Ok update time – and it’s been a little while. I’ve now got well over 500k on the old girl, and pretty much it’s going pretty damn well other than old age.
The Landy got a genuine winch bullbar fitted to it in late 04 just before I went to the NT. This was courtesy of Tusker (on AULRO) who was getting rid of his to gain another one more suited to his winching abilities 😉 But honestly, second hand is really the way to do it – the prices of new bullbars scare the hell out of me. 😯
I fitted the Hella spotlights that where on the front onto the bullbar. At the end of the day they are still $100 spotties that are nearly 10 years old, but using the All Weather globes from Narva seems to give them a pretty damn good spread at night – and this works for me. There is better on the market, but I figure it’s another way to spend some serious money.
The headlights have been changed over for Halogen. This has made a dramatic improvement (when not muddy) over the original – and it’s something I recommend to anyone who owns a Defender. Again I am running the All Weather globes from Narva. I would also recommend these globes to anyone. Whilst they aren’t the most powerful (65watts) they are bloody brilliant in the rain, fog, snow – generally everytime it isn’t fine weather. Never regretted using them.
The safari snorkel got fitted by Macquarie 4×4 – the only company I have ever let do mechanical work to the old girl. I must admit a case a lacking some balls with this job, as all I could imagine was me with electric tools and cutting in the wrong spot! ops: They did a brilliant job though.
The roof console was supplied by Macquarie 4×4 at the same time. As the console is for the later TD5 it is a very tight squeeze to make it fit – but it did with some perserverence. This has been one of the best damn improvements to the vehicle so far. If for nothing but the interior lights, the front I can now see what I’m after, and the rear lights the cargo area up brilliantly – the Defender was moving into the 19th century slowly!
The original radio was a PITA, so I ditched it for an old Alpine system I had in the shed. It is a radio cassette player, with a big 3 CD stacker (which I fitted to the roof console). This radio system worked up until 3 months ago, when the stacker decided to crap itself. I’ve now got a new MP3 player to put into it, but I’m leaving it until I upgrade the electronics in the old girl – do it all at once I figure. At the same time I fitted some Jaycar speakers to the front – however I didn’t have the space in the passenger side to mount it properly. I got around this by using longer screws and some fuel hose to act as a spacer. Funniest thing is it hasn’t moved once!!!
The rear was taken care of with some outdoor speakers. Designed for the house, they do quite a fine job of things in the Landy.
A ½ din GME UHF radio was fitted to the roof console. Not long after I fitted ½ din AM CB from GME as well. This was supplied to me by an Overlander forum member at a very reasonable cost as well. There aren’t many people using AM now days, but when you get a trip where everyone has one it makes a big difference. Everyone and it’s dog now days uses UHF and it can get damn infuriating at times. I do want to get the proper front mount for the radio, but that will wait until I get around to it – it’s not like it’s moving anywhere, it just looks a little tacky. I fitted extension speakers to both radio’s. A combination of my deafness and the road noise from the Landy made it hard to hear – don’t have them problems now.
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