Meet my 90, and share the adventure.

The past week I've had some annual leave up my sleeve, so decided to take a 4 day trip to the (almost) outback region of NSW.
We (Erin and I) had a roughly planned an itinerary - goal was to visit the hot artesian baths that are spotted around the north west of NSW - the rest we left to chance. We knew that Lightning ridge was on the cards, and planned to spend the best part of a day there seeing the sights - particularly the opal field region of Grawin / Glengarry, and their famous watering holes.

We packed the 90 with some basic non perishable supplies, 20L of Tamworth town water, and swags / clothing. The Odometer was zeroed, and the tank was filled.
Like Tetris:
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Day 1 - Tamworth to Pilliga
We departed early Sunday morning from Tamworth, grabbing a coffee for the road. We made a B-line to Gunnedah NSW before heading to Boggabri for a squiz at 'Gins Leap'. Story has it that 2 young aboriginals from different (warring) tribes ran away, and were tracked by their tribe. They leaped from the tall cliffs to their deaths to prevent capture and punishment. Gins Leap was also the site of a hotel back in the 1800's where the graves of the family now stand.
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From there, we headed to Narrabri for some fuel and supplies which we missed at home. We departed for Wee Waa, heading west to the town of Pilliga. Factoid: Wee Waa, once hosted a Daft Punk concert/ album launch!
Once in Pilliga, we stopped by the local pub for a counter lunch and a few games of Pool approx 1300hrs. We then set up camp for the night at the Pilliga Bore Baths, for a nominal fee of $5 for the night. We slipped into the hot baths, where the water was approx 38 celsuis. The baths are frequented by many people, many seek therapeutic befefits of the baths due to the minerals, however I was there to relax and keep warm!

Camp for the night:
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Day 2 - Pilliga to Lightning Ridge
Got an early start at Pilliga, mainly due to being a bit cold the night before- there was plenty of wind and temps dropped to about 5 celsius. I woke up and made the obligatory instant coffee and toast while watching the sun rise. I watched the stars fade, and the purples, oranges and reds appear in the sky.
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It was in this moment of clarity that I found irrefutable evidence to support a theory I had pondered for many years (much to the dislike of Erin)...
The Sun really does shine out of my arse!
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After packing up camp, we headed out of town, grabbing another coffee from the local cafe and paying our camping fee (they were closed on sunday). BIG MISTAKE. The SWB landy lived up to its reputation on the bumpy (yet sealed) roads, with more coffee ending up on the cubby box than in our mouths.
We were now heading north out of Pilliga, heading to the 2nd bore bath at Burren Junction. Once more, it was chockers with caravanners and without a doubt, Erin and I were the youngest there by 30 years or more! We passed on a swim in this bore bath, as it was still early, and we had Km's to gain as we closed in on 'da Ridge'.

We passed thru Cryon, a small town on the Kamilaroi Highway which has a railway line and Silo, and a general store, which appears to have been closed since the early 90's. This marked a milestone in the trip- the 90's first confirmed kill. At 110km/h, an unsuspecting bird zigged when it should have zagged, and wedged itself firmly in the decreasing space between the roof of the landy, and the roof rack. It was sort of like a very blunt cheese grater. Nevertheless, I persevered and managed to get its little corpse off my vehicle and onto the side of the road.
Shortly after, we spotted our first Emus. A mob of 6 in a drought stricken cotton field south of Walgett.

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We also found a good photo op in the vast expanse of this farming region. The Walgett region is doing it tough with a lack of rain, forcing farms (predominantly cotton IIRC) to cease planting for the year. I've been told in the past, that a large cotton farm can plant $1M of seed for a season, so the prospect of no rain or secured irrigation to sustain their crops could be a costly one.

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About 11am we reached Walgett, where we picked up more diesel replacing the 34.15L we had used since Narrabri.
We visited the tourist info centre and bought a chick-pea cook book.

We persevered northward, taking the turnoff at Walgett towards Cumborah.
From Cumborah, we turned west into the Grawin / Glengarry opal fields to visit the local points of interest.

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The Grawin 'Club in the scrub'
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Entry to the club is via the golf course...
The Greens are... umm... NOT.
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This was our first stop. We stopped for a counter lunch and a beer with the local miners. There is plenty of characters in this neck of the woods, one was quite excited to show me the Grawin 'UFO'. Turns out it was just a weather balloon :p

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We got a few pics, then headed onto the next stop- the iconic Glengarry hilton!

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The Glengarry hilton is another pub in the opal fields, claiming to be open 6am to 6pm, 8 days a week. After a poke around, and a stubby of mother's milk (AKA XXXX Gold), we headed on.


The last stop in the opal fields was the Sheepyards hotel. Just like the other 2 pubs, it has the same Lightning Ridge charm. Old machinery everywhere, and cobbled together signs made from old car doors and scraps of corrugated iron.

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"Cars with Brakes GIVE WAY" :D Half the cars on the road were unregistered. Not sure how the opal fields are classified- public or private road. might be a question for the experts.

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Time to phone a friend.

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A tree dressed with Bras


We headed to the Ridge via the Cumborah - Lightning Ridge road. On the way we paid a visit to Stan the Emu, an 18m tall sculpture made from scrap steel and old VW Beetles.

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We ambled into Lightning Ridge proper around 4pm, checking into the Opal caravan park for the night to sue the camp kitchen and hot showers.
Once camp was setup, we headed across the road to the Lightning Ridge Artesiuan baths for a soak. At 40 Celsius, its one of the warmest baths around. We soaked for about an hour, watching the sun go down and the stars emerge. This probably has to be the best baths we visited during the trip. It has the best atmosphere, with people from all backgrounds coming for a swim. Lightnihng ridge is very diverse culturally, as peoiple from around the world come to the region to find their riches in the elusive black opal that is in the clay and sandstone under the town.

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Camp for the night

Day 3 - Lightning Ridge to Moree
We had a bit of a sleep in Tuesday Morning, having a hearty breakfast before heading for a look around town.
We purchased some prints from the John Murray Art Gallery whose art is iconic both in depicting the region, and as a satirical view of the outback.
This was one of my favourite:
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We did the Blue car door tour just outside of town, and visited the walk in mine. We fossicked thru the dump pile at the mine, but didn't find anything worth keeping.

About 1530hrs we heads west out of town, making a B-line to Collarenebri, and on to Moree. The back road is the most direct route, preventing the need to double back thru Walgett via the black-top. The road was fairly well maintained, hard packed clay with minimal rubble. It was easy to maintain a constant 100km/h on the road, even thru the heavily banked corners.
We saw a number of Emus, Kangaroos, Eagles, Pigs... but No camels. Perhaps next time.

Stopped at a crossroads for this pic:
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We camped up in Moree at the Gwydir Carapark which had their own artesian bore baths -4 of them! there was a 34, 35, 37 degree, and 39 degree pool.
Nice place to stay, but situated right next to an airport and the Newell highway which had lots of aircraft noise and trucks riding their Jake brake.

Day 4 - Moree to Tamworth
Day 4 saw the last day of the adventure, heading thru the back roads between Moree and Tamworth.
We passed thru Terry Hie Hie, and upper Horton, followed by Barraba, Manilla and finally Tamworth where the journey ends.
Mainly an uneventful drive, however we did stop in to see the glacial site on the Killarney Gap road.
This was once a site where a glacier was found. Many of the rocks are either cracked by the force of the ice passing over it, while others are polished from the movement of ice over the ages.

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Trip stats:
I crunched the sums for fuel price, economy and distances involved. Admittedly I was filling up more regularly than I normally would, however with the remote areas, I was more cautious as I was not carrying additional fuel. Remember the 90 has a tiny 60L tank, or approx 500km range!
Most driving could be considered 'highway' at speeds of 100 - 110km/h on tar or hard packed dirt.

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TL;DR
It was a great trip, lots to see, and a great 'entry level' trip to experience outback touring. It was a comfortable 4 day trip from Tamworth.

Pfft.
Mate and I did Orange - Hebel (in QLD) in one hit, had lunch and turned around and went home :p :cool:
Have school friends from Walgett, very dry out there at the moment. Really makes you aware of the vast sizes when you drive for 50km and each of the property signs are owned by the same people.

Nice pics, looks like an enjoyable trundle. :)

Got this panoramic shot also.

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Nice one Toxic Avenger.
Where you happy with how the deefer went?

Very happy with the performance and capabilities, but that being said it was mainly highway driving.
Fuel usage was highest on those legs of the journey where the speed limit was 110km/h, or high speed dirt road driving - lots of slowing down for animals, bends and cattle grids, often from 100km/h in 5th / 6th gear down to 80 or so.

If I were to do these trips more often, or for extended stays, I'd remove the rear seats for more storage space.

It was evident that the additional weight in the vehicle made it ride much nicer on the rougher roads. When it's only me, the 90 is a bit skatey on loose rocky roads, even with the CDL engaged. This is much less pronounced with a higher payload in the vehicle.

Greetings one and all, and welcome to the next installment!

It has been an embarrassingly long time between updates, nevertheless, the show has gone on between posts. The most recent updates have involved more gathering of parts for the dual battery setup, and the install of the wing top protectors.

Wing top install
I like my landy. and I like how shiny it is (even though most of the time it's filthy dirty). So it was with much apprehension that I commenced drilling into the panels for the install of some mammouth wing top protectors in a nice black finish.
I wanted what could be considered a semi-permanent install, but on the other hand, I want something that was going to preserve the finish underneath, and not be likely to corrode itself into place over time. The chosen path involved the aluminium checker plate, a set of the wing top gaskets, and aluminium riv-nuts to secure it to the vehicle. I used a product called duralac, which is an anti-corrosion jointing compound to prevent any undue corrosion between the material used (stainless steel does not play nice with aluminium in certain environments). My main concern here was that the gasket kit would absorb crud over time and keep the panel wet and accelerate corrosion. Enough talk here's some pics.

Before
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Test fit
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Quick wash / wax of the panels before fitting - I only did the wing tops... because defender.
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Pretty
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Setting out
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I find this is the easiest way for me to lay out these things. Plenty of tape allows a surface to draw on, measure off, or even transfer a design / layout to a new work piece. Even though I did each side independently, I'd have no concerns just flipping the template to the other side of the vehicle if I was in a rush.

Measuring panel gaps before marking the holes
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No turning back...
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Drilling
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Started with a 2.5mm bit, following the centre pop parks. Moved up thru the sizes gradually to 4.5mm, then onto the step drill to 9mm for the riv-nuts.

Deburring the hole
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Touch-up paint for the raw edges
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Riv-nut ready to install.
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Duralac coated for good measure. Aluminium can go crusty over time, so the high chromium content of this coating should keep that at bay.

5x Riv-Nuts installed
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The finished insert
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If I needed to re do this at any stage, I'd probably look at going the low profile riv nuts (less shoulder height). The riv nuts I had tended to compress off centre (threaded hole was not centred on drilled hole), probably because they were of dubious quality. Pro tip for young players!
Pro tip #2: the torque needed to spin a riv-nut in its hole is approx 13nm. ie bugger all. So don't chooch on it too hard or else you might strip it.

...And finished
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I'll remove these once more to trim up the gasket a little more. It seemed to compress out from under the plate once torqued down.

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In other news, I still have an international shipment of parts MIA after being sent from the USA to the UK in error. The worst part is it has a good amount of Blue Sea Systems gear in it which was destined for my DBS. This is the ML-ACR and ML-RBS which I discussed in a previous post.

The Devon 4x4 dual battery tray for the group 34 batteries has arrived, but everything else is on hold until I can wire everything else in at once. I'll probably put some pics up in a different thread, as I had quite a bit of difficulty in searching pics of this tray in situ, and out of the vehicle before I purchased it. Initial impressions are an awesome level of build quality, quality welding, and coating across the whole product, which is a really irregular shape. I'm glad I didn't take on welding my own up, and it would have turned out a disaster!


That's all folks!

Great pictures, looks like you had a ball

pics on drop box work. pelican is a great idea

Well Folks, I've been doing some more tinkering.

Through either procrastination, or sheer laziness, I still havent wired up the last few meters of winch power cable. I'm hoping we have a prize for the most protracted 'simple' project? If we do, I'm damn sure I'll win it outright.

I had a parcel from the US go AWOL, and it took near on 90 days from payment to delivery. That's excuse 1. On top of that, Its my busiest time of the year at work and... you get the idea. Lazy Mitch is lazy. If this project had a Gantt chart, i'd have one of those monumental **** ups where all the critical path items go haywire and the project ends up over time, over budget and all fouled up. Pretty much like most government projects I've watched over the years :p


The dual battery tray has arrived, it's a Devon 4x4 unit ex UK.
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It came as a bit of a shocker to me how involved this seemingly simple battery tray is...
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many different angles, locating holes etc. I was planning at one stage to make one up but this probably would have been a tall order to get anywhere near the same level of quality for the time / money invested.


This battery tray will hold 2 Optima batteries (yet to be purchased, most likely optima D34M marine 'hybrid' cranking / deep cycle batteries) which will direct power to...

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The Blue sea systems automatic charging relay, and the remote battery switch :D

Rock solid, BIG MOFO units... Running on a single 70mm2 cable, the RBS can handle a continuous current of 225A... and up to 2000A for a 10 second cranking cycle. Plus it's IP66 rated- essentially able to be exposed to direct spray by a high pressure water jet for 3 minutes without adverse effect. Can switch under load as well, however this is not likely to be a factor in my design.

The ACR is the brains of the operation, directing battery charge (bi-directional) to each battery as required. The benefit of this over other items on the market is having a much higher current handling capacity when joining batteries for winching, or emergency jump starts. This model is good for the same 225A continuous on the cable I'm running, as well as having the headroom for up to 2000A for 10 seconds. Under a 'strenuous' 5min winching operation with my winch, I'd have no issues with burning out this unit. It's more likely than not that I'll blow the fuses I have in my setup before it comes to the melty and burny stage :p
Pretty much everything I've got lined up would support a much larger winch if the batteries are specced to handle it.


I did a bit of a bench test with the RBS (remote battery switch) last night. Where this fits into the equation is essentially just a switch to turn the winch power on or off at the press of a button. I'm not too keen on having the winch cables permanently live, so this is one of the ways to allow this to be switched. I know it seems overkill at first look, but It should prove useful for any other accessories if I ever need a switchable high current circuit (think Anderson style fittings etc- jump starting, additional winches, bow thrusters etc). Forwards compatibility is key here, and that is never a bad thing to have up your sleeve.

The setup:
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I scrounged an AC to 12VDC (1.5A output) wall wart from the drawer of eternal damnation (AKA junk drawer) in the home office. From there I proceeded to jerry-rig a bit of wiring to do some testing of the remote battery switch.
The setup was just a dry run before install proper, and is a good opportunity to test its current draw at rest, and how it works on the bench, how the switch reacts to the high current output side of the switch etc.

Main findings were that the relay does not pull in unless connected to a battery on either terminal A OR B of the unit... i.e. power to activate the coil comes from the battery proper, not the signal wires via the switch.
It also draws its resting current (I measured 5mA) from the battery, not via the switch, and the unit holds it's state when power is disconnected. Remember I'm no professional, so that's about the limit of my observations in this regard. Feel free to chime in if you have further info to add!

There was some discussion here about switchgear for the puma, but my underlying question was regarding the internal operation of the RBS. I was torn between a product which had a 0mA current draw at rest, and one which draws a small current continuously, but has the flexibility of using multiple switch types. I opted for model number 7713 in the end, There was some reading that I read which suggested that a Bi-stable latching relay as is in some of these switches, can be disturbed through excessive vibration. Probably not ideal in a 4wd application. The other concern is keeping factory looking switchgear on the dash, and non standard switches like the honkin' red Blue Sea contura switches on the Ex Box case.

I've sourced all the cable, crimp lugs and other accoutrements for the install, just need to get her done in the coming weeks (or months :p ). Rest assured I'll take plenty of pics along the way to document the most bomb-proof dual battery / winch setup (in a 90) this place has ever seen :cool:

In the words of AvE... Keep your stick on the ice.