Hello,
wanted to check with you guys, this is probably more for expeditionportal.com site but hopefully there is somebody who was dealing with the same issues I have.
We are going for camping road trip to Russia. Reason why I say camping road trip is that the roads really improved a lot for last couple of years and the "Road of Bones" is not such adventure today. There are guys going in regular not 4x4 offroad beasts. The difficult sections are now repaired and I would say that it is really not difficult as in technical sense.
What is scary in some sense is just the Russian traffic but it is probably the same in Perm, Kazan and East regions where we are going. Everybody knows about the famous russian videos. Other scary part is remoteness of the road specially between Yakutsk and Magadan, anyway talking to local guys there is stop / gas station every 250 km so it is not that bad.
I have purchased the Land Cruiser 80 back in October and did a lot of work on it.
IMG_5781 by xsanch1, on Flickr
I have done the head gasket and replaced all rubber and other hoses , radiator, water pump , new fan , new shroud, front axles , rear axles in plan. Total price only for parts was around 3000 $.
Now I am planning the shipping of the car to Russia and due to my visa and financial situation we have only two months of preparing so I need to move faster. Here is the list of what needs to be done:
Basically I would end up with the same setup as @Box Rocket . My car has J springs with L OME shocks. I just calculated that the height of the car with the roof rack and tent will be 250 cm which honestly is too high. I need to talk to @Box Rocket if he found it stable. Probably I will have to add at least spacers to have widen track.
Right now I am figuring out the shipping costs , they are ridiculous expensive as there is not too much traffic between USA and Russia. The costs for 20'' container is 3400 $ , if sharing the 40'' container the cost goes down to 2100 $. There is the RO-RO option from Seattle but I am not sure how safe | secure is it. Also I would end up paying higher rates due to the height of the car with tent.
Another concern is the weather , it should not be freezing - around 30 - 40 fahrenheit. This is another factor I need to put.
Jorge
wanted to check with you guys, this is probably more for expeditionportal.com site but hopefully there is somebody who was dealing with the same issues I have.
We are going for camping road trip to Russia. Reason why I say camping road trip is that the roads really improved a lot for last couple of years and the "Road of Bones" is not such adventure today. There are guys going in regular not 4x4 offroad beasts. The difficult sections are now repaired and I would say that it is really not difficult as in technical sense.
What is scary in some sense is just the Russian traffic but it is probably the same in Perm, Kazan and East regions where we are going. Everybody knows about the famous russian videos. Other scary part is remoteness of the road specially between Yakutsk and Magadan, anyway talking to local guys there is stop / gas station every 250 km so it is not that bad.
I have purchased the Land Cruiser 80 back in October and did a lot of work on it.
IMG_5781 by xsanch1, on Flickr
I have done the head gasket and replaced all rubber and other hoses , radiator, water pump , new fan , new shroud, front axles , rear axles in plan. Total price only for parts was around 3000 $.
Now I am planning the shipping of the car to Russia and due to my visa and financial situation we have only two months of preparing so I need to move faster. Here is the list of what needs to be done:
- prinsu roof rack - this rack is amazing and everybody agrees
- gordigear roof tent - we will buy gordigear which is in my humble opinion very good option. We will buy the cheaper 240 cm version (explorer plus). Also we will have annex, awning and mesh room (lot of mosquitos in Siberia)
- water system - I purchased water tank (valterra abs), two water pumps, helton heater, temperature sensor. The setup will be to have one water pump to circulate water threw helton heater until the temperature is right. The second pump will be used to get water out of the tank (shower, kitchen)
- speski barrier - I already purchased the barrier and waiting for delivery. I think that this is really needed for security - we have two kids aged 9 and 6
- tailgate lid storage - I will buy the kit from @socallove . Will store stuff I hopefully will not need
- arb air compressor - this is needed for sure
- 4x4 lab can carrier - verified that it will bolt into kaymar rear bumper arm
- box kitchen - still deciding if I should buy kanza or if I should build one myself. Kanza is really nice but pretty expensive
- indel b fridge - I think that it is just fine with the right compressor (Danfoss).
- alu box - need some box to put all other stuff on the roof
Basically I would end up with the same setup as @Box Rocket . My car has J springs with L OME shocks. I just calculated that the height of the car with the roof rack and tent will be 250 cm which honestly is too high. I need to talk to @Box Rocket if he found it stable. Probably I will have to add at least spacers to have widen track.
Right now I am figuring out the shipping costs , they are ridiculous expensive as there is not too much traffic between USA and Russia. The costs for 20'' container is 3400 $ , if sharing the 40'' container the cost goes down to 2100 $. There is the RO-RO option from Seattle but I am not sure how safe | secure is it. Also I would end up paying higher rates due to the height of the car with tent.
Another concern is the weather , it should not be freezing - around 30 - 40 fahrenheit. This is another factor I need to put.
Jorge