New Fridge

After 2-3 months of deliberation we finally settled on the ARB 47 litre fridge.
The build quality was much better than the waeco, the only small downside for our scenario is the height. Its ~510mm high. That means we don't have room for a fridge slide if we want it to be under the bed in the car. I may end up just making it easy to slide out rather than a roller slide. As you can see we opted for the canvas insulated bag. It already has saved it from heaps of marks and dust, but more importantly protects it from sun and heat that costs battery power. We plan to leave it off overnight as it only gains a few degrees overnight.


In my opinion it's the best designed one in the market. It's controls are digital, has low battery cut out, has the best latch and most usable space. The lids, latches, lights, and location of the power sockets are just right.

We bought it for the trip, and our test trip, and when we go camping locally. We went to go camping with my brother, but when it didn't eventuate, we just pulled over and made bacon & egg sandwiches in the bush. It's immediately given us more freedom. The picture was taken at a big dirt clearing, on some fire trail just off Tudor Valley Road. The coordinates are below.

Location:-35.484287 149.901022

Parents have been informed

Well, its been a long time coming, but finally we've let my parents know of our travel plans. Naturally we were faced with numerous questions, but at least now they will get their passports.
Today I bleed the brakes on the car, now they seem a bit sharper.
Changed a wheel bearing last weekend with help from Cassie's brother Jay

Location:Sunshine Bay,Australia

Wheel Bearings

Ah wheel bearings - they are my arch nemesis. I bet I hold the world record for replacing them. I was too embarrassed to take the car back to the mechanic who replaced them last time - it's probably only been 20,000KM. Today I setup workshop on a dusty paddock to see if I had the tools to change a wheel bearing in the middle of nowhere. Seems like I did, I was just confused about been unable to find this lock nut, and needing a huge breaker bar and special socket to remove it. Only after sitting at home studying the books, turns out I did remove the lock nut - with my fingers. It was only just sitting in there, with the lock washer on top of it. I mean it can't really come out, but it's worth noting. Excuse the poor quality video - I only had my phone on me.
I changed front diff oil and intend to replace the front brakes, and bleed all the brakes tomorrow.
It's weird - I feel like I'm budgeting kilometers left on the car so that I can do one final service before departure. OK - more updates later.

Holy crap - this thing is possible

Sometimes, someone will say something, or you will inadvertently say something about the trip. peoples eyes light up and they hang on every word about the trip. they offer advice, tips, resources and they totally believe that we're going on this trip. It astounds me, because I think I'm only 40% convinced that this will eventuate, yet everyone is convinced this is going to happen. It's nice.

Just last week, I was at a workshop to learn how to work in indigenous communities. As usual with any workshop, they have a 'get to know one another' activity which has you revealing details of your life to strangers in an effort to have them know something about you. Example questions include "What sport do you play and or follow", "What is your ultimate travel destination", "What is the name of your favourite pet?" etc.

Well, my response individually was telling them about the trip I have planned - their eyes always lit up with interest. After this activity, we regrouped to share what we had learnt about one another. Someone volunteered my travel plans, and again everyone was excited and staggered at the enormity of it.

Cassie today dropped in conversation something about Russia, and her friend piped up, and said "what trip? what are you talking about?" Cassie had just said in conversation that we will be going through Russia. I'm not sure why, but the more people that know about this, the more it feels possible. Everyone just accepts that this is what's happening.

The flip-side of this, is that I now have to go, because everyone knows! d'oh!

Cassie raised an interesting idea of donating the car once we reach our destination - that way it won't feel so bad leaving it behind.

OK Fuel gauge

The fuel gauge linearity research may all have been a waste of time. A few nights ago, I most certainly filled the tank yet it failed to read full. Even after much jiggling and pounding the dash. It would only read 80%.
Even the next day after driving for about two hours did it read up to the full mark. Convinced this was just a 'dirty connector' causing too much resistance in the circuit to the tank sender unit, I removed the connector and earthed it out - sure enough, read full in just about a minute. Also tested the low fuel light - working fine.
I took the sender out of the tank and tried to somehow breath life into it, testing it's movement, making sure the float wasn't punctured etc. Gave it a few taps and re-installed. Oddly enough, it was reading higher after all this. Perhaps from now on I will conduct the tests again. I'm sure it's never going to be perfect, but not showing full isn't a good start.

Starter Motor
Finally after trying to fix my old one, it still was exhibiting the same symptoms. Out of interest I checked eBay for prices to gauge how much a potential repair was going to hurt. To my surprise, $180 delivered. It was a slam-dunk. New one arrived, replaced, works perfect. It's all about the confidence a repair gives you that is worth the money. That little place in your mind, where you store uncertainty about your car, has had a tiny clean out.

Roof Rack
Every time you consult someone for advice, you need to take it with a grain of salt. I have had this approach early on in the trip planning, because I didn't want anyone talking me out of it. On Sunday, I was standing with Tom looking at different ways to store the things we want to carry on the trip. Jerry cans, hi-lift jack, Maxxtrax, tables and chairs are by far the bulkiest items. Thankfully, they are low value items, and could easily be placed on a roof rack, freeing up the interior for keeping the important things safe and dry. This certainly opens up possibilities when it comes to using the space that was reserved for this gear. Another tip from Tom was to lay out everything you want to take on the ground, everything from socks and undies, to fridges, food, tools, fluids, water, fuel, bags, camera gear, laptop etc. Only then, will you have perspective on your storage needs and the optimum location for these items.

Magadan airport

OK, so as far as I can tell, Magadan airport has been closed since 2006. What does this mean for the trip? It means our plans of Magadan been the last stop are probably broken. This is not the end of the world, we have more options.

A) Catch a boat out of there.
B) Start the trip in Vladivostock, drive to Magadan, then to London.
C) Continue as normal, but upon arrival, back track to Vladivostok or Yakutsk and fly home.

Each option has a plethora of variables which need to be thought through... But for now, this is just listing options.

Location:Rainy day, at home on the uncomfortable lounge

Car Update

It's not that I am having a huge number of troubles with the car, it just the way I use it, the damage catches up. I've been having a great time pulling it to bits to learn how everything works. I had the starter motor last week to try and find why it would only spin the starter occasionally. You could just hit the key a few times and it would start, but I can't see that being ideal when waiting at a border crossing, or if we have to get moving in a hurry. I have a new starter motor coming tomorrow hopefully so I can install it on the weekend.

Last weekend we tried to repair a tiny coolant leak. First you must drain all existing coolant and fill with clean fresh water...to the untrained person, it's surprisingly difficult. The thermostat only opens as the engine gets hot, so you think you've drained everything until it gets hot and you find an exploding mess of coolant that you were sure you drained.

Afterward I was confident it was drained, I ran a radiator flush, then drove around for 20 minutes while it did it's job. Then repeat the flushing process again.

Then, the ran some some seal-up which looks like nail polish suspended in clear oil. Then run for 30 minutes. Oh and of course flush again and replace with new coolant. All the other products said you needed to overheat but not boil the cooling system by means of blocking the air through the radiator. That didn't sit well with me - so this product got my vote.
So far a week on, and no leak! I'm very impressed and it will certainly be featuring in our toolkit.

All this learning time is so valuable. Like I was continually monitoring the temperature gauge and cabin heater and it was amazing how easy an airlock in the heater core develops. I can't help but obsess as to where and when this knowledge may be used again. Perhaps beside a track in Mongolia, with no one for miles? Oh well, I'm excited - either way, the knowledge isn't heavy to carry.

I've started another interesting (to me) experiment do determine the linearity of the fuel gauge. I often find the half to quarter fall in the gauge to be surprisingly fast. I'm glad I started this experiment because I am surprised to see interesting results already. I consumed all of the fuel till the gauge was exactly on the empty marking. Filled the car, but it only took 72L when the tank is 92L. After reading the manual, it mentions when the 'low fuel indicator' illuminates, there is approximately 11L in the tank. Ok well I didn't see the light so that could explain 9L. The tank does have a large dent in it, but I wouldn't imagine would be more than 5L large. I'm going to refill at different intervals on the gauge to determine if the gauge is linear. I also intend to run it till stall to really get a worst case scenario figure. This is for two reasons.

Firstly, most fuel stations in the parts of the world we will be visiting are prepaid. And not prepaid where you imagine they give you some change when you are full, but more like the pump keeps pumping until your credit is used. This means we need to know quite accurately how much fuel we can purchase without overfilling based on the gauge reading. Another traveler has a trick to deal with this. He estimates but has jerrycans on the ground when filling so that if he over estimates his requirements, he can fill these rather than spill.

The second but perhaps more obvious reason for knowing is so we can more accurately predict our range based on gauge (in addition to calculated ranges). We need to be able to know if we can make it to the next fuel stop, or if has a problem, to the next fuel stop after that.

I feel that managing our fuel and water requirements is going to be difficult. We are limited to around 90L plus 20L in jerrycans. On my 15L/100 estimates we could cover 700KM max safely. Currently I'm only getting 400KM for 70 litres (Which is more like 17.5L/100) but alot of that was spent driving recklessly in snow and mud and a good hour of running the motor to clear coolant.

Further thinking reveals that my speedometer is out by 5-10 kph, which could account for some innacuracy in the L/100 figure.

Just finished reading backtobroke

Just firstly, having a vehicle ID check done on our yaris work car. They put you in a waiting room, with no windows, and hide your car behind a big gate. WTF is happening?! Oh well.

Just finished reading backtobroke.bloodspot.com. Olsin is an Irish guy who has spent the last 12 months riding from Canada to south America, and the famous route 40 which is like 5000km of pure isolation. Then he has just completed Dublin to Magadan. He took 2 months and 2 days. What a legend!


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Location:Challis St,Dickson,Australia