MY DREAM 79 LANDCRUISER THE NEW EXPLORE LIFE 79 SERIES - EXPLORE RIGS EP7

All right, here we go. Finally, the Explore 79. Let's go. Finally, here we are. The new Explore Life 79 Series Dual Cab. This has been a long time coming. I can't even tell you the dramas we've had with COVID, with companies not having supply, then just the car being locked in Melbourne, us being in Queensland. I've driven this thing personally back from Melbourne twice. It's been down there three times. We've had a few dramas, but we got there in the end. And look, to say I am bloody ecstatic is the biggest of understatements. This right here has been a bit of a dream of mine since I started Explore. Look, credit where credit's due, I got a photo on my phone back from 2015, I think it is, Justin from Patriot, the black truck. There's been so many other inspirational 79 builds and that's when I started this. I wanted this. I had this vision in my head. To be honest, it's almost bang on what I was thinking back in the day. It really hasn't changed much. And look, thanks to you, your guys' support and everyone getting around the series, you guys buying our merch, we've been able to continue to create free content for you guys. And now the 76 is going to get retired. The big girl, it's done me well, but we are embarking, myself and Jess, on the big lap of Australia next year. And I needed something with a little bit more space that can take a better GVM. And then look, I wanted something that can tow just a little bit more for when we come back with some big boats and bits and pieces. So I'm not going to dribble on too much. Let's get stuck into it. We're going to start, we'll work our way underneath the truck like we normally do. We'll talk about the front, what's under the bonnet, we'll go inside the cab. And then last but not least, my favorite, because let's be honest, there's not too many different things you can do on a 79 series, but the canopy is something super personal, set up exactly how we want. So stay tuned. We'll run through that. But let's get into it. Let's go. All right, let's get into it. We're going to talk about the full underneath. This is where the whole vehicle's been built around the upgraded chassis. Now look, I have done build videos as we're going. So if you want more detail, we run through everything in one of our previous videos. So if you're just seeing us for the first time, or it's the first time you've watched, you can go back. There's about three or four build videos going into the specifics. So let's run through it anyway. We'll go through it again. So up front, we got the BFG KM3s. Absolutely love them. Had them on the 76. Can't fault them. They're a 35 12.5 R17. I've teamed them up with the Race Wheels Australia. They got the Method 312s. Now because the GVM upgrade on this, these are a 1650 kilo rated rim. So very heavy duty. There's only a few that you can sort of align with a 4495 GVM upgrade. This is one of them. Look, a lot of people are starting to run them. They are one of the best looking rims around in my opinion. So absolutely love them. Wheels and tyres, we got six, two on the back. Then we go into suspension. Now what we've done is a full 4495 GVM upgrade. So we've cut the old chassis, welded a whole new chassis onto the rear. We've extended the wheelbase by 300 millimeters. We got rid of the leafs and we've gone with coils with an airbag inside of it. And then we've also gone a whole new diff housing, which fixes the wheel track. And look, upgraded radius arms, upgraded shocks. This thing is all running on the Kings of course. Absolutely love the Kings. Had them on the 76 as well. So it's four inches of lift, 35 inch tyres, all fully engineered, fully legal. 4495 GVM and I can tow four ton. So absolutely massive upgrade on the initial Land Cruiser. So we've got the Kings at the rear, all JMaxx radius arms. The whole kit was done and engineered by JMaxx. Go check out that video once again for a full run through. You can see us cutting and chopping it and I go into massive detail. As we work through to the back, like I said, the leafs are gone, coils are in. Of course we got the airbags in there. They have been phenomenal already. Wouldn't have it any other way. We're going to get some in-car controls. That's one of the last sort of things that we haven't had time to do, but in-car controls to adjust that airbag when I'm just running the canopy. And then of course we are towing next year. So when we're towing, we'll be able to put a little bit more PSI in those bags. Everything's going to sit absolutely dead level. Three and a half stainless exhaust, stainless steel exhaust. We'll sneak around the back. This is the rear of the new chassis when we welded in the new chassis. Big JMaxx solid. Now look, it gives you a tow point at the back and of course it allows us to have a rear winch, which is pretty bloody cool. So we've got the rear winch cradle here. We're running the Bushranger. We got the Revo 12,500 pound. She's an absolute stonker. Because the truck is going to be sitting that little bit heavier, I'll be honest, it's probably going to come in at about four ton, fully loaded, all the gear, me and Jess. That's what I'm aiming for. So I should still have about 500 up my sleeve. Brown Davis tanks. Now this is bloody impressive. So at the rear here, normally you've got your standard tanks, about 130 litres. We've ripped that out and we've gone for the Brown Davis long range tank. It is 185 litres. Very bloody impressive. Now if that wasn't enough, which look it can be, but we're going to do some long touring next year. There's a few spots that I experienced last year up in the Northern Territory, which I kind of wish I didn't stop at. I wish I had had enough fuel to keep going. But underneath, running perfectly along the chassis rail, in between the chassis and the tail shaft here, we've got two more tanks. It's another 110 litres between the two of them. That gives us a grand total of 295 litres of diesel. Absolutely massive. Now some of you guys are going to say it's too much. It's a lot of extra weight. The cool thing is both these tanks have individual fillers and I can switch from either tank. So if we're going to be pretty heavily loaded and I know I'm going to do a little bit of, you know, that more harder extreme four-wheel driving, I'll probably run the back tank almost dry. I'll throw 110 litres in the front. It puts all my weight forward of that rear axle and stops that little bit of back heaviness. Not that there's a lot with the new chassis, but it just gives me the ability if I break one tank, I can isolate it. You know, good luck breaking one, but you never know. It's all these things. If you pick up bad fuel, isolate the last one you filled up. Drain points on the bottom. The Brown Davis tanks are going to be absolutely unreal for these big days on the road where I just want to haul arse and if anyone's been touring, you know exactly what I mean. So we are loaded for diesel. Let's keep working our way back to the front. Another thing to point out while we're under here is the clutch. So of course, as soon as you're chasing any more power out of the 70s, you've got to upgrade that clutch. Now I've gone with Safari Armax clutch. It's a true 1100 Newton metre heavy-duty clutch. This thing drives like a dream. It does have a really nice pedal feel. So far, absolutely stoked. The front, that's basically underneath covered. Now to kick it off at the front, of course, the only important bash plate, we got the Brown Davis bash plate on there. Four bolts, factory mounts. Simple as you like. If you don't have any front underbody protection, get around some sort. Now ARB bar work. Once again, we did a full install video on this, but I've gone with the Deluxe. It's the 63mm tube bar. This is their new matte black. And now, look, we were toying up. Should we go the matte black? Should we say with the satin, like on the 76? But in my opinion, the matte black looks absolutely awesome. If you've got a powder-coated canopy in that black, it is more of a matte finish and it has come up an absolute treat. To match the rear winch, we got the Bushranger, the Revo. I called it 12,500 before. It's actually 12,000 pound winch, not 12,500. So we got one of them up the front as well. All wireless controllers. Here comes the rain. Let's keep going anyway. Then we got the lights. Of course, you got to have those LED lights. We've gone the Solus. Now, I've been running the Intensities for absolutely years. These are still an Intensity, but a Solus. Now, they do have a couple of pretty cool functions. We'll show you them inside the car on the links. But we got the Solus lights up front. We got the 6.6 DBI whip up the front here. The nice big hooah, and then tucked in behind the seat, I got the smaller one, 2.1 GME. It's the XRS unit. Once again, I've got them on all my cars. GME, it was a no-brainer. It was always going on. So we'll work our way around the side. Now, scrub bars, personal opinion, I wouldn't have a truck without them. Some people like the cleaner look, but for the type of four-wheel driving we do, it's going to protect everything. That's what they're there for. Of course, they wrap down into a sidestep, protects all your undersills. We got a little bit fancy and just powder-coated the top of these steps black, just to keep that color coordination going. But, you know, it makes it easy to jump up on top of the car. I think sidesteps and scrub rails are just super practical. I know you can get those electric ones and all that crap, but not quite for me. Now, we got the Safari snorkel. We got the big Safari Armax, getting all that air into the engine. I've run different types of snorkels over the year. Basically hated them. I went straight back to the old-school Safari Ramhead Armax on the 76, and I wasn't going to do anything different on the 79. Absolutely stoked with it. We'll get into performance a little bit later when we jump under the bonnet. So Safari MSA towing mirrors on the side as we work our way down the truck. We did a video on these as well. At first, if you've never seen the MSA mirrors, they're going to look a little bit weird to you, trust me. It took me just a little bit to get used to them, but in my opinion, they just sit in so nice, clean, and I absolutely love them. Now, I wouldn't go back to anything else, but they've got a couple of different functions. Slide out, slide out again. Of course, for towing that caravan next year, these things were an absolute must. Up on top, ARB have just released a brand new roof rack. It is called their Base Rack. I was looking at a couple of different racks, and I didn't even know they did them. And as soon as I seen the new rack, I loved it. I'll be honest, the selling feature was they do a beautiful slimline light bar that tucks underneath and mounts up. That was the selling point for me. I was like, done, dusted. And it's got a bit of anti-glare built into it as well. So the way this light bar is shaped is the LEDs come up from the bottom, and then it actually throws it out in a bit of an arc. So I haven't even had a chance to use it. Can't wait to see how well that goes. So stay tuned for a bit of a review. Now, of course, Maxtrax. I've got the Maxtrax Extremes up here. I carry them on every single truck. That's just an absolute must. I will have eight. I'm going to take eight because we got the van with us on the next trip. So I'll end up having eight Maxtrax up on top. We're getting down to the important end of town, but let's jump under the bonnet real quick, have a bit of a look, and then we'll get inside. All right, let's jump under here. The big, bad 4.5, the VDJ. Okay, so air box has been, it's still a standard air box, but they modify it to suit the R-Maxx. Personally, I think these seal pretty well. I love the standard paper filters for the amount of Turin and dust we get. I don't want to deal with the ones where you've got to bloody spray them and carry on and undo 50,000 bolts. So I'm a big fan of keeping the factory air box. Let's come across. We are running a dual battery. I kept it super simple underneath here. I got a Red Arc BCDC. We got the BCDC, just the 25 under the bonnet, which links up to an AGM battery. Now, all this is really doing is running my CF-11, my little interior fridge, and then I've got a couple of other outlets and little USB things. So that was more than enough, to be honest. I threw it in when I was in a bit of a rush. I'm probably going to pull that out, chuck a lithium setup in there, but of course, we'll keep the Red Arc BCDC. Nice and simple. I haven't gone overboard with this. I've sort of started at the bottom, and I'm going to work up with more and more power if I need it, depending on how heavy the truck gets and what it's like towing this new van. So, of course, I've gone, again, I couldn't fault it, the Armax ECU from Safari. We've put it in. We had it in the 76. I had a lot of extra accessories in the 76. Bigger turbos, intercoolers, full custom tune. At the moment, we're just running the Safari Armax ECU. They've got an upgrade coming very shortly, which is why I'm not going to run you through too much in the way of numbers and figures. I'll do a full separate video based around performance, what sort of numbers we got out of this thing, the drivability. So stay tuned for that. Okay, so there's a couple of other cool Safari products that are coming to market very, very shortly. We have done the full Armax package, so I got them on just a little bit early for this new build. I'll run through them in detail when we do a full performance segment, but oil to air separator. I'll go through all the specifics later on, and then tucked down underneath here is a secondary fuel filter. You should see the size of this thing. It is absolutely massive. I'll run through the specifics with that a little bit later on as well. You will be blown away just how much restriction some of the other aftermarket secondary filters give you. That's why this thing is sized correctly to maintain that fuel flow, I'll get there, through into your motor. Underneath the bonnet, to go with the JMAX upgraded kit, we do have the hydraulic brake booster here. They didn't just throw a big lift and wheels on it. Watch the video, you'll understand. I'll go through everything in detail, but we got the upgraded brake booster here. Mate, that's probably just about it. It is pretty simple under here. I'm trying to keep everything as simple and not too overdone. I don't want to chase huge horsepower. I'm after reliability, I'm after safety, and the Armax never let us down on the last truck. And look, when you're out in the middle of nowhere, trust me, you don't want to be able to spin wheels and carry on. So, let's jump inside the cab and we'll run you through the cockpit. We've gone to town in there, nothing too flash, but it makes a big difference. As you can see, it doesn't really look anything like a 70 series anymore, but you will notice it looks identical to the 76 if you've been following along. I mean, there is only one or two small changes inside here to the 76. Now, there's a pretty good reason for that. It's because everything was tried, tested. Look, I did just about all of Australia in that 76 series. The only thing I missed was sort of perth to broom. Everything else, we gave a fair nudge. So, I was very happy with the way the 76 was. We just ran out of room. So, that's why you'll see this truck basically runs all the products that the 76 did. So, so much so that I actually took the steering wheel straight out of the 76 and put it in the 79. It is a PVS wheel, it's a huge improvement. It changes the whole look and feel of inside a 70. If you can get your hands on an aftermarket wheel, I absolutely love it. It links up with my brand new head deck which was from EC Offroad. It allows me to adjust all the volumes. I've got my cruise control tucked down in here and it just sort of finishes the inside off. Now, over to my right, what looks like a phone is actually the ARB link system. If you don't know what that is, I did do an in-depth video in the ARB build, but it's basically a switching panel. I love it. It's simple. It's clean. It means I don't have gauges and switches and ---- everywhere. So, right now, what I can see is my main battery and auxiliary battery. So, it gives me my voltage. I will link the rear battery. I haven't had time to do that yet. It gives me speed. The inclemeter tells you all that sort of gear. I'll run through a pretty quick time date. Nothing too important there. I told you I'd tell you a pretty cool function about the solos. So, from in here, I can turn the spotties on, but they're actually full adjustable as well. So, I can go from 25% up to 50%, 75% and 100%. Now, when you're driving on those highways just out of the main cities and there's lots of signs and reflective, the 70s don't have great lights. Even the high beams are pretty average. So, to just chuck an extra 25% on and then as you get further out of town, you can crank them right up. But trust me, that was a cool feature I used to come back from Melbourne. I absolutely loved it. Now, I also can control my lockers from here. So, I've got the ARB air locker in the rear and my compressor. I've got a couple of configurations to go on this. It goes in next week. I was a little bit slow, but basically, I can control my airbags from here as well. So, I can have three preset heights, which is very bloody cool. And then, of course, if I want to pump up my tires, I can set my pressure, clip my air hose on off the dual compressor that you'll see in the canopy shortly and it pumps it up just like at the Servo. Link system, check it out, big fan. Just under the link system here as well, a nice handy location, I've got the Redarc TowPro. For anyone that's towing, it's the TowPro Elite. You've got to have your electric brakes once you get over a certain weight. They are the best in the game and that's in a nice little easy spot so I can adjust it on the run. Just underneath the TowPro, I've got the Safari Armax control pad so I can run through my five different adjustments. So, you've got comfort mode, sports mode, you've got your towing, traction assist, and then back to standard. So, nice and simple right next to the wheel. I do flick between them more than you'd imagine. If I need that little bit of extra power every now and again, I'll throw it into sports mode and off-road with the van, I'll probably predominantly use towing. When I get into those real hairy sections, chuck it into that traction assist and it just gives me a little bit more control over the throttle. I'll run through more of that to do with the performance as well but everything is within arm's reach. Super simple, super clean, happy days. Of course, the whole center console has been changed out. You get one cup holder and one shitty plastic box. We all know they're rubbish. I've gone with the Cruiser Consoles console. It's clean, it's neat, it's tough, it's a full aluminium top, extra cup holders, storage, two USBs and a sig socket and then I've paired it up with the Dometic fridge. So, you can either have a fridge console or you can go just your standard console with a foam lid. I absolutely love having the fridge console. Cold water on the road cannot beat it and if I want to just load it up with ----, it's as good as a console anyway. When we get to the doors, I've got the One Stone armrests. If you own a 70 Series, look, I think they're about 350 bucks. Do yourself a favour, go grab them. They're absolutely unreal and then if I open the door, I've got the full door pods down here with the speakers. So, you pick up another cup holder, your map pocket. Once again, we did a full interior video if you want to check it out in detail. Looking up top, we've got the Cruiser Consoles roof console. Super clean, super neat. I got the XRS, the GME XRS unit tucked up here, magnetic mount. I had it in the exact same place in the 76. I had the same roof console in the 76. If it wasn't up there, I'd be grabbing up here. I'm just used to it now and I absolutely love it having it up there. In the middle of the car because it also means your navi can grab it, get on it as well. Whereas sometimes if it's tucked down here, it makes it hard for the navigator to get on and have a little bit of a chat. I got the Explore Dashbag. There's some more of them coming soon. Stay tuned for that. Other than that, MSAC covers. These are the flash ones too. They come with the lumbar support. So, I haven't opted for the Recaros yet. Let me know your thoughts. Recaros, Stratos. Who just loves the 70 seats? Personally, I had them in the 76. Didn't have too many issues and with just a little bit of lumbar support in the MSAC covers, I'm actually stoked. I don't think I'm going to upgrade the seats. We'll see how we go. I've got the seat covers in the rear as well. I'm keeping all the seats in the rear of this truck because I'm going to have a few people come out and visit when we're on the road next year, which is going to be going to be a bit exciting for people in the car. We got the rooftop tent, the van I can sleep for, take for. It's going to be good fun. I'm looking forward to next year. Inside, I think that's just about it. Under the seat, we got some slide-out drawers. Nice and neat. When you're on the road, when you're sort of living on the road, you just want everything to have a home and that's what all this extra storage allows me to do. The dash bag, sneak some stuff underneath the seat, the console. So, it should keep everything super clean. One thing I didn't point out is I've got the Brown Davis secondary fuel tank gauge down here and I can switch from my auxiliary and main. It replaces the ashtray. You know, I don't think anyone uses ashtrays anymore. So, that's a very neat little inclusion. One last thing and then I'm done. Gear stick extension. Basically, my truck shop sells these. I think they're worth bugger all. Screw that on. It lifts it up an extra two inches and it just seems to be at the exact right height when you're driving. Unless you're a big gangly bloke with long arms, then you might not have to worry about it. But I think that's just about it for in here. Let's go and check out the canopy. I will just show you in the back real quickly. These are the rear door pods with the six-inch focal speakers. You get the extra pocket. Now, these are called firestrikers. If you guys been following me for a while, you'll understand. But these are basically a simple, small, compact fire extinguisher. I keep one in the back seat and I keep one underneath my front seat as well. So, easy to grab. I've made this mistake before. I may have had a small fire once before. So, if you don't have a fire extinguisher in your car, go check out one of our other YouTube videos. But do yourself a favor. I think you can get these from ARB. Even if you've just got one of the bigger ones at home, chuck a fire extinguisher in your car. But these are super compact. That is important. That's about it. All right, let's go. I'm very bloody excited to show this canopy off. So, it is a Boss Aluminium Canopy. I've known Dave for the last four or five years. I've always carried on about how I wanted to do something cool with him over the years. Of course, having a 76, it was bloody useless. But as soon as I got this on, honestly, I did go through, ----, 10 or more trade companies. Obviously, there's a bucket load out there, but sort of 10 industry litres, maybe. And then that drops down to about three or four. And I sort of went through everyone with a fine-tooth comb. And when I sat down with Dave, he has the ability to sort of make everything very modular. You'll know what I mean in a second. And I just wanted something that was going to suit my needs, the touring needs, to take the gear I want. And he aligns very well with the Redarc products that I wanted to put in this truck as well. So, everything sort of just fell into place. You'll know what I mean. I'm going to start off on this side. You got to wait and see the other side, but the other side's where the kitchen is. The other side's where we sort of went a little bit overboard, but it's going to be sick. So, let's get stuck into it. The tray itself, it is the very first one he's done on the 79. It is the premium tray. Now, for you guys that have got 79s, keep in mind, this one is specific to the 4495. The only difference is on the standard 79s is you'll be a little bit shorter and you won't have this front box. But up top, we got the camp lights, the side lights, they pivot around up and down and they tuck in there very nicely with a switch on the side. Super bright, absolutely unreal for finding those little side camps. Now look, then behind that, tucked in, and this is the reason for going to the full sheet metal headboard. Tucked in behind here, we've got a massive 85 litre stainless water tank. So, I've got 85 litres of fresh water in the headboard. I'll show you all the filler and bits and pieces on the other side, and that actually links up to another 70 litre tank underneath in front of the trundle drawer, which we'll show you, which gives me a combined total of 155 litres of fresh water, which is a bloody game changer. Let me tell you, we sat on strutty for nine days. I have taken this car out for a bit of a maiden voyage. I kept it pretty low key on social, but we've used it to come back every afternoon. A little quick fresh water shower is absolutely amazing. So, the top tank is a gravity feed. I've just got a bloody little isolation valve on the other side. It feeds into the bottom tank and I've got a pump back here, so I've got pressurized water. We'll show you all that in a minute. What else we got? This is the lockable filler cap here for my brown Davis. Super simple. That's for the auxiliary tank. On the back, when we get there, I'll show you, we've got the rear tank filler. Now, into the front compartment. So, this actually has a full ARB premium recovery kit. I've got my tree trunk protector, my snatch strap, I've got my winch dampener, I've got the poly block, two D shackles and a set of gloves all in this front little drawer, which is bloody impressive. The biggest thing with Dave's new premium tray is there is absolutely zero wasted space. Nice big flared mudguards to cover the rear tyres. So, the car is sort of like half fitted out. Stay tuned, I'm going to do a full video on how we pack for our trip, but this has got a few little bits and pieces in it from the last strutty trip. I've got the interflate from Max Trax. I've got the winch dampener in there. I just keep straps, ratchet straps, and then I've got a 12-volt jump pack from ARB, but plenty of storage. Actually, I've got a few more things tucked in here I didn't even know about. I've got a soldering kit. I've got my little recovery block. I've got ---- in here I didn't even know about, and then I've got some zip ties tucked in here. So, this one will sort of be a little bit of a tool drawer, few bits and pieces, just things I want to grab nice and easy. Now, one thing I want to point out is that the canopy and the rear drawers are fully central locked. This is bloody handy, let me tell you. All me mates either leave them unlocked or they've got to go around and lock them all with a key. It is a key lockable option or simply push the button, canopy's locked, rear drawers are locked, just so good for when we're going to be on the road traveling. Unlock it, away you go. Let's get into it, eh? So, here we go. This is what we're calling the electronic side. It's going to be all the big bulky items. The kitchen side is the other side, and this is sort of for all of my other bits and pieces. I'll figure out what's going to go in all these drawers. I actually don't know what to do with all this space, which is great. I really want to run this car as light as I possibly can for when we go around Australia. So, this is, in my opinion, one of the best things about Boss Aluminium's canopy, even the tray setups. If you are just starting out and you want quality gear and you want to work your way up with these other trays and all these canopies, everything's modular. So, you could buy one of these trays, then you could add the rear drawer, then the front drawer, the mudguards. You can sort of build it as you go and it's the same thing with the canopy. In here, everything is modular, everything can move around and change. Now, we specifically designed this one to suit sort of what I was chasing. It's got a few different packages you can pick and choose from, but we've gone the full whack when it comes to the electronics. We'll run through that in a second. But this whole section here, for example, you've got six screws, six screws up top, and I can remove this whole drawer and shelf. If I want to lift that shelf up higher or down lower, depending on what I'm trying to fit in here, I can. So, I've already taken a shelf out from the rear that we had tucked in here, so I can fit those nice tall items. I've got a nice deep storage locker here. I keep my ladder for the rooftop tent. I've got a folding table. We've got the barbecue up top on this shelf. I've got the Red Arc solar blanket for when I'll need extra solar. I've got a sneaky airbag man compressor tucked up the top there. If I want to plug it into the boat and pump up the rear boat ties or anything like that. The drawer systems, everything Dave does just makes sense. Some people, you've got the double latches and it makes it a little bit hard to open. Simply pull down on the wire, slide out, nice massive big drawer, super deep, all carpeted up, finished absolutely beautifully. Slide back in, closed it, nice and simple. Over this side is where all of my camera gear is going to go. So, I'll have multiple camera bags. I'll have all my drone and bits and pieces tucked in away here. A lot of gear will be up top charging. So, I can simply slide out the table underneath. I can get my drone and bits and pieces out. So, we'll get into this side, the power hub. We've gone to town. It's all RedArc gear. We've actually got a Boss aluminium battery in this one. He does his own specifically to suit this setup. It is a whopping 240 amp hour lithium battery that's tucked in behind this drawer, which is why this drawer is slightly shorter in length than this one. Now, we've gone with the RedVision. We've got the full TVMS system linked up with a 2000 watt RedArc inverter and then outlets absolutely everywhere. So, come around this side and I'll run you through it. Here it is. Let's throw some light on the situation. We've got the RedArc RedVision system. It is the TVMS. So, this is the RedVision control panel. You can turn the light on up here. I've got nice strip lighting inside the canopy, on the doors, all fully dimmable depending how much light you want. And then, of course, I can flick it to orange, all dimmable. For those of you guys that don't know, the orange light, the bugs aren't attracted to it. And I gave it a fair run at Strati and let me tell you, I'm very impressed. I'll be using the orange light. I've never had it before, but I was absolutely stoked. So, we'll go back to white so you guys can see. So, from here, I can basically control a lot of the components throughout the canopy. I do have this app on my phone as well. So, I pull the app up and I can control the whole canopy. Sometimes I leave the lights and bits and pieces turned on. When I'm in bed at nighttime, jump on the app, turn them off. But from here, I can turn my water pump on, which charges up the water pump. You haven't seen that yet. We'll show you that in a minute. I can turn all my rear lights on. I can turn my inverter on and then I can also turn on my oven. You're going to have to wait and see that on the other side. But once I crank all that up, I can flick over and I can see exactly what the whole system's doing. So, the main reason for the Red Vision is basically it's just a full management system. So, right now with everything wound on, I can see I'm using 6.8 amps. I can see how much is coming out. I can see how much is coming in. I do have a massive amount of solar. We'll show you that very shortly when we get up on top. At the moment, it is literally raining and full cloud coverage. So, I don't have anything coming in on the solar. But when the solar is in some nice sunlight, I can see how much solar is coming in, how much is going out. I'll do a full video on the 12-volt so I can go in depth. Otherwise, I could sit here and talk about this for about an hour. With the way we set up canopies these days, we use more power than we ever have before when it comes to camping. When you run the amount of appliances that I've got pumped into this thing, I need that extra power, which is why we've got that huge battery. It's no good having all that battery storage if you can't jam the power into it. So, that's why we've got the big solar up on top when we're sitting still. But when we're driving, I wanted to put a little bit more power in. So, the Manager30 will do 30 amps per hour into the battery system running off the alternator. Now, look, that's probably not quite enough with the amount of battery storage I've got here. So, we actually grabbed one of the BCDC50. It's the BCDC1250D is what it's called. I'm just reading off the sticker. But it's the 50 amp hour BCDC charger. So, we've managed to link the 30 and the 50, which gives me a whopping 80 amp hours of charge straight out of the alternator into this system, into the big 240 amp hour battery. So, a good three hours of driving and this system will be topped right back up. Pretty bloody impressive. I don't know too many people that may have done this. A lot of people just run the management systems. But let me tell you, it charges that bloody quickly. Having that 80 amps pump in there, it's bloody unreal. I will be putting a bigger alternator in, probably the 200 amp hour fully sealed. I've got to decide on something next week. But I'm not a big 12-volt guy. I don't know the ins and outs, but I will do a full video on this system. But I thought that was pretty cool to point out. Then we've got outlets absolutely everywhere. I've got a couple of USBs here, SIGs. So, there's another two back there. I've got six USBs, three cigarette plugs, and then off my 240 outlet plug here, when the inverter's on, I've run a separate little power pack to plug in here for all my drones and bits and pieces. It's a little bit of overkill, but for the amount of camera gear we're going to be using next year, I'm going to need it. Then there's not a lot else going on on this side of the canopy. So, let's jump over. Let's check out the kitchen. All right, let's go. This is the side I'm excited to show you off. We spent plenty of time designing this. There's a couple of firsts that Dave's never done before from Boss, and I'm absolutely stoked. Keep in mind, I came from 76, where we had three drawers and one 50-litre slide-out fridge with a table underneath it. That was it. That was the setup. This is just a whole other world for me. All right, I'll stop dribbling. Let's go. All right, here she is. Have a bloody go at this. There's going to be a couple of things that catch your eye straight away. We have gone a little bit fancy, but at the same time, remember, this is my home. I don't own a home. We've got a van and we've got a car, and this is what we're going to be living out of. So, I'll run you through it, but straight up, we've got the Dometic. We've got the massive 110-litre upright fridge. Now, I've always had chest freezers. A couple of my mates have got these upright fridges, and I just absolutely love them. Simple and easy. I do have a few bits and pieces in here. Don't worry about that, but up top, I've got a nice little freezer. I've got a couple of apple pies. I've got a couple of party pies, a little bit of ice cream tucked up in there. Everything's super accessible with these upright fridges. You're fine with your chest freezers. You pull everything out to grab the snags from down the bottom. So, I absolutely love that. Tucked away on the left-hand side here, we've got a couple of handy outlets. I've got an iPhone cord sitting here. So, if I want to charge anything in this little side, we can. I've got a chopping board tucked in here. Basically, one of my followers, I'm very sorry, I've forgotten her name, gave me this a couple of years ago, and it just so happened to be the exact perfect spot. So, shout out to you. Righto, here we go. I gave Dave a bit of a challenge, and I said, I want to fit a travel buddy, and I just wanted a spot for my coffee machine. Now, a lot of you are going to start giving me a fair bit of ---- here in the comments, so go nuts, but I love my morning coffees, and I wanted a slide-out pantry. So, Boss Aluminium has gone to town, and he's come up with this. It's his own design, and it's now going to be available in the Boss Aluminium canopy. So, if you've got a canopy, you can already order one of these, modular one, and you can chuck it in. Get around this thing, would ya? So, nice little table drops down at the front. This is actually extremely handy for everything. And then we've got the coffee machine tucked in here. When I said I wanted a coffee machine, I just wanted a bit of a spot for it. Dave has gone above and beyond. Have a look at this. We've got little pod holders up the top. Yeah, I know, we're getting a little bit fancy now, but it's a full fancy-ass one. We've got the milk frother. I have given it a hiding over at Strati. I didn't know how to use it. It's fancier than the one I've got at home, but basically, the coffee machine's tucked in there. We slide it out, and it reveals the full pantry. So, I've seen someone do this. I think a couple of people have done it, to be honest. It's not reinventing the wheel, but just the way he's configured all this is absolutely awesome. It just makes it so nice and easy to get into all your bits and pieces. Got it loaded up here with cans. Easy access to top up the water, and then I can just fill it with everything we need while we're on the road. We've got the little travel buddy. If you guys have never seen these, basically, it's a 12-volt oven. Absolutely unreal. So, you chuck your party pies in, and then when you pull up at lunch, pull them out hot, ready to go. Party pies is the basic option. There's a few people that go to town on these things. You can put the aluminium trays in there, little rolled porks, pull up at lunch, pulled pork. So, crank it up to 200, chuck it in while you're driving. It's best for battery usage. So, look, that's a brand new setup by Dave. Hats off to him. He's absolutely killed that. Now, when we come over to here, I've got a nice slide out table, once again, and then a massive pull-out drawer. So, this is all my kitchen side. So, I've got the fridge. I've got all my cooking pots and pans, my alfoil, all those sorts of things gets tucked away in here. So, it gives me a nice little prepping bench here. Everything's at a pretty reasonable height as well, and when I've got those internal controls on the bags, when we pull up to camp, I'll actually be able to drop all the psi out of the bags, which will probably lower this another inch. So, perfect height. This is pretty bloody cool. This is from the Bush Company. This was when we were up there getting the rooftop tent and awning fitted. I've seen this, and I actually used to have another shelf in here, which, once again, is the best thing about the Boss aluminium gear, is everything's modular. So, you might have a cool setup, and then you want to change it down the track. It's simple and easy to do. So, four bolts. I pulled out the shelf I had in here, and this full canvas cutlery kit fit absolutely perfect. So, this thing will sit here nice and zipped up. The best thing I like about this is, when we're traveling in the van, predominantly, we're going to be living out of the van. When we disconnect, I'll be able to pull this forward, unzip it, and you get all your coffee cups, all glass as well. Good quality gear tucked in up on top here. You've got your full glasses at the bottom, and then all around the outside, you've got your knives, your forks, your spoons, you've got all your bowls. Small plates are tucked in down the bottom, and your big plates are tucked in up on top here. So, everything's got a spot, everything's got a home, nothing bangs around and rattles, and it's all where you want it when you need it. Little chopping board tucked down in the side, and then I just keep little bits and tongs and bits and pieces. I'll neaten it all up, but this is just something we trialed at Strati. Absolutely loved it. Lighting, once again, inside on the canopy, all dimmable again. I've tried to keep it pretty simple, pretty clean. I don't want to have lots of ---- stacked up and it be a mess. For living on the road next year, I want everything to have a home, which is why we've got good quality storage, plenty of fridge space, the pantry, and then we've got a massive drawer around the back, and that's where I actually put my cooker most of the time when I'm prepping here. So, we'll go have a quick look at that. I'm getting carried away. I'll show you these drawers before we get to the back. Here's the gravity-fed tap, nice and simple. I can put a little hose on that, but to be honest, that's perfect for cups, pots and pans, and then he's got a simple water gauge here. So, all it is is a clear bit of pipe from top to bottom of the tank, and it allows you to see that water level. The water level for the tank underneath is all in the Red Vision, and it tells me exactly how much is left. So, the top tank's sort of your basic gravity-fed, simple, and the bottom one's the more complicated with the pump and the filler being on the Red Vision. I get another light tucked in, flush mounted on the headboard here as well, and we'll get into the drawers. So, this front drawer, I've actually basically got a few sandbags. I've got three different first aid kits, and I've got a few ropes and bits and pieces. So, once again, just that cheap storage stuff. I don't have to worry about it because this front box isn't fully lockable, but lots of storage. Go around to the back box here. This is where we've tucked away the Dual ARB Compressor, absolute monster, and the way he's done this box is absolutely zero wasted space. So, they've sort of notched it around the exhaust, so it sneaks through there. Nice little shelf up on top, little picnic blanket tucked in here, all carpeted. The quality, the way it's finished off is just absolutely amazing. I've got a couple of extra plumbed fittings to go, so I'll have an air outlet here and on the back of the truck, but you can see as we go around the thought and just the practicality and the quality of Boss Aluminium, it's bloody second to none. When I went down and I went through and seen all the different canopy setups and layouts there, it was a bit of a no-brainer. Simple locks. There's a few different ones on the market. These things, obviously, all the door seals are fully waterproof, dustproof. We went through a heap of water. As you can see, there was sand everywhere over on Straddy for nine days. There's no sand inside here, except for what we've chucked in there with that picnic blanket. Let's go check out the rear of this thing. First off, it just looks absolutely bloody gorgeous, in my opinion. What a good-looking rear end. So, we got the two 35-inch tyres on the back here, and it is an extremely simple system to get them up there. I have had to put these tyres up there, so it's a matter of unscrewing that. You've got a pin in behind there. This rod comes out, tyres come off quite nice and easy. All fully lockable, of course. In the middle, we've got a nice ladder, which comes in extremely handy for the rooftop tent. So, we've got a couple of good quality latches. The ladder comes down, giving us good access either up onto the roof or, like myself, I got the rooftop tent up there, which makes it super easy. We'll leave that for the moment. I just want to show you this rear trundle drawer. Have a go at the size of this thing. Keep in mind, we do have a 70-litre water tank in front of this. So, once again, nice and simple. We got a huge, big chopping board here. It slides back and forth, so we have easy access, and then it's fully removable as well. So, you know, I've looked at different ones. Some people have gas struts on them in bits and pieces, but for me, I found this is simple and easy. So, I normally have the food prep over here. I have the gas barbecue here. The big 270 awning comes around, so I've got full protection from the elements. Simple, one hinge. It's all the little things. The number plate's tucked up here nicely. Your number plate light comes down onto there. I've got a massive, big LED reverse light when I go into reverse, which comes in super handy. Nice lights. And then here's my other Brown Davis filler, which is actually at the back of the car, which has been super easy to fill up. So, that's the rear entry. So, tucked away nice and neat, up out of the way where it can't get broken, is the water pump that comes off of that tank. Now, you get a little hose outlet here. I've gone and put in something a little bit extra just for my easy use, which, to be honest, came in that bloody handy. So, that's my pressurized pump. I've just thrown a stainless hose on it. I've run it across to the other side. Come have a look. So, keeping with simple and easy, I may change this setup. I threw it on just for strutty, but basically, I can pull out my stainless hose here. When the water pump's turned on, I got plenty of water. Now, I've got that pressure wound down as much as I can, so I don't use too much water. Stops Jess from smashing through that 70 litres too quick. But that's just a handy little attachment that I've chucked in there, which just sits in that little hole back there. I'm sure Boss has got a cleaner solution, but having that pressurized water right here in the kitchen side has been absolutely unreal. Another couple of things that I've just picked up on the back here, I do have two more of those side lights, which pivot, spin around. Great for finding camp when you're setting up all those sorts of things. And then, of course, when you're cooking, they throw bucket loads of light at night time. Look, we've got to be getting close to the end of this tray and canopy. I know I've been dribbling for a while, but we spent a lot of time, a lot of energy in this. Let me know what you guys think. Let me know if you'd do something different. This is sort of designed specifically for my touring setup next year and what I want to do on the road. So we'll see how it goes. And the best thing is, if I want to chop and change, if I want more room on that side, I may pull a whole drawer and shelving section out. So I've just got a huge, big open area. I just love that it's modular because as you grow and expand with camping, you're always going to change your setup. So since it is bloody raining, we should have done this from the start. Let's put the awning out. Now on the 76, I went with the 270 XT awning. This is the 270 XT Max. You'll understand in a minute. Why do I bring the rain everywhere I go with me? So this flicks around here. This is going to be a quick tutorial, but I've just put a carabiner on the end here. Run around. I put a sneaky little eyelet on this side. Then this side here slides out just like the standard 270. Around the back, another simple eyelet. Tension that up. Fully freestanding. Have a go at the amount of shade and protection from the rain we have with the new 270 Max. Now look, I'm going to be completely honest with you guys. I love my 270 XT. And when Dean told me he had a bigger one coming, I was a bit iffy. I really like the simplicity of just going around nice and quick and you're done. So the extra step sounds lazy, but I wasn't sure if I was going to really want it if I needed it. But I tell you what, especially right now when it's raining, the normal XT comes across on an angle something like this. So this is a really good feature for anyone that's got the canopies because the poles come out straight. If you've got a canopy door that opens up, it goes up under the awning. It doesn't hit any of the poles. Plenty of clearance. And mate, absolutely massive. Here's another awesome feature about the Max is I can still access my doors while it's raining without getting wet. So look, I wasn't sure if this was going to be a permanent feature. We gave it a run over at Strati for New Year's. It basically piss rained for four days straight. Best thing ever. I'm absolutely stoked. Once again, super strong, all aircraft grade aluminium. I've been running these Bush Company awnings for the last three years now and I didn't think I would want to run anything else but the Max is absolutely mint for what I do anyway. So stoked. I'll just pull this awning back a little bit. We'll pop the Rooftop 10 up and I'll run you through that real quick. We've just pulled that awning around so I can jump up and talk to you about the Rooftop 10. I'm running the Alpha again, the Bush Company Alpha. I had it on the 76. Look, I absolutely love it. I spent a fair bit of time with Dean when he went from the Black Series into this. Gave him my few little bits and pieces of input and I've been running it for the last, I think, 12 months on the 76. Absolutely love it. There was no other 10 on the market that even come close. So we've gone with the Bush Company again. I have got a video on YouTube if you want all the specific details but obviously I've got the rear ladder access. I will use this a fair bit because, you know, you don't have the awning out all the time when it is raining and I want the awning out because you're going to go, how do you get up if you want the awning? You always ask that everyone. I've got the other ladder which is a telescopic ladder that comes out and simply bolts onto this side so I can have that side entry. So I've got two ladders but look, it makes it just that little bit easier. So straight up on the back of the ladder, nice sturdy ladder. This thing's an absolute beast. Up on top here, while we're up here, we might as well run through this before we pop it up. Okay, so I've gone to town with the power. Up here we've got two Red Arc 150 watt solar panels. So I've got a combined total of 300 watts of power which means when I'm sitting on those remote beaches over in WA and SA, we can sit there for pretty much as long as we want. The amount of temperature that these things put in, I haven't tested it yet so I'm not going to throw figures around but stay tuned when I do a full 12 volt video because I want to run you through that whole system and I want to know how much I can get out of these panels. So we'll go through that in detail but absolutely bucket loads of solar up on top. I've got two roof rack rails here. All I need to do is put a couple of the Bush Company feed extensions underneath here to lift these roof racks up. That way I can chuck surfboards and bits and pieces on top of the solar panels, pull the surfboards off when we get to the beach, full solar. So that's one of the best things about the Bush Company. As you can see all the way around the outside here, you've got the nice excursion rails which means he's got all his own brackets, all his own handles, his own ladder mounts, roof racks, he's got MaxTrax holders for the side, shovels, high lift jacks, he's got it all. So let's pop this bad boy up in the rain. Up she goes, nice and easy. Nice little bungee strap that comes around the outside here. So then we've got the massive rain fly. If you've never seen the Alpha, like I said, go check out the full video but I'll just give you guys a quick little look, show you how easy it is. One over this side, tuck that one in there. The other spring pole goes on this side. Get that doggie up here, straight in the hole there. Nice easy access with the ladder. Another thing I like about it is we put the rooftop tent just forward, so I've still got the platform to stand on the back here. Absolutely massive, huge rain fly and you can see why these big rain flies are so important right now when it's raining. Keeps all the internal canvas nice and dry. I won't go into too much detail with the Alpha because I've done it all before but absolutely love these tents. How easy is that for a touring setup? Let's jump down and put the awning out so you can see the whole setup all in one. While we are on the side here, how good does the new wrap look? I went down and see me mate Joel from Five Three Designs, he's absolutely nailed it. We took that old school design from the 76, changed the words around for the Explore Life. Good job mate, it looks ---- hot. Righto, well there we go. Have a look at it. I can't stop smiling. What a bloody epic little setup. Look, I'm over the moon. It's everything that I sort of envisaged, all the little tips and tricks that I've sort of picked up over the years, seeing so many people's different canopies. This is my, hands down, my ultimate tourer. I can't wait to use it next year and I'm sure I'll probably want to change a few things along the way but look guys, let me know if there's anything else that you think I should do. Let me know if there's something that you would have done differently but all in all, absolutely ---- eating grin. I want to say just a massive thank you to all of you guys that have followed along. I really do appreciate it. If you are enjoying it, you know, make sure you subscribe. It means a lot to us. Everyone that gets around the merch, it's you guys over the last five years since we've sort of been building this brand that has allowed us to be able to build something as incredible as this thing behind me. To all my sponsors, a lot of help from the sponsors has gone into this truck. That's no secret guys. You know who the sponsors are by now. I don't think there's too much left to do. I've got a couple of small little bits and pieces but we'll run through them over the next couple of months. We're going to run through plenty of things to do with how we're packing for our big lap of Australia. Stay tuned to find out what we're going to tow around Australia. Now look, I didn't build this thing to sit in the shed. It's not a bloody shopping trolley. This thing is going to do a full lap of Australia. Stay tuned for season four this year. I don't know which way we're going to go. I don't know where we're bloody going to go. It's all kicking off with COVID again but if you guys want to see this thing in action and the full series four, make sure you subscribe, chuck us a like, turn that bell on so you don't miss any uploads. I can't wait to go and use this thing. We've got to finish this van off if we're going to get out of here but until then guys, make sure you guys get out and enjoy the explore life. Thanks very much.