Category: car (Page 3 of 3)

And as another working week drew to a close, I found myself spending another two (almost) uninterrupted days of construction time on our sleeping platform.

At the end of the last update I was giving myself a hard time over my inability to decide on the best way to continue with the construction of the platform. In the end I plumped for making the front section of the platform using a “stud work” frame cut from 35mm x 45 mm timber, as opposed to continuing with the technique I’d been using to build the drawer carcass.

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Having got the faff of our Christmas/New Year trip to the UK out the way, I was finally able to make a start on turning the car into a lean, mean camping machine. After lots of humming and harring we finally settled on the plan of sleeping in the car, as opposed to on top of it in a roof tent. Whilst many people seem to go for the roof tent option, we rejected this in the end for a few reasons:

• We both think we’ll feel more secure in the car with our belongings, than on top of the car
• Sleeping in the car will give us much more flexibility when it comes to stealth camping
• Not having a roof tent will be a huge weight saving
• Not having a roof tent will save us money (around £1000?)

And so it was decided!

After spending many hours researching on various forums (expeditionportal, ih8mud, hubb) and even more time mulling things over in my head, an image slowly coalesced of how the interior was going to be transformed. First I would remove the rear seats; next I would build a raised platform on which we’d sleep and that contained storage underneath in the form of 2 large drawers plus various cubby holes. Not exactly a groundbreaking concept, but fairly ambitious given our resources – no tools and only a small apartment to work in!

Removing the seats was straightforward – 8 bolts to undo and they were out! I was surprised to find that the two halves totalled 40kg – quite heavy. Having removed 40kg, I’m aiming to make my platform weigh about the same – we shall see how that goes. With the seats out I was then able to have a good look at the resulting floor plan – lots of ‘levels’ to work around but, luckily, not too many bulges to worry about (other than the wheel arches.)

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Being totally crap with mechanics and general ‘car stuff’ I have given myself the role of being in charge of soft furnishings. Incidentally I will also be in charge of cooking, eating, entertainment, cleaning, washing, chrome polishing and making friends – rather gender stereotypes I know…but there you go…

And so on to curtains. Firstly, what fabric? As Totty is Japanese I decided to go with Japanese material and so trotted off to ‘Fabric Town’ in Nippori. This place is amazing and has lots of shops selling all sorts of material…some shops only exclusively deal with leather, or buttons, or fur, or silks etc. So it was that I eventually decided on this fabric and bought 8 metres of the stuff…1,000 yen a metre (about £5.00 a metre).

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Well we have it! Three months after putting down the deposit we went last Saturday to pick it up. She is utterly amazing; with lots of new shiny bits. We’ve taken her for a couple of trips around the block, at one point accidently going down some very narrow residential streets which was a bit nerve wrecking.

Yesterday we decided that, with only a one month warranty, we should take her for a longer drive so set off to see Fuji-san. I’ve decided that we should take lots of photos of the car in front of iconic Japanese views. At some point we will try getting a picture on the Shibuya crossing; in front of Tokyo Tower; by some cherry blossom; Torii gates….etc

Her name(s) by the way are based around the character Totoro (From the Studio Ghibli animation; My Neighbour Totoro).

Tots, Totty or To chan (which translates as Father even though chan is an affectionate term for girls). I’ve been mostly calling her Totty.

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Our Land Cruiser FJ62 is currently having a few bits and pieces replaced/rebuilt in preparation for the long way home. As Utilitas has only 1 mechanic, we’ve had to be very patient and accept that, in the words of Morrisey, “these things take time“!

Today, we got a little photo update from Ikegaya-san. It’s great to see so many bits and pieces being either replaced or rebuilt.

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In Japan you can’t buy a car unless you have somewhere to park it – the garage literally won’t sell you a car until you complete a form that officially proves you have somewhere to park a car within 2km of your registered home! Whilst that sounded kind of curious to our British ears it makes a lot of sense in Tokyo given the lack of space.

So having committed to our journey, and having decided to buy a car as soon as possible, the next stage was to find somewhere to park said car….

With a bit of help from Clare’s employer we eventually found a spot some 500m from our apartment.

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After various visits to various garages in and around Tokyo looking at various cars, we  eventually found ‘the one’. In our case this was a ’89 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ62G.

What with Japan being the home of the Land Cruiser you’re pretty much spoilt for choice for quality specimens. That said, it did take us a few visits to various shops to find the ‘near’ perfect car for us. I say ‘near’ as our 60 has an automatic transmission when we would’ve preferred manual.

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