JAYCO JOURNEY OUTBACK | Off Road Modifications + Additions | Australian Outback Touring | 17.58-3

ghetto guys welcome to today's video so today I want to talk about some of the additions and modifications we've done to our Jayco journey our back to make it that little bit more robust off-road and to prevent some of that damage you typically get when taking these vans off-road so stay tuned to find out more [Music] okay so just before we start the video just so you know what we're running here we have a 2018 Jayco journey out back this is a 17.5 8-3 so this is a double bunk with a combined shower and toilet ensuite and this is the pop top model as well so let's get into the video and show you what we've done okay so starting from the front of the van here so you have one of these bands may notice that the spare wheel carrier from the front of the drawbar which is where they mounted on this van here has been taken away so the reason for this is obviously when towing off-road expecially doing some tracks that hangs down a little bit lower than that drawbar there and just provides a little bit of clearance by removing it and moving into the back wheel carrier so we go down the back we'll show you we've melted it in its place there we have built this little board here it sits in the a frame of the drawbar and just to that I've mounted two jerrycan holders there but on the board here I've also put in the stainless steel tie-down cleats so I can either put a chain saw or a gray water tank or anything else that needs carrying just on the front there so so far it's proved to be quite handy alright guys just fume with the front of the van here we don't have a fit at the moment but we do also run a stone stomper as well so the brackets for that adjust up here as well and each tire touches there and then hooks onto the back of your vehicle and what it does is prevent rocks coming up and flicking the front of your van and also prevents the bouncing off the front of event and heating the back of your vehicle causing damage to both the van and the vehicle so you can see here even with that stone stopper fitted it still just tipped away a little bit at the edge of the van however in the center and the front of the main compartment there is a very little damage there moving up to the front of the side of the van here our van is fitted with a tunnel boot that runs through the length of the van so you get one of these hatches on both sides so what I've done is it fitted a seal an additional seal to the inside of this hatch here so it's a d-shaped seal and it's got an adhesive backing it just sticks on there and puts a lot of extra pressure against this hatch and prevents a lot of dust ingress so you can see just a little bit here but considering how low and a placement of this hatch it's done really really well with the roads that we've done from preventing any just ingres coming in so this is it in addition to the factory seal that Jayco do fit to the door it does definitely provide a positive pressure and locking mechanism to that hatch there another big entry point for dust on these vans is these door vents on the side of an so on our van it is in front of the axle and obviously there's a lot of dust being thrown up from the car across this vent now given the warning label here it is pretty important to keep these vents open however what we've done is fitted some air convent material inside this door panel so it's removed from the inside we've cut out a shape of that material clamped it back in place there so it still allows airflow through that vent and keeping that a safety in check but what it does is prevent the dust getting through so you can easily remove that filter material give it a quick wash out and put it back in as well so that's proved to be very handy on all of our trips so far just a quick mention as well a lot of these materials including this filter material I have bought online I'll put a link in the description below as to where you can buy them if you are interested in doing this to your van moving down that little bit further as well wheel arches and now obviously this is where the dust is kicked up on the van itself and a big ingress point for dust on these vans is inside this gap up in here so this is all one piece construction down the side but up in here where the wall joins to the wheel guard is they do have a few holes and gaps in there so getting a silicon gun up in there and putting a hole of a sealant through the length of this wheel arch is the best solution for this and that's what I've done in this case it's not perfect a little bit of dust still gets through but nothing too compared to what I have seen for those who haven't done this sort of work we have got another hatch just at the end of the van here it's behind the awning pole unfortunately but this van this one here is the ensuite so this one here also has that extra seal with the backing tape behind it just around the outside of that hatch so I've done it on all the exterior hatches and again that's been flawless in its operation so far moving on to the rear of the van here so this is where we've moved our factory spare to so this bar was blank when we first got the van there was nothing attached to this at all so what we've done is we've had a custom rear spare wheel carrier welded up and mounted up the back there we've also put on a couple of bolt on jerrican holders one on each side and relocated that number plate just so it's more visible down here there is also a 10 liter diesel tank for the diesel heater which is mounted to the back of that wheel carrier now we do have have heard some concerns about these are bars ripping off the supports down here just with the amount of weight carried on them so what we've done is when we got the spare wheel mount mallet made up we had these two steel gussets welded in as well so whether they're supporting by the mounting bar and then onto the plate itself so that it provides a lot of extra strength where that pivot point is there and so far we haven't had any issues we understand that obviously it's a lot of weight to have at the rear of the van and we don't use it very often it's only when we absolutely have to but when we're doing some of the Great Central Road last year on the corrugations we did have a couple of jerry cans and these mounts here and it was fully loaded up and we had no issues so when needed it does work but we do try and keep it empty when possible it's moving down the driver's side of the van there isn't too much to comment about here obviously in the wheel arches we've done the same modifications with the ceiling inside the flares you do have these two vents here one of the lower there and one at the top and those are for the fridge now you really can't do too much about them you can't fit some air con material to them but you do want to keep that flow open if you have the fridge in operation especially on a hot day like it is today if you block that up the fridge or just over here that won't be effective so what we did when we were traveling some really dusty off-road tracks we will actually cover up this bottom one with a bit of cardboard and some tape and just block it off and turn the fridge off obviously if it's a hot day you're probably not going to want to do that so you just gonna have to to live with a little bit of dust ingress in there so not too much you can do about at these vents that we've done up here so you've got the exhaust fan and whatnot in the gas port for the fridge they don't really seem to suck in a lot of dust they this small vent and they're up high as well so we have really worried about those at this stage the front of the driver's side we haven't done a whole lot here we haven't really touched the gas hot water system at all but just on this this hatch here we have again added that extra seal and you can see in there as well there's not a whole lot of dust ingress in there it's pretty pretty clean considering hasn't been cleaned out since our last trip so overall we're pretty happy with that little seal modification we've done there and again I'll put a link in the description of this video as to where you can buy that from okay guys we're gonna move up underneath the van here now and work our way from front to back this is the first van we've owned and the first trailer we've taken off road for a considerable considerable amount of time one thing I've surprised about is just how many rocks you're for dry flicks up and Chuck's back at your van the underneath of this van has been hammered we did a thousand kilometers on the Great Central Road last year all corrugated rocky and Sandy and whatnot and some of these mods that we have put on underneath here show the the signs of that but have protected the factory equipment and allowed us to get through unscathed so let's start at the front and work our way back in okay guys so the first thing we have underneath the van here on the first front crossmember of the van are these four large mud flaps so they're thick enough here that they're not just going to blow up in the wind they do hold their weight and hold down but two smaller ones on the outside here and two larger ones fill it on the inside and with these you can see exactly where that stone stomper sits when it's out in place so toughest to a bracket on the corner here and then it goes underneath your straw bar and the my turf at the top here is in pretty good Nick where as underneath this thing has just been smashed by rocks so there's some pretty big chips and chunks taken out of this but you can imagine if this wasn't here all these rocks are hitting this would be heating what's behind here as well so it has protected this bit here and then obviously the center ones even being in the center here they've still been absolutely smashed as some big chips taken out of these and again you can see where that stone stopper sits a little bit higher up with a much collapse in pretty good Nick so even the center of the van where the wheels aren't really directly in line still get smashed or something you have to consider and definitely modification I highly recommend your fitting to your vet if you're gonna take it on long periods of offroad okay guys so let's move on in the neatest van you can see here this is the Sheikh look but I've fitted with the underneath of the van just to protect that coming on the triple why's there so excuse the background noise as I roll around on the trolley here looking so it's not a perfect system by any means but it does assist so one issue away was having was this year where the rock sort of build up underneath big chunk of rocks here that build up underneath the shade cloth but other than that it has done a fairly decent job and what its intended to do so I have you two stainless steel a zip ties which you can see here and here as well which I would highly recommend if you're doing this off-road tracks the rocks are due to come and hit plastic cable ties they tend to break there are a few in here mixed up but through the middle where it's a bit more exposed try to use some steel zip ties you can see here as well that it's not a perfect system it has torn here fair bit you can imagine if this wasn't here just the damage that may have been caused to this crossmember or all the pipe being gas line underneath this you know moving on the way down you can see down the end here it has actually broken off has cut through and is one of those broken cable ties I was talking about so look at some it's worked quite well for application what we're going to do today is we're gonna remove it all have a look underneath and have a look what the van looks like beneath this and see whether it's worked now we had that shake cloth removed you can see under here the the band will the factory equipment here is even relatively a good condition it's a very little and noticeable damage the only thing I've done here is given a quick squirt down with the host so try and I pick up any damage if there is any but so far it's looking pretty good so one thing I notice is just behind these front mouth ups are fitted I have report two more that's it in front of the front water tank on the van so that's the driver side the van moving across to the passenger side over here and again even with that front instead of mudflats at the front there you can see that these second ones has still copped a fairly decent hiding off roads especially on the behind the forward drive wheels there so you can just see how much it's flipped up behind these four drives we can drive an off road and if you didn't have this protection on your van all these rocks are just begun straight into all your equipment you crossmembers your water tanks and whatnot so definitely something you want to consider fitting these big mud flaps here so you can see another thing that I've fitted here is this split tubing here this corrugated split tubing this just goes over some of the the water pipes and then just runs down pretty much every water pipe I could find that isn't this thick stuff I put this corrugated stuff over so it just protects the van even behind that shade cloth just gives it a little bit more support now us you want to be doing is losing all your water when you're off road so you see another bit of it here this is some smaller stuff this is actually the fuel line for the diesel heater and again that just runs across the cross member of the bar up nice and high it just gives it a little bit of extra protection when you're traveling off-road ok so we're just sitting at that second row of lined-up there which you can see here and the main reason for fitting these are for the water tank here is this tap yes this is the drain bung filled water your water tanks in this is on the passenger side now what can happen is a rock is a plastic cap rock hips and not suspect you will lose your entire tank of water and obviously these tanks being joined here that you're risk losing tanks over the last thing you need especially when you're off road out in the middle of nowhere is losing your tanks so this here just protects again that fitting there reduces a chance of anything happening under here and so far it's worked in that case so while we're here as well this is your tap selector for your tanks and all your factory wiring in water plumbing and whatnot I have fitted corrugated tubing again to all of these pipes and cables or whatnot on the side of the van here's a little bit exposed but so far we've only haven't had any damage and everything's been fairly well protected so one thing you may have noticed when I showing you that that water bung there is this stuff yep so this is a a rubber phone material it's called K flex it's often used for hot water systems as an insulating material but I'll put this over all the large diameter water piping so this is the pipe being going from your water tanks as you can see there and this is a it's just sort of like a sacrificial protection for the pipes it does chip fairly easily but what it does do is it just absorbs any impacts caused by rocks or debris flying from the back of the car and again it just helps protect those factory water pipes from any damage so you see a few chips and bits and pieces in there but overall underneath that shake cloth that stayed pretty good so we're currently sitting just a front of the front axle of the van and you can see the two sets of mud flaps I have here so that's that fronts that I was talking about earlier up there and then these large truck ones here and I'll keep harping on about this but you can see here from these cross members even behind those mud flaps just how much they've been hit by rocks behind the vehicle so this van did not go off-road before as mud flaps are fitted and this is all caused by rocks and whatnot flicking up bouncing off the road and coming up and hitting these arms so you imagine if that protection wasn't there just how much damage could be done to the piping electrical or water plumbing that on this van okay so we're just city behind the rear axle demand in the moment obviously we're running on the independent jtech suspension on this van so one issue that you can have off-road is these brake lines there really isn't too much you can do to secure them because obviously you need to allow for that wheel travel on the especially when you're going offroad so there has to be looser sitting around like this but one thing we've noticed is they do get smashed by these rocks and there's little plastic clips in here they just get shattered and break straight apart and then you end up losing your brakes so what I've done as again more plastic conduit around a lower section before the clip and then it all the way up until the top of the van but then putting a small section of a slightly smaller diameter que flicks Mattila around at that plug and again it's absorbs any impacts that it might get from any box look it's not gonna stop that backwards force if a rock does hit but we've done all that driving and we're yet to lose a single brake cable so really happy with how that's turned out if you do need to get to it you can just fit these two cable tires off rip it off will slide up and down disconnect the brakes if you really need to show you here what the effect that shade cloth has on underneath of the van here so the show cloth was finished from these two pipes to you I couldn't go any further actors you have got your suspension arms right here you need to stay well clear of then when fitting the shade cloth because obviously easily buttoned down while you're traveling on road but you see that that's prevented rocks coming up and chipping away that wooden underfloor here just next to that where show cloth wasn't these are the rock marks you can see all chipped through the van although it hasn't caused any damage if this was just constantly hitting something like the soft water pipes on Athens K flicks yeah you can imagine over time this would eventually cause some damage so another benefit that show cloth to prevents that make something if your van look nice and factory where possible moving right down the rear of the van nothing new here just electrical conduit with all the smaller cables and K flex for larger the only thing that I've done I've underneath here to make it a little bit more robust is these bolts yes this is the bolts that hold on that rear bar and you can see those gusseting there that of added in on that rear bar near but the factory only comes with two bolts so I have taken them out drilled in a couple more holes and put in four high tensile steel bolts so that's going to provide a lot more support and rigidity for this rear bar and so far no issues right at the back corner of the van at the moment going along with the dust sealing theme as well these little plastic caps is one on each side is an orange one on this side and a white one on the passenger side of the van these underneath here are the holes where some of the electrical cabling and whatnot go through the van they are just left wide open so if you take these four screws off pop these caps down you'll see a big hole in there what I've gone done is tuck the hollow silicon in there and or a rubber grommet where possible so you're just trying to cover up as many of those holes look these vents weren't designed to go long distances off-road and Jake I would have sort of taken their chances that the van will do what it needs to do but if you really want to protect it from as much dust ingress as possible take these caps off put some silicon in there and try and cover up the best you can and again here at the rear of the van is a prime example of this K flex taking the grunts so this is a couple of soft pipes coming down from the bathroom area of the van and look at this this has just been hammered by rocks flicked up from the back of the rear wheel of the caravan itself I didn't put any mud flaps or anything here you have got your stabilizer leg right here which does get in the way a bit and this is a hard plastic fitting so that's held up all right but I'd hate to think of what the pipe might look like if this wasn't here okay guys so I think that's most of the outside our modifications done so let's hop on inside and we'll show you what I've done inside and make this van is that little bit better so you just jumped on thankfully it's a bit warm out there today so at the front of our van here we've got a double bed and then looking down the back here we've got our two bunks and our shower and toilet ensuite in the back corner there I do have another video just on the interior of our van and how we set that up so if you're interested in that check that one out and I'll put a link down below otherwise let's get started up the front and what we've done up here first thing underneath the van but these vans do have a lot of these little plastic caps on the sidewalls here and they are just covering holes inside of the van where they bring through electrical equipment and/or plumbing in this case I just let some electrical wires if you remove these four screws that are gonna be small holes behind there and an option is to fit a rubber grommet or two silicon seal them up the same with these ingress points at the front applica top corner here that there in our band is the tunnel boot so there is not much protecting the interior that tunnel boot to the interior of the van yes that's why I've added the seals and those hatches that little gap between the wall and the that floor there is just open straight to the tunnel boot so if you have a dust leaking to that tunnel boot you will have dust underneath this part of the van moving across to the back right corner is where the factory gas hot water system and pump are so that we haven't done much in terms of sealing around the hot water system itself and there has been a bit of dust ingress in there and you can see that on top of this cable here and also on the floor just down there it's not too bad which is why we're sort of leaving at the moment but what we have done down here is all these points where the pipes come in there's one down there and it's quite a few around the water pump here we've put some silicon sealant all around these here both on the inside the van and the outside the outside is quite loaded up but the insides a little bit less is to make it look a little bit neater and that it's just going to prevent any of these pipes moving around and opening up a gap between that rubber grommet and then letting dust in and again it's worked really really well so moving away from the dust sealing ideas for just a moment this cabinetry all of it so we're looking at the kitchen cabinets the the cabinets above here the pantry which is just below this bench here the drawers underneath the bent the seats all of it has been taken apart and now it might seem a little bit crazy but they they're only held together by glue and a couple of screws especially these drawers it's a bit hard to see while they're still in but you can see that the drawer runners here have a lot of screws so I have taken taking these drawer runners off I'll put liquid nails on the back of them and then about doubled the amount of screws that hold this drawer enough into the side of this frame I've done that for all the drawers that we have in the van even down the back down there we have some more all of them another thing I've done as well it's gone a bit overboard I've actually taken these drawers apart so I've taken the face off them taking the back off them and reglued them with liquid nails to make sure they are rock-solid in their construction the last thing you want is to go down a corrugated road and to form one of your drawers out on the floor like this but in pieces that's not going to be nice to the rest of your trip so as far as these cupboards go again goes for all the cabinetry in the van I've taken these hinges off on all the all the cabinets and I've put in some liquid nails behind them as well and where possible I've also increased the size of the screw just in the length to get a little bit more bite on that timber I don't vibrate loose so behind these two cabinets on our model of Van you have got the wheel arch that comes in that black but bit of plastic there and it just pops out into this cabinet here so silicon is going to be your best friend here for dust sealing a lot of dust seems to get through these wheel arches then you see a little bit has got through here so I have put a little bit of silicon both between the wheel arch and this metal bracket and a metal bracket and the floor so that just helps stop it as a dust coming in is very very dusty around as wheel arches and you're gonna get a lot of dust in otherwise you can also see in this cabinet here water piping so this is all your main waters that come in from the fillers on the outside and some of your plumbing it comes up to your kitchen lot of holes in the bottom of the van here and also poor placement in my in my opinion but so be it so what I've done here that put silicon you to see that white material they're still looking around each of these holes just to prevent any dust coming through there an example of some of these holes are having the van you can see in that back corner there been a lot coming through so that lights coming through from the outside so obviously I've used some clear silicon so luckily that's going through that clear silicon but you can imagine if there wasn't any there that would be the perfect place for dust just to pop up through the side of the van and into these cabinets and just fill them with dust the microwave is one of those common complaints when off-roading they do seem to vibrate loose on the corrugations and then fall out they don't break you're lucky but obviously it's a risk that can happen especially on those bands where the microwave may be mounted up nice and high if they do fall out and fallen down hit the ground they are likely to break or cause some damage so what I've done here is to microwave either mounted to a metal bracket here so it's an aluminium bracket obviously taken that out and then I have riveted the bracket into the microwave in three more places so I've just increased the strength and a set of using screws have used rivets which have riveted that microwave to that bracket as you can see here in addition to the two little caps with the factory mounts I then put three more screws holding that aluminium bracket into the timber so hasn't moved an inch so far and I'm hoping it will stay like that underneath the seat in the dinette another big dusting respite in our van the reason for that is this big black box over here which is the wheel arch so the small gap in here for some storage but this wheel arch again does allow a lot of dust in if not sealed up properly so unfortunately I can't get to the wheel arch in this section here that's all hard mounted in there but where I could get to I put silicon so that includes between the bracket and the floor and then the bracket and the plastic itself need to see that bead there and again between the wall and the plastic up here so anywhere I could reach where dust could get through silicon sealants go on in and look a little bit of dust does get in this particular compartment and along with the other side as well and it's just coming through this gap in here where I can't get to with silicon so it's it's pretty good not perfect but again okay to think it would be like without it one thing I should mention as well is these windows are not a hundred percent dust proof they are designed like that it's the way they're designed to allow pressure to come in out of them if there's any build-up but these two bunk windows being at the back of the van especially this lower one does seem to attract a lot of dust in this bottom corner so it's pretty clean the moma have cleaned it up but there is still some there you probably could leave the shutters closed if you wanted to we leave them open but maybe if you just lay a towel down on the beds especially if they've got your your kids sleeping gear on them lay some towels down I'll protect it from some dust coming in and then when you stop at camp so this towels off and give it a quick wipe down you're all good to go but unfortunates not too much you can do about the windows that are designed to allow a little bit of air to come in and out with the pressure changes so can't really muck around with that ok guys so I think that covers a lot of the modifications that we've done to our van I know it's a fairly long video here and smart for everyone but look if you are considering taking these vans off-road or even long periods of just gravel roads some of these ideas might help you guys are just protecting your van and preventing some damage to underneath your van and also just stopping some at dusk getting inside the van so look these are not vans that are advertised to be full off-road vans by any means but look they can go a lot further than you might think and people want her I think you bit crazy letting go a lot further than you think and we've we've proven that with some of the places we've taken out of them especially last year a big trip we took to Central Australia so look all I can suggest is I have a go at doing some of this stuff it will make your life a lot easier especially when you come to pull up in camp in the middle of nowhere in a dusty area and come inside it's nice and clean the other thing to consider as well is drive to the conditions ok so look these modifications are not going to stop your van getting damaged if you're driving too fast too hard or taking the vans made a little bit too far there's not much you can do about structural damage if something happens on a the van gift rack a chassis breaks the suspension you are going to be stuffed so slow it down find that right speed for your van and definitely consider carefully consider where you are taking your van but I hope some of the ideas that I've mentioned in today's video might help you guys yeah even if you just use a couple of them look it might just make your terrific experience that little bit more enjoyable and get your ban that little bit further so if you have any questions put them in the comments below otherwise you can find us on Facebook and Instagram as well and shoot us a message and we can try and help you out wherever we can a lot of the products that we used we bought online so I'll check a lot of them in the descriptions in the video as well so if you want to find it for yourself you can and look just get out there use your van and enjoy so thanks for watching and we'll see you the next video thank you

Channel: XploringOz

Views: 54,802

Rating: 4.9094076 out of 5

Keywords: jayco, jayo, jaco, caraan, caravn, outckb, outbac, outbak, australai, australain, 17.58-3, 17 58 3, 17.58.3

Id: AWwz7JO5eRA

Length: 27min 3sec (1623 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 01 2020