Lara's 16.49-1 OB
- Thread starter Lara
- Start date
we head to grampians friday then warburton then sheepyard flats a trip we missed in Nov 12 would have been great to introduce Expander group to Geocaching.
beware of Muggles.
No worries Cruza,
I think I'm guilty of doing the same thing on other threads, oops.....
Cheers XF,
Ha, Will Pass that onto Andrew!
Andrews only Expanda job is to teach me how to reverse. I got some practice on the weekend, and apparently passed with flying colours for my first go. Dont know how I would have gone without him guiding me though. More practice sessions to come. The plan is for me to be able to go on weekends away with friends or sisters. No blokes allowed. But until I can reverse with confidence that won't be happening.
Tell Mrs XF I said go for it, nothing more satisfying than doing it yourself!
Drive through sites are a blessing, even for the more experienced reversers!
The best thing that I did with reversing was to ban the words left and right. It is now towards the slab or away from the slab or house or fence or whatever. My mind kept going through cycles of is it left relative to the way I am facing or left relative to direction etc. There's no confusion when SWMBO says towards the slab.
I see your ban of left and right and raise you....
Just don't go to van parks unless they guide you in
!
Nice drive-through in Benalla (no hand signals, UHF or raised voices at all).
We had a relapse to "a bit more the other way" yesterday afternoon, but after some revision of "toward street/toward house" lesson, landed Expanda quite smoothly (i.e. no plants were killed while reversing the van in). Had the gas company working in our street though, so the final 150m took over an hour. Not arguing with Macks and excavators. One workman was Expanda friendly and apologised for hold up. I'm probably lucky they didn't start work as I was about to head off. They actually needed to dig right across neighbours new concrete caravan pad but caravan guy had a chat and they managed to drill under it. Avoided bloodshed I think. Same neighbour mowed my "lawn" while we were away; need to get away more often!
We had a relapse to "a bit more the other way" yesterday afternoon, but after some revision of "toward street/toward house" lesson, landed Expanda quite smoothly (i.e. no plants were killed while reversing the van in). Had the gas company working in our street though, so the final 150m took over an hour. Not arguing with Macks and excavators. One workman was Expanda friendly and apologised for hold up. I'm probably lucky they didn't start work as I was about to head off. They actually needed to dig right across neighbours new concrete caravan pad but caravan guy had a chat and they managed to drill under it. Avoided bloodshed I think. Same neighbour mowed my "lawn" while we were away; need to get away more often!
Thanks guys for all the above,
On Sunday during my practice session there were a few "WTF" comments from me? Lucky for us we have a relationship were we usefully laugh at situations like this.
Andrew has years and years of experience towing 20 foot plus race boats so he's a great teacher and very patient. I did good though, even got a few thumbs up from others who watched. Although I do think they were watching to see some sort of disaster because a female was doing it.
Those drive through sites do sound like a good option for my girls weekends away when I don't have Andrew to rely on for a bit of help.
But all of you of this forum know me well enough by now. IF I can do something myself, then I will! And if I can't, then I'll learn.
On Sunday during my practice session there were a few "WTF" comments from me? Lucky for us we have a relationship were we usefully laugh at situations like this.
Andrew has years and years of experience towing 20 foot plus race boats so he's a great teacher and very patient. I did good though, even got a few thumbs up from others who watched. Although I do think they were watching to see some sort of disaster because a female was doing it.
Those drive through sites do sound like a good option for my girls weekends away when I don't have Andrew to rely on for a bit of help.
But all of you of this forum know me well enough by now. IF I can do something myself, then I will! And if I can't, then I'll learn.
I went to a CP once where the owner liked to giude everyone on site, He would call out "left arm down" or "right arm down" (for the steering wheel) worked well if the person giving the instructions knows what their doing!
They do that at the park we go to at Batemans Bay, one time I was also looking in the mirror to see for myself where the van was going, I then heard him say "look and listen to me not your mirrors" Sorry force of habbit, so he stood in front of my left mirror
Hi Lara,
Love your mods...I envy you being able to do them all. I have done a few to ours, but needed my husband and mates to do the bigger ones.
I love your tv idea and it's storage. We are tossing up what size to get (Kogan have a new 32" - but wondering if this will be too big)so will head in to Clarks Rubber when we do. Did they know what you were wanting or did you have to detail it to them. If you don't mind me asking what they charged?
Thanks,
Tracy
Love your mods...I envy you being able to do them all. I have done a few to ours, but needed my husband and mates to do the bigger ones.
I love your tv idea and it's storage. We are tossing up what size to get (Kogan have a new 32" - but wondering if this will be too big)so will head in to Clarks Rubber when we do. Did they know what you were wanting or did you have to detail it to them. If you don't mind me asking what they charged?
Thanks,
Tracy
Thanks Tracy,
I'm enjoying all the mods. The things I have done are fairly easy and straight forward to do. You'll never catch me touching the electrics though, I'll happily leave that to the professionals.
My advice if you want to do the foam under seat TV storage would be:
1. Have a look at the specs sheet first of the TV's you are interested in. Check their measurement specs and then cut out that size on a piece of cardboard to see it it will fit and slide under the seat support bars, keeping in mind the thickness also. I did this with ours and found that a 22" was probably the largest we could comfortably get under there, also allowing for the foam thickness.
2. Once you find a TV that will fit OK, take the overall length and width measurement into Clark Rubber and take the TV too. Once they have cut the overall outside measurementof the foam, you can then place the TV on top and decide where exactly you want it to sit, they will then outline it and do the TV cut out.
3. The foam should have 2 layers of foam that they will glue together at the end. The bottom layer of mine is 25mm thick and solid and un cut, and the top layer with the cut out is 75mm thick. You wouldn't want to go any thicker as you need space above to lift and tilt the TV to get it out.
4. I'm big on measure twice cut once and always do my homework first to make sure things will work and fit. If you do this you won't run into any problems.
5. I went for the ridiculously expensive closed cell foam. If you have a tight budget you could always go for a standard high density foam. Talk to the guys at Clark Rubber, they can guide you to what will work and what won't.
6. If you have a look at my pics of the foam, you will see I have also put some timber laminate down the right side to hold the foam in the section I want. It's only 100mm high so doesn't interfere with getting the TV in and out but keeps it were I want it.
Hope the above all makes sense!
Hi Lara, where did you get the TV stand thingo from, i love it. great to watch outside!
Cheers
Hi Leesy,
Got my TV bracket mount here http://www.justmonitors.com.au/mountvisidecfocusdesk.htm
It works a treat, we can watch TV from anywhere, inside or out, Love it.
keep in mind you would need to take your TV down for travel though, which is why I did my TV foam storage mod.
Got my TV bracket mount here http://www.justmonitors.com.au/mountvisidecfocusdesk.htm
It works a treat, we can watch TV from anywhere, inside or out, Love it.
keep in mind you would need to take your TV down for travel though, which is why I did my TV foam storage mod.
OK, so we've had the Expanda home for the weekend to fit the new bed fly's and a few other things. I wanted to share the comical situation we find ourselves when we bring it home. This will show you why its kept in storage. If I dont laugh I'll cry........
We live on the flats of Manly on Sydneys Northern Beaches. And using Manly Councils own words "parking in Manly is at saturation point".
So we live on a block with a rear Lane, which is where our double garage is. You can only park on the eastern side of the Lane, so we are forced to park the expanda hard up against our back wall, but still trying to allow access to our garage. Problem is, how to access the Expanda's door because its against our 2.4m high back wall. Well as you will see in this photo, we have to line up the van with our rear gate, that way we walk out our back door through the back gate and fall into the expanda. I told you it was comical!! And no, we cant park the Expanda facing the opposite direction, unless we want a $168 fine, which Andrew got on his car the other day, even though he knew better.....
Now just when you think it couldn't possibly get any worse, it does. Tomorrow is garbage collection day, and yes, its in the back Lane. As if the Lane wasnt small enough already. Now you add everyones bins lining the Lane and Manly Councils enormous garbage truck and I start having palpitations.......
And finally, I hear some of you saying why not park it out the front of your house. Well this pic will show you why. A solid 6ft wall and gate straight onto foot path and Road. Not even a nature strip to illegally park on.
I hope you all feel better about your parking situations and have had a good laugh at ours!!
And this is why we have our van in storage!
We live on the flats of Manly on Sydneys Northern Beaches. And using Manly Councils own words "parking in Manly is at saturation point".
So we live on a block with a rear Lane, which is where our double garage is. You can only park on the eastern side of the Lane, so we are forced to park the expanda hard up against our back wall, but still trying to allow access to our garage. Problem is, how to access the Expanda's door because its against our 2.4m high back wall. Well as you will see in this photo, we have to line up the van with our rear gate, that way we walk out our back door through the back gate and fall into the expanda. I told you it was comical!! And no, we cant park the Expanda facing the opposite direction, unless we want a $168 fine, which Andrew got on his car the other day, even though he knew better.....
Now just when you think it couldn't possibly get any worse, it does. Tomorrow is garbage collection day, and yes, its in the back Lane. As if the Lane wasnt small enough already. Now you add everyones bins lining the Lane and Manly Councils enormous garbage truck and I start having palpitations.......
And finally, I hear some of you saying why not park it out the front of your house. Well this pic will show you why. A solid 6ft wall and gate straight onto foot path and Road. Not even a nature strip to illegally park on.
I hope you all feel better about your parking situations and have had a good laugh at ours!!
And this is why we have our van in storage!