Bullfrog ver. 3.0 2001 Ford Excursion

[coastalcop]

So its been a busy couple of weeks, between work and life but I have managed to get some work done on the EX.

8020 extrusion (in my case 2020 metric) is the bomb! However, it will also drive you insane as your mind tries to work through all the permutations of an idea. In my case, I knew the outer dimensions I wanted to stay with and initally built the frames to those dimensions, using two different connection types to test strength rigidity. After I had those "outer" dimensions I started looking at my kit and how to best fit it in the storage. This is where 8020 shines in my opinion. I must have gone rough fitting my stuff (water, cooking, sleep stuff, chairs, recovery gear, etc.) a couple dozen times till I thought I had it "right" .

I still had some spare 1/8 ABS panel pieces (from reskinning a sand rail) and a bit of starboard left. So armed with just enough knowledge to be dangerous, cardboard aided design, and a chop saw I went to work.

I wanted cooking to be recoverable from outside or inside the EX (thats the black square box up top bungied in place. Sleep and screens only accessible from inside, water from outside, and passthrough shelf with lip to keep things in place. Outside flat surface is starboard and the rest of the skinning is scrap ABS. Still need to router all the edges.

 

[coastalcop]

On water delivery, lots of ideas out there, I want to keep mine simple so a quick trip to ACE and a bit tape, a couple of stainless washers to keep the pickup tube grounded, and the valve stem from an old motorcycle innertube and pressurized water !

 

[coastalcop]

Then to additional power. I have a 30 quart fridge mounted in place of my center console, and after looking at all the dimensions ordered an additional 43 quart for the rear (looked at a 53 quart but the opening specs didnt fit right) So with solar on the hood charging the battery, I was looking for a second battery. A search on NAPA found a battery box with screw type power pickups, two 50A anderson plug slots, 2 usb ports, a 12V port and a digital display...... for about 60 bucks that will fit a group 31 deep cycle. Got that fit together and thought to myself "how will I wire this into the system? Initially I was also considering this as a removable camp power source (still might work on a quicker removal system)

When looking at the existing wiring the thought came to me that the wiring is already there in the form of the several 12V cigarette plugs that come stock on the EX. The 12v plug that was in the center console already powers the fridge up front and there are two additional 12v up front and one at the rear of the EX. An experiment was in order, fix up a 12v male plug from the NAPA box and plug it into one of the 12V female plugs on the dash. OK! no magic smoke yet (plug is fused at 5 amps anyway). Fire up the EX and hey the alternator is charging both batteries ! Wait for the sun to come out and hit the solar..... thats charging both batteries too. So far so good. Leave the fridge on all night and take a few voltage readings on both batteries and hey we are pulling from both to keep the fridge running !! Success! Now I have tried running the fridge and an air compressor off the available 12V plugs with it hooked up this way with no issues. We will see when the 2nd fridge gets here.

So now to mount the package, then cage the battery, then access ports for the plugs, then top it off with starboard. Still needs to be routered but strong enough to sit on or use as a table . That covers most of it now.

 

[coastalcop]

I still have to pull it all out, sand the ABS, router the starboard, and locktite all the connections ......... Oh Joy! I will tabulate cost but figure on around $500 for all the boxes with materials and what I can remember I paid for the ABS and starboard .