I finally made some progress on my Pajero!
Some time ago I made a post asking for advice for the road trip I plan on doing in may (thanks for your tips btw).
In the meantime, I had lots of work, leaving me little to no time to prepare the car.
The main point on the to do list was the roof tent.
I was looking at different options including the tents sold on Ebay.
Those were sold by different sellers under different names but looked very similar. Basically they all sell the same cheap chinese crap with a different logo on it (with prices going from 990 to 1600€).
I even considered building one myself, using a normal tent, some boards and hinges.
After a few weeks of searching the internet for all different options (DIY sites, forums, ebay, classifieds) I finally found something interesting. A classified with no photos, no dimensions, no model name, just a misspelled brand name. But it was only 15 minutes away from work, so I went to check it out. It was fitted on defender roof mounts, which were way too wide for my small Pajero, but other than that, it was almost perfect. It’s 5 years old, been used 3 times, and cost me a fraction of the original price. So I strapped it to the roof and took it home.
Now I only have to build a roof rack to make it a bit more usable.
With that out of the way, I concentrated on the steering. While checking all the components, I saw that the used idler arm I installed has a little bit of play, I might put a new one in. The sway bar bushings also need to be replaced. But I also noticed that most of the play I had came from the steering box, and I could fix it with a flathead screwdriver and a wrench. I should have done this a long time before...
The next thing was soundproofing.
Last weekend, despite the efforts of my dog to distract me, I took the time to strip the interior, put on asphalt mats and cell foam to the floor and rear wheel wells, and put everything together except for the rear bench. The rear seats will be replaced by storage compartments. I took it for a spin and it was still really loud inside, so I will try to do the same treatment to the hood and the firewall.
Only 5 weekends left!