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New Australian (OZ) member

lancer

Member
Joined
June 20, 2009
Messages
24
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City, State
Brisbane, State of Queensland, Australia
Year, Model & Trim Level
96 UN XLT Wagon
Hi everyone!
Thanks for the opportunity to join in your forum group.
I am sure I will learn quite a lot about my new vehicle acquistion, a 1996 Explorer UN series, XLT model, SOHC, red in colour.
I turn 70 in July and have been retired since April 2008 after a lifetime of work. Having been a pig farmer. small cropper, brewery and meat factory worker, a builder, a developer, a large cleaning contractor, a Local Government departmental employee and then a Local Government full time politician as a Councillor for the past 17 years.
My wife, Margaret and I have 2 adult sons; we live in a south western suburb of Brisbane, the capitol City of the State of Queensland, Australia.
I have just acquired the Explorer from my life long mate, 'Johnno' Johnston, a retired mechanic, who purchased it along with a Jeep Cherokee at a large Brisbane auction house just on 12 months ago.
He choose to keep the Jeep as it runs on dual fuel, LPG and unleaded petrol (sorry, we do not call it 'gas' in OZ) and is quite financially economical when comparing LPG at 49.5cents per litre to unleaded at 122.5cents per litre.
My 4WD experience goes back some 40 years when I bought a Land Rover Series 2A LWB, a former Defence Department vehicle, which I rebuilt 2 times over the period I owned it. We drove it virtually right around our island continent visiting many very remote Outback locations. Never let me down once.
About 10 years ago I upped the ante and secured a 1981 Ford F100 LWB 4WD, auto drive, Cleveland V8 351, running on dual fuel, LPG and unleaded. A beaut but big truck. It too took us to far off places in Australia and ran reliably as well. I named it 'GRUNT. The name fitted well as it had plenty of it. But now, it is getting tired and more and more in need of more repair and replacement which cats at least $1,000AUD every time it needs work. I now have it for sale.
The F100 has been replaced with the Explorer which offers to my wife and I a different approach to a more comfortable, technologically advanced, smaller 4WD.
It offers us a great deal in creature comforts and travelling opportunities.
Over the years I have engaged in many mechanicl activities yet never trained formally, I did have the chance to gain a great deal of knowledge and experience in many successful vehicle based racing pastimes, namely, karts, using USA Lancer karts, hence my nick name, and McCulloch engines and motor cycle racing. In bikes I prepared and raced dirt short circuit, speedway, road and enduros. I also prepared quite a number of successful long distance enduro bikes. I did all the work myself including perfomance enhancement techniques
I wanted to buy a bike to tour on in retirement, but, my wife said, NO, and that was that. We are getting too old for that stuff she says. So, I compromised. I have rebuilt and prepared a number of VW engines for blokes who are building trikes, so I put to her that I too would like to build a trike for us to tour on, and she said, YES. So amongst other things after 18 months prior to retirement renovating our home and then building a new workshop in the shed, I am ready to start construction after researching everything there is in trike designs for about 2 years.
So for the time being at least the Explorer will be our main touring drive, mostly to the western Queensland regional town of Roma, about 350 miles west of Brisbane, where our eldest son and his family live and work in education. She as a teaching principal in a 2 teacher school with about 45 students in a small main highway hamlet community called Yulebar, some 40 miles east of Roma.
He is in the 'Help Desk' for computerised education using satellites. He covers one of the biggest districts in Queensland with about 40 outback schools which he visits formally only twice a year due to the very long distances to travel. In fact a few can only be reached by air as it takes 3 days to get there and 3 days to get back, for a job that takes about 6 hours. Mostly on dirt roads so if it rain while you are out you stay where you are as the red dirt roads become virtually impassable during rain. They are expecting their 3rd child in December.
Enough for now, thanks for the time. I know I will gain a lot from your collective knowledge in relation to keeping my Explorer alive and well for years to come.

Les Bryant
Brisbane, Australia
AKA - Lancer
 






Well come aboard,and nice to have someone from down under.Hope you take advandage of all great info and tech information on this site,and please tell us more about your off road adventures.
 












Thanks for the welcome.
i am sure I will enjoy the experience of this Forum
Cheers
Les Bryant
Brisbane,Australia.
 






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