Hello all, now that I finally have a CT - and some pics of it, I know how it is with forums
- it's time to do the intro. Warning, I do long intros...
I've been here for a while, just learning and occasionally sticking my nose in here and there. This is a very good informative forum and its members do it proud.
Last year I picked up a 2008 Patrol to do some camping and touring with my family - wife, 7yo daughter, 4yo son, 3yo daugher. I'll be honest, I didn't want to tow a CT and so went all-out to make the Patrol a self-sufficent tent-camping machine. It has: ARB bar, Tigerz11 winch, 2" OME lift, front and rear Air Lockers, custom sliders, Safari snorkel, IC fan mod, dual batteries, upgraded headlight wiring with Phillips +80% globes, Baja Designs 35w HID spot/spread combo, Steinbauer module and 3" exhaust. Cooper 33" (285/70R17) STTs have been great but are about to be replaced by BFG KM2s in the same size.
In the back is the 60 litre Waeco, a watertank, and soon some drawers built into a custom rack/cargo barrier. Up front is a Dept Of The Interior dash pod with GME3220+speaker, Autometer EGT and boost gauges, Scangauge II, turbo timer and Parrot bluetooth. We use a very basic GPS at the moment but a serious off-road capable unit is on the way. Going to need some sort of media system for the longer trips too, for parental sanity
Up top is the full length rack and Ironman 2m x 2.5m awning. It will eventually get a steel rear bar and longrange tank. The interior ventilation is horrendous for rear seat passengers so I have some plans to fix that as well.
Anyway, that is the tug, as I believe it should be called... now onto the trailer.
Setting the tug up with no thoughts of a CT severely depleted the budget I'd set out when we decided we wanted to travel. So when I started to understand the constraints of a wagon with 3 kids worth of gear to take, I began looking at CTs in the $7k-10k range... that soon crept up to $12k-15k when I learnt what was necessary for a reasonably outback-proof base. I desperately wanted a Trackabout but missed a few extremely good ones, Camel's Bushman was also on the shortlist, and then I discovered staircase trailers
Crikey, now we're over $15k... at this point I started to think about building a CT - I have an uncle who is a gun welder, and - conveniently - unemployed due to injury and living 5 minutes from me. Downloaded plans from www.trailerplans.com, started pricing the parts and tools we'd need - it was going to be a full length steel chassis with aluminium body. And then one evening, about 3 weeks after I'd decided to build but before I'd spent a cent, a 2007 Jimboomba Maddison Staircase appeared in a couple of the classified sites I was checking twice a day, and the next morning it was mine. The price was excellent - I didn't bother to haggle - and the trailer is in great condition.
It is the usual Jimboomba Duragal full length chassis with aluminium body, eye-to-eye leaf springs with helper springs, triple drawbar with spare on it, dual jockey wheels (I think someone realised the standard little one was useless and just added a bigger one without ditching the little one). 85 litre watertank, 2 x 4.5kg gas bottle holders, 1 x jerrycan holder, 1 x lockable external box, internal pole carrier, rear recovery point/bike carrier mount. Tare weight is 550kg, so while it has drum brakes fitted they are for the handbrake only. It currently has a road hitch as the PO didn't go offroad, although he supplied an offroad hitch with it - I plan to use something different though, and the OzHitch has currently got my attention, thoughts on it are welcomed!
The tailgate kitchen has pushbutton three-burner stove, sink with flip-up 12v tap and a dual-level extended benchtop that hangs off the end of the kitchen unit. The 12v battery is only small - 60Ah - and not connected to the car at all, although there are three sockets and wiring to the sink tap switch. The PO just used to charge it at home and it would do him for weekends, running lights and the tap.
The tent is 9' x 15'. The main tent and awning are original and in perfect shape, with zip-out floor (great feature). 6" foam mattress, fairly firm, with gas-strut bedlift, vertical walls around bed (nice), internally zipped flaps etc. The PO had additional canvas made up only 12 months ago - full annex walls, and another 8' annex to go off the first one, so there's plenty of canvas!
Future plans are many and include electric brakes, drawbar storage, a more serious battery system with feed from the tug, LED strip lights on the tent bows (already got 4 x 24" ones ready to go), dual batteries, solar connectivity, stone guard, and more. At some point I might look into independent suspension.
I've already made the first mod - the same week I got it, I also picked up four GU IV alloy wheels and within a week will have BFG KM2s on all 8 wheels across the Patrol and trailer, got a big trolleyjack so 5000km rotation of all 8 wheels should see good mileage. Straight bolt-on, and look much better than the 15" white sunnies it had. Might need to lengthen the rear spring shackle to give decent travel with the 33" muddies on it, have been corresponding with JT about this (and a new tonneau) as we may need to mod the tent floor too.
OK, long intro done, pics next (lost my copy/paste function so will reboot and then post the pics).
