Pimp Lara
She is already pretty well kitted out for the trip, but we still have a wish list of things we would like to add. Some things are to make life easier on the road, others are just ‘nice-to-have’.
We are going to add some gull wing doors to her ($545). Have a look here. They will make it much easier to access those boxes we have on the side on the back and we will each have the exclusive use of one of them for our clothes. Pack as much or as little as you like 🙂
They also come in a glass or aluminium version (slightly cheaper at $445), but I think we will stick to the steel version from above so we can hang things on the inside as well. And it is probably more secure too.
Downside of the gull wing doors is that we will have to lock them separately to the rest of the car. Minor inconvenience compared to the ease of access we will get.
The jack will also get its own specific spot, on the outside at the back. This makes it easily accessible, but also out of the way and it will save up some space inside.
I hope this will fit with our jack, the compressor outlet and the non-standard door hinge we have fitted. We ended up carrying our jack inside, underneath the drawers behind the driver and passenger seats.
We are also going to fit a safe in the car, but I am not telling you where it goes – big secret 🙂
Other things we still need to do:
- fix the tweeter
- fix the cup holder
- sort out the filling and draining of the water tanks
- sort out a water filter for the water tanks
- add fridge lid-holder
- try to add sort of slide out table in front of fridge
- make a table that fits the solar panel slot in the back
- add cloth bag system to store our clothes
- add drying line inside the car
I have also spotted something I haven’t seen before here, as well as the rear window mesh guard. It’s called tree fenders and they sit just under the windows at the back. If they would be strong enough to stand on and to lash things onto that would be interesting…
Also think we still need to consider a full length roof rack and maybe a bonnet top strengthener (same mesh as we have next to it).
This post might also be added to as time goes on, hopefully we will also be able to tick things off as we get closer to the D-date!
I hope you travels continue to go well. I’ve noticed, in later photographs, that you no longer have the jack mounted on the rear cross-member. Why did you remove it? I ask because I was thinking of mounting mine there and whilst doing my research Google Images led me to your Blog (which is very engaging).
Hi Paul, we never had the jack mounted there in the end as we didn’t think it would fit with our outlet for the compressor and our unusual door hinges. It was a blog post written in the planning face where you saw the photo, but we decided to carry it inside as it fitted perfectly with the snatch-strap and the orange sand plates underneath the drawers behind the seats (if you look at the photo a little higher with the caption ‘our home made cupboard – finished and in the car’, you can see our red box with the grey drawer underneath. Underneath that drawer is a space that covers the entire width of the car and is only about 15cm high, the perfect spot for all our recovery gear and our umbrella). If you want a more detailed photo I can send you one once the car has arrived in Australia – we’re a bit behind in our blogs and have just returned home, waiting for Lara to arrive in the container… The blog will continue to be updated until we are ‘finished’, so enjoy the few remaining blogs! Cheers, Jude