Outback IT Service

Two trips to Melbourne later & with the LPG conversion in & working, we are slowly moving ahead. We learn something new every time we take the bus out on the road, from little things like remembering to turn the Bluetooth on the mobile phone, on before driving & off when finishing, right through to the drain that towing the Sierra puts on the power to weight ratio. We’ve struck a few hills that had us unexpectedly crawling up in second gear.

After failing to find any service stations with a compressor capable of delivering the necessary pressure to our tyres of 100 psi cold, I invested in a small but sufficiently powerful compressor, a length of air hose & a package of fittings, & finally got them pumped up properly. When I discovered that the wheel nut socket is a monster 41mm beast with a ¾” shaft, suitable for a rattle gun, the next purchase was a rattle gun & socket set, with a ½” to ¾” adaptor. Still waiting for the adaptor to come in, to see how that lot performs on the wheel nuts!

I continue to receive encouraging responses to the whole Outback IT Service idea, but as we are still selling properties to pay off the debt (3 down & 3 to go), as well as hosting an exchange student from Finland this year, I think we’re still on track for a 2011 escape. The good news is that we both sleep better, are more relaxed & probably healthier when we are on the road. Meanwhile, more test runs. And more thinking about what sort of computer spare parts I would need to be carrying when we do finally head on out for real.

We had the weekend at Majors Creek recently for the Music at the Creek Festival. It was so relaxing to be surrounded by music for 2 whole days. And while there were people getting drunk, I did not hear a single angry word in the whole time that we were there. Lesson learned on this trip: Park the bus where the front windscreen is in the shade & the solar panels are in the sun, not the other way around.

I have had problems with 240V the inverter bringing up an alarm condition, which was eventually traced to a voltage drop when the 12V fridge kicked in. I found an excellent article here on fault-finding for the fridge & then decided to check the batteries. Apart from corrosion on one of the terminals, I was horrified to find that all of the cells in all 4 of the batteries were dry! It took 8 litres of distilled water to top them up. I now have it on mains power to bring them up to fully charged in preparation for a week on the road.

And the bilge blower mentioned in the previous post has been installed & it does a fantastic job of pushing the hot air out of the locker bin. My very grateful thanks to Frank for cutting the exhaust hole in the steel plate floor & helping me to bolt it in.

Meanwhile I got a quote for an eCoShot LPG addition to the diesel engine from Ace Gas in Queanbeyan, with the work to be done when we get back from Melbourne.

Our progress towards setting up this service has been slow & painful. We ran into financial problems & have effectively traded 5 of our properties for the motorhome. And we have also decided that our escape date is probably at least 2 years away. How does 11/11/11 sound?

Meanwhile, there are things to be done. Upgrades to the bus will be an LPG conversion, as mentioned earlier, & the installation of a Webasto heater, which uses diesel very effectively to heat the whole bus. I am also currently working on drilling lots of small holes in the bin locker area adjacent to the fan outlet of the generator, so that the heat produced by running the generator in a closed space has somewhere to go. The best part about doing this is that when it’s running with the bin locker door closed, it’s almost inaudible. Even running it with the bin open recently, it was far quieter than the neighbour’s Whipper Snipper.

Update: I have purchased a bilge blower, a bit like a centrifugal pump that blows air. The idea is that I cut a hole in the floor & bolt the pump outlet over the hole. It apparently pushes out 130 cubic feet per minute – that should be enough to keep the hot air moving out of the bin locker.

I have been spectacularly impressed by a product known as ReImage. According to their “how does it work” information, they analyse a Windows XP installation, figure out the pieces that are missing & plug them in from downloaded files, to produce a working version again. Even machines that have XP so damaged that they will not start can be revistalised by the same process started from a boot CD.

I started my testing of this product on my own laptop (yeah, I know, live dangerously) & it picked up a trojan that have been living with for nearly a year, after it came with the driver set for many of the webcams that I use.

The product also comes with a booster that automatically increases the priority of the task that you are running in the foreground, giving the impression of your machine working faster.

I have asked some pertinent questions relating to how I can use the same process without large downloads, as I expect to be travelling with a severely limited download capability.

If you decide to experiment with this product, please use the referral code r-493035 for a 10% discount & a bonus for me.

We finally collected the rig in late April & took 5 days to drive it home to Canberra. Picture shows Julie christening the BBQ in a park in Narrabri, with the baby 4WD attached via an A-frame, just visible at the back. We are delighted with our purchase & feel honoured that we will be able to make Merv’s dream come true – that the fastidious time & effort, & the attention to detail that he put in, will be appreciated.

Next steps: Iron out the bugs & make the necessary adjustments to make it work for us. And lots of test runs and weekends away. I am also considering having an LP Gas conversion done, to improve the power output & eliminate the black smoke from the exhaust.

Just to put our potential territory in an international perspective:

Take all the US states north & west of Memphis, with a temperature range between Oklahoma & Costa Rica.

Or all of mainland Europe up to & including Poland & Bosnia, with a temperature range between Syria & Djibouti.

Is that a bit scary? Ah, yeah. See for [...]

If you are one of our potential customers, this is what you are likely to see coming down your driveway!

Other links:

The family website.

The property blog.

If you live in the Outback and you have a computer problem, then you’re in the right place. AussieRodney’s “Personal Outback IT Service” will come to you, wherever you are. Local networks, including wireless, and computer repairs are my speciality. Making computers run faster is one of my passions.

This service is expected to start in [...]