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LCOOL Travel Essentials Day, 2nd December 2006

Purpose - An LCOOL get together, with some industry people onsite, to help with everything to do with "travel essentials", in a casual environment.

The venue:-

ATS 4X4 www.atsgeelong.com.au
Cnr Yarra and Fyans Sts
Geelong Vic.

Thanks to all who attended the LCOOL travel essentials day, those counting said we had 100 people in for the day, and it was great to see everyone watching with interest with all the mechanical work and training sessions on the go over the day, with time for bbq items and a chat for a few hours.

Thanks to Greg Goulden for allowing us to demo the front diff rebuild and swivels/wheel bearings for everyone, and helping organise some of the day, and thanks to all who helped set up/pack up as well.

The interest created has seen request for a first aid course level 1 with 4wd orientation, and another more in depth gps training session for LCOOLers, so that may be next, if we can get afew GPS savvy members to help out for that one.

Thanks again, to all. Regards, Darren McRae.


  • A report of the days activity from Water Bevilacqua:-

    I was lucky enough to participate in this LCOOL day and I do mean lucky as its very rare to be able to see what goes on in a workshop, most often the workshop is tabu for safety reasons but this fantastic event let me see what the insides of a differential look like and what is involved in the rebuild of a front axle. Even though my vehicle doesn’t use this rudimental and archaic setup but rather the more modern independent suspension (ok all you live axle guys keep calm just having a go at you) I now have a better understanding of the mechanics which are similar in many areas.

    There were many things happening all around us with cars on hoists getting their shock absorbers changed, a 100 series getting a diff drop kit installed, one member was assembling a roof basket to be mounted on his roof bar system, as you can tell the place was a hive of activity.

    While the vehicles were on hoists it was a great opportunity to see the difference of the undercarriage of the various 4wd’s and what people have done to their vehicles to better prepare them for their activities. A great place to exchange ideas and place a face to a name.

    One other of the highlights for myself was to finally see Graeme’s creation, based on 80 running gear and custom made rear suspension, which gave it incredible wheel travel coupled with a whopping fuel injected 502 c.i. motor! This machine stood extremely tall even with just the 35 inch rubber and topped of with a 75 series body, a mighty awesome piece a machinery which sounded as good as it looked, I know what I would like under my xmas tree.

    We also had a sneak view of a trial bash plate for a Prado that is in the midst of development, who better to talk with than the man who is working on this project.

    A great day in my books and I am sure that everyone can only say thank you to ATS and all its staff for opening their doors to us , Darren, Julie and her mother and the sponsors who all helped make this event the success it was.


  • A report of the GPS products talk from Joe Mortelliti :-

    The GPS session covered the range of Magellan products with some emphasis on the Explorist XL, as with it’s big screen it has become a favourite amongst 4wd enthusiasts..
    Also presented was the RoadMate which is able to calculate a path to any street or city in Australia.
    The technology of both GPS and Roadmate over the next few years will see these two units consolidate into one piece of equipment.

    RoadMate
    At present the RoadMate, even though it has all the track systems mapped, will take you to a destination via a route that is suitable to a sedan to travel. A large data base of points of interest are in the unit.
    We bought / used one in the following week and were given a restaurant address to meet people, the RoadMate got us to address alright, it just happened to be the wrong address. We went to points of interest selected restaurants, within 5 km, presto there was the name of the restaurant we were looking for, selected it as our destination and the unit took us to the front door. The touch screen feature is so easy to use and we had the thing talking to us and getting us to selected addresses without even opening the manual…it’s an extremely easy to use device.

    GPS
    We have had ours for over a year and do agree the large screen for 4wd use is very effective. Upgrading to the available extra mapping on an SD card that includes all the tracks in Oz with topographic display is a real benefit for 4wd use. A point to be noted is that each time you cross a state border you have to change over to that state to bring up the right maps. The menu is multi layered and takes a little getting used to but works well.
    Features include:
    Facility to hook up to a laptop
    Continuous bread crumbs trail
    GOTO for points of interest…which provides a straight line from your current position to the destination. A great feature when travelling cross country, but needs to be interpreted with when travelling on set road systems and tracks.

  • Some random pics from the day.

    Stan explaining to Craig how much his new roof rack will hold, while Juile, her mum and Kristen prepare breaky for the troops


    Hungry Lcooler's joining the breaky que


    Grant from Marine Plus's kitted out 100 with all the GPS and DVD technology on display


    Greg's live axle 100 on the hoist, less most of the live axle bits awaiting reassembly


    Overhead view, L-R Greg's 100, Graeme's 75(80) ute, Joe's 120, Stan's 120 and Damien's 100


    Stephen's IFS 100 receiving a diff drop kit while everyone watches on




    Joe's 120 on the hoist being used as the guinea pig for a new prototype ATS bash plate to protect those precious dangly bits




    Greg working under the 105 reassembling the front axle assembly after having a solid spacer and bearings replaced in the diff, front axle seals, bearing and CV repack, etc, while Dale, Lance and Walter watch on (supervise ;-)