my grey 80

[Jon Wildsmith]

Where's the en-suite??

Haven't had time to try that yet, all looks simple enough though It's quite compact when folded so I do have space in the boot for it but I've got it on top of the tent in a long strip at the moment as an experiment. The cover size is very generous, almost like they expected other stuff to get laid on top of the tent

A tip APB gave me that helps it to turn the corners up to do the zip
[attachment=1:28knnhpq]IMAG1145.jpg[/attachment:28knnhpq]
The two ladders can be joined but as the ladders are one of the things I need to put on the roof it doesn't really work for packing the tent.
[attachment=0:28knnhpq]IMAG1153.jpg[/attachment:28knnhpq]
The ladders have slide out extensions built into the bottom so no extra bits to add if they are not long enough. The two halves of the ladder are a push fit though as supplied by Nene, so you'd have to be careful when opening and closing the tent that you don't pull the ladder bottom off! APB drilled them and fitted some cotter pins for me. It's an extra thing to fiddle with but worth it.

 

[Graham]

Where's the en-suite??

.


Oh that made me laugh

Gra.

 

[Andrew Brierley]

Spoke to the fabricator, and he reckoned about 250 squids!! Mostly to do with the time taken to fiddle about - which I'm sure you experienced building your own. I could go back to the one from Direct4x4 that I returned and the fabricator will make the adjustments, but by the time he has corrected it, and also added a bolt-through bar, I going to be north of 200 squids anyway

How difficult can it be to get a rear door ladder?????????????????????????????????????????

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

That doesn't seem an unreasonable price to me for the work involved if the quality of work is good. If someone was selling them at that price I would have bought one rather than make one. He might make it in a day because he's skilled, a less skilled person might take 2 days but charge the same, it's more about the value of the end product than the time taken to make it IMO.

 

[Chris]

As well as turning up the corners Jon, I found that using micro bungees (B&Q) to pull the sides of the folded tent up, kept them out of the zipway. I use the eyelets in the tent as natural places to hook the bungees into. I kept nipping the fabric in the zip.

Chris

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I haven't had any problems so far with the sides hanging down or anything getting in the way of the zip but I'll keep that in mind thanks. There are internal bungees that pull the sides of the tent in quite well as it folds over and the cover is a generous size so there's no strain on the zip, just the tight turn it goes through on the corners to overcome.

 

[Chris]

Yes mine has those too Jon. But it's the rain skirt flap hem bit that hangs down. Yours is similar design but a different tent so you may not have that. But mine does and repeated trapping was clearly going to lead to tears in the fabric and busted zips.

Chris

 

[Andrew Brierley]

That doesn't seem an unreasonable price to me for the work involved if the quality of work is good. If someone was selling them at that price I would have bought one rather than make one. He might make it in a day because he's skilled, a less skilled person might take 2 days but charge the same, it's more about the value of the end product than the time taken to make it IMO.

Agreed

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

Returned from an 18 day camping trip to southern Italy last night, tent was great and the ladder made putting it up and down really easy. We didn't always put the bottom of the tent on but when we did it provided a useful private space. Foxwing was handy for shade. The 80 was faultless, just had to keep putting fuel in it every now and again
[attachment=1:2nc8a9i3]IMG_2864.JPG[/attachment:2nc8a9i3]
[attachment=0:2nc8a9i3]IMG_2894.JPG[/attachment:2nc8a9i3]
Fuel in Italy is quite expensive, seemed to average about 1.86, glad we were able to brim both tanks with cheaper French diesel (1.35) before heading down through Italy and got almost all the way back to Pisa before I had to put 83l of the expensive stuff in to make it back into France.

 

[AndyCook]

Good trip then?

did the family enjoy the overland travel and camping with the 80? next step taking them on some easy offroading

great to hear the 80 managed trip with no issues

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

Great trip, but it only worked with the tent because it was warm and facilities were good, they wouldn't like the tent in colder wet places but we have a caravan for that No 4x4'ing involved, except using low range for access to our pitch on a site south west of Sorrento, which was about 40 paces from a private beach for a much needed dip in the med to cool down. We booked to take the caravan, glad we turned up with the tent, getting even our small van to the pitch would have been 'interesting'
[attachment=0:10c4anlu]IMAG1227.jpg[/attachment:10c4anlu]Driving on Italian roads is great, much more my style than anywhere else I've tried.

 

[Chris]

Sorry Jon, did you just say that it was for sale?


Chris

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

nope, this one's a keeper, for now

 

[Chris]

Yeah and I've kept mine totally standard.

C

 

[Gary Stockton]

Think you'll find there's already a 'reserved' sticker on it

 

[Graham]

Fuel in Italy is quite expensive, seemed to average about 1.86, glad we were able to brim both tanks with cheaper French diesel (1.35) before heading down through Italy .

.
Hi Jon,
Where did you enter Italy from?
How far south did you go before you realised the country really was run by the mafia

Gra.

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

We went Dover to Calais, Joinville (near Nancy, France), Sempach (near Lucerne, Switzerland), Florence (Italy), then the site south west of Sorrento, near Marina Del Cantone, just south of Naples, is as far south as we went, no sign of the Mafia returned via Pisa, Lyon, Paris, Bayeux, Calais to Dover, just over 3200 miles. Seems cash is king in Italy, not many places were accepting cards especially down south, ended up wishing I'd just taken a big wad of cash, till we were back in France.

 

[Gav Peter]

...ended up wishing I'd just taken a big wad of cash...

Sounds Mafia enough to me Don Juan

 

[Graham]

Hi Jon,
Almost exactly as far as we went.
We entered via Venice, Ancona, Pescara, Cassino, Naples, Amalfi. Naples, Rome, Pisa.
What we noticed around Naples, were the road laybys were seemingly full of houshold refuse.
We were told the mafia run Naples, and there was constant discagreements, this time with refuse collections.

Did you drive along the Amalfi coast?
We were originally heading for Sicily for 2 weeks, but changed our plans, and had extra two weeks in Spain.
Glad your Land Cruiser behaved itself.
We were here for 6 weeks.
Raco de Mar, just 50km south of Barcelona

Gra.

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

We didn't visit Naples, we headed for the hills and just day tripped into civilisation There was no mobile phone signal, a private beach, restaurant etc and lots of sun The little coastal roads from Sorrento to where we stayed were great fun, I especially liked the 'give way to overtaking traffic' signs, they should have those over here