RIG RUNDOWN - ISUZU NPS CREW CAB 4x4 WALK THROUGH and GEAR REVIEW - ULTIMATE DOOMSDAY VEHICLE

g'day guys it's the moment you've been waiting for get excited I'm excited Welcome to our house [Music] Welcome to the cartwrights we're a family of five traveling to the most remote places our beautiful country has to offer home on wheels it's not just any home though in our humble little opinion we think it's the coolest house in Australia you know why because we go anywhere in this thing whether it be the beach or the bush the Outback the desert or even the mountaintops anywhere we go you just know you're going to find us somewhere in the thick of it our Dream since the day my husband and I met has been to touch all corners of this land and now to be able to share it with our children makes us pinch ourselves every bloody day how else do we put it we love our life and we truly believe we're the luckiest and happiest people on the planet sharing your stream of ours we really wouldn't have thought that so many would be interested but the support from our community has now prompted us to share more so as promised here's our life buckle up and we hope you enjoyed as much as we do [Music] today guys I'm going to run you through our 75 155 Isuzu crew cab if you follow us on our socials you know we get around we're touring Australia we have been for a long time we will continue for a long time this is half our house this is basically what we live out of every day so not only am I going to show you through the truck today I'm going to show you show you what we load it with and basically the gear we need or we assume we need to get to some of the places we go to and the best part about it about it is we've paid for every single thing that's gone into this so I'll give you an honest rundown of each thing I'll give you reviews on what we've got and basically it'll be a detailed honest opinion of what's needed to do what we do all right guys let's jump into it we'll jump straight into the front of the truck basically out of the factory standard colors we've got this it's just literally called gray no wrap no nothing straight out of the factory that's how she comes but uh all terrain Warriors which is basically who we got most of the build done through it was just easier for us to sort of hand it over to one mob we purchased the vehicle through them and pretty much they project managed the whole build from start to finish someone like me that's a little bit time poor it was easier to do that way and as it turned out it was perfect like we literally a couple of phone calls you know everything ran pretty smoothly considering we bought this thing in the middle of covert so yeah they did really well on anything everything so they have these bars they've got a couple of different bar options bigger the hoop bigger the hoe I'm as far as I'm concerned they have like more Slimline wines that just just have the base here they're all winch compatible basically there's a couple of bolts here you pull them straight out and you can change the leash or whatever you need to do as you see fit but we currently don't have a winching house uh explain that a bit later but we've had a few issues with the winch that originally was installed but we're changing up we're going something with something new we'll get into that a bit later we've got uh Nava ultimas yeah mk2s and now the light bars up the top that work well in with this Cab Bar work that basically ties in to the to the top rack as well so basically you've got protection for the cab from the very back of the truck and rolls over to the front and it also houses our gme Aerials now we've got our cellular antenna on this side basically that's just cellular booster remote places you're driving along it gives you a couple of extra bars I guess but if you've got no reception at all then it's basically useless most of the time we have it turned off because we have start we have starlink and we don't I don't know not a conspiracy theorist but I don't like waves bouncing around in the car around my kid's head so I uh most of the time it's turned off do you need it not really we haven't used it as much as we thought we'd would especially with Starling coming out these days it's um it's useful but it's not a necessity so if you need to skip it skip it UHF just uh we run the XRS system in the cab my opinion that's the best system there is it's all in your hand all on the handheld easy to change you know if you've back and forth volume up it's um it just seems to be the simplest you're not reaching down turning dials or reaching up turning dials it's all on the handheld piece of piece really we've got basically a good thing about your truck is we've got stock standard mirrors no need for the extra clear views of that slide out or anything like that basically you can see everything and ever anything and everything out of these things there are stock standard you can see the back of the van we if you know who we are we tow 25 foot van which is quite long to be Towing and I can see everything I still tend to reverse myself into danger if you've seen our recent episodes but it works the step so all terrain Warriors are a super single conversion so basically they take the little wheels off it put big Single wheels off it the back comes with dual wheels and the front they change just from The Little Wheel to the bigger legs because no one likes to have skinny legs to do so they modify the front steps obviously the front step comes back a little bit further normally and they just chop him Bend him up weld him up it just it still allows for you to step up into the cab with a step there but it also stops you collecting the front step with your tires while we are talking about the Super Single conversion basically there's a couple of different different mobs that are doing it these days all terrain Warriors seem to have a package where they do the parabolics they do Aztec shocks or you can get an upgraded kit of King's remote resi shocks as well so I'm happy to say that going through all terrain Warriors for the parabolics for the upgraded Kings kit yeah I'm really happy with their work it Smooths the right as well so anyone that doesn't know this is a cab over which basically means the Cab's over your front axle which is notoriously bumpy with this upgraded kit it's a lot more comfier right it's still a bumpy bumpy ride still under Venture but it's a lot more comfortable for the family having this upgraded kit in there in the back we have again King's remote Rosy sharks all-term Warriors parabolic suspension with an airbag helper kit in the back just because we are Towing you know a four-ton Caravan it's easy just to pump the airbags up and down to suit the weights that's needed when we do hook up excuse me so this is where we do inflate the bags from I just we hook our compressor up our compressor hose up to this front rear around the same PSI it's not there's nothing fancy like in-cab switches and like pumps themselves up and all that sort of stuff like on a truck and it's one of the things that sold us on the truck is everything simple there's no major electronic computers there's no hectically fancy gear that I can't fix if that makes sense so basically any sort of Bushman mechanic any sort of bloke with half an idea touring in these trucks can work on them when you're in some Strife moving back from the front we've got two starter batteries it's a 24 volt truck so just keep that in mind when you're throwing accessories on the back of it for example I think GCI traytech the mob that did our canopies it was probably the second truck that they've done when we got this done so they threw 12 volt actuators into the central locking which made the actuator wanted punch holes in the side of the canopy which was not ideal so you just got to keep that in mind when you're throwing accessories on these truckers here we've got the standard fuel tank hits 140 liters come stock standard with that we've added another one to the other side of the truck so we carry 280 liters of fuel plus Jerry's when we want to underbody storage lockers basically this is our compressor setup in here we've got hoses miscellaneous Parts Tire floaters things like that I uh possibly in the top half a percent of people that deflate and inflate their tires in the country we're up and down all day every day so basically what we've got in here is 2arb Twin compressors as you can tell by my uh my mechanics here the ARB compressors were just not cutting it no I don't know if it's whether they couldn't get us to a constant 100 PSI without overheating or whether it was wide up rung by ARB constantly but they just weren't working so we've gone with this big bad boy which is humongous look at water this thing here is not only going to be able to pump up the truck tires it's tried and tested by other touring truck drivers I don't know what you call them but it's been tried and tested before it's meant to be a weapon and we've got a couple of things coming up in the near future where we need the extra get up and go and this compressor is going to do it for us Wheels now we've got the founder mud terrains 305 70r 90 and a half inch rims steel rims that is this is where having super singles sometimes can be difficult so I know black bears make a lot of good tires the issue with most tires on super singles is it drops your gvm and your GCM I wanted to keep four weights or the full capacities that I could I'm pretty sure my options were basically Founders you've got good rides which is basically in my opinion ugly um and plus the Touring that we do mud terrain's not that bad we're never on blacktop anyway so it works they're uh I think I just changed these tires out they made it to 30 000 K's I think which is in March and they probably had another 10 000 in them but we were flogging them I had slashes in them I had you know chunks of grip missing everywhere in terms of a review on the tires they're not the greatest but your options are limited um I think they're the best option on the market if you want to keep your gvm at seven and a half ton I think at the time we bought this vehicle pretty sure everything that you can could get other than that dropped your gvm another good thing about touring in a truck I guess is the wheel indicators we've traveled with a couple of families now who have had wheel nuts come loose Wheels come off you've got to check your wheel nuts especially when you're driving as much as people on the road driving super easy for us we just check the uh the indicators I just do a quick walk around before we travel every time we travel so it literally is problem solved for us we don't have to get a torque wrench out we just have a look and it's literally a 30 second task obviously Max strappy extremes we're heavy so if you're going to go anything other than Max tracks you're going to be replacing the max trucks a lot especially if you're doing the sort of touring that we're doing we've actually just recently replaced ours because I don't know if anyone's seen but I tend to I got stuck in the middle of the desert and it wasn't much fun getting out and I trashed my trucks basically the way I've mounted them I've just used the max tracks pins fixed them to the side of the canopy that locks them in we normally put a lock in there because they're expensive I don't want people needing my tracks push company awning the 180 degree XT awning so she swings out she covers the full length of the tray full length of the canopies covers part of the door it throws as much shade as we need and it's super quick super sturdy basically tough tough as nails and it's it's super quick for me to set up by myself it's easy you've got kids screaming you've got you know kids are hungry you pull up on the side of the road you pull up on the beach you fly throw that thing out instant shade no one's getting burnt it's great port a potty holder this is super handy we don't want to be digging holes in the bush I've got a young family I've got a wife when we're out remote it's just easy to pull the porta potty out throw it in the shower tent on the other side it's a nice holder for it outside so you don't have your Port-A-Potty rolling around inside the canopy that's a good little addition I really like that one spare tire holder so basically spare tire sits on the back here it's tightened off just with this nut here but integrated into it is a ladder so that drops down folds down like that access to the roof access to my boat I even use that I don't even use because of the way the boat comes off on the winch don't even use what you normally have to do is throw like a plate like sorry like a h plate and a extender bar out of your tow ball I don't have to do that I rested on the back of the ladder and it just flips over and comes down Jerry can hold are we normally just store water in that diesel goes in the back any any diesel Jerrys we have going back of the truck I struck them down and whatnot um this is a new addition here the stone stomper we had Rock Tamers that just didn't seem to be doing the job especially with the amount of rocks that this this truck seems to throw on dirt roads which is attached to a shocker hitch now basically armed and hard about what hitch to use my personal opinion you've got the Gen Y hedge and the Shocker hitch are the only two you would probably use especially when you're towing a big vehicle with a big vehicle what it does it just has its own independent independent air suspension within the hitch so any bumps that you go over it basically separates your Towing load from the towing vehicle so it will suspend independently rather than you know moving together as one for me you can't go past an airbag suspension no matter what it is so instead of going with the Gen wire hitch I went with the Shocker hitch just for that reason alone I just don't think you can go past their suspension when it comes to Towing loads and things like that it's a super smooth ride and it's uh that's just my opinion but it just feels like it toes better all train Warriors rebar rear tow bar four and a half ton tow bar got an intro integrated winch cradle with a sherpa 20 000 pound winch in the back we had a 20 000 pound winch in the front as well but basically what happened was four months ago we had an issue with it we've been back and forth with Sherpa they warranted it within a week like they basically said yeah no worries we'll help you troubleshoot blah blah blah but the problem is with Sherpa is you can't contact them you I can't call them you can't speak to a real person you have to email them trying to troubleshoot apart with no service centers in the middle of nowhere just the customer service wasn't there with them it's now been four months we still don't have a winch they sent us one last week the one they sent was broken um and basically we contacted them again to their credit they got back to us within one or two days and said we'll send you another one but it's just too far gone I can't be putting or advertising or you guys seeing me with product basically I don't have faith in anymore just their customer service wasn't there so we're looking at Carbon winches we're going to throw a carbon winch in the front and the back I've already spoken to the guys there it's heaps easier to get a hold of someone talk to someone about issues and things like that and on the road you need that sort of reliability or that sort of serviceability because things break I get it I'm not blaming anyone for like it probably was me the reason it broke but the issue is more so we need serviceability and it just wasn't there with Sherpa unfortunately and in saying that we've spoken to a lot of traveling families with those winches have had the same problems steady work lights super handy when you're backing onto your trailer at night or trying to see when you're backing into a side at night it throws a lot of light you can honestly it lights up whole area you're trying to back into they're super handy shower tent basically that folds down she comes out we fold her out sits on the back of the vehicle here out of the way on the opposite side to what we would call the kitchen site it's basically where we shower toilet all that sort of stuff when where we don't have our Caravan with us perched up on top of the canopies we've got a 376 Mako craft topper we picked this boat just because mainly for me it's because of its lower profile lower side profile you see a lot of touring rigs get around with the higher sides now it's probably great for crop territory and it's probably great for fishing and things like that but I I wanted one straight line from the front of the cab to the back I didn't want to have my boat the right way up upside down right you know there's lots of different configurations but I just wanted from the top of the GMA Aerials I want one straight line one straight height the whole way back it's loaded on top of an almac boatloader basically it's winched down so what happens is you Tire ropes on the back and you hook it up to the loader you hook it up to the boat push a button on the winch and it lowers it back flips it over it comes down places It On The Ground behind you you throw the motor on and off you go I hear a lot of feedback from people saying it takes too long this and that it doesn't it takes me 15 minutes to get it all sorted set if you're living this lifestyle and you're in that much of a hurry that you can't spend 15 minutes setting your boat up full got something wrong with that it's perfect for what we want perfect what we need however I do think we're strongly outnumbered with the way we Mount our boat but I don't care I'm still fighting the good fight don't worry about it the boat's held down by a couple of different anchor points at the front it's got some turn buckles that I've just mounted through the the rails of the canopy Underside tighten the turnbuckles it straps the boat right down to the uh to the canopy and on the back it's basically I think they're they're called I don't know what they're called they're basically a lever latch heavy duty lever latch you pull the lever latch down and it locks it in place and you just screw a little hook to the boat basically and then the wind should tighten the winter open the windrobe holds it down as well no need of the straps no need for yucky ugly things the rig looks sick that way it's one of the conditions actually I could have a boat there was no straps attached to it because it was too ugly compromises compromises Lads and while we're on the boat the almac loader also has a caged bottom so we throw our swags up there under the boat we've got a tube for towing the kids around up under the boat we've got oars we've got a nesky there's a whole bunch of stuff that we fit up there as well so that our Mac boat rack is uh has been super handy it's powder coated black ties in with the rig while it all works Mickey Mouse there you have this the second fuel tank and I suppose while we're here we'll talk about the uh the way the tanks work how I swap between tanks so they basically don't fill each other and I'm not quite sure of the terminology they don't they're separate tanks they have their own fuel filters and each tank runs through like basically their own separate filter this is what we were talking about about ease of use with a truck there's nothing fancy about them I can literally look at the fuel filters see if it's contaminated see what's going on I can drain the bottom and I can see which tank if I filled up into different locations which tanks the problem tank what's going on it's just ease of use again basically and I can swap them out myself just there it's super easy the way the tanks work is on the dash there's a switch left and right tank simple as that and I just switch between which tank once one gets empty I'll flick it over 280 liters of fuel moving on from the fuel filters we've got uh all trying Warriors keep the Standard air filter in it with uh and they just add a snorkel with an intake at the top raise it up just uh for obvious reasons to get it up out of the way when we're doing Crossings and whatnot we don't want water down the snorkel diff breathers are raised up and thrown in the back of the cab there you can't really see them or try and get up there under there for you and then we've got up top so we've got two chaos boxes that sit up top but basically the nicest blackest ones we could find these boxes they store driver side one stores chainsaws firewood oils for accessories and the other sides stows all our boat stuff so our life jackets Etc uh Towing ropes things like that what in our diving gear all right rooftop ten time looks like I'm going for a claw mate so on top of the rooftop tent we've got a 240 watt solar panel that was fitted by solar and sat up in Bundy we also got our surfboards we couldn't leave them behind I prefer and I'm not going around Australia and not trying to catch a wave whether I can or I can't still gonna try basically you flip two clips up and the gas you lift it up a little bit in the gas struts basically once it gets to a certain height to take over we leave it set up at all times so all we've got to do is flip him open open the front door roll him up and you're good to go it's got cigarette points you can plug your Sirocco fans in there you can basically set your whole bedroom up in there it's got all the nooks and crannies and hidey holes that you would require it's got a lot of ventilation once you uh open up all the sides there's air for days in terms of rooftop tents they're heavy but they look hectic when they're when they're closed up they look hectic when they're open they're super sturdy super reliable um you can't really go past them there's lots of tents on the market that are great but I do believe the Bush Company are leading the way when it comes to rooftop tents I think that's it for outside let's jump in the car bae I mean he's in there so the Cab's super simple like super super simple it's like I would almost compare it to a 79 the only difference is it's got way more space in terms of knobs and accessories and fancy things non-existent what we've got basically is a red Arc toe Pro over here just by the uh the driver's side door that's what we use to adjust adjust the brakes and whatever we're Towing so pretty much over a certain limit trailer towing you need the trailer needs the same brakes this here is a system that allows us to adjust those brakes whether they come on harder softer whatever is required based on the of the trailer this is the switch that I was talking about for the tanks left and right tank one drains you switch him over and you start using the other tank just because as I said they're not integrated they stand alone they're two individual tanks that you fill up got all our headlight switches here so basically the top two here top two switches here the headlights so the ones on the bull bar the ones up on the light bars up on the uh on the bar work on the roof full drive low range high range cruise control then we've got the XRS the gme XRS and this this is what I was talking about earlier basically everything you need is on the unit or on the handheld part of the unit itself you don't need to reach down turn any knobs or just look at a small screen down the bottom it all comes up on an easy to use screen and basically it's up and down to change channel up and down for the volume and then to find any other setting it's super easy as well it's really self-explanatory most units are but I really like how that one works it's just super obvious there's no issues at all both the driver side and the passenger side both have these overhead units some sunnies here um got manuals I'm pretty sure I've got extra sunglass cases and holders yeah so they're the overhead lockers mum over here likes to store a person other makeup items up the top there whatever use shielders like to use I'm not quite sure simple quad lock that holds my phone um I've always got Hammer Maps up on that phone that's what I use to navigate we've been doing this for a long time and I haven't really found the need for any other sort of GPS devices I know they're a lot more intricate and things like that but I just haven't had the need to do it above my head is our hat holders basically they just swivel down there's one above the camera as well but they pull down how it goes in launches back up and just the spring-loaded system here at the back keeps them nice and maintained we've got a AMT which it's not a manual it's not an auto it's somewhere in between closer to an automatic if I was to recommend anyone buying one of these vehicles I would recommend a manual the truck can't see what's in front of you and then it's also geared in a way that is for complete fuel economy so it will change gears especially when you're towing as well it really affects it and off-road is where you feel it the most but it wants to change gears in a way that the engine just labors and is like has no will not let it rev out it will not let it pick up momentum it's a it's a really in my my opinion and I'm a builder not a mechanic my biggest gripe with the whole vehicle is the AMT I would much rather if I had my time again to go manual the engine is a 5.2 liter four-cylinder engine it's probably got half to two-thirds the power I suppose your standard 300 out of the box would have it's not the most powerful vehicle in the world pull the trailer and everything into places that I don't think many other vehicles would but in terms of get up and go it just doesn't have the same amount as what uh those standard will definitely not any of your American trucks definitely not a Land Cruiser but it's still it still does gets the job done so the head new unit is just your standard Isuzu head unit nothing fancy about it at all it's touch screen it's got everything you need again these trucks are so basic that they don't come with aircon in the back the aircon is only in the front now you can get aircon vents put in the bucket back at the cab now if I was to have my time over again that is something I would do to tell you the truth I don't know why I didn't do it it was a massive oversight it was brought up to me while we were doing the build and I just I don't know I don't have an excuse for it but the kids are constantly into me dad turn the aircon off we've kept the standard bench seat in the front you can upgrade these seats and all-terrain Warriors do a package where you can get Stratos seats or shillman seats put in either both the driver's seat and the passenger seat and then they make up a center console as well we opted not to do that the reason being this is a seven seater we plan on having more kids on the road and we wanted to maintain the seven seats I have not heard one complaint from my missus about it it's not it's a non-issue for us we haven't upgraded the seats we don't turns out we don't need the upgrade she suits her just fine and we get Evie in the front a little girl in the front every now and then too and she rides shotgun with us because we've been in this thing for so long I've had the opportunity to trial both the Stratos seat and Stratos Stratos whatever it's called straighter and the Shulman the Stratos is a suspension seat it's a lot higher than the Shulman obviously you can adjust the headrest but the whole seat seems a lot higher and even your bum sits higher up out off the I suppose the floor of the of the vehicle so basically when you're sitting in your seat you're more elevated I didn't personally like it does that mean it's a bad seat no I'm a bigger fella I'm a wider follower I'm a longer fella it just might not be for me but it's something to take into consideration because as soon as I got the Shulman seat it's chalk and cheese a lot of followers put these in the 79 series builds that they do to upgrade the chairs and I'm guessing there's good reason that they do because it's super comfy right now let's swing it in the back hello another added feature or another bonus about having a vehicle like this is the sheer amount of room we've got going on back here I can literally stand up or Crouch down while I'm looking after the kids or whatever's going on in the background we've got back in the back seat it's a full bench seat or one big seat with lots of storage underneath underneath the seat lots of leg room the kids get their feet up on this Center wall here up on the engine bay thing here it's super super spacious four anchor points that all terrain Warriors suited for us so it doesn't come with anchor points you've got to fit them we've got four child seat anchor points fitted in the back four kids four young children sitting in the back and one in the front in cab insulation we got sour dening put into it throughout the whole cub and the self wire sits under this seat here at the back which is why we don't often have it turned on unless we really really need it the GCI canopy my humble opinion but GCI and the way they do things and their finishes and just their attention to detail is first class it's top of the line it's the reason we went for them the price is up there but for what you get out of these things and we don't have technology in the front of the truck so we really needed a place that well you'll see I'll open her up here you go [Music] so this is the brain site basically what we've got this is we've got a 200 lithium 200 amp b-tech lithium battery that sits down behind here underneath the uh the false floor here and that powers this whole site so we'll Powers the whole canopy basically but it's all fed through this site we've got a sign Marine display unit so I can see what's going on at all times I know I know exactly what my battery is doing what's my state of charge how much charge I'm getting in from the solar how much charge I'm getting in from the grid whatever the go is now if I'm flying through this and you don't really understand it basically put this is what powers our truck and Powers our life we're not ever plugged into electricity so this here makes the power that you have in your house in your standard house it turns battery power power into 240 and is a monitoring system so that we can observe what's going on because it's not like living in the house where you just flick a switch and it's all good ready to go living like this comes with its challenges and this makes it simple basically we've got the fridges lights drawer water pump we've got our DC to DC charger now before I do get too far into this this package is put together by a GCI traytech it's Unique to GCI Trade Tech I don't think you can purchase anything like it anywhere else and a drive do their own kind of packages but I don't think that they look as good as this I think the way GCI is doing it it's gorgeous it really is it's basically our charging hub for all our camera gear drone gear you can see I've got my drone Chargers mounted up here they're constantly charging drone mini charger here DC to DC so basically when I turn my engine on and if you already know what these things are bear with us but when I turn the engine on that turns the power from the engine into charge for the battery so it charges the 200 amp lithium battery that we've got underneath the false floor here then you've got a 2000 watt inverter so that inverter is what converts battery power into 240 power which basically means I can plug any household appliance into any one of these power points and it'll work because that inverter is turning the power from the battery into 240 power right up the back there I don't think you can see it but it's our it's just your standard charger you plug into the grid and you can throw anywhere up to 60 amps of charge into that 60 amps an hour of charge into the house battery a couple of letdowns from this particular system right so you turn the engine on and the DC to DC chart fires up you can set that to any sort of amperage of charge that you want and a driver good like that but let's just say that you're putting the max amount of charge from your engine into that DC to DC there's no separate solar controller so basically the solar that you're getting in on the roof is wasted it's gone nowhere so what because they run it through the DC to DC so what what I've done is I've got two victron mppt charges installed up the back solar and sat in Bundaberg did that for us what they've also done is hooked another one of those solar controllers up to the Anderson plug outlet that was already pre-wired in by GCI traytech so what I've got is a redarc 300 watt blanket that gets stored in this bad boy right here I unfold that I throw that out I've got an extra 300 watts of solo coming in basically with the sole that I've got going on top it's just not enough sometimes it's enough to maintain it's not enough to replenish especially when we've got freezers going and whatnot so that extra 300 watts gets us up to about 30 amps average on a decent day of solar power going into the system and it allows if I need it to turn the engine on and get power from the engine from solar or when we're driving along I'm getting solar and engine charge put back into the battery I've also got almost circuit breakers here so if anything trips I know what's going on fuses everything's easy to get to easy to understand for a dumbass like me it helps me get through the day especially when you need to know what's going on in these sort of in when when you live like this you've got to dim off the lights out here so on the canopy doors we've got white light orange light and they're both dimmable they're dimmable from this this right here this little switch right here up top now this is advertised as a table rack we use it as a storage rack so as you can see I've got my drone my DJI batteries on charge pegs tie down straps all sorts of accessories in there in this Crash Pad part I've got mozzie repellents Anderson cables leftover fuses and whatnot this Crash Pad is camera gear this one up here I've just got winch controllers I've got the boatloader controller going on I've got boat cables everything has its place and then underneath I've just stuck our GoPros it's just because it's close to the charging port it's just easy to plug them in as we're going I've got ARB storm bags next we've got the Joker hot tub so this is our hot water system that we use when we're not with the Caravan when we're off-grid camping or whatever it is that we're doing in places that we can't get the Caravan to so this basically slides out from here I unstrap this strap here a pop the hot water system off and this arm swings out once that arm's swung out I can then put this back nozzle here down through this groove and swing them around towards the shower tent ever call draw fridge this thing is of all the fridges that we've got on this rig in our Caravan this one's my favorite we run it as a freezer so all our frozen meat for off-grid goes into this thing I'll slide him open for you she's a bit empty at the moment and it complements this section down here really well it's just one main sticker wall where we can put all our memories of where we've been up on there we've run out of space so we've moved into the other side of the canopy but it's not the point now this drawer here is the biggest drawer you've ever seen your entire life I don't even know how they make Runners that can hold this sort of capacity if that's not the biggest storage row you've ever seen in your life I have literally stood and like I've not stood sat in this thing fully open it's incredible that's it for this side let's do the other side I'm actually going to turn the truck around because the Setting Sun is blaring in on us and I can't see a thing while I'm trying to explain something to you this is my favorite part boom baby [Music] before I get too far into it that's another added bonus of these trucks yeah you can throw an airbag kid in it and lower it down and how far do we want to go it's just an added bonus now I'm not saying that going the other way is the wrong way to go I'm just saying this works like this we swear we flick this one open basically we open this drawer and this is our kitchen so I just want to say we do all our cooking outside we don't actually have a kitchen in our Caravan if it's pissing down rain we have an induction cooker that will have some spaghetti bowl or something easy inside but that's it this is what we have smegpod coffee machine toaster this is our travel oven uh I've got a kick-ass oven review on that it's not great get a travel buddy the Kick-Ass ones average Shuffle maker microwave we've got our upright Bushman fridge with our Australian map on the front wanna be out I've been a splendid camel camera blending so far cheers big ears I might have one too where's mine I've lost mine anyway upper right Bushman fridge freezer in the top she's pretty empty it's with uh just done a large stint out in the desert so I haven't had any other fridges other than Bushman so I can't give you a relatable review but works great this is our pantry slide this out we normally have all our washing up detergents and stuff in the front spices hey the thing about this is I can have that open whether I'm working on the kitchen side over here on the cooktop site over here or the Kitchen Side Access the fridge I've got everything right here and at the back I know this is the wrong side here but if you swing around here outside of stream pride and joy and this is my secret weapon now if you've ever stayed with us chilled with us for a weekend whatever the case may be and I've cooked you a steak you know exactly what I'm talking about this is my grill it's my charcoal griller it's basically a big suitcase you open him up you throw your coals in there hot coals in there you cook your steak or whatever the case might be I'm a bit of a novice by no stretch of the imagination of my any good but I love a good steak and yeah this drawer here slides out Kettle fire lighters butane tanks milk frother first aid kits fire lighters the striker what have we got here flints this is our cooker slash kitchen slash storage whatever you want to call it so basically it slides out like this now again this is another example of the way these trays are set up at a good height so this slides out it clicks in the GCI traytech kitchen then pops down your folds out this Clips in this slides out Clicks in the sink pops out and Pops down now in here cutlery plates cups etc etc lots of room for absolutely everything then you've got your induction cooktop now again I'm taller but wifey there behind the camera also uses this cooker and it's at a usable height it's not ridiculous where you're up on a stall and I just plug my induction cooktop in the back here switch it on and burn the sausages easy as that that's the kitchen side and let's just pay it's also got your lights and things but like just pay attention to gci's attention detail like you look at the way they finish things again I'm a carpenter Builder and attention to detail and finishing quality is everything in my industry and then when you go through a canopy like this she's old like I've had to replace rivets I've had to replace um slides but it's because I'm trashing it I'm driving hard it's a Torah and I'm using it as a four-wheel drive in certain cases but the gear lasts if you look after it and it's just Immaculate it's really really nice all right I'll pack this up then we'll move into the back of the canopy because the sun's going down and wait I didn't get myself a beer cheers into the back canopy now this is where the Isuzu comes above everything else payload and storage I have got storage for days absolute days we call this our garage they're in a thing that I stole off the Mrs clothesline I don't know what they're called but it bloody works and I got in trouble for it but I don't care because it works recently we tried to winch the Caravan out of a sticky situation I had to use a Max track underneath the jockey wheel I've invested in a skid row uh Skid Row skid Caravan skid anyway basically what happens is you put it under the jockey wheel you can winch your Caravan through whatever problem you've got going on the boys also used to like to use it as a bobsled behind the bike as you can see because it's really scratched bow motor 20 Merc long shaft remove a couple of pins out you slide the boat motor out it drops down you unwind the lugs pop the motor off and throw it on the back of the boat and then vice versa to get it back into the into the truck newest addition to the family is this little pway 50 we were recently at the think desert race these are diesel Jerry's I got three of them at the moment if we ever go any more remote I'll throw some more in but right now that's plenty up the top here we've got our got my speargun mounted just on that rail Blazer kit that you can get from BCF it's basically a little rubber Mount that flicks up and over on itself and that stores up there no worries at all all right other side basically the same on the other side but this is basically an empty side so that we go shopping we throw it all in the back it's just our little extra little bit that we pack things into this is a wet bag so kids are at the beach kids are out bang grubby in the mud kneeboard for behind the boat this is our recovery bag I need to recover myself a lot under that I've just got a tactics box that I bought from Bunnings in there I have all my charcoal for my charcoal grill I've got my Kettle which is not a household water kettle it's like a charcoal Kettle that you start the charcoals in I think that's basically it for the canopies and just in all my professionalism I forgot to mention two things first thing is GCI Trade Tech do this in a door protection I guess you call it Nina web that's done beautifully I might add that protects if anything slides out and hits the canopy door in transit it doesn't dig the outside of the door so you know when you're driving along and you see canopy doors where something's flying around the inside of the canopy hit the canopy door and there's a big ding in the sidewall that stops that and in my professionalism I also forgot this side I'm just talking about tools Navigator shovels axes got a tow ball or when I fold the uh the boat trailer out from behind the Caravan let's go have a beer have question time I'll just go through the basic questions that I constantly get asked and hopefully it helps you guys make decisions when it comes to ordering or buying something like this [Music] but uh let's get serious a couple of questions written down wire truck over a ram over a cruiser over any other touring rig that you can get now I'm not going to go down the path of this is better than you this is better I'm not playing these games it's a silly game it comes down to personality really what suits you what suits your family what what suits your touring style now basically the reason we purchased a truck the the dead reason the main reason is seven seats in space we want to have more kids on the road we want to be doing this for a long time this platform this truck gives us the opportunity to grow as a family continue touring and not have to upgrade not have to change it boasts seven and a half ton jvm 11 ton GCM all the room for storage you could possibly think of which is the heaps of Pros there's heaps of Pros with it and I can get a boat I can get a rooftop tent on I can get firewood up the top I can store all my life jackets I can get bring towing gear for behind the boat so tubes knee boards Etc I can get a Peewee 50 in the back all these reasons sort of thing and I'm still I'm close but I'm not over my weights plus all the water storage and everything you can also get it lacks the power foretowing that an American Truck would have it lacks the comfortability that American truck or again a cruiser would have but to us it's all part of the adventure now the comfortability isn't bad and it's not something we ever complain about but it's a question that we get there's there's not a time where I've apart from having that straight off the Stratos chair there's not a time where the kids my wife or myself have ever gone oh this is no good I can't handle this or I ever thought about it the only issue was I've got a bad back I needed to change that chair out even if it was a suspension seat another big factor would be the Simplicity of the vehicle itself so it's basically a 79 series but a truck version is how I would describe it so the whole inner working of of the truck I can work on myself if there's an issue there's no crazy electrical things in there that I need to deal with there's not heated seats there's not reverse camera sensors things flying everywhere that I don't understand what is on this truck like as I said I'm a carpenter I don't I'm not a mechanic but what is on this truck I have enough understanding of vehicles to be able to fix it if it breaks and if I don't the serviceability of of an Isuzu is incredible when you live like us yes you want good gear but it's more important to have gear that's serviceable all around Australia an f-truck A Ram Silverado to me a brilliant brilliant platforms to work off but it scares me with the level of touring that we do that I'm not going to have the serviceability that an Isuzu or a Land Cruiser would have Isuzu also have their own roadside care so any way you break down in Australia they're coming to get you so that's an added bonus as well another other bonus of this truck would be the truck let's say about where I'm at my capacity of gvm seven and a half ton which means with towable weight I'd be at about seven ton right my Caravan is four ton so therefore the truck is significantly heavier than what I'm towing I don't know that caravan's there unless I look in my mirrors I can't feel it it's non-existent it's never pulls the truck the wind doesn't drag the truck away it's it's as sturdy as it gets where I want the truck to go is where the Caravan goes if I break the Caravan doesn't feel like it's pushing me down the road the truck pulls it up the Caravan pulls itself up it all just works the way it's supposed to because the truck is heavier a downside power whilst Towing uh if we see a hill and we've got the Caravan on truck panics we're gearing down there's been Hills that we've been down in third gear on so again that added power of an American truck or a Land Cruiser really really does help do we ever struggle to fit in places both car parks and Caravan Parks firstly if you live in a city and you want to set one of these things up for touring you've done it all wrong like we're never in major towns we're off grid this thing is set up to take us remote um but in saying that when we are in towns when we're restocking when we're doing these things you just find a way there's plenty of examples that we have of us just parking the truck in car parks and just making it work like we fit we've never had an issue in a car park where we've gone up we've got to go home can't fit here same in caravan Parks you call ahead you tell them hey we're a big rig they put you on a site that that works if they don't have the site that works you pull up at a free Camp down the road to us it's a non-issue and it's never been an issue and I've actually never been turned away by a caravan Park and never got the rig into a place that never not got the rig into a place that we needed to go here's another one that I don't really care too much for but everyone seems to ask me and that's fuel economy now I bought this rig with zero consideration for this I genuinely just don't care I'm here for the adventure I'm not here for a fuel economy but on the highway we're looking at about Towing 11 so at our capacity of 11 tonne which we're pretty much at we're probably doing on a Highway 24 to 25 5 liters per 100. recently we're up around the 27 and a half that's mainly because I have not been off a dirt road in two months I've dragged this thing through the Simpson desert dragged it up the bins track dragged it up the data track going all explored all around Lake air basically put it hasn't been easy going so 27 liters per 100 to pull 11 tonne around Australia to me seems reasonable to you like stupid I don't know we've already covered the automatic versus manual or the AMT the automated automated manual transmission versus the manual transmission look just get a manual I I hate the AMT I really dislike it it's the one thing on the truck that I would change if I could I've already gone through why I don't like it and why I would change but yeah I would strongly recommend if my recommendation means anything which it probably doesn't but if it does mean anything go a go on manual mum's cracking a beer log out I don't know I'll put it in up here um I'll put apps I'll itemize everything for you so it'll all be up here in the top right hand corner go through it yourself why in Isuzu and not the other truck so why not a Hino Fuso why'd I get nicer is it out of a more Isuzu main reason is they look the best compatible but I think they look the best second reason is has the biggest engine out of all three we're pulling a heavy van that one's a simple one answer speed so I get asked a lot can I go 100 on the freeway the answer is yes but I feel like you're barking up the wrong tree any truck or owner will tell you that you hit a hill and you've got a gear down especially when you're under load or you've got load on the back we're hauling a heavy payload compared to a car we don't have the power a car has sitting on a highway we can sit on a hundred on a normal flat highway but if we get to any sort of a hill we're gearing down just like any other truck under load the height overall I think I'm about three three five 3.35 or to be comfortable I'm not quite sure of the exact but that's very very close future plans so I do have a little bit planned we're going to get through this NT trip that we're doing we're going to head back down the wa coast and I'm already in talks with a couple of companies to uh expand we'll be keeping the Caravan we'll be keeping the truck but I'll be altering this back section of the truck I'm not going to tell you what to because you already copy me enough I know I've had one too many beers thanks for watching packing up and I might even set up the rooftop tent here and sleep away from the kids for the night cheers guys I uh I really appreciate you guys watching [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Cartwrights

Views: 426,235

Keywords: 4x4 truck, travelling family, travel australia, full time travel, overlanding, adventure, travel with kids, all terrain warriors, rig rundown, ultimate tourer, doomsday vehicle, ultimate doomsday vehicle, isuzu nps 4x4, walk through, gear review, review, doomsday prep

Id: lZE4yo0LyeE

Length: 51min 51sec (3111 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 02 2023