The Jimny

 

Love these little cars.  Under its small exterior is an even smaller interior and a long pedigree as a 4wd.

At the heart of this monster is a 1.3cc 4 cylinder engine.  The improvements that I have made are:

• 2 inch Tough Dog lift;
• 215/75R15 Hankook AT/M Shoes;
• Bull Bar; and
• Snorkel.

The fuel tank is a bit of a problem for long distance remote driving.  40 litres is all you have to play with so sorting how to carry extra fuel was a priority.  The maximum I had to carry was 60l in addition to the standard tank.  This ended up giving me a buffer of 30L as it took 70L to cross the Simpson Desert from Birdsville to Mt Dare, a distance of 510kms.

The major changes to the car are on the inside.  The rear seats have been removed and have been replaced with the touring setup.

The sliding drawer contains the pantry and supports the fridge slide and the 55l Dometic Fridge.  The Travel Buddy on the right was the relevation for this trip.  Hot meals when you arrived at camp without having to cook at night was brilliant.  More time to relax with a wine in hand and to get those sunset photos.

The heart of the system was a second battery which was charging from the alternator whilst driving.  This was isolated from the main battery so I never had to worry about the car not starting.

I ran the UHF radio off the second battery so I could leave it on in camp if I needed to - changing channels when you were driving is a bit of a challenge as the unit is behind the drivers seat, but otherwise is was good to keep the cab clear of clutter.

Anderson plugs were a must on 4WD tracks, gibber roads and nasty corrugations.  Apart from some teething problems with a redundant fuse in the line, the system worked a treat and never left us without power to charge mobile phones, camera batteries, run the laptop through a DC convertor, as well as cooking dinner and having the fridge running 24x7.

I tried to keep the rear setup as light as possible and used ply and angle iron to allow strength and flexibility given the type of 4wding I was going to experience.  I had 60 litres of fuel to sit on the floor beside the fridge so strength was important.

I will probably make some minor mods - the unit had a little too much flex so might put some corner bracing for the top shelf and will think of a way to stop the items on the top shelf bouncing forward and landing in the cab when you least expect it!  Apart from that it worked a treat and allowed us to play the tetris packing game a little more efficiently.