It's Home!!!!!
It's been a brilliant last couple of days. Went up last Thursday to Styromax to pick up my truck, finally got to see the finished product in the flesh. I was like a kid in a candy store seeing it, the photos don't do it justice and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Heather came up with me too, it was her first time seeing the Styromax operation and while she was interested in the project, even she got excited seeing it in person. Some glamor photos (all except 2 of mine were out of focus)
Me with Steve and John from Styromax
Truck in its un-natural habitat
Promotional video from them
I spent several hours with them going over the build, the process, all the little stuff and details. The highlights
- As far as they could, outside is thermally decoupled from the inside.
- 3 sets of rubber seals are used to seal the main body from the roof, 1 on the lower step, 1 flexible layer that covers the gap between roof and base, third on top of base the roof rests on.
- Actuators are mounted on sheer rivets (hopefully they'll work), so if one doesn't work it won't tear the box apart
- I found the sense of space inside to be fantastic. It's ~2.2m high inside, the roof is reflective and windows all round make a massive difference.
- The roof lifts up/down. Takes a while, but it's fun to watch.
- Rear storage area is really big. Will make good use of it
After paying the bill now came the nerve racking moment - driving the truck. The only time I'd driven it was 10 minutes over a year ago when buying it and remember, I'd only gotten my truck license specifically for this truck. My only hope was to not stall it or take out a gate/fence. Made it out alright and tentatively made our way through Brisbane traffic. Spent a good night with family.
Friday went and saw Shannon's truck (LeishaShannon). Neat looking truck, lots of tech toys in there and some good ideas I'm going to use in our build. Especially like his pantry and air conditioning. Headed off after to ATW to ask about some parts, rain and traffic were just terrible and took us 3 hours to get 100km. Stayed the night with John (whatcharterboat) and Julie in Noosaville, really nice people and a beautiful area they live in.
Saturday saw us starting off home. Went and saw a project Johns working on with his friend Brad. Talked a lot about each others trucks, including about putting an Allison transmission in mine. Thinking about it some time in the future, though may be a little out of my budget. Headed from there to Toowoomba where grandparents live, they're 93 and haven't seen them in 3 years. Good lunch with them and some relatives before they guided me out to the Newell highway, told me it'd be the best road to get to Canberra.
I have to say, still recovering from that decision. The bumps, the road, in a truck where the suspension was built for the end weight (roughly 2 tonne more than what's on it now), with the standard seating, it wasn't a fun trip. Heather had a pedometer on for most of the drive, registered 100,000 steps over the 3 days driving. Good to see some of the views along the way, but didn't have the time to enjoy it. Made our way over 2 days to Canberra to stay with Owen (SkiFreak) and Sharron. We've both got the same make/model/year truck, though his has the fancy coil suspension, mine's the parabolics. Lots of truck talk was had, true to form Owen was still talking after starting the truck on our way out to leave. It's an art form.
Monday saw us get home. Much smoother ride on the highway and very very glad to get home to our own bed and pillows. I don't think I made it an hour past eating dinner.
Fuel economy for the drive home I thought was pretty good. Even with the wind trap above the spare tyre rack and driving at 100-110 most of the way (it was a "get there as quick as possible run" rather than an economy run), got around 18l/100k's.
Now the fun begins building out the interior. We've a boat building club 10 minutes walk from my work, you rent a space from them, they have the big machines and provide the guidance/expertise around materials, working with fiberglass, working with timber and the occasional helping hand, and a number of other people working on their own projects in a big warehouse space. They've allocated me enough space to fit the truck and some workspace, for the 100/week it's well and truly worth it, especially for the teachings around fiberglass.
(thats a joke by the way)
