Cheers Mic!
I had a brief look at UnUrban's trip at an earlier stage but never really looked at all the gear they have on the truck - It's reassuring that they went fine with pretty much the same setup as us! Cheers mate that's a kind offer, I would love to have done that but I'm down in Hamilton - enjoy Auckland though, plenty to see there; the Orbit restaurant in the Skytower is epic: 360° twice an hour
Kallen, thanks for the details, we are taking wagons for the trip but the concept is similar I guess. A weld-on looks the way to go in that case unless I get a body lift done, what is the least amount needed would you happen to know? Want to minimise the complications a bigger lift block will bring! I actually considered a 3.0 conversion but for the amount of time needed for it, coupled with the cost it'd be easier for us to get a tidy 4.2 and set about preparing it before getting it shipped and rego'd in NZ!
With the GVM upgrade all I could honestly find are kits with stiffer springs and a coil tower brace which boosts your rating to about 3.5T, most of us would be doing this in any case as part of our mods - would that mean we could get a certification plate approving a higher GVM with a well chosen lift kit and chassis reinforcement, or does it need to be a specifically approved kit like the Lovells one?
I hope I'm not overthinking the chassis cracking issue! Saw a couple of threads with some pretty hefty damage that actually made me double-take! chassis' cracked half through and towers snapped off like potato chips - made me question the capability of the Patrol as a hardcore tourer!
Which would you guys reckon is the best option out of the weld-on superior plates, the tower-to-tower Superior Engineering option, or the ATOC option?
We are definitely going to be doing a comprehensive daily blog on a website about it! Hoping to make it as detailed as possible, visas, costs, equipment needed, travel times etc. might make it easier for someone else keen on doing the trip themselves! .....Maybe that's you Kallen?