Of bars and old air-bags

Took the old bar down to Bill Buckles yesterday and got the right one - and a surprise. You see the air-bag compatible bar is a lot more complex than the bog standard one and hundreds of dollars more expensive. It also comes with pricey adaptors for the winch, bar adaptors and enough wiring harnesses to wrangle a herd of buffaloes. All of which means that what appeared to be a very reasonable price for the genuine bar, isn't exactly so.

Still, the Nihon engineers generally seem to know what they're doing and we look forward to a marvellous new addition to the troopy - just as soon as I sort out the multiple boxes of fascinating hardware.

But all of that's in the future. Today it's off to Dave and co at Trakka for a you-beauty flip-up roof bed thinggy. I wonder if there's a market for second-hand landcruiser roofs?

Frustrations

Looks like I'll have to go back to work next week - 2nd spare tyre and rim $500!
Once the tyre is fitted we'll (both) have to work out how to fix a puncture with split rims. Any ideas?

New development - front bull bar instructions say 'not to be fitted to Troopy with air bags'. Guess what - ours has air bags. Back we go to the parts place (third time this week).

And, the towbar electrics kit is supposed to fit onto a 4-way plug in the engine bay but despite the nice pictures in the instructions, it isn't there!

John's quote of the day: 'Airfix had better instructions than this'

Despite the frustrations....we're enjoying this new learning environment and like understanding how everything works.

Wish someone would wash and polish the new toy!

Time to send it back?

OK, may be time to return the troop carrier - John spent 8 hours in the garage to-day!

Apparently the electrical connections will now withstand a a Tsunami and the reversing lights even have a joint INSIDE the body panel - how amazing is that?
And... he had to exert 140 neuton metres of force to tighten the bolt to adjust the spare wheel position and bang down the heads to it never moves again - WOW!

Must have been exhausting work as he's now asleep on the lounge in front of the TV.

The good news is that we drove the car and it still goes... and everything works!

A granddog emergency!

What's more important than getting the Troopy tail lights working?....building a fence to keep the granddogs from escaping from their new home. So, a weekend of hole digging, sawing hammering resulting in two gates, a fence and some lattice along the side of C&A's house.

Don't really think we've fooled the dogs though, they're just planning their next escape route.

Bright sparks

Soo... how to connect the lights in the new Kaymar bar to the spiffy electric system in the Troopy. Scotch locks would be easy, but after 50,000 km of Gibb River roads, how likely are they to still be attached? A bit of chat room surfing would suggest the answer is 'not very' so we went for Narva connectors. They're not in the same class as the OEM connectors which have nice little seals on each wire, but with a nice warm wrapping of electrical tape, they seem to do a good job.

The trick is to figure out which wire does what. Its a bit like a cross between coloured spaghetti and russian roulette - where getting the wires crossed can give some gruesome results - like the brake lights flicking when you turn right, or the indicator globes blowing when you stomp on the brakes.

And speaking of indicators, The new bar has these great low wattage LED lights, but it means you have to drill holes to attach cute little resistors to each light if you want the indicators to flash at the usual rate.

The only tricky bit is there's a reversing light in the new bar, but there wasn't one in the original setup. So you have to run an extra wire up into the bowels of the car's electrics and tap into the reversing light circuit by wriggling around under the car - a kind of Kaymar Sutra.

And doing a nice job with the new rolls royce ratchet crimper seems almost impossible. I can get a better result with pliers - (compare the crimp on the brown wire - pliers - with the red one - ratchet crimper). All of which makes me think I'm missing something! Or maybe some ratchets are ratchet.

Raining hot metal shavings

Here's John upside down drilling overhead. To drill metal you need low revs and lots of pressure, but pushing up against gravity makes the pressure a bit of a challenge so the revs were up a bit and the resulting hot metal shavings didn't feel all that good as they rained down on your head.

First take off bumper bar (thanks Don for lots of help), disconnect lights, whack off captive nuts with cold chisel and big hammer. Drill 8 more holes in chassis rails to take more and bigger bolts to carry heavier bar.

Then it's just a simple matter of lifting up the 100kg bar with one hand while threading a bolt through a little hole with the other - not really a one-person job - thanks again Don!

Now to get all the lights working.....

Newest member of the family

Born March 2010 in Japan (because there were none in Aus)- we watched it born through the website - from robot factory to ship to Sydney docks, to Bathurst for air con and tinting. Arriving home on the back of a truck - big and blue and chugging - our new Troop Carrier.

We've got big plans for our newest member of the family - its going to get turned into our mobile home - by John.....with me for moral support. Why choose a Troop Carrier and not a Winebago? Because we love to camp off the bitumen and want the best chance of getting back intact - hence diesel and diff locks all round.

What we've learnt so far - get the best quote and then go to someone like Private Fleet to get a better price by far (free advice if you're an NRMA member).

What's next? -First join the Toyota car club to learn some off road skills, add a bullbar and winch, rear bar with dual wheel carriers, bed in the roof (too hard for John ?Tracker), fridge and second battery (?solar cells or generator), sink and cupboards built by John, water tank (internal or external?), maybe.... after market leaf springs and upmarket shocks -they're called shocks cause that's what you get when you ask what they cost!!.

Now time to do some research and make some decisions