AG9111's UN-Bootylicious MN

[borngeek]

Welcome home AG!

looking forward to your trip report

[ag9111]

Update on the tyres. When I purchased the coopers they were mounted on IFS Cruiser rims. Just sold them on Ebay for $250. Sold the 4 roaded OEM tyres for $250 and the unroaded spare for $200 so all up the 6 tyres have cost me $300 WooHoo

[ag9111]

When going outback you need at least 2 spares and the only place to mount the 2nd spare was on the roof. The Razerback conopy has roof rails built in that are rated at 80kg. Along with the Rhino bars and roof rails that I have I thought I was sweet. Decided to stiffen up procedings by adding some fore/aft steel unistrut profile. This is a steel section that is shaped similar to the rhino heavy duty bars, It is used in industry as a multipurpose hanging system. You can get it from Electrical wholesalers and it is a fraction of the cost of rhino bars. There are a massive amount of different fittings that are available to suit different applications, just search the internet under Unistrut or Ezystrut.
Anyway, used three lenghts of strut to stiffen up the roffracks and used some eyebolts to tie down the spare.
The spare sat on these strut section



Lucky I did as the Razerback roof rails were not up to the corrugations and basically shook themselves to pieces. Had to reinforce the roof rails with one of the steel struts, as can be seen on the above photo to the left, and locked it all in place with some spare cam straps we were carrying.

The highlift jack went on the roof rack as well. Was going to buy some commercially available brackets that take the jack and a shovel for a measily $65, but had heard that they rattle really bad. Decided I could do better so ordered, through my electrical wholesaler, some unistrut brackets. Bolted the highlift to these and cable tied the shovel to the jack. No rattle, real tight and secure from theft as you needed tools to get them off. Total cost $3.75.



Heres a shot of the lot in action



Will be making a full roofrack to attach to the canopy, for future trips, as I am not real impressed with the Canopy roof rails as they stand now

[jop]

Gotta love unistrut - i have some stainless stuff in the shed

Looks good powdercoated too.

Love your work ag!

Edit: you even used lid

[ag9111]

We buy Stainless stuff for about $350 a 6 m lenght. Last job, we used about 120 lenghts. You do the maths.
Stuff also comes in aluminium for about $96 for 6m or the low profile Gal stuff for $55.
I used the closure strip to try and limit the noise you get from these profiles, Worked to.

[jop]

We usually make up all the brackets and tray bends, bolt them up, pull them down, then send them to be powerdercoated, looks great, last job was in hi vis orange.
Did you use plastic or ali lid?

[ag9111]

Just the cheap shit Plastic stuff. All it had to do was stop some of the noise.

[ag9111]

Fitted up my sliders and thought I would show everyone a majoe issue with having a Long Range tank

IMGP2645 (Small).JPG

Old steps and new sliders ready to go

IMGP2650 (Small).JPG

Issue with lack of clearence between tank and chassis. The tube is the handbrake cable on the passenger side and doesnt leave enough room between the Brown Davis tank and the chassis rail to slide in the other retaining plate.

IMGP2655 (Small).JPG

Had to move the cable out of the way and bolt in the plate. The cable is now protected by the two cheeks of the plates. Not an ideal situation but the best i have at the moment. Have been hung up on the centre mounts already a few times so I'm considering modifing the mounts a little and will try something to alleviate the problem when I do that

[Longranger1]

Doncha hate it when little things like that crop up when doing your build?

[snowman]

Garth, how is the bottom of the tank holding up? i note it is lower than the rail and has some marks on it. i recall another photos somewhere that looked like you had a decent dent.

to you think there is a way to protect it or it is just one of those things you have to live with?

this is the only reason i don't upgrade to one . i would love the extra range.

[ag9111]

Garth, how is the bottom of the tank holding up? i note it is lower than the rail and has some marks on it. i recall another photos somewhere that looked like you had a decent dent.

to you think there is a way to protect it or it is just one of those things you have to live with?

this is the only reason i don't upgrade to one . i would love the extra range.

Hey Mark.
I certainly believe that it is no where near 135L anymore. Have a couple of major dents in it, one on the leading edge and one in the centre plus a couple of others. Steel is pretty thick and no leaks at the moment. You could protect it with a heavy bash, sliding plate mounted off the original tank mounts but I have never worried.
Really thought I would throw the OEM tank back in once we did the Simpson trip, for that very reason, but with the km's I'm doing at the moment I love the range. Getting 1200km out of a tank and filling up at least once a week. $180 a shot.
Have even gone back to OEM tyres to cut down on the noise as the ST's are getting a little noisy. Looks a bit dicky with the 2" lift