61 Days Overlanding: What worked? What didn't?

in this video I'll discuss the setup we used during our 61-day overlanding trip and specifically what worked and what did not I'll put chapter markers in the description so that you can skip to the area that is of interest to you if there's anything else that you'd like to know please feel free to ask in the comments the vehicle we used is a 2023 Ford Ranger Wild track in stock trim the only modifications to the vehicle are the fitment of a long range fuel tank and proper allterrain tires with a higher profile to achieve the higher profile I swapped the standard 18 inms for 17 inms and with a higher profile that then creates the same circumference so there were no issues with a speedometer or odometer inaccuracies the 2 L engine had more than enough power and we had no issues with the vehicle fuel consumption does rise quite a bit when you heat heavy sand and in those cases the V6 engine might actually be lighter on fuel we were very heavily loaded and traveled over some very bumpy roads so the factory suspension did bottom out a couple of times and we had to take things rather slowly so a suspension upgrade to something more optimized for heavy loads may be worthwhile some of the gadgets that came standard with the wild track proved to be very useful for example the built-in inverter was used extensively to charge camera batteries while we were traveling the surround camera system also proved very useful as you can see here an illustration of the usefulness of a front camera here we have to go through a ditch but we can't see over the Bonnet of the vehicle so now I'll switch on the front camera and suddenly it's actually quite easy to see where the road goes BL the built-in navigation with tracks for Africa maps and points of interest also proved very useful even though we had a Garmin GPS with tracks for Africa loaded with us most of the navigation was done with a built-in system but sometimes it was quite useful to use the built-in system for a wide view and then the Gin GPS for a narrower view see the video linked to above and in the description for a Fuller discussion of the pros and cons of using a Ford Ranger as an Overland vehicle we fitted an Alo 270° Shadow on just before the trip it is quite easy to deploy and has some nice features [Music] for example on top it has a silver reflective coating which does seem to help keep it cooler under the [Music] awning for use in windy weather it has an integrated leg and tie down ropes if the wind is not blowing we normally do not bother with [Music] these I love the fact that they have included a little bag with the T pegs you'll need nicely integrated and out of the way this shows that some thought and experience went into the [Music] product with many tents and awnings the issue is not how easy it is to deploy but how easy it is to pack up you be the judge if it scores here as [Music] well I am showing this at actual speed to give you a more truthful indication of how long it takes [Music] oh something to note is that because most campsites have shade you may use an awning less than you think where it really came into its own during our trip was when it started raining then the shelter provided by the awning was very useful [Music] [Music] we used the this a containerized packing system using boxes similar to ammo boxes these are slightly smaller they're called cup boxes and they can open from the top uh so what is nice about a containerized system is that you can take out the boxes and take it into your home to do the packing and then just bring them out and you don't have to take out the full box to access it you can just take off the lid to access that so this is what we previously used for for basically all the Crockery and cery but then there was a problem my wife found that a lot of the stuff needs to get stacked on top of each other and the stuff that she uses every day or multiple times a day it was a bit of a slip to dig into the box every time so she's now opted uh for this plastic drawer system that the stuff that she used is frequently is easy and on hand and the cutlery is also conveniently at hand one benefit of our current setup is that you've got the storage space drawers underneath and you can have the fridge on top so if the fridge was at this level it would be very difficult to utilize the space above it uh we have a drop down fridge Spide so the fridge comes down to a position where you can easily access it even if you're short uh like I am one problem that we used to have is that this um the wire for the fidge kind of got entangled from time to time so so I bought a drag chain they call it online for very little money and what that does is it protects the the wire running to the fridge and make sure that it doesn't get entangled in all kinds of other gear I must mention that later in the trip the drag chain developed a kink so you had to keep it in your left hand when you raised the fridge so I'll have to find a way to fix that as we did not want to live out of a suitcase or duffle bag for 2 months we built a little aluminium frame into which meat crates fit which we used as drawers for storing our clothes and toiletries this worked well but we underestimated the strains to which this would be subject so we had to repair it a couple of times along the way so we will definitely have to put in some additional bracing some additional screws to make it more [Music] durable we placed a plywood deck on top of the aluminium frame to use as a shelf and this was quite useful to put down cameras Etc while we were traveling we hanged two shoe bags at the back of the passenger compartment and used these to store things that we wanted to be readily accessible like the spotlight inverter shoes Etc the original audio in this next section was so bad that I had to dub it we bought this ground sheet at an outdoor show it is called a sear sandfree camping it is supposed to let sand fall through from the top but not allow sand to come up from the bottom we were very skeptical but I must say it actually worked a treat we were recently surprised by how well it works this has been in position all day and as you can see there is no sand on top note that wet soil does cling to it normal camping chairs are very comfortable but quite bulky so on previous trip I got tired of struggling to get them stored in the vehicle so this time we opted for a very compact chair option now they're certainly not the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat on but they are uh very small in size and they are quite easy to store the main benefit of these chairs is that they are so super compact so it's very easy to find a place to store them they're easy to take out easy to put back it's all quite convenient I previously used an AGM battery system that just charged directly from the alternator via solenoid but have now opted for a National Luna DC charging system that can take an DC input that can take a solar input and that can take an uh input from an alternator and paired that with a lithium battery so it's also got a algorithm to charge lithium batteries and that has actually worked so well charging it from the alternator at up to 40 amps that I've on this trip and we're now 2 weeks into the trip I have yet to deploy uh our solar charging pads so that that has certainly worked well we've uh put in a couple of USB charging points which we use much more than we ever thought we would and then I'm a great fan of Harrison or also known as Anderson plugs because they don't shake loose on corregated roads Etc so the uh fridge is fed from this the water pump is fed from here and there's also a spare that can be accessed this is our first canopy where we've opted to install a side cupboard what we use this for is for the fuse panel for the electrical system we've got this extension cord reel that if we're at a campsite with power we can plug this in and then use this battery charger to charge the lithium battery as well but again because the DC charging system that we are using is so effective on on this trip even where electric power was available I've never had to to use it the national Luna 40 amp DC to DC charger coupled with a 150 amp hour lithium battery might have been a bit of Overkill but it worked extremely well all through this trip even in extreme heat where the fridge was running pretty much all the time we never had to deploy our solar panels and I never had to use Shore power charging from the alternator via the DC charger was sufficient we're currently on tour in Zambia where temperatures have exceeded 40° C virtually every day uh so it's quite uncomfortable luckily we spoke to friends who were here just before we came and they recommended the purchase of a 12v fan so we've got one that can run from USB power and as our tent has USB PowerPoints we just plug it in at night and position the fan and this has been a real life server to be able to get to sleep at night in these temperatures during our trips we Bri a lot I'm a firm believer in a closed grid rather than having to dance around the fire with a pair of tongs or a fork we took along two pairs of grids with different stands because we find that at many campsites there's only a fireplace at ground level so it's very useful to Take Along something that you can put your grid on for making coffee we purchased a jet boil and arranged a special place to store it quite at hand the jet boil is super fast and boils your H very very quickly but we found that it is less windproof than one would think so we had to keep it out of the wind when using it but other than that it worked very well for regular cooking we use the kak Safari Chef one of the convenient features of the Safari Chef is that you can use it from a regular gas bottle or from hiking stove canisters it also comes with a lot of different attachments and we found the Safari Shi to be very very windproof even in quite a stiff breeze it worked very well our current vehicle has roof rails that you can actually Mount stuff on so we got these Tully load bars to be able to carry an extra spare wheel and we also use it to carry bundles of wood the tly load bars are frightfully overpriced but they are extremely easy to attach and remove when you don't need them and I must say I don't hear any additional wind noise from load bars as such the load bars on top of the tent were used to store a set of Max tracks Max tracks are my goto recovery equipment congratulations on making it this far into the video and again if you have any questions do feel free to ask them in the comments the next video will be a full review of the alab Gen 3r Rooftop tent we used I'm not sure I don't know when I will get round to making that video so if you are interested in that do consider subscribing thanks for watching

Channel: Overlander SA

Views: 13,201

Keywords: Alu-cab, Alucab, National Luna, Cadac, Safari Chef, Jetboil

Id: XJz7kNHO_j8

Length: 18min 25sec (1105 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2024