Dave's 2013 17.56-2 OB

I found the next mod I want/need to do.
The bike carrier doesn't exactly give me the warm and fuzzy feeling.
I'll be looking for a better way to do it, and fit 5 x bikes as well.

We survived the 1st real test, off grid for 3 nights.
Almost went well....
The tank gauges don't work now, could be the offroad tracks...
Rear bike carrier is not to be trusted, do not use this method.
The suction line for the pump draws air when the tanks are low, so the pump needs priming after 10 mins of no use. Wonder if the cheap crappy looking hoses and fitting are the cause...
Looks like I'll be changing the lines out, and moving the filler point etc.
Good bit is the solar. Running the 2 fridges, charging tablets, phones, watching movies at night, plus lights, shower and gas heater. The SOC was fine by 11:30 after the panels got sun about 8:00.
Got to be happy about that.



Oh yer, the gas heater was toasty warm, and quiet compared to the A/C

We went to a private farm near Boonah, a group outing I was lucky enough to be invited to.
Looking at the roads here in sth East QLD yesterday arvo, I imagine every camping type spot was full with the perfect weather we have now.

I've nicked a few great idea's from various folk here.
If your the original owner of each of these idea's, you're most welcome to come and park your van beside mine on a suitable camp site and claim your refreshment.
1st up some towel rails


Next, a towel rail on the door so I can shut it.



Now filling the water tanks, i decided I can't be bothered fussing about with new filler points, but rather sort out what I have. I found suction lines to the pump are kinked from the installation and that s why I draw air into the lies.

I have also found the nose (the front of the van) needs to be up in the air to allow for smooth filling of the back tank with the air escaping out the breather.
And this stolen idea helps to.

Discharge test, ya's recon any good?

The batteries in my van are 4 years old, at least 4 years of use.
As I'm not sure if any good or not, I decided on a half arsed discharge test.
The van is fitted with a pair of 105 amp/hr deep cycle. The not so expensive Jayco preferred types.

The test was batteries fully charged with the new Ctec 25 amp charger, then turned of, panels isolated, and all 12 volt circuits turned on with the fridge running also. The fridge draws 5 amps when running, it was warm when i turned it on and loaded it with 8 litres warm tap water in the fridge and 4 in the freezer for max load.
It is fair to say the fridge was running at least 75% of the time.
I was showing a discharge of either 10.5 amps or 15.5 amps on the display.
After 6 1/2 hours I was bored with it and decided it may as well be a pass.
The start voltage was 13.4
End was 12.4

I am thinking the batteries are OK, well, at the least, good enough for now.

What do ya's recon, would the brain trust agree?

I'm looking at a 3rd battery and thought it be best to check these first.

Thanks Mike, that's a legend of a response. Cheers.
I knew that my test was far short of an accurate test, I failed to wait the 20 mins to check the final voltage but a guess has me about 15 mins after.
Good enough testing will do for now, just gonna go find another battery to match.

Sorry mate, private property.

Some work and social life has gotten in the way of camping sadly.
I (typically) may have rushed into the solar panel set up job on the roof, and set the roof mounted panels to be in series only.
On the last trip I was thinking about it and how I wasn't happy with the set up as it can only ever give a max of 7 amps.
I did what I should have done in the 1st place and that was to follow the wiring and trace it out, sure enough I found the solar panel wiring for the 2 x fixed panels in a cupboard. This access to the 2 x panels seperatly in the van has allowed me to alter the set up to be either series (in times of low light) or parallel (in times of good light).
I made a change over set up with MC4 connectors on the side of a JB. This is to insure no cross connections are possible. The MC4 are on the side and are set to parallel, in behind are the connections for series.



I'll grab a digital volt display to show what the panels are giving so help in deciding which set up is required.
Next, is going to be a bike rack for the front, something I wont be concerned with, just waiting on the delivery.
Another thing I am working on is the lack of GeGee's up front. I was hoping this can be done before the next 2 week school holiday trip we're planning.

Operation "Better Bike Rack" is underway.
The intention is for something to sit up front over the front box which can lift up out of the way to open the bed, sadly, the bikes will need to be of to do this, but that is an easy trade off.
Following many discussions with my personal design department (me sitting in the shed with a beer or 3 pondering who I can use to get me another) I concluded that it was not possible for me to build something from scratch, a quick search on the interwebs found a cheap $271 delivered bike rack for 4 x bikes.
Here are pics from the add


The intention of this is to simply clamp to the 50mm tow ball and your done, of you go.

ONLY A FOOL WOULD TRUST SUCH A THING FOR ANY JOURNEY BEYOND THE PARK AT THE END OF THE STREET.

However, for me, I have plans for it.....
I'll make a frame to hold it over the front of the box, the pivot mechanism will be changed, and some supports to hold the load will be made in the rear of the tool box for it to rest upon. Also, I need to add 1 more bike to it some how.



This next pic shows the front mount assy' where I have pulled it apart to measure up for the method to mount it and pivot forward not down.



And yes, I know, but we'll worry about the ball weight some other time. For now, rest assured, I drive a Landcrusier...... :first:

Sadly, some much needed tinkiering and repairs on the Tug have gotten in the way of the Vans tinkering and worse still, camping trips.
The good ol 105 was over due for some love, so I got stuck into it, in brief.
I got it cheap, needing repairs at a time when we were broke thanks to cancer.
Slowly i have sorted the ol girl out nicely, and am proud to say that what i have done has been done well, the last thing was the rust and paint to deal with.
The rust is always an unknown, so I was able to screw the purchase price down a fair bit when buying it thanks to the rust evident.
I like being ready when I tackle these sorts of jobs, I got a shell of a chassis that was a flooded (fresh water) write off with an intention to cut out what I needed and swap the poverty pack furniture over for the flash GXL.
I got the interior re-design all done and I have been comfy in the ol girl for a while now. But crawling around underneath a short time ago i decided time had come, also i wanted to lose the shell out of the driveway.
Fully expecting the worse, i opened the ol girl up and much to my surprise I found the rust being about 10% of what I was expecting, I need not have bought the shell but it was a good cheap way of scoring the interior.
The biggy was a sill replacement, all 4 layers, long tiresome job drilling out a 1,000 spot welds and re-aligning it all.
Anyway, enough dribble. here's some pics.













With that all done, it was for me to put it all together again. With it finished, well almost, just the interior clean up to be done I'm too scared to drive it now....



Whilst the ol girl was in the paint job, my design and engineering team made a good start on the bike rack..
This pic shows it folded down ready for the 4 x bikes, the blue frame in front of the tool box is what will support most of the weight of the bike frame.



This blurred pic shows the rack up, it is past the locking pin position as it is not yet assembled.



The space below will house the 2 x gas cyl's and reg.



I got to get this all done and dusted this week as we're going away for 10 nights next weekend.
No pressure......

Its been a big job, and slow, but got it done..... almost.

The frame is secured with the 2 x gas cyl's mounted.
Modified bike rack fits on top and pivots forward to lock in an open position. It needs to be open to get to gas cyl's, front box and open the bed.



Next pic sows the bike frame pivoted up and secured so the bed can be opened.



Now with the 4 x bikes.





Pics of the frame.



I made my own U bolts due to the angle of the draw bar and cross members of the frame being to wide for the off the shelf products.



Most of the weight rests upon the near center of the frame when the bikes are on it, here the next pic shows some timber blocks in place, this is the main load bearing point.
The design team drew a blank when contemplating this dilemma of how best to address this 55mm gap so that I can still get into the front storage box with ease.
I decided to put it together, grab a beer or 3 and worry about it tomorrow. Besides, in the game of "last min rush before going away" I've got heaps of time to sort this out...

Whilst I was at it, I happily stole another great idea from these pages.



To the owner of this idea, I'll be in Rainbow Beach next week, so you can come and claim your free beer.....

I completely forgot about making a mount for the jockey wheel, until after the job was done.
A quick trip down to Cheap-n-nasty Auto got me a jockey mount and here it is.



I ran the new back camera cable through, I was able to fish it through the back of the van with the old cable, still made for a fun job on my own. Push an inch, climb down, pull an inch and repeat....

Done,
Finished.
Time to load up and go..
Sweet. :first:

The 1/2 tube is a fixed mount to share the point load from the tubular bike frame bar, an over centre latch is to stop movement.