inner tricks

The cabin features all the essential instrumentation, as well as a brilliant roof console, centre console and door pods with speakers.

longer periods or when they’re working. This saw Allan look to remove the LC79’S standard leaf-sprung rear suspension setup and replace it with a trick JMACX Offroad Solutions rear coil-spring conversion, while also upping the GVM to 3900kg. This kit offers a wider rear track to match the 79’s front end, hardened axles, Lovells coil springs, Icon remote-reservoir dampers, and airbags (controlled via an in-cabin setup) for towing. The Cruiser sports a four-inch lift as a result, and rolls on beefy 16x8-inch Allied Wasp wheels shod with Bfgoodrich LT285/75R16 rubber. Allan used to run even bigger 35s but they affected the gearing too much; although, he now says if he did it again he’d just keep the 35s and swap the diff gearing to something more suited to bigger rubber.

Keeping the big rig moving along is a subtly modified 4.5L TDV8 donk that now punches out 160kw and 603Nm. The turbo has been tweaked by Munro Turbochargers, a Unichip Q4 has been fitted, and there’s a two-inch cross-over pipe, with a three-inch stainless steel straight-through exhaust. Allan wasn’t too keen on going crazy with the engine and has been more than happy with the performance delivered from the mods – and the fact the engine (and vehicle itself) is deadeasy to service, no matter where they end up.

“The one thing I do like about having a Toyota is when you’re out in the bush, every mechanic has a Land Cruiser,” Allan said. “They know them inside-out and back to front, so you just pull into any mechanic’s workshop if you have any issues and they’ll just say yeah, yeah, that’s one of those, I have got parts. We’ll have it sorted in half an hour. That’s the best thing with Land Cruisers: every mechanic out there knows what to do and how to do it to fix them quickly.”

Stopping the big rig is an upgraded brake booster with braided lines and slotted rotors up front.

LIVIN’ THE DREAM

WHEN your vehicle is your home you need to make sure it has as many comforts as possible. The cabin has all the essential instrumentation – EGT exhaust gas temp gauge, boost gauge, airbag controls, gauges, etc. – to ensure everything ticks along. Allan has also added a brilliant roof console, centre console and door pods (both from Cruiser Consoles, Qld), with the latter also housing the Alpine sound system’s speakers.

Anyone who’s tried to have a conversation inside a moving LC79 knows how noisy they are, so Allan and Kathy added Dynamat sound deadener throughout to up in-cabin liveability further. Proving Allan’s point that you never stop modifying or changing your tourer, the next tweak is a decent set of seats to replace what he describes as the ‘shit’ stock items.

It’s hard to argue with that: spending most of your life touring in a vehicle (and then spending weeks residing in/ near it) means it needs to be a place you really like. A bit like Allan and Kathy’s life, we reckon, and best summed up by Allan when he described that tipping point that led this adventurous couple to their nomadic, Cruiser-borne life.

“Every time we’d go to a work conference and you’ve got to introduce yourself, people would eventually ask ‘what would you do if you won a million bucks?’, and they’d all answer ‘travel’,” he laughed. “And you sit there and think ‘why do we just say that and we don’t do it?’”

“You should make plans to do it,” he affirmed. “I actually suggested that to Kathy when we talked about the redundancy, and then I turned around and she wasn’t there – she was already packing the bags!”

After chatting to Allan and drooling over his well thoughtout, tough-as LC79 tourer, it’s hard not to start packing the bags ourselves.