Patriot Campers LC79 - The Black Truck - Build Recap

[Music] what's happening guys she's back the black truck is finally back on Australian soil now I've been receiving a lot of comments over the past few weeks since everybody knew that it was back home in Australia what are the plans for the black trucks I suppose the purpose of this video today is to run through maybe recap where the black truck is been and what our plans are for the future now I made a pretty bold statement almost three years ago to the day when I started the build of this truck let's let's flick back to that we'll reminisce for a second take a quick look at what actually said we've built a few 79s for customers now but this time we're really going to go over the top and show all the best gear that this country has to offer now keep in mind we're completely impartial 20 brands so everything that we put into this build we're using it for a reason because we think it's the best this will be the best 79 series dual cab in this country make sure you watch all the videos and wait till you see this thing completed all right so at that time I'll be honest with you I didn't really know what I was doing and not in the way of I didn't know what I was doing when it comes to building the truck I didn't know what we were going to create with the black truck the black truck has been one of the main things that has put Patriot campers on the map and I think since then there's been a lot happen in the industry around the 79 series and there's been a lot of vehicles built in Australia that are just absolutely monumental but I think there will only ever be one black truck this is the vehicle that broke the internet and sent us into an absolute whirlwind down here in Australia when we launched it to the world now looking back at that three years ago when we were doing the build videos I couldn't believe the traction that the videos were getting and the international recognition that was starting to come through and I think the peak for me was when we featured in lufthansa magazine a German airline magazine done a full feature on the black truck along with all of the other features that were happening around the world and at that time I think we knew we built something pretty special one of the questions I get asked all the time is why the 79 time when I built the 79 I was driving a chop 200 series and we actually had a customer here at Patriot campus that twisted my arm and and forced me to build a 79 series for him which was the first real exposure that I ever had with the v8 diesel 79 now I've owned a couple of 79 in the past but never a v8 one and a really took note of that whole platform now when I first bought the vehicle and I bought it in here into Patriot campus a few of the crew here were a little bit confused as to where we were going what we were doing at the end of the day we were camper trailer manufacturer we weren't a company that had I suppose the resources to build a vehicle of this nature but typically I think like everything at Patriot campus it started off as a small project you know we'll just bring the 79 in and we'll put a try on it and the next thing you know it just snowballed and got bigger and bigger now it's definitely worth noting at that time that was prior to Patriot Games you know that wasn't even the thought in our mind and all of the affiliations that we have with the brands that are still featured on this truck three years down the track are still the brands that I was running at that point until I'm in fact the only thing that has changed since we built the vehicle is the brand of tires that we went with and somewhere along the way we upgraded the tires in build 4.5 and we went to Mickey Thompson we started using the Mickey's we took the truck out for its big first shakedown up at Cape York and we've been rolling on Mickey's ever since so you can see all of the products that are still on the black Chuck are the same brand of products that we feature in all the super tire built and obviously in the six wheel drive now this set the basis for the builds that were to come from Patriot Camp is in the future you know the super AM obviously the mega six the peak or Ranger these were all platforms of vehicles that we wanted to play around with as we gain the experience of what we could do looking at a complete left-field perspective on how to build a touring vehicle [Music] [Applause] so let's have a quick run through some of the gear that's still featured on the black truck now obviously all the tjm gear it's it's probably the most predominant thing on the black truck all off-the-shelf parts you know these were bull bars sidestep side rails and the tjm talked winches we put the winch through it space I think probably the hardest time that a TJ m12 winch has ever had up at Cape York when we slung this whole program with the big toy hauler behind it up gunshot and then we've pulled another four vehicles up gunshot using the same winch we brought it to an end a little bit later on down the track on the same trip at farm Creek when we just put this thing under an immense amount of load and we ended up snapping a winch but that is still the original winch that's been in the truck for three years and it's been through an extremely hard time x-ray vision lights are another item that we feature on all the superior builds x-ray was introduced to me by a buddy of mine at the time will building the truck 220 HIDs and obviously the full suite of x-ray light bars this thing it burns the tarmac it turns night and today one of the main features of the black truck is obviously the matte black wrap you know at the time I think I've never seen a matte black 79 before this was a graphic vehicle that's where it started its life but there was always the intention to turn this into the black truck and wrap it in matte black we did just before we sent it off overseas ended up handing the bonnet we're gone with a gloss black on the bonnet to give it a bit of a contrast so that is one of the things that's changed along the builds now I come from a pretty heavy sort of performance background I've been into drift cars and drag cars my whole life and I've been building cars since you know before I can remember and I really wanted some performance upgrades to this vehicle the one thing that I was really concerned about with building a touring vehicle and knowing in my mind exactly what I was going to be doing with this truck was I didn't want to go overboard with the engine modifications because I didn't want to sacrifice reliability I was on the Internet and obviously social media and I came across this mob captain at the time GSL fabrications I made a phone call up to GSL and we struck up a relationship with that family you know two brothers father up there they they gave me some really good insights and the confidence to go as far as we did with the modifications now needs to be said to those boys tried to push me to go harder than I actually did but unlike myself I've restrained myself we worked the front mount intercooler a bolt on turbo upgrade crossover pipe and a pair of HKS computers to run the whole engine management system now I've taken this truck all around Australia from right down south right up to the tip I've taken it to a 13,000 foot summit in the mountains of Colorado in the United States and all on the same tune since the day this truck was picked up since we rolled it off the diner that day this this car has never been back to JSL for anything the churn was perfect all of the gear that we put on this was perfect and that's what gave me the inspiration to really let the boys go to town on the mega six now the mega six with the power that it's making the extent of modifications that vehicle has we're in the same boat we're still playing around with the churn and we still have fuel delivery problems with that car if I was to be perfectly honest but never had a mechanical failure and that's what you get when you're dealing with boys and the industry that that know their stuff we don't profess to know everything here at Patriot campus we're good at design and we're good at sheetmetal but we're not we're not at the level of these cause of engine work or call conversion kits and that being said I'll run you through the story on how we teamed up J max one of the biggest features on the black truck come from some really good friends and more now who weren't friends at the time the team at J max Jason and taya we've done a lot of really good builds together now obviously the biggest one we've done would be the mega six but how all that kind of came about finish the truck we're ready to take him on a trip Jason from Jay Max drove any one day I'd never met the bloke and he said to me mate I've developed this coil conversion kit for a 79 series to get rid of the leaf springs take for a drive around the block and from the keys to his truck I got over the first speed bump straight out the front of the factory and I said to him and he'll remember this mate send me one down before we even got onto the road we'll be driving down the front of the factory and we'll doing about 60 kgs in air and he said to me mate we hit that gutter right in front 60 K is now we get the gutter and things just floated over the top and I was sold ever since then we try and steer all of our customers towards a call conversion kit in the 79 and if you go into that extent and you're spending that sort of money if if the budget there's not a big consideration hands down the best modification that you can do the J max crew they developed this kit they innovated this kit Jason was building them you know and he shut out the back of his house at that time and Australian engineering coming straight to the forefront and again many copies in the industry now but still the original J max kit was still running the same kit in the back of this truck well remember a few things during the whole build series of the black truck and one of the things that's always gonna stand out and I don't know why but it was like you know when you're a kid and it's Christmas time and you don't know what you're gonna get when tjm open the warehouse up to me and at that time what I really know too many people a potato him I told my plans I'm building this truck but went up there if they gave me this big trolley and they said make go for it and they let me loosen the warehouse so I'll always remember that when t JM actually promoted this vehicle overseas and I got the phone call to put this thing into a container and the opportunity to send it over to auto mechanic are in Dubai now unfortunately at that time I had other commitments so I sent told me over there to Dubai so the team at t JM in Dubai I put in the XTS shocks took a little bit of playing around to get the spring rate right they flew me some Springs around over to America because they've never dealt with a call conversion kit before but me out the xes shocks in this vehicle it's set up just right obviously we've got air bags in the back of the coils by a good mates at at airbag man another team another family-run business that has become absolute brilliant mates of Patriot campers and what we're doing here below me the octagons I think they kind of set the standard for 79 at that time they were my wheel of choices but in a lot of wheels that have come out since then but three is down the track that's so many other brands of wheels on the market now it's quite funny to say still we get requests for the octagons even though we have other options the tires 37-inch tires as people who follow us will know with the mega six was the only thing that we couldn't get complied you cannot run 37-inch tires in any circumstance on the 79 series Land Cruiser here in Australia you can get away with 35 which is what we're currently running at the moment the Mickey Thompson's have now been around the world with me they've travelled over in California they've done the deserts up in Arizona they've gone to Colorado with me up into Cape York over into the Northern Territory down in Adelaide and actually for the first time ever last weekend I punch at the time first time I've ever done it and that's why we continue to stick with Mickey Thompson but once again your whole tire thing like your bull bar thing it's a holding forward stuff guys don't rag on me this is my gear this is the stuff that I like and the gear that I use obviously everybody's got their own opinion I'll get asked the question a lot why did the black truck go to the United States or how did it end up in the United States well it was one of those stories and it was a little bit bittersweet for the black truck to go into the u.s. we knew that we were going to be filming our second series of Patriot Games and the car was in Dubai with TJM they had it packed back in the container and we did actually have it booked to come back home we were launching into the u.s. at that stage and it was actually more us dealer asked me you know why don't you send the black truck over here and it happened that quick and we thought look you know what why not we'll send it over to the US so we decided to send the truck over there and a hot tip for anybody who's gonna send a car from the UAE into the United States that's big and black and looks very military make sure you got all your paperwork in order we actually ended up losing the truck to the US Customs for about four weeks they stripped it out stripped out the whole of the interior I don't know what they thought we were hiding inside there but they didn't actually find anything it cost us a lot of money to get it out of customs we send it up to Oklahoma to a u.s. distributor to Matt green the team over there put the truck back together I flew in just after it arrived we put it on a trailer behind the Julie we didn't have perm it's at that time to be able to drive it in United States and we towed it down to North Carolina to Overland Expo at Overland X ray when we pulled the truck in the gates it was just absolute pandemonium absolutely everybody there knew it it's very tight community in the United States we've had it at the Biltmore Estate Sarah and the kids were over there with me we drove it up to the Biltmore Estate we drive it around Asheville which is a confined property then we trailer it back to Oklahoma we got all our paperwork complete and we got it registered for 365 days in the United States on a car name and that's where all gates just open for the black truck one of the biggest highlights of my career probably the biggest highlight of my career so far was opening SEMA we got invited by the organizers of SEMA to roll in the red carpet open the show was I think 12 other vehicles and there were names they're like Chip Foose kindy Kustoms the team from diesel brothers were there there was all of these big names and custom car shows that mean the kids watch back here in Australia and to roll into that carpet with Sarah beside me Maddie in the back was a moment I will never ever forget in my life I've still got the same stickers on the side of the truck and I don't think that will ever come off it after SEMA I've got my good mate was to drive the car back there in the San Diego and has it for me at tjm headquarters in the United States now running the car around on the 37 s the gearing wasn't quite right so where's organized to have the gearing changed in the truck not long after Sarah and I went back to the US we had another big event on which was the Overland Expo West in Arizona so we decided we take three or four days off even though Sarah was yelling at me not to use the camera on that trip it was meant to be a holiday or couldn't help myself or film some over landing out in Nevada and into Arizona we went to some epic destinations and just Sarah and I on our own spent a very long time since we did that together we towed next one met up just outside of the Grand Canyon with the team from EXO will we formed another relationship great relationship that's still lasting now we took them across the simpson desert their first x1 and we all rolled as a big convoy into the Overland Expo where the black truck got amazing recognition once again in the United States back at home the team at Patriot campers were left with a build one of the biggest builds that we've done today which was the RAM truck and again like I said at the start of the video this really set the standard of us wanting to play with different platforms so the RAM was just launching here into Australia and we decided to build Ram so Butera with everything that we learned over the past couple of years of building these vehicles now while the team was putting that together Sarah and I headed into Colorado Matt green from exploration Outfitters came along with his Ram truck with the new peak oil body on the back that was being built at the same time as the one back in Australia and we had our most epic adventure yet we shot some of the best stuff that I think is being seen with the 79 series Land Cruiser especially coming from Australia we drove to a 13,000 foot summit just out of array we were in the snow Sarah and I are not used to that sort of weather I've never driven in the snow before and that was just an amazing amazing trip to be able to do it with the vehicle that really started it all now as I've already said sheet metal was definitely our Forte and still is to this day one of the most innovative things that obviously we did on the 79 and something that really made it stand out from the crowd with everything else that was on the market at that time was the super turret ray and obviously the canopies there at that time I was doing a lot of hunting I don't get out as much as I used to and I wanted the truck that I could put the kids dirt bikes on the back I could take the dogs out for a run if I wanted to or go for a long over landing trip and that's where we came up with the concept of the twin canopies this has got a big vent behind it here so we can still put our dogs in the back we used all of the gear inside the canopy that we were really familiar with with the builds of all of our camper trailers and that's the red arc system VMs is at that stage weren't a really big thing to fit into vehicles people were doing it but we fitted the manager 32b out the control all the inputs of power that we want have we got two big solar panels mounted on the roof of this truck obviously 240 input I've got a big inverter at the back again at that time we weren't making a TV show Patriot Games wasn't even the thought but that was a little bit more of convenience to be able to charge whatever gear that we wanted to charge and the wiring system coupled with the sheet metal the design and obviously more than anything what stands out the most on all the P core systems is obviously the usability that's something that you can't be trained on it's something that you learn through education of doing this that this sort of stuff over and over again we want to make it easy we want the storage areas accessible and that's where the canopies come from the inquiries started coming through through all of the build videos and we ended up creating a department here at Patriot campus just to build unique specialized vehicles for the person that wanted the turnkey solution from a company that had the experience to be able to couple all of that together and bring that to the market and that's where the superior range came from which is now evolved into P core really big feature of the black truck when we built it is definitely the interior now we've done everything that you needed we didn't go overboard like we did in the mega Terra and nothing that you didn't now the interior of the of the black truck features probably really two or three key items number one I cannot stand junk all over my - I want everything where it needs to be and definitely for a touring vehicle or off-road vehicle you don't want stuff coming off the dash and pouring and I said that I think in the original build video everything is really stood the test of time I've got all the controls in front of me that I need I've got my readout gauges I've got my airbag controls over to Hima hey checks ones the one at the top it's running my rear camera so I can see what the trailers doing and also when I'm backing up I've got a really good fusion stereo in this truck we sound dead in the vehicle at the time when we built it as well and another feature that we put in here was some what's up you made it you're a little bit like we almost finished the video it's almost done it's make sense in your head let me finish the interior so where was I sound ending weed under sound deadening in the truck to really take that agricultural feel away from the 79 make it a little bit more quiet in here behind the back seat we went to town and done something that nobody did before the BMS is in there we've got some wiring in there our amplifiers and everything is exactly where it needs to be fuses are all accessible GMA radio over the top I've got a slave for my manager 30 for my redarc system here so I can see exactly what's going on with the pair in the back now this is the reason that I wanted you to hear I think number one memory all I have in this truck yeah yeah sorry Christian has gotta be with Ashland that recovery it Cape York when you winch yourself out under more direction in the first season of Patriot Games that's something I'll remember forever and this is one of the things with the vehicle like this and this is what this truck is going to stay in the family we've sold the super em who knows what's going to happen with the mega six but this car belongs to you - utility know that right yeah so when the boys come of age this will be the vehicle they'll use when they're touring and a like I said it's funny you get a little bit sentimental with a vehicle that's it's weird well I can still remember when I was a kid when I was their age my old man's datsan I remember he's you'd and I remember going up to work with him on the Saturday morning and I still remember everything about that car but there's gonna be the same with this truck when we drove up to Cape York that trip the first trip the first shakedown of this that's gonna be something you boys you want to remember forever right and then you'll have memories with it and then hopefully your kids will have memories with it and all the rest of it yeah so this truck belongs to you another really epic part of that trip you remember the mega bogging did you think we were gonna lose the black truck that day like it was all they're gonna get swallowed by Cape York or it was going to end up on the truth yeah but the funny thing is two weekends ago I arrived back from America the boys met me down in muddy in New South Wales the camper travel of the year again the black truck featured in our 2016 win of camper trailer of the year and we took it back this year me and your mum almost put it on its roof you say in the footage Avenue that's the first time I've ever heard Sarah squeal inside of a car with Nations normally used to used to what I do so there's only one more thing left to decide and that's the reason I wanted you to hear today is it time for the black truck to get a facelift we've got all the new Pecor gear out now we've got a lot of new peak oil stuff coming in you know what's going on there did we leave the black truck the way that we originally built it or do we update it do we build it again leave it exactly how it is like as you said this car is so sentimental to us every single bit on this car has been hell with us so why change it I reckon I personally think that this needs a a facelift to give it like their new tougher look at all the new tip to have and that's exactly what I'm struggling with so here's what we're gonna do we're gonna throw it out to our fans the 75,000 strong we have currently on YouTube we're gonna let you guys decide we're gonna put a poll on YouTube or you can put it in the comments below do we update the black truck do we give it a facelift the black truck is back in Australia now it's back in black it's here for good and it's gonna stay this looking this way but do we update it or not for season 3 of Patriot games and we've got some very very big plans with this vehicle for season 3 of Patriot Games alright so we'll throw it up to you guys to the side time to roll out let's let's go for a cruise yeah yeah let's roll [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Patriot Campers

Views: 142,142

Rating: 4.9201994 out of 5

Keywords: landcruiser, lc79, supertourer, patriot campers, overland, overlanding, all 4 adventure, toyota landcrusier, jmacx, 4x4, 4wd, four wheel drive, 4 wheel drive, diesel truck, cape york, patriot games, rig builds, 4wd action, 4wd tv, ronny dahl, recovery, bogged, megatourer, superam, black truck, the black truck, 6x6, 79 series

Id: WDzKDQFljvY

Length: 24min 26sec (1466 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018