Thought I'd do a thread on how my ex & I set up our Defender for touring, with lots of pics.

We had a bullbar (pretty well essential in Aust), a roof rack and rear ladder to access it, and a swing away rear wheel carrier with bracket for highlift jack. It also had a long range fuel tank of 127litre capacity, HF radio, UHF radio, 12v compressor and 67litre water tank.



First thing was to build a drawer in the rear cargo area. Because the door does not open past 90deg, you cannot have a full width drawer, but the spare area is perfect for fitting in 2 folding chairs and long items such as a spade & fire spike.



Then a self made cargo barrier. We made our own as the proprietry ones take up a fair bit of room with mounting brackets behind rear seats.

Also a couple of side storage boxes under the windows



Between the storage boxes and the cargo barrier is the water tank. This tank originally sat in the rear footwell of our Stage 1 when the kids were small enough not to need the leg room. It fitted perfectly across the width of the Defender. Capacity 67 litres.



We did a trip when the Defender was new, no storage and found it a right pain having to unpack half the gear top get to recovery gear etc as nothing had a proper home. So.......next came a layer of boxes which were removable. The long one at the most rear of the cargo area for recovery gear eg hand winch, snatch straps, tools etc, which would then be the first items on opening the rear door.





The engel fridge we mounted where the smaller of the rear seats was mounted. This seat was permanently removed for the fridge mount.



under the fridge mount was the pump and outlet for the water tank. The tank was filled via the rear sliding window.



Fridge insitu



Under the fridge was also a good place for small items like a folding step to make access to the fridge easier for me.

On really long trips where fuel was likely to be a problem eg the Madigan Line trip across the Simpson we did in 2008, we had a 120litre plastic fuel tank that we put behind the seats (removed rear seats completely). While not ideal as it was infront of the cargo barrier, it certainly made remote trips possible.

You can also see the HF radio mounted to the fridge support box. We also had a UHF radio for car to car contact mounted to the rear of the cubby box.



To transfer fuel from it to the vehicle fuel tank, we had a schraeder valve on the tank which was hooked up to our in vehicle compressor. A 30sec burst was all that was needed to pressurise the tank enough to force fuel out via a hose pipe into the main tank.



We also had dual batteries shoehorned into the box under the passenger seat, with a marine switch to allow isolating one battery. One battery was good for running the Engel fridge for 3 days, so we could comfortably camp statically for 5 days before needing to re-charge the batteries with a run. Where lots of people prefer deep cycle batteries, we always used 2 starter batteries and found the system worked well.

We discovered years ago that unless everything has a nice space, the corrugations on Australia's outback roads will soon shake, rattle and roll everything to pieces. So things need to be in contained units.

Good stuff, lots of info in there.

Just one thing, if you set up this vehicle with your ex ... who got the Landy?

Nice setup.
Interesting idea with pressurizing the aux tank to transfer the fuel. I take it check valve was fitted between aux and main tank?

Raf

Plus one of those Aussie electric fuel pumps for jerricans I saw in one of your Birdsville photos. Excellent idea as those 'cans can get mighty heavy when filling the old fashioned way.

Very neat set up!
Did you make drawer/storage units yourself?
As you have said, traveled first time with loose boxes not best and a drawer would make a lot of sense.
What thickness of wood did you use? ie, how to make strong enough without adding extra weight to Defender.
I'm living in Canada so the water storage would be useless to me most of the year
Look forward to pictures of new touring vehicle.

camo388

Hi Camo...yes the drawers were home made out of 19mm ply (marine or form ply it is called over here, has a brown coating to make it water resistant). A complete box was made first, then the drawer to slide into it, so probably reasonable heavy. We didn't use slides but put those teflon pads onto the bottom of the drawer and it slid in and out quite easily.

The other boxes, which were all removeable, were made from 12mm ply IIRC. The whole lot then covered with marine carpet.

Great LR Overlander, sorry to hear that you didnt get to keep it, Hope your new one will be as good.

I Like the idea's of the storage, the draws etc, my previous job was bench joiner so
im hopeful that i can get it looking as good! Im new to off roading and im looking to
get in to overland travel, ive only done traviling in the UK, camping mostly, i used to
have a caravan but ive swaped it for a tent and a fue 4x4 mods. Ha.
In the future i hope to have a perpose built travle trailer.

Keep up the good work!


Jason

Thanks for your quick reply,
I have in mind to use a similar set up into my 110. Thinking of sleeping area down one side and above pull out box and maybe 6 or 8 small boxes in a frame along other side. A tent isn't much deterrent for a hungry bear.
Most of the 90/110 we have in a local LR club are ex-military so very basic. A common practice is to glue carpet underlay to body panels to reduce road noise but more importantly to add insulation so we can drive them with some comfort during the winter.
Did the storage units reduce the road noise enough or would you recommend adding some kind of sound proofing first?
Not trying to be sticky beak but I'm interested in learning some of the good and bad points of your set up so I can try and avoid having to rebuild twice.

Thanks, camo388

To be honest I can't say I really took much notice of road noise. Defenders are noisy anyway compared to other less utilitarian 4x4's.....and on corrugated or rough road everything seems to crunch, squeak & grind regardless.

you can say that again my 130 must be the nosiest of all as no one can here the cb when speak on it but who cares its a defender

Pretty much my dream vehicle there, although I would've used a hard top instead of sw, and more aggressive tyres.

Where did you sleep? In a normal camping tent?

Jack, if you have baffles inside the tank you get minimal sloshing.
Depends what you call serious off roading. We didn't do vehicle busting, just because I can stuff....but it did some pretty harsh off road stuff on touring trips.

Looks just the ticket. Handy company to know, I will save them in my favourites for when it comes to my build.