1) Winch
2) Long range fuel tank
3) Roof Rack
4) Raised suspension
5) Interior redone (Cressida seats)
6) Duel battery system with 4 battery plug points
7) Spotlights
8) Newly fitted reconditioned engine (4YE)
We were quite happy her and felt comfortable that she would take us all the way to London and back.
Unfortunately it later transpired that the new reconditioned engine that had been put in, had developed piston slap.... hence our car got her name, Slapper.
After a lot of soul searching we decided to redo the entire engine (to remedy the piston slap). We did all of the following:
1)We took her to Steves Auto Clinic(SAC), who redid the engine for us. We decided to also have a SAC conversion done to the engine whereby they put bigger pistons and oversize head in.
2)In addition we had a stainless steel free flow exhaust fitted.
3)We also fitted a Weber carb to the car (fitted by Custom Racing Designs, CRD, in Wynberg).
4) We raised the air intake level by fitting a safari snorkel at Bailies Offroad in Kyalami.
After speaking to various people we decided that we needed a roof top tent. Although it would add a significant load to our vehicle, we felt that the convenience and relative safety it afforded us was worth the extra weight. I scanned the junk-mail for a few weeks(a local classifieds newspaper) and eventually picked up a second hand one for R1500. It also came with some jerry can holders, which I could mount on my roof rack. The tent needed some new panels so I took it to Eezi-Awn in Strydom Park, who were able to do the repairs for R500.
The latest challenge was now to figure out where to mount the tent. In addition to this we realised, after doing a trip to Botswana in August, that we needed to devise a better storage plan for our vehicle.
Hence the decision to buy the Technichest box system. We were now able mount the roof top tent on top of the boxes. In addition these storage devises afforded us the ability to organise all our equipment in such a way that everything was easily accessible and that we always knew where our "stuff" was.
We also bought various other gadgets and goodies for the vehicle like:
*39 litre Engel fridge / freezer (second hand for R3000)
*3 jerry cans(R100 each)
*Highlift jack (R350)
*Fire extinguishers (R130 each)
*New ground tent for when we camp for longer periods of time (R1100)
*New radio
*50 litre Watertank (R350 from Makro)
*Recovery kit (R800 from Makro)
*Wolf packs
*Lanterns and torches
