My big Trip

[LukeMac]

G'day folks.

Just wanting to hear a few things about what i should do for my big trip.

The Mrs, myself and our 2 not so little fur kids are planning a trip around Australia.
We (mainly I ) bought a camping trailer and plan on using this for the trip. Its not a big flash one. Just a plain old simple one, But i wanna know what mods and upgrades should i do to My 2005 D22 Navara ZD30.

Ive already done the EGR and butterfly mod and cleaned the intake and etc... ( talk about eating its own shit)
I've got a ARB Canopy. not planning on putting draws or anything in as the dogs will be in the back for the trip. Ive got LED bars and spot lights. Roof racks and currently have mud terrain tires on, but am most def looking at changing to an all terrain.
The car currently has a stock exhaust and snorkle.
List of things im looking at doing:

Suspension, Mainly shocks ( I have no idea at all)
Tyres (bf goodrich maybe?)
exhaust (im thinking a redback 3inch with cat and muff)
cruise control (generic type maybe?)
the seats aswell if anyone has a good idea. As i think that the seats arent that great to be sitting in for a great amount of time.

Also any ideas on taking the back seat out to put my Waeco in or any other mods i can do to the camping trailer would be great.
Im looking at doing the work all myself to save some $$$ and so i can learn a bit more about my fourby.
Again if you have any advice im all ears.

 

[Robbo9]

HI Lukemac,

My two favourite touring accessories I have are :
Dual batteries. I reckon they are a must for any sort of camping/touring when you want to run a fridge.
Second is a long range tank.
I've been close to being stranded in small towns where they've run out of fuel and are waiting for the tanker to come. One particular town was one you wouldn't want to stay at longer than you absolutely had to. There was an elderly couple parked at the pump with their caravan who had waited 2 days for the tanker already.
I decided to try to get 120 or so kms to the next town, and just made it.

 

[Old.Tony]

+1 for the long range tank. Towing up through central Australia we refuelled at Marla and I had to dip into the jerry cans at Kulgera, we wouldn't have made Erldunda. You're towing less, but it will still bite into the fuel. Slower is better too - we just did a lightning trip from Newy to Melbourne and back (just over 2,000km non-stop, gotta love No-Doz). At 100km/h we used almost 5LPHK more than at 85km/h.

Lots of advantages in having an electric fridge in the car BUT it MUST be powered individually (separate battery) or you'll lose the cranker. VRLA/AGM batteries are perfectly safe for in-cabin usage. You could charge the battery while driving from the ciggy lighter without any special equipment but the battery won't get a full charge. Ideally (best of all worlds) is a solar panel on the roof with its cable running down under the car into the cabin through a floor grommet and into the MPPT charger. Improve this even more by having a small (150W) inverter in-cabin that powers the fridge while driving, so that the fridge auto-selects 240V giving the solar MPPT charger an unloaded battery to charge = full charge every day = happy battery.

A good satnav is highly valuable. The days of paper maps are ending, because paper maps can't tell you that certain streets are one-way or there's an incident on that highway so a detour is faster. I use OSMAND (paid version) on my Android phone.

A good camera is VITAL. Almost as important as water. At landmarks, road signs or even if you just suspect that the view is nice, stop and take the pic. Years later you'll thank yourself for it.

MOST important - enjoy it.

 

[Starsky]

I recommend viewing the outback training video "Wolfe Creek" before you leave.

I have recently done a trip through the Pilbara, there are a lot of places where there is no phone contact.
I took a satellite phone with me in case of breakdown, you can tell people what you need to get out of trouble, e.g. I need 3 spare tires, an eperb only lets people know you need help.

I agree with Old Tony sit on around 80 kph save fuel and enjoy the trip.Travelling slowly lets the mind adsorb the memories. Fit a UHF radio and when the truckies come up behind you, talk to them, let them know you are expecting them to pass you. They generally appreciate the help to get past you safely. In WA expect road trains of 3 trailers in length.

Enjoy the holiday, take lots of pictures,

 

[LukeMac]

I recommend viewing the outback training video "Wolfe Creek" before you leave.

I have recently done a trip through the Pilbara, there are a lot of places where there is no phone contact.
I took a satellite phone with me in case of breakdown, you can tell people what you need to get out of trouble, e.g. I need 3 spare tires, an eperb only lets people know you need help.

I agree with Old Tony sit on around 80 kph save fuel and enjoy the trip.Travelling slowly lets the mind adsorb the memories. Fit a UHF radio and when the truckies come up behind you, talk to them, let them know you are expecting them to pass you. They generally appreciate the help to get past you safely. In WA expect road trains of 3 trailers in length.

Enjoy the holiday, take lots of pictures,

Yeah dealt a bit with the truckies and the sat phone i just ordered, doing alot of rural and aboriginal community work out in the out back and pilbara ive become use to dealing with that stuff. haha Thanks heaps guys. Picked up the trailer today and cant wait to start the mods.
Just trying to work out if i need to upgrade the suspension and etc now.

 

[Old.Tony]

Yeah dealt a bit with the truckies and the sat phone i just ordered, doing alot of rural and aboriginal community work out in the out back and pilbara ive become use to dealing with that stuff. haha Thanks heaps guys. Picked up the trailer today and cant wait to start the mods.
Just trying to work out if i need to upgrade the suspension and etc now.

If you're using stock suspension now - it ships from factory in a useless state for towing/rough roads. They're too thin, overheat, valves fail ... useless. You'll discover it when on corrugations and find that you can't steer the beast.

Changing to a really decent set of springs is the first order of the day. Something that can support more than the 150Kg the factory leaves are rated for - if you've got 100Kg of towball weight, genny, 5x spare fuel, Engel/Waeco ... there's 300Kg easy. So it doesn't kick you in the tail when unloaded, get some dual rate springs.

You also need decent shocks. Something with a wide bore, heavy inner shaft that won't bend, decent washers, preferably rebuildable, with replaceable bushes - I still enjoy the performance of my OME Nitrocharger Sports shocks but I'm blown away by the specs of Seldom Seen Engineering's ShockWerx shocks. The OME shocks are fantastic at heat dissipation so travelling at decent speeds on rough roads is a breeze - but those ShockWerx ought to perform even better.

 

[terryc]

Re suspension, our 2010 D22 has real ducks disease when we hitch up the CT. Frankly, too much shit on, but we've used it for a while as $2K upgrade cost. Hint, a good sus place will appreciate weights, vehicle, trailer, towball for making it right.

My 2c is not to stress, take it easy(fuel economy) and take frequent breaks to enjoy the view.

Can I suggest a few trial trips, weekend, week, etc to sort out what you really need. You'll need different stuff for different trips. Most of the loop is sealed. It is the diversions that mostly aren't.

There is a lot of advie in other caming threads. So, enough.

 

[KevinE]

G'day, we've owned two D22's & have done a small amount of trouble free travelling in both, which is/was pretty much stock. Hopefully the following may give you some peace of mind about touring with your car; The only mods to our cars (if you want to call them that) have been seat covers, floor mats, a tub liner, window tint, electric brake controller & a dash cam (because we kept missing getting video of interesting things on the road) We tried an ARB canopy, but for us it didn't work. If maintained well, these utes are very capable for outback touring. Not as comfortable as some cars, but not that bad either. We live in Adelaide, so the Flinders are on our back doorstep. We've been to many places up there over 12-13 or so trips in a D22. We've also taken the D22 to the Gawler Ranges, no probs. In 2011 we went from Adelaide to the Kimberley & the D22 took the Gibb & Bungles in it's stride. On the way home, we did Kakadu (again), including the length of the Jim Jim road. 2012 was a big year with several of our Flinders/Gawler Ranges trips & a fairly long trip up the Oodnadatta Track/Painted Desert/Mt. Dare/Dalhousie/Old Ghan Track into Alice/Merrenie Loop. 2013 saw us heading up the Silver City Highway to Tibooburra & Cameron Cnr. Then onto Innamincka via Epsilon. We did the Burke & Wills thing & then the Natural Sciences Loop through Qld, before driving back down to Broken Hill via the Warri Gate. In 2014 we were back on the road again, on the Dowling track to Hungerford. From there we headed up to Windorah via Quilpie, then the Birdsville Developmental Road to B'ville. We did the obligatory climb of Big Red & the Birdsville Track back down to Marree. We then had a spell & didn't go bush again for 15 months! This time it was back up the Stuart Hwy again, to Mataranka & then out to Roper Bar. From Roper Bar we headed down the Nathan River Road (Savannah Way) to Lorella Springs (what a bloody awful road!) We stayed at Lorella Springs & had a ball on the 4WD tracks there. Then it was off to Borroloola & King Ash Bay After that we headed down the Savannah Way to Hells Gate, Doomadgee & finally Burketown. Came home via Nth Gregory, Cloncurry, Winton, Longreach & Tambo. As I said above, the trucks have been basically stock. They towed a soft floor camper on every trip mentioned except the Kimberley trip in 2011. Have a great trip!