MY BEST 4x4 ADVICE

g'day guys ronnie dale four wheeling australia coming to you in this video with my top tips and advice for vehicle camping backed by 20 years of experience yes 20 years plus i've just realised the other day geez i'm getting old let's take a trip down memory lane and you can see where these tips are going to go first of all my vehicle camping started in a ford falcon just sedans camping out of the back with a 30 tent and a gas cooker then moving up to my first four wheel drive was a four courier very basic had the same gear in that one then i bought a brand new hilux back in 2007. that's when i started to really modify and add things to it and i learned a lot of stuff and i spent a lot of money then we got to the 79 series behind me which then emptied my pockets pretty much completely and i made many mistakes in that vehicle so many mistakes now we're on to project luxy and with this i find this is probably the most sensible build that i've done so far if you can see a pattern there started very basic went right up with all this tech and gadgets that i didn't really need now we're back sort of down at a more balanced level all my advice is going to be about balance and what to look out for general stuff that people don't think about let's start with the core of the advice keep it simple and look anyone can just say keep it simple right but let's dive into this a little bit more having a heavily modified vehicle and driving around going forward driving you end up with this biasedness thought of you need all this stuff to go forward driving also with all the marketing of all the that's out there all these products that get thrown in your face when you're scrolling around on the internet on your phone a solar power torch gotta get that it's telling you you need all this stuff when in actual facts you don't having driven many stock vehicles lately it's revitalized my realization that you don't need anything really to go forward driving in fact a stock vehicle is at times more capable than a heavily modified vehicle think about it one's really heavy one's really light picture that bogged on the beach breaking down vehicle camping and gadgets with your vehicle keep it simple simple stupid is often better sure improve some things but don't over complicate things don't add too much gear especially don't go in blindly and just put stuff on it because you'll figure out later that half of it you don't need with camping definitely keep it as simple as possible trust me on this i've over complicated my camp many times too many tables too much of this it's so easy to over complicate camping keep it super simple sure you can set up a big camp of a big camp kitchen and all that stuff if you're doing a base camp but that's different if you're just heading out to camp here and there keep it as simple as possible you will enjoy it much more gadgets it's the biggest gimmick out there you don't need the latest and greatest to go camping if you have a passion in a certain field of those gadgets sure go for that but don't buy the latest and greatest across the whole board you're just wasting money one thing you should never ever do especially if you're new to all this don't ever walk into a store a full drive accessory store and ask the guy behind the counter what do i need to go to this location because you might as well pull your pants down and bend over and if you own a 79 or 200 you may be down there for a little while longer it's going to hurt and what you don't want to end up with is epd epd is bad hello is this just loans yeah i got a bit of epd yep yep 79 series yeah i know i know and you can get it more than once trust me i've been there before [Music] one of the most overlooked things with your vehicle and your trailer and your roof is weight distribution we're not just talking about in general we're talking from front to back from corner to corner from top to bottom and from side to side all these things are important and if we were to take most people's four-wheel drive rigs and put them on a way bridge i think a lot of them will be shocked that one of their rear corners is probably going to be very much overweight compared to the opposite side so this is very important i'm going to give you some quick examples of how you can improve your vehicle and your whole setup and like i said it's not just the vehicle it's also your camper trailer if you have one also very importantly the roof first example if you put a bull bar and a winch on your vehicle and a second battery and stuff like that the front is going to sag you're going to have to sort out your suspension you can't get away from that and the same thing on the back you also need to sort out your suspension if you're going to tow a camper trailer or a caravan especially a caravan i see a lot of vehicles on the road and you do too that are sagging at the back and lifting up at the front the steering feels a lot lighter and stuff it's it's not good so that's one way you can sort that out the other way is if you put something on the front also put something on the back have a well-weighted vehicle coming out of the driver's seat and going to the opposite corner of the vehicle you'll see something that i've been conscious of here i have the fridge and my battery and a lot of semi-permanent stuff sitting here it's going to sit there most of the time which means that i have counterweighted myself from opposite corners it's very important if i put this on that side then this side of the vehicle will be heavier most of the time you'll also note that my water tank and fuel tank auxiliary ones they are right up against the headboard and they are over the axle they're between the two axles so that's another way you can do weight distribution there's also keeping heavy things as low to the ground as possible so if you are going to carry a water bladder rather than having it in here you can put it down at the footwell inside the vehicle you're keeping it as low as possible what you don't want is heavy stuff above and light stuff below because you are messing with the center of gravity and you're more likely to roll over when you're swerving around something and it will handle like an absolute pig when you're off-road i've been there before according to my latest and greatest suspension i have an app that tells me the weight on each corner and it appears that we are 0.111 258 11187 out on this side now that i've removed the pen it seems to be correct so we're going to move this pin to the back seat oh now we're out in the back the roof rack that's a touchy subject weight distribution stay on course here as you can see i've got max track splits i've got lights at the front i've got awnings opposite this is weight distribution in the raw let's have a look at the cruiser the cruiser similar thing here we've got trucks one side we've got a solar panel this side they kind of offset each other in the weight the awning over there is a shower tent it's quite light so on this side we've got the antenna and a shovel holder weight distribution if you put everything to one corner or one side it's not a good thing wheels on the back of your vehicles it's best practice to have it as close to the headboard as you can as close to being over the rear axle as possible in some situations like wagons you can't avoid it so therefore it is what it is but when you can avoid it and you can put the wheels closest to the headboard it's good practice to do so because then you've got less weight hanging over the back because the more weight you've got hanging over the back the less useful is the front of your vehicle so when you're going through rats and stuff you're really going to lift the front wheels a lot and with some vehicles like the 79 series they lift front wheels all the time so when you see those big heavy setups with the big canopy and the big two wheels off the back they don't handle the best [Applause] [Music] having an organized setup and a purpose-built vehicle for what you need is very important let's break it down we'll start with the obvious first there are three different types of vehicles in my mind in this category you have the vehicle for work and play then you have your hybrid vehicle that's kind of semi set up for camping and full driving and traveling but also set up so you can work with it you're working with it so to say then you have the permanent setup now i'll consider both these vehicles to a degree permanent setups especially the land cruiser we've got a box on the back here if i was a bricklayer my boss rang me a gun boss cement mixer got it 10 bags of cement right i'll be there in about five hours if i can borrow two blokes a forklift and a sparky and a bag of tools this is a hindrance if you want to use it for work depending on what work you do of course so this is permanent to get that off it's going to take hours but let's move over to give you a example an example of hybrid i can pull all this stuff out in 15 minutes flat probably even less this is a cargo box i can pull that out that makes it hybrid because i can use this for work i can use it for play good day boss oh how many bags of cement oh no rosemary i'll be doing a jiffy let's make some space this is where it changes mud tires lift all the gear all the gear in the vehicle that's where the term all the gear and no idea comes from it's having a vehicle completely kitted out but you're never really taking it off road you know some things are handy to have but do you really need it do you need to spend money on it do you need mud tyres you need big tyres do you need a roof rack do you need all this stuff when you only go camping every so often because everything you add to your vehicle is going to cost you in fuel it's going to cost you an accessories it's going to cost you in maintenance as well something to think about i'm not saying don't do it i'm just saying consider it before you do it [Music] a touchy subject so i'm going to start off by saying expensive gear is not always the best there's a difference between expensive and quality two different things now i've made that statement let's talk about cheap full drive accessories and cheap four drive camping gear i found in my 20 years of using cheap gear that it lasts about a quarter of the time sometimes less sometimes more but generally around a quarter of the time that quality gear will last you that's what you can kind of expect now some people can only afford the cheap gear it gets them out there get some camping it's great and it's good that's why it's there however for those who can't afford to save up or can afford the next tier up i highly encourage you guys to go for that gear because it's going to last you longer you're investing in it and you won't be back later to spend more money to replace whatever it is that's broken so for something you're using a lot go up further in the quality if it's something you don't use very often you can probably get away with the cheap stuff damn you one-ply toilet paper you should have got free ply [Music] electronics and gadgets you don't want to go cheap because it's just it's just not good practice things can go wrong it won't do what you wanted to do for example solar panels and blankets they won't be as effective they may say 200 watts but they're never going to give you that anywhere near that whereas the quality panel will still not give you that but it would be a lot closer to it it'll give you more of what it's telling you on that box cheap gear is a luck of the draw it's more likely to break or fail on you quality gear the luck of the draw is reduced so you are probably going to be better off in that sense give you an example an awning a very cheap well-known brand awnings i see on tag alongs all the time seeing a lot of vehicles it's a common thing that people go cheap on is an awning when the wind blows and it catches it they are gone it snaps it needs to be replaced let's take a good quality awning torbs my mate torbs has arb awnings all around his vehicle now some people consider arb awnings overpriced that said however i saw an awning blow over on his car even crossed arms and everything we were able to pull it back down and use it without having to repair anything so there's a good example of where your money goes research and development more robust those are the kind of things that you can explain and it's just one example out of many that said i have had a cheap two cheap winches the first one failed within two months the second one lasted me five years luck of the draw consider it one more thing the environment the more cheap shitty stuff that ends up on people's vehicles and breaks we often see it out here in the bush laying around because people have discarded it it's broken on the track they don't want it so they're chucking in the bush we never see quality stuff left in the bush just think about that one too [Music] there are a lot of presenters and influencers out there and you need to learn how to read between the lines acting introducing the new australian bark water infused with h2o and co2 tastes amazing see a lot of these people are paid to use specific products they normally wouldn't use that is something you need to be aware of and you can tend to see on their passion and their honesty on camera you can actually see it if you look hard enough and this is why this unit is one of the leading gps units on the market get yourself one today it even almost fits into your pocket okay that's all we need uh have you got it working so we can get out of here it says we're in bolivia i think we're lost how much water we got you can burst it even if you're listening to your favorite presenter or influencer talking about a product go and look for real people reviews look for the real people views and then compare your notes and from there you can make a pretty good solid choice on what you want to do i just wanted to drop that in there ask the questions know your stuff do your research read the fine print yes you just caught me looking at my roof rack the previous roof rack i got caught out on that's one example and i think most of you guys will know what i'm talking about if you don't there is a video you can go to at some stage it's probably a really good one to watch if you haven't seen it because it creates awareness it's a safety matter it's on your roof roof rack can come off if it's not done properly you get the picture another thing i just learned recently which i've been doing wrong every now and then is a recovery point down here i didn't realize at the time that there is a certain way you must put your bow shackle into the recovery point there's a wrong way and there's a right way and there is reason and physics behind it and you're not going to find these things out unless you read the fine print something you need to be aware of when you buy an accessory for your vehicle ask the questions questions like how's it mounted what's the weight what's the rating on it depending on what it is like a recovery point that has a rating a roof rack has a rating your roof on your vehicle has a rating the weights the gvm everything has a rating somewhere especially when it's on your vehicle so make sure you ask all those questions when it comes to camping gear that's a bit different but when it comes to stuff you're bolting on your vehicle and you're paying a lot of money for you have the right to know all the ins and outs and if the people can't tell you all the answers then you might need to dig a bit further or maybe think a bit more about it before you commit to buying whatever it is you're looking at buying for your vehicle rubbish and doing poos in the bush always bury it always bury your paper when you can burn your paper that's something you need to know but rubbish it's something you are going to encounter it's something we're all dealing with every single time we head out in the bush throughout the last over 20 years i've heard people whinge and moan and complain and a lot of these people that win gemini complain we don't actually see him pick up any rubbish i'm not saying i don't but it's better to show picking up rubbish makes a difference rather than just whinge about it so that's something i just wanted to leave you guys with there everywhere you go pick up one or two or three items or you can fill a whole bag like i have here it's not something you need to do but it's good to do it's good practice to do it because it does actually make a difference and if you see someone one of your mates or one of your kids or something throwing stuff out of a window or something like that call them out you'll be surprised how effective it is i've called a few people out in the past and they actually respect you for it at the end of it because they see it themselves they realize that i shouldn't have done that so rather than cutting people down and whinging about it on social media let's just pick some stuff up every time we go camping or even just four driving in the bush there's always room in that rubbish bag always room 20 years plus those were my tips those are my advice and there are many other people out there that have done it for 20 or more years 30 or more 40 50 years or more if you are watching put down your one bit of advice you would like to give people from your whole collective of experience anything you think that i might have left out that you think is vital put it down below i love to know what your advice will be until next time see you later

Channel: Ronny Dahl

Views: 100,078

Rating: 4.9379272 out of 5

Keywords: Off-road, tracks, 4wheeling, adventure, 4x4-off-road, my best 4x4 advice, my best 4x4, how to 4x4, new to 4x4, understand your 4x4, off road, 4x4 tips, MUST DO 4x4, offroad 4x4, off road fails, off road extreme 4x4, ronny dahl hilux, ronny dahl modified, ronny dahl camping, vehicle mods, vehicle camping, 4wd camping australia, 4x4 advice, best 4x4 tips, how to modify 4x4, how to modify, offroad tips and advice, off roading, off roading tips, off roading gone wrong

Id: 9hJwJwTu5jw

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 10 2021