Which are the best 4WD shops in Perth?

[busta]

Firstly, hello PH Australia! I've been in WA for 9 months now but don't think I ever really introduced myself. I've never really had much to say to be honest, as I've been driving a Volvo and been outback for most of that time. I'm over here on a years working holiday visa which runs out in September but I have a sponsor lined up should I choose to stay out here. But for now, I'm essentially a backpacker. I've been working pretty solidly for 8 of the 9 months I've been here, and the time has come to actually knuckle down and do some traveling.

After scouring carsales.com and the quokka for the past couple of weeks, I have purchased a superb, rust free 1990 GQ Patrol diesel which, along with my swag, will be my home for the next 3 months traveling up the coast, over to Karinjini and onwards into the dark depths of the Kimberleys.

The car is currently stock standard but with factory fitted roo bar, side steps and wide tyres. It needs a few things like new springs and shocks (might as well go for a 2" lift) and perhaps a snorkel if I can't make something up myself. So i was wondering where would be the best place to get these and whatever other bits I might need from.

I've already got a bit of a shopping list- 12v compressor, snatch strap, jerry cans etc. but any advice on other essentials for the trip, places to go and where to get it all from would be gratefully received!

[308mate]

busta said:

Firstly, hello PH Australia! I've been in WA for 9 months now but don't think I ever really introduced myself. I've never really had much to say to be honest, as I've been driving a Volvo and been outback for most of that time. I'm over here on a years working holiday visa which runs out in September but I have a sponsor lined up should I choose to stay out here. But for now, I'm essentially a backpacker. I've been working pretty solidly for 8 of the 9 months I've been here, and the time has come to actually knuckle down and do some traveling.

After scouring carsales.com and the quokka for the past couple of weeks, I have purchased a superb, rust free 1990 GQ Patrol diesel which, along with my swag, will be my home for the next 3 months traveling up the coast, over to Karinjini and onwards into the dark depths of the Kimberleys.

The car is currently stock standard but with factory fitted roo bar, side steps and wide tyres. It needs a few things like new springs and shocks (might as well go for a 2" lift) and perhaps a snorkel if I can't make something up myself. So i was wondering where would be the best place to get these and whatever other bits I might need from.

I've already got a bit of a shopping list- 12v compressor, snatch strap, jerry cans etc. but any advice on other essentials for the trip, places to go and where to get it all from would be gratefully received!

Fine vehicle, though its no Land Cruiser.

This is such an enormous topic, where do you start and finish? How remote are you going? How extreme will your offroading be? For instance, take a small mirror with you. Its for signalling passing aircraft if you get into trouble (by reflecting the sun). If you dont have one, knock one of your rear view mirrors out. How much detail do you want?

Your window for going north is running out fast. You want to be up there in the winter, not the wet season.

ARB in Osborne Park. There are loads actually but that was a very good one. I reckon most of the stuff youre after you should be able to get secondhand pretty easily. Wheels and tyres, jerry cans, fridge, snorkel, winch (not essential but helpful), recovery equipment etc Note: a snatch strap and a tow rope are different pieces of equipment for different jobs. You need both ideally. Make sure you have rated shackles on your recovery points front and rear. Its no good haivng the gear if youve nowhere to attach it and snatching off a bumper bar will likely just tear it off.

If youre going that far, you'll need a car fridge. Get an Engel fridge. They are expensive but there is a good reason for that. Look for one out of the Quokka. You will also need a dual battery set-up to keep up with your fridge/various battery chargers/winch/stereo when stationery etc etc. Not as complex as you might think, the guys at ARB can advise.

Water containers and water purification tablets. If you run out, you need to be able to make use of any water you can find and you dont want to drink it straight out of a creek cause you dont know whats st or died in it up stream.

If it has a roof-rack, you could deck it with marine ply and sleep on it at night. Dont put all fuel, water and spare tyres on the roof rack and leave your vehicle empty. By the same token, you may not want your fuel and spare tyres in the car either. If you roll it down a sand dune, the contents of your car may do you more damage than the roll-over. Fit 6 or so anchorage points in the back of your car for tying things down to. You WILL need to tie things down because the washboards on the gravel roads will shake EVERYTHING loose and if you hit dip in the road that you didnt see, the jump out the other side will send all your kit flying around the cab. Which is rubbish. 4WD shops sell anchorage points. The meatier the better.

If youre doing a lot of unsealed road driving, spend a bit extra on good shockies. Again, the washboards make a mockery of older OE gear and your car will be floating about all over the place if you dont set it up right.

Get your AC checked/re-gassed.

EPIRB ( click) - this will be the best 100 bucks you ever spent if you ever need it.

Take as many spare wheels (inc tyres!) as you have room for. Maybe two. And a puncture repair kit. DONT buy a kangaroo jack if you dont know how and where to mount it or how to use it. They are as effective at injuring you or damaging your property as they are at saving your life, if you dont know what youre doing. Take a block of Jarrah about 10" square and 2-3" thick. If you ever need to jack your car up, you will need a solid platform on which to do it.

Two way radio/sat phone. Sat phones are brilliant though expensive, two-way radio is worth having, if only to relieve the boredom sometimes but also to announce your arrival to homesteads, ask for help, check conditions ahead from passing traffic and so on. I guess if youre going really remote and want to be safe, you could take a LW radio too.

GPS. Essential. Can be as simple as this.

Make sure your Patrol has a CD player. There is little or no radio across 85% of Western Australia. (Howard Satler counts as little or no radio).

Learn how to prime your deisel for if you run it out of fuel. Its no point having spare fuel if you ran it dry and cant prime it again - it wont start 'til you get the air out.

Take canned food and rubbish bags. Take canned beer too. Take a shovel - for putting out camp fires (essential that you this!!!), digging toilets, digging the car out of sand and lots of other stuff. Folding one is best.

If youre really going bush, everytime you reach a town with a Ranger or a Police Station, call in and tell them where youre going, your route and your expected time-frame. They will be expecting people to do this and they hold valuable info about the conditions of roads and whether various towns or service stations are open or have fuel.

Decide what terrain youre going to be on then select your wheels and tyres. If your not doing much sand work, you dont need fats. You can go with rag tyres and split rims (cheaper too) and reduce your chances of a puncture and make reparing one MUCH easier. But you will need to learn how to repair a split-rim puncture. Take a foot pump in case your compressor sts itself.

If you want an exhaustive list, check out any vehicle run by a mining exploration team. Those guys regularly go bush where there are no roads at all for months at a time and have to be self sufficient. You will find theyre all Toyota Land Cruisers but thats a seperate argument

Dont drive tired. If youre camping, camp in a caravan park or remotely. Dont camp close to towns, especially ones with names like Wiluna or Roebourne.

I could go on forever but thats a start.

[deviant]

I heard that snakes like it if you stamp your feet either side of their head while screaming. This has a calming effect that allows you to quite safely grab its tail and pick it up.

[ariddell]

I just bought a set of 2" lift shocks/springs for the Disco from www.suspensionstuff.com.au great price & service so i would highly recommend them.

Give them a call and have a chat with Shane, he knows his stuff so will be able to put together a package for the particular spring/shock combo to suit the sort of terain you'll be traveling on and weight you'll be running on your truck - then you just need to find somewhere to fit it..

Edited by ariddell on Monday 6th July 02:36

[busta]

Cheers for the concise reply 308mate.

Landcruiser Patrol yudda yudda yudda. I considered all the arguments that everyone puts out from both camps, thought long and hard about build quality, spec levels and reliability, pulled my hair out trying to work out price vs. depreciation and in the end I went with the Patrol because it looks cool

Joking aside, for my budget I could get a much better condition Patrol than I could Landcruiser, and much better spec too.

My biggest issue is my budget. I can't afford to spent much more than $1000 on gear, so it seems the quokka is my best buying resource.

How far bush I'll go is a bit of an unknown. I've been working on stations in the Gascoyne and got a bit of a taste for bush bashing, but I'm also aware of the risks involved, and how easy it is to get a puncture etc. I will be traveling with other backpackers, who will more than likely be good for little more than ballast, so I don't think I'll be going too wild. It'll most likely be just the Gibb River road and the associated routes off to gorges etc, and sticking to fairly well trodden tracks when I do leave the bigger dirt roads.

The Patrol is on the standard 12.5 x whatever they are tubeless tyres, and I will have 2 spares. I figured a tubeless repair kit (the plug type) would be worthwhile, and fairly inexpensive. We used these extensively on the station and they proved pretty effective. And a compressor obviously. $200 seems to get a reasonable one. I'll take a can of lighter fluid and a lighter for re-seating tyres, tyre levers are going to push the budget, and I doubt the compressor will be up to the job of seating a tubeless tyre.

Carrying the extra spare + 20 litres of fuel and water is a bit of an issue. Does anyone make a spare wheel carrier that fits into the reese hitch? I figured this is a cheaper option than a full rear bar, and I don't like the idea of putting things on the roof. Too much drag, and I'm too short to get it down again!
I have the option of borrowing a friends workshop to make something up if there's nothing available cheaply.

Whilst I can see the use of a kangaroo jack, I hate the finger biting, heavy, unstable, clumsy bloody things and will avoid getting one if possible! I've added block of Jarrah to the list though.

The 2-way box is already ticked. Not sure about GPS tbh. Why is it so essential? Is there any particular brand of map that is better than the others? I'm used to the UK's excellent Ordnance Survey maps, and everything here seems a bit rubbish in comparison.

Fridge is a bit of a tricky one. I was thinking large Esky + ice, but I'm not sure how easy it is to find ice in the Kimberleys?

So the list so far is:
Toyota Landcruiser
Shockies+ springs from suspension stuff (cheers for the link ariddell)
12v Compressor
Jerry Cans
Snatch strap
Shovel
2-way
Block of Jarrah
Rear bar for Jerrys + spares
radiator hoses, heater hoses, coolant, hose clips, fan belts
Fuel filter
Small tool kit
Tubeless tyre repair kit.

Thats an easy $1000 spent so please don't suggest too much more!

[motomk]

308mate has it well covered. Not being an off roader I can't help there. One reason for a GPS would be so people can find you. Radios would also be essential I reckon. As mentioned you really want to go north in winter not summer. Never used these maps but have seen them in 4WD magazines.
http://www.hemamaps.com.au/

Another one
http://www.landgate.wa.gov.au/corporate.nsf/web/Tr...
We have an old travellers Atlas at work which is very detailed (20?? years old), sadly the later ones I have seen are not as detailed.

[308mate]

The Patrol will be fine mate. Truth be told, you could do it in an old landrover as long as it was mechanically sound. Its only the level of comfort that changes (ie - how much red dust do you want to eat each day!).

You can get a swing-away wheel or gerrycan carrier. Couldnt tell you about a reece hitch fitting. It sounds feasible.

Of course you need a map, but with the GPS, you take the guesss work out of it. You will be able to pinpoint your exact location all the time which is really helpful because landmarks as you know are thin on the ground and the start of some tracks dont look like tracks at all. If you leave them on snail trail, they make it really easy to retrace youre steps too if need be and keep a record of where you went when you download them at home.

Tip: If you dont take a GPS, reset your trip-meter at junctions, landmarks or obvious points on the map. This way if you have an emergency, you can tell someone (assuming you can contact them) how far along that road you are from the last time you zeroed.

You havent got footpump on your list. You need one as a back up. Your tyres are everything. The most important part of the car. You cant even get towed anywhere without 4 good tyres.

Youre doing some big distances on some bony roads. Consider taking spare springs, 1 or 2 leaves for the rear (the top ones with the pivot in them!) and a coil for the front.

You didnt list water purification tablets either. Dont forget. It means as long as you can find water, you can drink it.

You definitely need a fridge if you want anything fresh. You might go for days without being able to buy ice. And buying it is one thing. Keeping it for more than a day is another. Otherwise, its canned and powedered/long-life everything for you.

Tyre levers push the budget? They should be the cheapest thing on the list. I would have them. They come in handy for things other than levering tyres.

As I said above, if youre not doing much sandwork, take a tow rope instead of a snatch strap. Towing with a snatch strap will fk it anyway. A tow rope is generally cheaper than a snatch strap (they have no elastic properties) and you can use it to recover also. But dont snatch with it. Theres no give in them so it will just snap.

You sound like you know your onions with tyres. But consider taking a tube. This way you can have a puncture on a piece of the tyre thats irepairable but still slip a tube in and limp home (And for that youll need levers). It could well be that theres no such thing as an irepairable piece of a tyre these days(?)

Tip: open the top of your fuel gerry cans very SLOWLY on hot days.

If it isnt already, get it tinted. In fact, why dont you post a pic of it?

Tip: Dont camp in riverbeds if it looks like rain anywhere within 200kms!

Tip: When you pump your tyres back up (mainly with split rims), slide it under your car while it inflates. If it goes pear shaped and pops off the rim or blows the split off, its not going to kill you.

Edited by 308mate on Wednesday 8th July 00:01

[deviant]

Go to the local DVD emporia and hire 'Bush Mechanic' as a handy survival guide.

[Colonial]

Do not try and do it on a minscule budget.

It seems every year a tourist buys an old 4wd, prepares it on the cheap, then dies when they have a simple misshap.

There isn't motorway service every 20 miles, nor friendly villages with pubs and shops every 10 miles. It's rugged and it is quite easy to die.

If you stick to the main roads there is enough passing traffic to be ok (done the Strezlecki track in a Subaru Outback for example) but if you go "exploring" you need some serious investment in your vehicle.

[busta]

308mate said:

Youre doing some big distances on some bony roads. Consider taking spare springs, 1 or 2 leaves for the rear (the top ones with the pivot in them!) and a coil for the front.

Ahem! Coils all round.

Thanks again mate,
I'm starting to get everything together now. I've got a compressor, snatch strap with rated shackles etc, basic tool kit, hoses and belts. Tomorrow I'm off to Kalgoorlie, then Esperence and hugging the coast back around to Perth over the next week or so which will be a good shakedown run. Will post pictures when it stops raining and I can get a good one!

[308mate]

busta said:

308mate said:

Youre doing some big distances on some bony roads. Consider taking spare springs, 1 or 2 leaves for the rear (the top ones with the pivot in them!) and a coil for the front.

Ahem! Coils all round.

Thanks again mate,
I'm starting to get everything together now. I've got a compressor, snatch strap with rated shackles etc, basic tool kit, hoses and belts. Tomorrow I'm off to Kalgoorlie, then Esperence and hugging the coast back around to Perth over the next week or so which will be a good shakedown run. Will post pictures when it stops raining and I can get a good one!

Dammit man, thats bitumen all the way!

Go from Kal, up to Leonora via the back road, then Meeka, then Wiluna, then the Neds Creek road, then across to Tom Price, Nanutarra and Carnarvon. Just a thought.

[busta]

It's only bitumen if you choose to stay on the bitumen! There's plenty of 4WD tracks to spice up the trip with. We've just had a fantastic afternoon exploring all the old gold mines hidden in the bush South of Norsemen. Off to Albany tomorrow, not much bitumen on those beaches! Pictures coming soon.

[308mate]

busta said:

It's only bitumen if you choose to stay on the bitumen! There's plenty of 4WD tracks to spice up the trip with. We've just had a fantastic afternoon exploring all the old gold mines hidden in the bush South of Norsemen. Off to Albany tomorrow, not much bitumen on those beaches! Pictures coming soon.

Good man.

Tip for exploring old works: The temptation will be to walk up to the edge and peer in. This is a bad idea for many reasons but if you MUST do it, observe the integrity of the edge opposite you from a distance and if it looks stable, go round and stand on that egde. Dont walk to an edge you havent looked at from oppposite, in case its washed away oor unsupported.

[busta]

Well we survived the 2,500km South West road trip with little incident, other than needing a jump start to get going this morning. For some reason she's a bit reluctant to fire when cold. Turns over fast enough, just doesn't fire. It's either dodgy glow plugs or air getting in the fuel lines somewhere, so something to check out over the next few days. Anyway, some pics as promised.

[308mate]

Nice pictures. Looks like a pretty decent jalopy. Decent bullbar too. Keep us posted on your travels.