Setup

The Setup

Since we sold our house and the van is going to be our home for some time now, we wanted to make sure comfort was a priority and quality wasn’t compromised. We did extensive research, (watched every single 4wd show there is that tows a van) visited many caravan shops, went to all the caravan events and asked real people about their experiences with different vans, at times it was over whelming and we were pulled in lots of different directions.

2018 before we were even contemplating doing the lap, we thought we would buy a second hand van and see how often we would use it and learn the things we liked and disliked. We found ourselves using the van every other weekend and the kids just loved the van life, late 2018 we took a trip up to Broome and that is when we really got to see the things we needed to improve on.. What worked and didn’t.

In the end we went with the Lotus Trooper 21.6’ triple bunk, from Luxury RV. I never intended on going for a van this size or weight, however the little extra things just added up. After owning a smaller van and knowing what we wanted and didn’t, this van ticked every box. While the Trooper comes loaded with many features as standard, we felt it needed a few extra mods to help us with our trip, making it safer and a bit more luxurious (as the wife loves her luxuries).

Our added extras we installed are;

A gas heater

A concertina door to the kids rooms, so we can stay up when the kids go to bed. We have a new baby that we don’t want to wake the older kids up too (But who are we kidding, living in the van isn’t going to give us much privacy)

Extra lights outside

An upgraded heavy duty rear bar that carries two spare tyres and two jerry cans with a handy firewood holder

We also removed the standard stone deflector to add in our own Stone Stomper.

We were in talks with our dealer about a 4 or 5 bike rack, however couldn’t find anything that suited or that fit on the front box of the van, so we had to go with the thule 3 holder bike rack and came up with a solution for the 4th bike. I don’t understand why there are limited options in this market. If you have a solution please let us know!

Upgraded the air conditioner to a Dometic harrier as it’s quieter.

Upgraded the washing machine to a 4kg (god knows how Jayde’s going to survive its actually downsizing)

We added fans to each of kids bunk and an extra one in our living area

Extra-large windows to the bunks for that extra wind flow in the heat

Electric brake stability (we found out after that you also get a discount from insurance companies if you have this BONUS) we used the Alko ESC as this is disc brake friendly

As we have only just got the van, we will cover more of what works and what doesn’t later in the trip along with a bit of a video on the entire van set up and how we managed to fit our lives into the van.

Moving onto the “The Monster Truck” ( as my son loves to refer it as). It is a 2015 200 series Sahara Landcruiser, the below is a list of mods done mostly through Toyotune in Perth.

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BFG

Ko2 305/65/18

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King Shocks

2.5 Remote Res 3800kg GVM UCA’s

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Diff Drop Kit

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Airbag Man

Rear Bags

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Richards Torque Converter

Lock Up Kit

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Safari

Armax Snorkle

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Custom ECU Remap

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Custom ECU Remap

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ARB

Summit Bar

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ARB

Recovery Points

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Kaymar

Twin wheel carrier rear bar

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Clearview

Drop down fridge slide

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Tracklander

roof rack customised to be a boat loader

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X-Ray vision

HID pencil spot lights

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810CCa Crank and 105ah Deep cycle Antenna 

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ARB

Long range poly tank

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Redarc

Tow Pro

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UniFilter

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Method

MR305 18×9 Plus 25

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Blackhawk Castor/Camber Corrected

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Adjustable Rear Panhard Rod

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Progressive Bump Stops

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Manta

3” Turbo Back with single exit

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EGR Upgrade

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Trans Remap

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HPD

Catch Can

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ARB

Summit Steps and Rails

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ARB

Under Body Protection

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Custom Installations

Draws

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Clearview

mirrors

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ARB

Intensity front LED light bar

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Intervolt Dual Battery System

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GME

370c 2way and Big/small

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ARB

Awning

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Redarc

25amp battery charger with solar

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Celfi-go

Phone booster

I built this car to go anywhere and do anything and the most important thing is to keep us safe along the trip, plus the added feature of DVD players doesn’t go astray when you have kids. Again I will report back on what works and what doesn’t and hopefully do a detailed video on the car to show case “The Monster Truck”.

The silver tinny that’s going to catch us that 1 million dollar Barra in the NT. For so many reasons we went with a 3.7m Seajay Nomad high side with gunnels, it seems very big on the car but in the water it is just right especially with the crocs lurking in the water trying to catch a Barra or two. We all love fishing and going on this trip without a boat would have been hard, especially following the coast. To power the boat I wanted a 20Hp 4 stroke, however with nowhere to store the motor up right I had no choice but to go with a 15Hp 2 stroke Yamaha, this has its advantages and disadvantages. Advantages are weight the 2 stroke weighs in 17kg less than the 4 stroke and they are a little more robust and punchier on takeoff. Disadvantage’s I have to mix fuel. Hopefully you will see this boat in a lot of action and pulling in fish throughout the trip (even if they are Catfish caught by Jayde)

So this is what we now call our home, we are a very adventurous family and don’t do the usual sightseeing trips, I definitely like to make Jayde sit on the edge of her seat, and there has been times I’ve probably pushed things way to far… we love a good off road and staying off the grid on many trips. I feel we have made the right choices with our gear, however I suppose time will tell.

If you have any questions or want to know more about any of the gear or where we brought it from, drop us a line and I will do my best to answer anything you want to know.

Cheers, Lapping The Island

In the end due to overall weight we had to leave the boat at home! (For the moment). More to come on this topic….

We will write a really helpful post on maximum weights and making sure you are within the legal limits!