TC.Barky's NW Buildup Thread

[Pickle]

Certainly looks different without the Rooftop. Maybe look at a Camper Trailer down the track. .
Dave

[TC.Barky]

Certainly looks different without the Rooftop. Maybe look at a Camper Trailer down the track. .
Dave

Yeah thats the long term plan. Going back to the ground for now. Thinking one of those pop up tents.

[green troll]

I know someone selling a nice Cub hard floor. (Me! LOL)

[TC.Barky]

I know someone selling a nice Cub hard floor. (Me! LOL)

Can't see a thread anywhere on it

[72pug]

Hiya

There's another option in the short term if you're considering towing a camper..... have you thought about mounting the RTT to trailer and adding some extras to it. ?

i've seen a few of these done really well

it's an option at least

cheers,

Pug

[TC.Barky]

Small update today, OEM starter battery has been on its last legs for a while now so time for an upgrade. Been cranking very slow and losing all dash lights on cold starts. Going up to the snow next week so thought it might be prudent to change it over before then heh.

Fitted a D34 optima yellow top (N50 size) to replace it. Was a bit of a mongrel to fit actually, turns out optima in their wisdom place the battery contacts further inwards on the battery (hopefully translates to a thicker more heat resistant wall?) and because the factory terminals have extra crap coming off them at a 90 degree angle it needed an extra bit of plate to push that 90 degree corner further away from the terminals. The blokes at Piranha head office very kindly did the work (pajero club price for the battery as well woohoo) and I'm bloody glad I asked if they could chuck the battery in while I was there!



You'll notice my battery positions have been swapped, starter is in the aftermarket tray and the deep cycle aux is in the factory tray. It's a bit of a mess cabling wise, the positive and negative terminals location are opposite to the factory battery so the cables had to be crossed over and I came in at the end of the workday so I think the Piranha guys rushed it a bit, but I'm glad they did the change of the terminal. I'll do some neatening shortly.



Pretty happy with the battery, was just over 300 bucks with the club discount and its 750CCA and vibration resistant (which is the main reason I got it). Hopefully will last a few years but time will tell.

[TC.Barky]

Been a while haven't had much time for the forum unfortunately, lots of changes!

- Roof top tent got swapped for a new oztent RV3 (still have no idea how we managed to swing that)
- Roof bars got replaced with a Rhino Tradesman rack second hand off a gen3 from a forumite.

Now that the roof top is gone (so long ago now!) I wanted a proper rack rather than the roof bars that we had so I could store small things up there as required. Saw a tradesman rack at a show and kept an eye out for a second hand deal and one popped up on here ages ago that I snaffled up. Gets used a lot, have mounted a set of maxtrax up there with a rhino side bracket and have these nifty little tie down anchors that slide in the tracks.

[TC.Barky]

- Bought a trailer!

We got an MDC Stepthrough black around March last year. This is in the stepthrough/walkup style which means it's a soft floor but has an extended body with a carpeted area at the front of the trailer. The advantage of this setup over a traditional softfloor is it's a bigger tent and the way you get in the bed is different.

Basically instead of the rickety crap little ladder you have a set of fold out stairs that you climb up into the carpeted area at the foot of the bed and climb in from there. This means you don't climb over your partner in the middle of the night if you've had too many beers. Also gives more storage as you get a nice clean dry storage area for clothes and bedding that you can easily access while on the move.

The trailer has independent suspension (the twin shock absorber style that the manufacturers love at the moment) a pull out fridge slide and pantry drawers through the tailgate and a tailgate mounted kitchen.

Trailer has not been without it's issues and the experience with MDC has been a bit sour but I would still probably buy from them again, overall build quality and feature list for the price is imo best in the market (or it was when we looked).

We've given it a bit of a workout, did a run up to Fraser and several trips to the high country. Have taken it on some moderate tracks and it performs amazingly offroad. It's a brilliant trailer to tow, especially after removing the Jerry can and gas bottle holders. Planning to take it over the Simpson next touring season (2019) at this stage.

In terms of the setup time, pretty happy with it. Never gonna be as quick as a hard floor but we can do our quick and dirty overnight stop setup in about 15 minutes, 20 if unhitching. Packup time is a bit longer but similar.

First run-in trip.


Seasoning it in my parents front yard


Supporting mods to the car for the trailer include electric brake controller fitted by Chadstone Mitsubishi (thanks Paul) and an anderson plug to charge the electrics on the trailer fitted by ARB Bairnsdale. I've decided to run this from the starter battery rather than the auxillary so it can just leech off the alternator rather than run off the DCDC that runs the auxillary battery. Got them to fit a cutoff so that it only charges when the car is running or in the 'on' position. So far haven't seen any issues with it setup this way, will fit a DCDC into the trailer if I find I need it.

Brake controller is a redarc tow pro elite, great unit very neat install.

[TC.Barky]

I ordered the trailer with a McHitch 3.5T Autocoupler Hitch system. Went with this over the D035 as I had some prior experience with this as my family uses them across a couple different trailers so made sense for compatibility with them.

They are great to use though can be a little fiddly if trying to hitch up on slopes (I reckon the D035 would be easier here). Prior to a second and third stage of suspension lift (see future post) I had some issues with it in certain circumstances as the car was too low and the factory MDC jockey wheel wouldn't go low enough. Totally fine in a caravan park or flat campsite setting though.

If you aren't familiar with them to hitch up you just match the heights of the tongue and the hitch, take the pin out and drive back until they mesh together. Very easy to do one person with a reverse camera with almost zero effort.

Offroad they are brilliant, much more articulation than a standard ball or polyblock/treg style and imo more secure (I only know of one failure). I can get the car virtually 90 degrees to the trailer due to the nice long drawbar, has been brilliant for turning around on tight high country tracks.


In this picture it's a bit hard to tell coz it's so grotty but the turning angle is only limited by the chain mount point, hitch could still turn further.

[TC.Barky]

As you can see from the previous post, spring upgrade was sorely needed. I went for CRR-92HD which is apparently a ~25% spring rate upgrade.

Pre


Post


This was STILL not quite enough for me to be happy so back on the phone to ultimate and ordered some polyairs (just the standard ones without the kevlar sleeves so up to 25PSI). I tried to avoid airbags but not really possible. Due to the extra length the trailer is a bit ball heavier than a normal softfloor.


Excuse the mess heh



Not the best comparison but the only one I've got. Clockwise from bottom left BL: CRR91HD empty, Top: CRR92HD empty, BR: CRR92HD + 20PSI Polyairs with trailer and car loaded

[TC.Barky]

This trailer doesn't strictly need towing mirrors but I still wasn't real happy with the rear vision (haven't done a lot of towing and like to be able to see directly behind). So I put an always on camera in. This is a Jaycar special camera. I've picked up power for it from the kitchen water pump (kitchen is attached to the back of the tailgate).

To be honest it's not the greatest but it gets the job done. Would be fine as a reversing camera but if I had my time again for the always on purpose I would have gone with something a little more custom based on a 5Ghz drone camera to get a better picture. Allows for some amazing maneuvers offroad without a spotter though.



I attached the display to my RAM tablet holder with a RAM X-Grip. Works quite well.





While I was at it I also moved my TPMS to the rear view mirror since I can't really see out of it anyway (got a new TPMS a while back, using the Masten system from Digoptions - very happy with it).

[TC.Barky]

Made some other upgrades to the trailer, one was due to damaging the jockey wheel (user error left it extended when moving the trailer down the driveway in a hurry). Wanted to replace it anyway as I wanted a strong removable one for offroad recoveries. Haven't got a picture of the jockey wheel but it's very beefy (and heavy!) and can be mounted at four different heights which makes it very flexible.

ouch!


Beefy new bracket



Made some upgrades to the electrics as well, factory package is already pretty good but we mounted our inverter and put in a 240 outlet running from it. Also set up wiring ready for a fridge for when we eventually put one in the trailer.

[TC.Barky]

We put in a new winch to replace the tired old warn. The terminals were pretty corroded on it (was over 10 years old and seen some very hard times) and I probably didn't look after it well enough in the last few years. Went for the Domin8rX from 4wd Supacenter. I've used a few of their products and the quality is surprisingly not too bad so giving the winch a whirl. For the money it could fail 6 times before costing me the same as a Warn and we've got other options if it fails for recovery so shouldn't be too much of a game changer if it craps out.

[TC.Barky]

Upgraded to Muddies. Went with 265/70R17 Kanati Mud Hogs. Those who have been around a while might remember I had the same tyres (were called Summit Mud Hogs) on the old paj. Hard to pass up after their performance last time and the price was still right. They are a bit noisier on this paj than last time (presumably because monocoque) but still very happy with them. Offroad performance is brilliant.





That's it for the moment phew. Probably forgot a few things I missed that have changed. There is always something in the works (much to the wifes disgust)

Still enjoying the paj. Every now and then I get a bit of LC200 envy but couldn't justify the coin to upgrade any time soon.

[NTBenny]

Lots of good upgrades there. Thanks for sharing.

Benny.