Quoi de 9 chez Bel: The 'camper Jeep Cherokee'

Let me introduce you to my new car! A 1997 Jeep Cherokee Limited. 4litres, V8, a little monster! All options: Air con, cruise control, leather seats (great in the sun for getting a burn arse!). Plus, it has double fans which means it shouldn’t overheat (V8 Cherokees main problem).

This car was actually the first and only 4WD that I tried. I fell in love with it strait away. Maybe it was all the comfort. Maybe because it’s a jeep. Maybe because the price was so low (the people selling it were leaving the next day so they had to sell it fast). I don’t know why exactly, but I wanted it. I had to have it! I knew this had to be my car. So I brought it. Without even doing a check up on it. Maybe it was a bit fast. I just crossed my fingers and hoped that it was a good buy.

I named her Puff.

As soon as possible I took the Jeep to the garage (one that my uncle recommended) to get her serviced and checked over.

All was good except for a few leaks in the exhaust and a minor oil leak at the back of the engine. A stop leak product stopped it ok. For the exhaust I had to take her to a specialist.

The owner of the exhaust garage was really nice. He welded up the couple of holes for free. In the end I decided to get the whole muffler changed. Why? Because of the noise. A custom muffler had been put on, and it made a really loud horrible noise. Even worse, it had been put on the wrong way round. Not quite as bad as the noise the van used to make, but not far off. I seem to have a problem with crappy mufflers! I really didn’t want to drive thousands of km with that horrible noise. Anyway, he changed it for me (a good price as well). He also gave me an address to get my boot gas struts changed (very useful to keep the boot open).

That’s all that I had to change on the jeep.

What took longer was turning the jeep into a ‘camper-jeep’.

The first task was to tint the windows. I had been sleeping on the back seats for a couple of days, and it is a really weird feeling knowing that anyone can just look in through one of the windows and see you sleeping.

I brought some black window film and Tony put it on for me. Filming windows is much harder than it seems! He did quite a good job for a first try! Good enough for me anyway! Nobody can see in the back anymore!

Sewing curtains...

Then it was time to make the bed.

I first brought some plastic floor matting, much easier to clean than the cars carpets.

Then in Ikea I brought a low sort of cabinet that you can slide plastic boxes into. This would not only be used as storage, but also for part of the bed to rest on.

After having measured everything carefully, we went to Bunnings (a big DIY store) to get the wood for the bed.

The boys did a great job setting everything up. I was rather complicated because I wanted a system that allows you to put the back seats back up when the bed isn’t in use. After two tries, the bed was made! It is rather near the roof of the car (everybody asks if I hit my head often) and quite short, but it is just perfect for me! Just the right size! I love it!

Of course, I added lots of little pink things! Pink sheets, pink wheel cover, pink windscreen wipers… but only things that can be easily changed later (yes, one day I will have to sell this car).

Doing up the boys Toyota took much longer.

So, during those 3 weeks in Perth we spent most of our time between 3 shops: Bunnings, Ikea and Super Cheap Auto. At least in Bunnings you could get free coffee and in Ikea a hotdog for 1$!

Here is a short video of the jeep being prepared: