Meet my 90, and share the adventure.

Thanks for the words of support everyone.
I'm all for sharing ideas and letting people grow these ideas into their own, so if you want any further info get in touch!

Currently rolled up in the swag in downtown Dubbo, on a trip for a few days to see the zoo. Been an interesting day on the road.
35km into the trip I ran over a snake-it was Brown and across half the lane. Got him good :wasntme:

By the 1 hour mark, I encountered a tumble weed at 100km/h. Also got it good as it rolled across the lane, then back into my path. Bullbar did is job and I giggled a bit as it exploded into lors of little bits:D

By the 200km mark, there was a mechanical failure, but nothing serious. A spanner and removal of the offending part solved that problem.

More details at a later stage when I have a real computer to use, not the tablet.

Camp for the night. Erin is in the taj mahal... I'm not that fancy.
Dinner was sushi -tasty and delicious. Although I did have my apprehensions as seafood this far from the ocean is always a bit iffy.

Can I say - 1st what a cool photo of the 'fender in the back ground in the camp site - say's it all.

But also - how your camp site shows the same quality as your electrical work :)

Very nicley laid out - if it was my camp it would look like the proverbial :wasntme:

Nice work and thanks for sharing.

Cheers col.
It's a bit of a long bow to draw though, we are caping really light and just setting up camp and pulling down each day. No cooking as we have non perishable stuff and buying what we can locally. Always easy to have a neat camp when you have nothing to make it look messy!
Tonight's camp is at the same place but the tarp is my second roof. My swag has a canvas bottom and is not sealed at the had end. There might be some rain tonight, so playing it safe.
Chinese food for tea tonight. shibby!


http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...6&d=1443600362

Just a quick one to add some more pics and wrap up on the recent dubbo trip

The main event of the trip was to go to the Taronga Western Plains Zoo. I've had orders that I need to take erin there for the past few months, so now was as good a time as any...

Day 1
Left Tamworth at the leisurely hour of 1130, after a last minute rush to get packed.
From Tamworth we headed south to Werris Creek, followed by Caroona, and a lunch stop at Spring Ridge (sandwiches at the football field, although there is a nice pub there too).
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444024794

From there we headed further west to Premer, then south to Coolah, where we stopped for some afternoon tea at the bakery- a iced coffee and a pecan tart (which was very good). This is a nice place to stop if you are ever around the Warrumbungles area.

South of coolah, we met with the Golden Highway, and headed west again to Dunnedoo, then on to Dubbo, where we arrived for night 1. We stayed at the Poplat caravan park, which is right on Macquarie st, and very close to town. $25 a night which was worth it.

Day 2
We woke early to attend the early morning zoo walk for a 0645 start. This was run by volunteers at the zoo, and proceeds go towards helping build new exhibits, fund breeding programs etc. It was also an interesting 'behind the scenes' view of what it takes to run a zoo, getting closer to the animals that are not on display, and are in training, or in quarrantine before being shipped elsewhere for examination or breeding.
We frinished that around 0915, then started to walk the zoo proper. We did the usual walk around for the first 3km of the trail, then deaded back to the main pavillion for lunch, then opted to drive back to where we left off (the zoo is a 6km long loop, so can be driven, cycled, walked (run:eek:) or travelled in a hired golf buggy).
We saw the sights and kicked on until about 1530hrs where we were both too buggered to be bothered with the more mainstream animals which we were well accustomed
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...015/10/902.jpg


Various images of the day:

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444026893

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444026893

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444026893

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444026893

Now... I understand most of you aren't here to see the wildlife shots, as we have a few threads on that already, and the phone cameras we have are no match for a nice DSLR... so instead I show the you highlights of my adventure (what this thread is all about :p ):

Mitch's Adventure

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444027593

Mitch's Cave
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444027593

Mitch's Creek
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...015/10/901.jpg

Riding a* Galaphagos Tortoise
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444027593

Brown Baggin' it in a seedy Dubbo back alley
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444027593

Day 3
We fed some giraffes on day 3 in the morning, and other shannanigans happened as per above.

Day 4
We left dubbo early and stopped into the Wellington caves for a tour. We saw stalagtites, Stalagmites, an underground lake, but sadly no creepers. :(
Minecraft has given me false expectations of what I'll find underground. So much for spelunking.

We headed south to Orange, and I dropped Erin off at the shops to see the sights while I caught up with Disco Muppet. We spent some time that day fixing a intermittant driving light on Mr Muppet's Disco, which turned out being a loose negative wire on the loom. it was an easy fix!

That evening, we caught up with Mr Disco Muppet, and had a chance encounter with Mr Mick Marsh and Mr Alien. A jolly good time was had at a pub in Bathurst, where we had dinner, lots of Land Rover talk, and I avoided the ban stick for another day ;) It was nice to meet Mick and Kyle- Alien's truck has some very nice electrical additions which I'll be happy to pilfer some ideas from!

Day 5
After a night in Orange, we departed early- around 0800hrs, to make a B-line back to Tamworth. We arrived back by 1300, then got ready for a friend's party that night.
All in all, it was a good 4.5 day trip, more 'hanging around' that I would have preferred (I prefer to be on the move than sitting around looking at shops etc), but it was an interesting trip nonetheless.

*fibreglass

Was good to catch up again! :D
Next time we'll have to go for a drive ;)

Sent from my HTC One using AULRO mobile app

Just a quick one... did some soldering over the weekend on the loom for the wireless control box for the winch.
The factory cable is about 2.5m long. I need it to be about 30cm tops...

So out comes the trusty soldering iron again, and I turned this:

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444114977

Into this:

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444114977

The loom had some funky bulges in it, I wasn't sure if there was any diodes or anything else in there, but luckily, it was just a result of Warn's propensity to create bulky solder joints, and really thick heatshrink.

On one end of the unit, there is a deutsch connector, which runs off 18 gauge wires. The unit is fused, but the fuse holder has larger 16 gauge wires. There were some solder joins which split power from the main connector port into 2 pins on the deutsch plug... so I assume that the control box has a power circuit and a control (switched output) circuit of some description.

What I ended up doing was shortening it both sides of the fuse holder. This was a simple matter of cutting and rejoining the solder joins where necessary, applying heat shrink, and tidying up the loom.

Wherever possible, I try to stagger the soldered joins, so that the final loom does not end up like a python that's just swallowed a wallaby.

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444115419

A good wrap with some electrical tape and she's apples.
This will remain plugged into the wireless control module and winch connector port in the engine bay, and be secured alongside the factory wiring. When I need to go full retard and want to connect the wired controller, it's a simple matter of disconnecting one, and adding the other.

BONUS FOOTAGE!!!

Also gave the winch a run over the weekend. Pulls harder than a 14 year old with a rudey mag.
Just did some test pulls up a track at the state forest- nothing spectacular, but was getting a solid pull with very little slowing of the winch motor under load. And by load I was on soft dirt with the foot hard on the anchors, pulling up a 1:20 grade. Sure there is probably better tests out there, but you can only play the cards you got.

For anyone who has just joined us, the winch is a Warn XDC-s 9500lb.
I was running it up and down the slope over a period of 15 minutes, stopping occasionally to check wire temps, fuse temp and the motor case. Hottest component by far was the motor casing, which was to be expected. Ambient temps were in the high 20's, maybe low 30's. Celsius. That's 303.15 Kelvin for those fellow geeks out there :cool:.
Future tests might try to get the unit up to it's thermometric cut out which is a feature of the winch... but I have not yet got there. When I emailled Warn tech support, they weren't too forthcoming with the paramaters / temps at whcih this comes on, so I might be abel to gather some more data when I can.

No pics, sorry!

I love the postman.
He brings the coolest stuff.

Today at work I heard the familiar 'beep!' of the postman's scanner as he walked into the shop.
Lo and behold, there was the glorious yellow and white express post bag I'd been waiting for.
In a fit of excitement I tore into the bag, revealing...















My Factor 55 flat link shackle.
This afternoon, I prepared my beverage, and removed this:
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444286623

Replaced it with this:
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444286623

All in the space of one sip of this:
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444286623
Booze Revooz:
If you like cinnamon, this is a not half-bad drink. It's a spiced whiskey and apple concoction. Not very sessionable... I reckon 2 would hold you up before you feel like licking some sandpaper to get the aftertaste away... But a nice change from the normal.


There will be some wheeling this weekend down in Newcastle. Myself and some non land rover mates will be going around the Kurri Kurri area- I will be sure to take plenty of pics.

Caught up with some buddies down in Newcastle over the weekend, had a bit of a play around the Kurri / Pelaw Main / Neath area in the tracks that go around the power lines. Tracks were very flat, not much in the way of hills and technical tracks- it was mainly mud holes, mud holes, and more mud holes. But fun nonetheless. Good way to spend a saturday afternoon.

Some video

[ame]https://youtu.be/o0PnzcnDYGs[/ame]
With a group of spectators and a mob of trail bikes you can hear in the clip, my TC lever jumped out of high range and into neutral with the first bump in the bog hole. How embarrasment. :p

[ame]https://youtu.be/hpebtNkl_ac[/ame]
Shrek eats this kind of thing for breakfast. Albeit with more mud in the drivers compartment- the soft top is less watertight than the deefer! In one previous mud hole, the driver claims that the water pressure shot out all the rubber bungs in the floorpan, causing a factory in-cab geyser! No such shennanigans this thime though.

[ame]https://youtu.be/sgPBwfGjJu4[/ame]
Shrek attempts a interesting washout section in a track leading down to the creek. The passenger side of the track had a large tree root, and a big undercut washout section, and a heap of side angle, requiring the line to start high, and lean it over into the bank. With no Power steering, a jolt at the wheels made for an interesting time for the styeering wheel attendent! After a pause half way down to pull in a side mirror, the last half of the section was driving straight into that bank with a lack of armpower to overcome the steering. I guess the series guys know them feels?

[ame]https://youtu.be/5rJUFO4jM68[/ame]
The deefer walked it. But then again, low 1, CDL, and a bit of braking and it was all over.

The cast
Mitch, 'The Toxic Avenger' - Defender 90
'Shrek' - Toyota FJ40
'Bob' - Toyota HJ60
Nissan (D40?) Navara with lift etc
Ford Courier

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1444561628

Shrek is an interesting vehicle. A SWB FJ40 soft top powered by a 2H toyota diesel. Soon to be repowered with a 12H-T diesel. Same utilitarian principle as the defender... but his toyota is about 40 years older than my deefer! Still holds its own against the other vehicles out there on the day, and has massive street cred too. Iconic.



Booze revooz
The above pic was taken at Neath Pub, near Cessnock NSW (there is an interesting limerick about a woman from neath, if you dare to Google it :eek:)
We stopped by the pub for some lunch and a beer at the end of the day. XXXX Gold - Is Good!
Enjoyed a Jameson and ginger beer premix with dinner. The jameson and raw cola is also good.