Some good news

So today I picked up our new truck. Obviously not new, but new to us.
After loosing the auction yesterday, I returned a client's PC to them at 5PM. I noticed across the road as I drove out of the client's driveway, the 'old troopie' that Les used to own. I thought, gee I haven't seen it in a while. Thought nothing more of it. Thinking I might go to Sydney to check out another troopie on my day off, I checked the usual car sites to see if there was some more in Sydney before I set off. Listed only last night was the troopie I saw hours before. The price of $20,500 was already pretty good, but the KM's were higher than I wanted - thought I would take a look anyway seen as it's only 5 minutes walk away from our home. I've known the history of this car since it had 50,000KM on it. Below is a picture when we took it to the snow!

The bullbar has since taken a bit of a smack and is bent, but also has rust etching the paint, making it look brown. Functionally it's fine, I might try repair it, but then again I might just get a black one as it would look much better. The old bullbar is bringing the look of the truck down somewhat. Try imagine it's not there ;-)

It has 5 brand new tyres, just had a major service (timing belt, all oils), and a PTO winch.

Here are some pictures of our truck. These are taken just after the car wash so they look nice and shiny.

It has a tow bar, but no tongue thing. The owner said it should be in the car but doesn't seem to be.
I noticed he forgot to take out his brand new Blueant bluetooth handsfree kit, so I returned it to him after I had a bit of a play with the truck. Although he wasn't in the office, I hope my honesty will be rewarded with the tow bar tongue thing.

I want the factory seats back, these after market ones are shagged. The factory bench seat is a bit more versatile (and comfortable)
The tinted windows look cool, but I suspect we'll be taking the tint off the back windows and keeping in on the front ones.
You can see my redneck repair attempt, tried to pull the dent with cable tie and duct tape. It didn't work, but I think a plunger would do the job very quickly.

I had a good play with the PTO winch this afternoon winding it out and back on nice and neat. It's great fun... I can't wait to use it on someone else ;-)

Cassie should be home any minute. It's parked out the front so the sad thing is, she'll get a good look before I get to see her reaction.

I managed to knock three grand off the price, all thanks to my 'past sales' spreadsheet. I was able to demonstrate it's market value with great precision. I'm glad I did though, as went to insure it with AAMI, the value I bought it for was the same as their valuation! I however insured it with YOUI, it was a much better deal, and they cover it for all four wheel driving as long as it's in accordance with the manufacturers operation handbook. I imagine the only thing the handbook will say is a maximum wading depth - which is fine by me.
OK, more details later.

No dice

Well, the car went to auction, it sold for $2000 more than I was prepaid to pay. So, not exciting news, but still news.

Whoa... putting the cart before the horse

Funny story. I was taking Cassie to go see the car I've been talking about.

These two guys who were looking through all the cars, wandered over and started looking through the troopie we were looking at. They went through it, adjusting the seat, opening the bonnet, testing the radio etc. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was somewhat put out by their presence. How dare they just stick their nose around in this car. It wasn't until I was walking away after having turned the ignition off (they left it on accessories) that I realised, they would have let the battery go flat in my car. whoa, hold on.... it's not my car at all! I'm already acting like it is, and it certainly isn't even close.

I've already agreed with work, that if I win the Auction on Thursday, I'm not coming in on Friday as I'll be coordinating payment, registration, insurance and generally playing with my new toy. The sick part again, is that I'm not booking any appointments on Friday for this very reason. There I go again, getting way ahead of myself.

I wonder if anyone else shares the sick joy that would come from taking a whole day and cleaning the car from top to bottom. It's not that I have to, but more that I would LOVE to take it apart and clean every bit. I'm certainly not obsessive compulsive. It may be too cold, oh well, I could just do the inside, with the heater on listening to the radio.... wait, getting ahead of myself again.

Cassie wasn't impressed with the Vinyl in the back, convinced that is could be harbouring some disease beneath it. I think it would be awesome if we could keep it, but I'll accept her call if she puts her foot down about it.

So, now that I've got all this out of my system, I hope I can relax, stick to my budget, and accept the fact that I may miss out. Oh well, there is plenty more out there. It's just this one is 100M away, not $1000 away.

Auction Auction Auction

OK - I've found something I like. The below picture is not of the exact one, but it's sister. They both are ex-army ambulance troopies. This one had large depressions (not dents, depressions) in the bonnet, one of the side steps was smashed and seemed to be a little bit 'muddy' in parts of the engine bay and floor that were out of sight.

One advantage of the ambulance thing, is that the floor in the back is vinyl, but as Cassie pointed out, it means you don't know where the bolt holes are.
Yes - to keen eyes, you'll notice it doesn't have a bull-bar. Consider it this way; it's more expense to buy one after the purchase, but it does means I'll get to get the exact one I want.
The one that goes to auction on Thursday has 108,000KM, it's 2002.
It's sister that had 30,000KM sold for $27,500, so could I be bold enough to expect a max price of $22500? Ideally I don't want to pay more than $20,000 but it is rare to find one with these kind of KM's in this year. The one that sold last week had a bit more damage (this one has virtually none), so I'm preparing myself for disappointment. But hey, this is what the blog is about... documenting ups and downs.

Is now an appropriate time to bag out land rovers? Click on the picture above. Notice the additional piece of metal so the numberplate doesn't overhang. Oh, and all the pop-rivets.... it's a brand new car! oh well, whats wrong with a little harmless jabbing of land rover fanatics. And before anyone suspects I'm biased to Toyota's, I've never owned a Toyota 4x4, I've had a Nissan and a Mitsubishi, but please shoot me if I ever buy a land rover. They don't even deserve capital letters. Here's a two part video from a very experienced 4WD'er from South Africa. He has owned several land rovers, but he is now at home in a Land Cruiser.

So, moving right along. I've collected some more goodies since my last post (or maybe I forgot to document it)

Here is some 6 gauge wire, good for 125AMP 12V. I got 6 meters which is a bit too much, but better than too short. It will go from the axillary battery, to the distribution panel in the back of the car which I have talked about in a previous post. I got the seller to throw in some more terminals which will be handy.

I've never used these terminals, I'm not sure if they crimp on, get soldered on or what. I should do some research.

I also got a ball head for my tripod. One of the hesitations to using the tripod with the 'pan head' is that it's difficult to ever get the tripod level. Yes, it does have a spirit level, but it seriously takes 2-3 minutes to get it perfect. And on a nice big photograph with an obvious horizon, it's super obvious if it's not level. The ballhead allows you to just adjust to eye, lock and snap. The ballhead came with an identical quick release plate to my 'pan head', which means I can switch between video camera and still on either mount... nice!

60 Minutes

A few quotes from a 60 minutes report on gold & oil mining in Siberia:

"I'd wondered what on earth I done wrong when they packed me off to the desolate wilds of Siberia... after all, it's not the kind of place you generally visit willingly. People used to be dragged there in chains..."
"Siberia was once the world headquarters for suffering..."
Here is the article for those that are interested: http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8219565/frozen-fortunes  Frozen Fortunes 60 minutes 26/06/2011
Thought it was funny when aligned to our trip.
On our last trip, as you know we used it as a 'shake-down' to see what worked, what didn't, what we used, what we didn't and finally whether we liked it or not.
Which brings me to the topic of digital maps/navigation software. We had a system on our last trip, and it was very handy. Surprisingly, the main reason was handy is because it showed us exactly where we were.

Paper maps are much easier to read as they will typically come in different scales in a map book. You'll have a nice big country/state map to allow you to set a general direction, and a localised map to actually help you make on the ground decisions, like how far between here and lunch.

You certainly can have different scale digital maps, but the speed at which you get get perspective is instant as opposed to continually flicking windows and changing maps. You might say; Why don't you just zoom out. Well, because it's just a paper map that's scanned in, as you zoom out, the text becomes smaller.
We would certainly try to buy our paper maps spiral bound as flat out paper maps are annoying.

We did prove that you can't rely on the digital system on our last trip. To cover us in the event of a failure, we plan to mark our location on our paper map once or trice a day if we are on roads between towns. In Mongolia where there are no roads, we will be doing this much more frequently. On our last trip, the 12v laptop power supply failed. We could run it on the inverter, which was inconvenient but workable. We were fortunate as any other failure would have rendered the system useless.  Other than blowing away, getting wet, or unable to locate your position on a map, paper maps are pretty reliable.

The screenshots below show our off road navigation system OziExplorer, but we also use turn-by-turn navigation software just like your car GPS. I sold the last system (which I must say was nearly dead) and am considering buying the components to build another system. As you can see, our last implementation was slightly crude, but very effective. It was mounted in such a way that it could be viewed by the driver. In hindsight, moving it away from the drivers view would be advantageous as it's too tempting to look at while driving.

I'm of two minds in developing a new system. Whether to do a similar 10" screen but on the passenger side this time, or scale it back to a smaller and simpler 'stuck on the window' navigation device running a more compact version of the OziExplorer software called OziExplorer CE. Or, a in dash thing that kills all those birds - something like this:

Please - don't feel like you have to watch this through - it is mighty boring.

Below is a 50% scale of how the full PC version of OziExplorer software fits a screen like our old car. As you can imagine, pressing any of the buttons with your finger was nearly impossible.



 Below is a video of how the OziExplorer CE looks (he's cycling through heaps of screens all of which are customisable) - Again, boring video, but just to give you some perspective on how it's much more touch screen friendly.

I like the idea that this is separate to our laptop - if anything goes wrong, we can use the GPS/OziExplorer combination in the laptop. The other advantage is, OziExplorer CE/Dash navigation is all 'solid state' meaning no moving parts and less complexity as opposed to using a laptop for navigation and piping the video back to the dash mounted screen. Another advantage is the laptop will be off during transport, reducing the risk of damage, but also meaning it can be easily removed in our hand luggage without having to shut it down and unplug it. Excuse my stream of thoughts - wow, I say advantage alot.


On a follow-up to a previous post, I mentioned I had trouble setting the glue between the lid and the hose joiner - I bought proper plastic glue and it worked a treat.

Interesting Statistic

87% of Toyota's sold in the last 20 years are still on the road today...

It may be a throw away statistic, because most people do continue to repair cars... or scrap them so the statistic may be the same for any manufacturer.

OK, that was just a stepping stone to my next simple plagiarised topic.
"Why we are choosing a camper van"... as opposed to tent/swag/caravan/camper trailer.
-Instant setup. Doesn't matter if you arrive late to camp, or if it's teeming with rain - we can prepare a meal/relax/sleep straight away.
-Easier to select a camp site as you can just park, without needing to manoeuvre a van or have nice soft grass to sleep on. Rocks are not rough to sleep on in a car ;-)
-More economical.
-Wet ground and creepy crawlies are not an issue. Try convince your partner to sleep on the ground if you've just seen a scorpion, centipede, snake or spider. In our case, I think a car is better protection against black bears compared to a tent.
-Bail-ability. If something doesn't feel right, just start the engine and drive off.

Woah - is this the moon?

Had to share this video. This has to be what the moon is like:

It's a pity we won't be taking a nice comfy new 200 series land cruiser (as pictured above) however we should be happy we don't have to take the rattly old land rover (pictured second).