Unimogadventures - Our build and travel thread

[PKDreamers]

Hi Bundjalung Nat park is our favorite camp site we Love it , great walks , swims , rides etc etc. We have been going there for the last 15 years or so.
You camped one camp site down where we normally camp.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Sure is great, we camper in No.8 for the first few days, then moved to No.45. We prefer No.8 if we can get it, best access to the beach

 

[PKDreamers]

Camp site 7 or 8 summer and then 46 if they are taken.
It is also great place to watch fighters do their bombing runs. We would love to be there when they do their live firing when the government can afford the ammo lol lol.

 

[Iain_U1250]

We have decided to make a new awning system for the truck. We have in the past had shade cloth that attaches to the roof bars, a heavy duty tarp for when it's wet. This time we are going to use canvas and something similar to what you get on caravans. This is what we currently have, and it works OK, but shadecloth is not really that good at keeping the heat out, and the tarp is pretty heavy. All up the whole awning and sidewalls should be about 22kg, so about the same as what we carry now, but it should look and work a lot better.


We will also have side walls, that attach via zips. We will have two side walls, that can also attach to the front. The awning will be 4.7m wide across the truck, and 4m away from the truck. We will incorporate some windows into the sidewalls, just normal mesh. The whole thing won't be much use for keeping bugs and flies out, as they will just be able to get in from under the truck.

The awning will attach to the camper via sailtrack. This should make it more waterproof. The best place for me to attach the sailtrack will be to the roof gutter. The gutter is stuck on with Sikaflex 252, and I decided to to the same way with the sailtrack. First was the clean, rough sand and then prime with the Sika-206 G+P primer to the two pack epoxy paint that;s on the gutter. The primer is necessary and works great, not so easy to apply, as you have to do it very quickly when it is hot like it was today. It also runs like water, and can get under the masking tape if it is not stuck down.




Primer goes off in about 10 minutes, and then you have to stick the SIkaflex-252, which is terrible stuff, it goes everywhere, hence the masking tape. .



Once the sailtrack was on, I pulled off the masking tape to prevent it getting stuck in the Sikaflex.



The clamps keep it held in, the are pretty loose in face, as I don't want to squeeze the Sikaflex out, the minimum thickness is 3mm, or the Sikaflex will not be that strong.



As you can see here, Sikaflex and the red outback dust love each other, and it is very difficult to remove. I'll be covering the Sikaflex with some white silicone, that seems to repel the dust not stick to it.

I did add a stainless steel bolt each end of the sailtrack to provide a mechanical lock as well, hopefully they will not be needed, but more of a "just in case"



We have a roll of canvas; 40m of it. We will be able to do all what we want and have quite a bit spare.

This is what we bought. https://www.paskal.com.au/razorback-12-ripstop.html In the light grey colour.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Trish now has to figure out how to make two seams to join three strips of 4m x 2m wide material together with a "Full flat felled seam" like in this video.


We will make a video of it, it's going to be quite an undertaking working with that amount of material.

 

[Joe917]

Instead if silicone you could paint the cured Sikaflex.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Instead if silicone you could paint the cured Sikaflex.

Hi Joe, what paint would you use, the parts where I painted over the Sikaflex all crack as the paint is not as flexible

 

[Joe917]

I have used Interlux polyurethane over 3M5200. I would talk to a paint specialist, look at the marine world.

 

[Jostt]

Amazing the photos Ian, very nice place... Some times I forgot how nice is Australia...

 

[Iain_U1250]

This is the awning as it is today,

It took fair bit of effort, as it is quite big; 3.5m x 5m. We had to move bit of furniture to get it to fit in the lounge and dining room



The double sided "basting tape" worked a treat, holding the seams together.



Getting the large runs of material to fit under the little Singer sewing maching took some figuring



We had to build a runway from all our various camping tables to do the long runs, especially the zips.



And it needed a fair bit of rolling up to fit under the arm of the machine, a proper industrial machine would have made it easier, but the Singer worked and only cost us $199 a couple of years ago.



In the end it worked out great.



Probably the hardest part was the zip for the hatch in the awning so I can still climb up and down the ladder.



We still have to make the sides and the front, hoping they will be a lot easier as they are smaller, but there is a lot of fiddly bits, as we want a door in the front and one side, and mesh windows in all three sides.

It is quite easy to put up, the first time took us about 10 minutes, but we should get faster and doing it on concrete didn't help things either.



We have a few more things to do to this part of the awning, like fitting the clips that will hold the rear corner tight, and the clips on the front bar to hold the front of the awning taught.

All in all, it has turned out pretty good we think.

 

[sAsLEX]

Wow that looks great!

The vortex generators confused me for a bit as I thought they were part of the attachment system for the walls!

 

[Wyuna]

that thing is huge, its going to be a nice retreat on sunny days, awesome work.

Did you build a shed for the Mog?

 

[Iain_U1250]

that thing is huge, its going to be a nice retreat on sunny days, awesome work.

Did you build a shed for the Mog?

That was the plan, we have been in some very hot campgrounds and got tired of using a various tarps and shade cloths to create some shade. This should be a lot better, we will find out how well it works next week when we take it out for it's first real test.

Shed was there before Mog, just needed to make the door a lot bigger, it used to be our photography studio.

 

[Wyuna]

Yeah i noticed you guys like the heat from your travels, it'll make a huge difference from direct sun.


We are the opposite, we love the cold, we are leaving bris for Vic highlands via the snowy today for a month of exploring before we come back and head back to the NT when it cools down.

I find having a shed in brisbane over summer is well worth it, i've lost a few cars due to hail over summer when they haven't been under cover

 

[Iain_U1250]

Just got back from our test trip up to Teewah Beach, and the awning is great.




It went up very easy, it was up 20 minutes after had parked up on our campsite. We made a short video of us putting it up for the first time.



The weather on the first two days was great, but then last on the Tuesday, the wind came up and it started to rain. It got very windy, and wind was blowing straight into the awning, the whole truck was rocking with the stronger gusts, but it held together.




It didn't leak, but the rain was coming in sideways. If we had finished the front and the covers for the windows it would have been better I think. One of the older tentpoles bent a bit, but we had a spare one. I'll get some a couple more new stronger ones. The GroundGrabba screw pegs were great, didn't move one bit.



The normal steel pegs we used on the side didn't work, so I made some loops out of 8mm shock chord and threaded them through the grommets, and used some sand pegs - those worked great, not moving until we had to pack up. I just need to get some more as I only had 10 of them. I also decide to peg them out at an angle, that seemed to help a lot with the wind.

We made a few videos, and will try and make something for our Youtube Channel soon as we got some great footage, both in the dry and in the wet, editing videos together is a pain though, so may take a while. I also have to edit the 300Gb of video we have of making the awning into something short enough not to get boring.



It rained for three days, with the sun coming out on Friday. Then when it was time to pack up, it started to rain again, pretty heavy rain as well.



Taking the sides down was easy, but we had to wait for a break in the rain to take the roof off, and it was pretty heavy.

The awning is now hanging up on our back deck under cover to dry off, and we will have to get rid of the sand before we do some additional work. Mainly to add some wear strips in a few places where the poles and ropes rub. Then we will make the front and the covers for the windows. We are both very happy with the result, but our little Singer sewing machine is half dead, struggling to stitch properly. Maybe we should just bite the bullet and get an industrial one. Probably should have done that to start off with. We still need to make the front, window covers, an new spare wheel cover and a new bag for the back of the truck to take parts of the awning. I also want to make a cover for the windscreen that fits on the roof bars, to shade the whole thing, that will be better than the silver shade inside the truck.

We will make the front so the that sides are at an angle, the seems to work better in the wind. It was a good test this week, we found out all the things we need to do to finish off the awning properly. We have changed the way we want to do the front quite a bit, making a section between the centre poles such that it can be rolled up, or pegged out to shade the entrance. I also need to move one of the clips on the roof bars, to stretch it out a bit more. We also want longer poles, so that there is less load on the thinner section of the pole. Next time we will use both of our ground sheets, as packing up meant that the awning got a bit sandy.




Our video from the trip