FG84 Camper Build

[Maninga]

While on holidays, we stayed in Sorrento for the christmas break. Had a great little beach house with extended family staying for most of the time, we all thought it was a great place to get away. While there though, went and visited Michael from Wild Planet Offroad (www.wildplanetoffroad.com.au). I've been talking to Michael for a few years now about campers, designs and ideas.

But this was the first time I'd seen his camper in person, man, there's a lot of thought, design, engineering and work gone into it. Feels like it'll be really comfortable for a family to travel around in, had a good sense of space inside. We spent a few hours chatting about how it was going, how he'd gotten to where he's at and what was left to do (which is quite a bit). Sat in his next project, a dual cab MAN that's having the same body installed on it as the single cab he's working on now, and spoke about his future plans for Iveco Daily based campers. Have asked him to start a thread on Portal about his build's and the company.

Couple of pictures I took while there
It's a big truck


Side entrance. Bit awning yet to be installed but embedded into the body. Outbound windows are REALLY nice!!! These'll be first on our shopping list if I ever do another camper (they'd fit within the lifting roof design easily).


Michael talking with Heather in front of the seating. Pass through goes to truck cab, engineered to seat 4 people while driving. Battery/electrics and other storage underneath. He's using Victron gear with their lithium battery packs, is getting support/consulting directly from them.


Rear view looking at where the bed, bathroom (left) and kitchen will be. Roof hasn't yet been glued in, lots of wiring still to go in


All very interesting, looking forward to seeing the end product

 

[Maninga]

Have to love a long weekend, finally getting some more time work on the truck.

Spent the morning getting the truck started again. It's been sitting idle for way too long, I forgot to turn off the actuator control box which drained the battery a bit more than I thought. Still had some charge, but not enough to start it and wouldn't hold a charge again. Would be nice to move it again, both to move the tyres around a bit and move it somewhere a little more out of the way.

Old batteries. Quite a bit of corrosion/sulfur on them


New bigger battery. Still need to secure it in


Bit more messing around, started up again which I was happy with.

Picked up the new fuel tank and grey water tank too. Will need to get some brackets made up to secure them in, but dry fitted the water tank without any problems. Now the truck's running, will take it up to the fabricator to get them made up (photo's to come).

While messing around with stuff, was thinking more of the electrical stuff had to do. Pulled out the solar panels to make sure they worked, pulled out the batteries I bought 2 1/2 years ago (400ah lithium's) and the controller. Found a bit of a mistake though.
I'd picked up a Morningstar TS60 off ebay about 18 months ago. Picked it up as could pick the voltages on it and connect it to a small network I'm planning to put in. Opened it up, no network port, insides look different to the manual. Phone line connector looked a bit weird. Realised I'd been sent the PWM controller rather than MPPT. I'll have to sell this one and pick up something else.
Question now is, stick with Morningstar gear or move to Victron. I've a 1kw inverter ready to go in, but we're likely to be adding more power needs (electric bikes, may run the water heater off electric where I can). Thoughts?

 

[zeke steggall]

Hi What was your thoughts on the MAN trucks, is that dual cab just to big for outback touring? Or just perfect for a family.

 

[Maninga]

It's a big truck, no doubt about that. Height and length would mean it couldn't go down some tracks very easily and cut off some trails, but given where tour buses and semi's go there's plenty of places it would make. For a family though, it'd make for very comfortable touring (it was built to seat and sleep 6 from memory).

Comes back to a compromise between space, comfort, off road ability and how/where you want to travel to. It wouldn't be the right truck for me, there's some 3m bridges in places I tend to go, but it would have no issues with most places I've been and it'd be way more comfortable than some of the hotels Ive stayed in.

 

[zeke steggall]

It's a big truck, no doubt about that. Height and length would mean it couldn't go down some tracks very easily and cut off some trails, but given where tour buses and semi's go there's plenty of places it would make. For a family though, it'd make for very comfortable touring (it was built to seat and sleep 6 from memory).

Comes back to a compromise between space, comfort, off road ability and how/where you want to travel to. It wouldn't be the right truck for me, there's some 3m bridges in places I tend to go, but it would have no issues with most places I've been and it'd be way more comfortable than some of the hotels Ive stayed in.

Thanks

 

[Anton2k3]

Hi Maninga,

I'm looking at Lifepo4 setup at the moment. Can you share you system plan? BMS make, high and low voltage cut off, alternator charging etc. What components are you planning to use?

I love the outbound windows. We're using those on out upcoming build, they look amazing.

 

[Maninga]

Wow, I didn't quite realise it's been 8 months since last posting on my thread. I can tell that lots been happening in the background, some to do with the camper, some not so much.

I don't have access to my photo's at the moment, so this will be just a wall of text until I can find/take some new ones of what have been up to. To bring things up to date

- Bathroom has new rolling base for the toilet, toilet rolls, cleaning gear, shower head mounted on the ceiling, concertina door to cover the entry.
- Overhead cabinets are done, but during a dry run of the install decided not to use them. Because my ceiling's so high, upper cabinets had to be really tall to make any use of them and it makes the whole space feel claustrophobic. I'll be running redgum pieces with lights inside instead.
- Plumbing's done inside
- There was a 3mm lip on the roof where panels have been joined, the aluminium extrusion would hold quite a bit of water during a storm and surge over the truck cab when reversing. Took some 3mm composite sheet up and glued it to the roof, problem gone.
- I build the form for a tropical roof using the same composite sheet with supports and such. My shed's a bit small, so I was building it outside in carport. Wild storm comes through, strong winds, the clamps holding it down let go and it ends up a twisted mess. Remake it, something else goes wrong and I'm looking at building it for a third time. But I'm getting ready for the electrical by that stage, pull out the batteries to get the controller charging from solar panels and realise they're crap. The panels I picked up a few years ago are giving me maybe 30-50% of their rated watts. The 1kw of panels won't give me what I want, replacing them with new LG panels instead and scrapping the idea of a tropical roof (well, mostly, I'll see how it goes when the new panels go up).
- The quote for external storage boxes came in rather high, decided to build them out of marine ply and fiberglass instead. Ran some destructive tests, it should hold up to what I'm expecting them to see. Have the basic form and glass work done, just need to finish them off and install. Though that's not going to change.
- Support for water filler to tanks is in. Breathing tubes made from a couple of 1 way John Guest fittings, all stored inside the rear cargo area. Works well I think.

Couple more projects under way, but after the work to date we've had a change of plans in how we're planning to use it and what we're doing with the truck.

For those that know well me offline, about 7 years ago I had a wisdom tooth extraction done that landed me in ER 3 days later and set of a series of health issues which just won't seem to go away. Whatever it is, to date doctors and specialists haven't been able to figure it out to date and natural therapies will treat a component but not exactly what it is or how to fix it all. At the moment, having trouble going away for more than a few weeks, the 2 year trip we had in mind just can't happen at present. So we're moving to the next thing on our list.

We've just bought a farm in Tasmania. Will be setting up an organic blueberry, garlic and avocado farm over the next few years (well, planting out over the next year, waiting for the next few years for it to mature). Found a place where most of the prep work has already been done for us, it's now up to plant it out and not mess it up too badly. I've been talking/wanting to do this for quite a while, we were to do it after the trip but bought plans forward instead and came across, for us, the right place at a good price and a boss that's amenable to me working remotely for the next few years while things establish. Current house is on the market, contracts exchanged for the place in Tassy, figure on moving early next year.



This means some changes to the truck. At present, the living cab is spring mounted to the chassis. That's coming off, I'll be getting a new tray and subframe built so we've a multi-use farm truck and making the body into a slide on (for the price of a new hilux or ford ranger, we can afford 2 used road cars we want and the conversion). The remaining changes we've in mind for the truck to make it easier for living in will still go on (new seats, towbar, install the winches, fuel tanks etc), but means we'll avoid the current problems we're having with the vehicle due to lack of use.

 

[ebbs]

Sorry to hear about your health troubles, I really like your build... I'm bookmarking it, and hope to pick your brain when I'm at the point of construction. Hope you feel better soon

 

[Donegal Overlanding]

Any updates on the build? We are doing a similar solid walled design but to a much smaller scale using a Land Rover Discovery 1 thats been single cabbed and its all going to be built on a Defender 130 chassis. We will be putting together some videos on our youtube channel as we progress.

The principal of your design is pretty much exactly what we want. Reading through all of the details, its quite intimidating really!

 

[WayneRoberts]

Hi David - thanks, we like how it's turned out. Have chatted with Michael about your build a few times, he came away quite energised after seeing how it turned out and be really interesting to see the next one.

Have shown your post on the toilet to a couple of skeptics, was reassuring to know it worked well. I used the shower idea from your build, think it's a great way to save water for long showers in the morning. Though I'm planning to use one of these instead of a plug.

View attachment 311671

Any bites on your truck? Are you planning to build another one?

Joe

Hi Joe, great build. I was wondering what the shower water saving idea was that you borrowed from David?

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Maninga]

Well this is quite the thread resurrection. It's been quite a few years since I've looked for more than a few minutes, but starting to come back again.

The farm has been a great lifestyle, but we found after a couple of years I suck at farming. Combination of bad advice, historically mismanaged soil, bad luck and a couple of years where established farmers were having trouble lead me to shut it down as a business, go back to my normal software job. We love living here and it's a great view, but it's more space and work than we want. Not really the type of place to lock up and leave, think it'd return to nature if we did that.

In more positive news, after 12+ years, finally found what the health troubles were and how to treat it. Off-the-shelf meds worked wonders, finally getting a life back and haven't had any major issues for 18 months, such a relief.

I've still got the truck, though it's been parked for the last couple of years unused and unloved. We used it initially on an occasional basis, then as a tow vehicle, I'd planned on using it as a farm truck and converting the living quarters to slide on, but quotes for the tray and mounting platform to load it back on were basically a new vehicle so bought a DMax instead.
We opened the camper back up again a month or two back, started cleaning it out, found the cabinetry hasn't held up to the humidity, started warping and developing issues with mold. It's got to come out, get an update, for which we've started pulling stuff out.

Which leads us to now. Once we sell the farm we shouldn't need to work any longer. An investment property will keep us in the market, remaining funds will allow us to travel for around 10 years if we're careful. At a crossroads with the camper build then, do we keep it or move to something bigger.

Pros for the Canter is we've got it, can be made more comfortable, an interior refresh won't be too bad. Cons, it's a manual which the wife can't drive, more work's needed on comfort while driving, and it's a little small for us and the dog.
As an alternative, I like the look of a 6x4 Mercedes Actros. It'd give the living space to make life more comfortable, it's automatic with a sleeper section, though I'm not sure if it's too big and whether 6x4 is a good option for touring.

For those who've made it this far. When touring, how often do you use 4wd? And do you think a 6x4 with diff locks would work in most situations? We're not chasing tough tracks, but fully expect a little mud/sand/washboards/water along the way with spare vehicle for where we don't take our house.

 

[Maninga]

Our new direction. New thread to come in a few months time

1997 MAN 18.220



Parked at Unidan getting Hutchinsons test fitted