Pajero Sport Mods Part Five

We finally got the UHF installed – it only took about three months!!

As I said in a previous post its an Uniden 8060 5 watt in car unit with remote mike. https://www.uniden.com.au/AUSTRALIA/p_uh8060s_index.asp

We had an auto sparky do the install and to be honest I'm pleased we used as it was little more complicated that I thought it would be. The unit is completely hidden and given how little space there is in the PS I surprised how he managed to hide everything except the mike.

How important a UHF is depends upon your point of view and where you travel. In a convoy situation they are almost vital as they allow uninterrupted communication between convoy members.

If your travelling up North with lots of wide loads and huge road trains everywhere, they are also important in terms of comms from the truckies and assisting in overtaking them.

The most loved feature is the ability to change the colour of the mike – it’s currently pink!!

It’s a solid that does all that it needs to do and is easy to use.

Avon Descent 2017

An early morning trip to Northam for the start of the Avon Descent 2017 apparently one the worlds great white water events, and then onto York with various stops in between to view those brave enough to risk the icy water for this awesome race.

It was amazing to watch the paddlers leave Northam on such a cold morning knowing that they had somewhere between 4 – 6 hours of paddling before their overnight rest stop. Very impressive stuff.

The Pajero Sport Mods and Accessories Part Four

I’ve been looking at the car and found more stuff we have added, starting with:

Thule Wing Bars and Thule Pro Bars – we have both because the Pro bars a little wider and on the occasion we need to carry and extra gear we use the wider bars. Thule are an exceptional company and offer service that is nothing short of brilliant. We also have a Thule roof box which is perfect for our camping gear.

Yakima Bike rack, the Double Down 4, another brilliant bit of kit that keeps our bikes safe and with us when ever we we need them. To be honest I really wanted the Thule bike rack but the pricing was over the top expensive. The Yakima is really good and we are super happy with it.

Uniden 8060 UHF, we have just added the Uniden 8060 UHF to our kit and I’m hoping it will be a big improvement over our little two watt hand held UHF radios

Other stuff that comes our trips includes a couple of sit on kayaks, bikes, cameras,recovery tracks etc and a huge amount of camping gear that I will list in another blog.  Yes we have a huge amount of gear.

A pic of the mighty PS with the Thule roof box.

Dwellingup

Dwellingup is small town in Western Australia about 130k’s from Perth and is set among pristine jarrah forest and water catchment areas.

Perhaps the big attraction in the area is the Hotham Valley Steam Train, while this is the big attraction there are others and one that does excite is the Bibbulmun Track (Western Australia's world class, 1,000 kilometre walk trail) that  passes through.

We had a great time on the old steam train – even if it was freezing by WA standards.

The Pajero Sport Mods Part Three

This next mod was the most expensive and the most thought over mod, the dual battery system. We needed a system to keep our fridge running (constant cold beer)  and power all of our first world camping essentials, iPhones, tablets, notebooks and lights.

After much research, we settled on a Redarc dual battery system based around Redarc’s BCDC 1225LV https://www.redarc.com.au/in-vehicle-battery-chargermppt-regulator-25a-lv and an Optima Yellow Top D34 battery.

Some of the features of the Redarc BCDC are:

• Multi-Stage DC to DC Battery Charger
• MPPT Solar Regulator
• Start Battery Isolator
• Fully sealed
• No fan for super quiet operation
• Charges AGM, Gel, Calcium content, VRLA and Standard Lead Acid batteries

We went with Redarc and Optima for number of reasons but the most important was that they both have a reputation for performing really well in adverse conditions.

We used a professional installation company with an excellent reputation for 4WD fit outs to install the complete system, and they did an awesome job, to look under the bonnet (hood if your in North America) you wouldn’t know that a second battery system had been installed.

If you think I’m a fan of Redarc your dead right – the Redarc gear isn’t cheap but works brilliantly. It kept our Dometic Waeco CFX 40 fridge going for three weeks, while we were camping in some of the hottest weather - most days were close to 40c and harshest terrain around. It kept the Optima charged and didn’t miss beat and we had plenty of good food and lot’s of cold beer. 

I highly recommend Redarc.

Picnic in York & Geocaching in Wandoo

We made a last minute decision to try and follow a 4WD track though the Wandoo National Park, between Perth & York. We had found the track on the Hema Maps web site and thought it sounded interesting, needless to say the directions were a little vague and involved quite a bit of back tracking.

We managed to find the track and also managed to do some Geocaching as well, team glcm was in fine form for a mighty total of two caches!!

After Wandoo it was onto York for lunch then on to a Northam to try and locate some old family homes of interest to Leanne.

A great day and an interesting day.  Some of the pics include the track @ Wandoo, “The Lolly Shop” in York  & the suspension bridge and the old hospital both in Northam

The Pajero Sport Mods Part Two

After hearing multiple horror stories about the lack of real protection provided by the standard Mitsubishi bash plates we decide to upgrade to something which would protect the PS a bit better.

We went with Boos Bash Plates – ordered online and delivered surprisingly fast http://www.boosbashplates.com.au/ they are made to fit perfectly and are one of the easiest installs possible. 

Installing them really showed why the factory plates need to be replaced and why so many other owners of the PS had had issues with intercooler damage particularly on sandy tracks or beaches. I couldn’t believe just how flimsy the factory bash plates were, in reality they were made up of some thin pressed tin and plastic, just bloody useless and in hind sight we could have caused some serious damage to our vehicle.

Overall one of the best mods we have done to our PS. They give us a sense of confidence on the tracks that we didn’t have with the standard factory ones.