Gold Hound

We are really starting to get comfortable with our Zed's Here is a photo taken on day 8 of our last 2 week trip. We will be adding a vid of our last mission to our youtube channel soon.

We have to have it right as we live out of the car and rely on it to keep our fridge, freezer, detector battery's, lighting and heaps of other stuff running for extended stays that last months. Nothing worse than coming back to your car and your freezers thawed, your fridge is hot and ya car wont start! And to top it off ya cant roll start it because your on a flat! Stuff up like that could kill you in the areas we go to.

Bit of a Jonny Cash fan myself might put a but of cash in the next vid mate

Just try not to mix it with Viagra.............. or we'll have to scrape you off the ceiling!

Thanks Guys I thought that Australia was the only place black opal came from. Yours looks very similar to ours I'll dig up some photos of opal and Sapphire I have mined. Here is the last parcel I sent they are all over 1ct there is just over 1000ct cut in the picture. The container is a larger ceramic baking tray to give you an idea of scale, over $200,000 in the photo. I got $14000 alone for the 6ct gold one just down from the top left. Cant find my opal photos at the moment.

Mine worked fine for my CTX since its release, I've never had any issues. But I'm running 3x 120ah deep cycle battery's in my car + the cranking battery. And the ZED charger hasn't given me any problems yet. It must have something to do with an in-adequate power supply, every one who has this issue seems to have smaller battery's in their car. Inverters do use extra power but its not over the top, if the inverter is draining your battery it is definitely inadequate. I would consider getting a decent sized deep cycle battery and a charging regulator. If you are charging off your cars starting battery it is not ideal for prolonged power draw, as its a cranking battery. Its not the minelab charger, in all of the other cases I have seen I identified the cranking battery inadequacy as the culprit.

I didn't think you guys got opal over there. Does your opal have color play like ours does? I've found some nice opal in the desert here in aus, we get black opal and crystal opal and yowah nuts. Do you guys get Ruby and Sapphire as well? I used to mine sapphire for a while, found heaps of nice ones getting a parcel cut at the moment.

Maynard is the best!!!!!!!!!!!

Come on Paul Crank it up! Get a bit of youth anti establishment culture in to ya! If Tool and A Perfect Circle don't get ya detecting arm swinging nothing will

IN GOLD WE TRUST

I've been hammering any minelab guys that I meet for years with that info and 100's of other suggestions that I have to improve their detectors. Ya never know, I'm planting seeds at every opportunity I get.

The best all-round oil for the tdi would be a smaller one like 11in mono as it is not as sensitive to small gold nuggets as a gpx5000. All detectors have different coils that are best in all-round performance you need to learn about your machine. If you are using it for treasure in europe I would consider a larger coil like the 18 x 15in sef. A larger dd coil on a pulse induction detector is deadly on hammered coins and large deep items in europe.

Its a pity they never made a 14in mono coil for the GPX, I'd have bought one straight away as the 14in is the best all round coil for the 5k.

Hi Steve I run the 18in SEF DD as my standard coil for treasure hunting in Europe on my GPX4800. Its a good stable coil that punches deeper than a standard dd, perfect for anything from a single small hammered coin up to large deep items or a cache. Its been flogged and never developed any touch sensitivity. Detech is based in Bulgaria so its probably better to buy direct than import from Aus. The sef were also my go to coils when I used the etrack. A mate runs a few of the mono's on the 5k and swears by them.

Its not that it wont pull the weight its the handling and stopping is adversly affected once you go over the tonne. Im not talking about in a road towing situation, I'm talking about on rough bush tracks.

Thanks Steve. They do appear to be the same chassis. That no camping rule must suck! I never listern to what the stupid government says when it comes to stupid laws like that. I had the cops try bother and move me on when I stopped on the side of the road in between country towns on a long commute between Sydney and the central Australian desert. I just said that I got sleepy all of a sudden. Then asked if I should drive when I was at high risk of falling asleep at the wheel? They said that I should not! Then they just left me alone as they have a duty of care.

We call an interesting rock an F.L.R. (funny looking rock) my wife and I have collected FLR's for years last time when we moved house they were a real headache to pack and move I reckon there is 3 tonne of them. My favorite's are rocks that are close to a perfect sphere they are very rare. But we will collect any that look like somthing too or mineral specimens.

Hi Steve I think your 4runner is the same as what we aussies call a hilux but yours is a sedan and ours is a utility. I run a 2004 model hilux as my prospecting rig, and its served me well! Like you say its narrow width is handy in some areas, and its chassis flex helps a lot in climbing up rugged hills. They are easily one of the most competent 4x4 available, but they do not tow or carry over 1 tonne very well. Tremain runs a landcruser and it carries the weight a lot better but they are not as capable as the hilux in very rugged terrain or sand. Because we spend so long living out of the car carrying weight is a major priority for us and after seeing how Tremain's cruiser handles the weight I am going to get a diesel cruiser next. I thought that you guys might all use some ford or gm or somthing we don't get over here.

Mate you cannot get a better 4x4 for prospecting than a toyota Land cruiser diesel. What is the most common/best 4x4 used in Yankee land? Ive seen some pretty cool looking Yankee riggs on the tv.

I heard that the later model hilux's have a common problem with the fuel pump that is easily rectified with an aftermarket job, may be you should look into it Vic.

My next car is goig to be a tubo cruiser as they carry the heavy load's that we constantly carry a lot better but the hilux has been very good to me! You might be interesed to know that I get all of my spare parts from Don Kyat 4x4 spares. They are MUCH cheaper than any other spare part company and go out of their way to help you. Like express couriering parts to you in remote contry towns. And their parts are all top quality. Example for $35aud I can buy a sevice kit that has: oil filter, air filter, fuel filter, injector cleaner. You'd be lucky to get the oil filter alone for that at any other part place!

Im running a 2004 hilux diesel VicI've never had any thing break like that and I've done 340 000km now nearly all hard bush driving and corrugated dirt freeway. And it has a constant minimum load of 500kg due to my custom canopy with solar system, fridge, freezer, 300l of diesel 80l petrol, 120l water ect ect, plus all the gear needed for an extended trip so its not unusual to be over 900kg. The ifs has never given me any problems, but I'm a stickler when it comes to maintaining it! For example every 100000km I change all suspension bushes, shocks, springs, wheel bearings front/rear, ball joints, belts, clutch, fluids, ect ect. The only things I've had break on me is 1x rear diff and 1x spigot bearing and clutch and 1 rear wheel bearing. Replacing wear components BEFORE they break is much preferable to replacing them when they break in the middle of farken know where stuck on some steap ass hill! Ive found that if you minus about 30% off the usual life of the componant and replace it at that interval that you will never have many problems. And it is infact cheaper to do this maintenance like I do rather than waiting until it breaks which will oftern be before the usual service life of the part. HILUX un bloody breakable......... Oh yea!

I use 3mm wall thickness 40mm diameter steel tube then I just squash it in a vice until its oval shaped to take the end of the handle, which is a sledge hammet handle 1m long American hickory.

Some pics of my picks made out of 4x4 leafs I usually make about 10 at a time and the lucky few get to own them. I use 1m long hickory handles and the head is 450 long. They are only for real men who need to dig deeeep holes.

I use 4x4 leaf springs. I like ones that came off a jap car like toyota as they use very high quality steel. I get them for free from 4x4 suspension place they have bins of old ones at nearly all of them. They are spring steel so it flexes rather than breaking or breaking the handle. I've never broken one made from 4x4 leafs yet! I make my wife's out of car leafs as its a bit lighter for her to carry. Your picks will be fine until you need to break hard rock then you will notice the jarring I'm talking about. The vibrations up the handle will hurt your hands.