I would like to set up some lights so this use also. thanks again for the write up

[r3run33]

Sorry forgot to ask abut the computer mount thing; i was gonna order one was it really bad with the vibrations??

[Mickldo]

Originally Posted by r3run33

thanks that does answer alot; i would use it for showering after surfing so conserving would not really be needed; sorry if that is not a very nature friendly statement. by the way how has the water problems there in oz gone; when i was back there we had to conserve all the time. Also do you remeber what company you used for the water heater system? Currently I used a jug with water and rinse off as much sand as possible for the trip back home. I would like to set up some lights so this use also. thanks again for the write up

The shower would be brilliant for that. My heat exchanger is a home made one. Any good plumber should be able to make one for you. If you want to buy one Twine and Glind both make good heat exchangers. My pump is a Whale pressure pump that I got through one of my marine suppliers (I build boats at work).

The drought is pretty much over here in Qld, we now have flooding in just about every river.

Originally Posted by r3run33

Sorry forgot to ask abut the computer mount thing; i was gonna order one was it really bad with the vibrations??

The RAM mount I got for my GPS was great but the laptop mount was hopeless. It shook around and vibrated and that was on the blacktop If you didn't have a passenger and could locate it lower and to the side the vibrations may be less but I'm sure a more solid mount could be made.

[r3run33]

thanks for all the info our spring is coming here soon and that is my project to get ready for summer

[Mickldo]

Originally Posted by Mickldo

My mates that had the accident drove their truck to the event from QLD and used their truck as their DD back home, shopping and dropping the kids off to school, etc. They were devastated when they had the accident but true to the comraderie of the event a couple of the local competitors chipped and donated labour and parts from their spares cars to get them mobile again.

Unfortunately the comp had been cancelled by then and they couldn't continue on competing.

The rain hadn't let up any and the organisers of the OBC were starting to get concerned that there were a couple of hundred people stranded on stations that were all cut off from civilization and were fast running out of food and water (and alcohol). The SES declared it a state emergency and overrode the RTA road closure to allow us all to transport back to town. We all could've driven out earlier, we were all driving modded 4wds after all, but the police were waiting in town and fining anybody coming into town $1000 dollars a tyre (including your spare) for travelling along the closed roads. Those of us with two spares would've been slapped with a $6000 fine, no thanks.

Anyway with the SES overriding the RTA we all had to get out along the one road. As you could see in the above photos with the tyres all clogged up it was going to be an interesting trip out, especially after a hundred or so 4wds had chopped it up even more and a couple of extra days rain had fallen on them. The organisers split us up into four separate convoys, all with competitors in each group to help in case recoveries were needed. All the standard 4wds and those towing camper trailers and the less experienced drivers went in the first convoys. The guys that were making the decision who were going in which convoy took one look at our rigs and rolled their eyes. They just went on to the other spectators. By the time the last convoy with the most experienced drivers in the more modded trucks came round there was only a couple of us left. The official event videographer and photographer were in our convoy so in all the deeper mud and water crossings they stopped us and filmed us going through so there is a pretty good chance we might make it onto the official DVD or at least onto one of their websites



Even though we were taking our time filming and had left a couple of hours after the previous convoys we soon caught them up. The less modified rigs were having a heap of trouble just staying on the road. Once they had slid off the crown of the road they got bogged in the spoon drain.



A pic of our convoy (except for our Competitor trip leader who had the lime green Hilux in the earlier pics). The white 100 is the photographers truck.

My wife bought me the DVD of the 07 OBC for Valentines Day. We did end up on there

OK....so we are just blurs in the crowd on a couple of the competitive sections but we are there. The 80 also is in a couple of scenes, when we are in convoy on the way off the station.

We got the DVD off an ebay store but Through The Gears are the ones the do the DVD and they might send to US if any of you are interested in getting a copy.

[Mickldo]

Originally Posted by Mickldo

My wife bought me the DVD of the 07 OBC for Valentines Day. We did end up on there

OK....so we are just blurs in the crowd on a couple of the competitive sections but we are there. The 80 also is in a couple of scenes, when we are in convoy on the way off the station.

We got the DVD off an ebay store but Through The Gears are the ones the do the DVD and they might send to US if any of you are interested in getting a copy.

The footage of my mates crash is also on there...........OUCH They were screaming in when the other one stopped. Nasty.

[ThaiCruiser]

Thanks for sharing and the kind words for the Thai team. Awesome report is understatement.