LMTV 1078 Camper build concept

[Coachgeo]

Much thanks.

The Striker Plate is just a flat plate with an angled lip sticking out a tad for the latch to slide over then spring out allowing it to tuck behind it till unlocked and drawn out again. If your asking...... is there adjustment on the plate.. yes... I can move it in deeper and will try that... but pretty confident it won't help cause the play of the lock inside the door is in both directions. When I push in on the door to the optimal "closed position" door moves without moving the latch/lock. Im just moving the play between door and latch.

The inner panel is pop riveted on. I'll unscrew the outside of the lock's Philips screws fist to see what I can ... before drilling out the rivets to look in from that side

 

[patoz]

Pop rivets, are you kidding me!

If that lock was installed correctly, it should have nuts on the inside, otherwise anyone could remove it and just open the door. Is your main doors done the same way as this one?

 

[Coachgeo]

Pop rivets, are you kidding me!

If that lock was installed correctly, it should have nuts on the inside, otherwise anyone could remove it and just open the door. Is your main doors done the same way as this one?

the whole inner panel on the door is pop riveted on so I have no clue if there are nuts on the back of the lock for it is installed between inner panel and outer door skin. I'm guessing there is nuts' otherwise like you say... thief could just unscrew the lock off the door..... but I'll find out tomorrow. If philips screws tend to hint at me that there is nuts ... I probably won't fawk with it for awhile. It still locks, just leaks and will rattle when in motion.... But other things prioritize over fixing it right now like the leaks. Plan tomorrow to address that too.

 

[Coachgeo]

sorta solved door issue. The striker plate..... welll.... while there is slots to adjust it in or out..... the recessed spot the plate sits in though... is not large enough to allow to move it. Little finagling I fudged it enough to move the plate. Had to use all the slot that was available to move the plate inward but it shuts tighter for now. Good enough for a rolling tool box. Oh and yeah..... the exposed screws/bolts on the outside around the lock just spin so as suspected they appear to be nutted.

The leak. might have solved. You might recall that the leak is mostly on left side of box and appears to come from behind an interior wall and water collects in cabinet under bench. Found that the upper left large red light (not sure if it is signal / brake/ orr? light) in the back had a compromised seal. The light fixture screws onto the body and there is no large cut in recess like other lights. But along with the screw holes there is a hole behind it where the wires go thru that is just smaller than the size of a quarter. Why so big I do not know. Cut the wires and removed the light.... there is now a quarter siliconed over the hole. Will see if that helps The roof..... there is seems that may be leaking too... but marginally. I have to roof coat a travel trailer to seal it better so I will do ambo at same time later in the summer.

 

[patoz]

Yeah, most of these latches have some type of adjustment, you just have to find it.

If you have Whelen brand lights, they use a 1" hole to pass the wires through so the three pin AMP connector will go through also. Your's may not have the connector and be hard wired, but the hole size is standard.

 

[Coachgeo]

Frustrated... still leaking.

 

[Coachgeo]

ok.... did more silicon work today.... see if it stops it this time. Started with cutting / applying Flex Seal strips around one of the plates the PO added to replace the lights... but was taking too long to do just one of the covers the way I was doing it. Thus resorted back to a quick silicone of everything I could find so I could move on to other projects needed to be done.

Fins on the roof?? No not Fiddler.... Fins. I wondered why the hell there was aerodynamic fins on the flat roof till I saw MOTOROLA.... O shiat..... they must be antenna. One is front center..... second in mid center. Any clue what these are? There is a tablet/lap top mount inside.

There is also a little stubby metal one on rear center.

 

[patoz]

If the little stubby metal one is about 4"- 6" tall, it's a UHF radio antenna. The fin type could be a cellular phone repeater or GPS antenna, but I don't know for sure. Different areas of the country use different types of communication equipment.

 

[Coachgeo]

Front Motorcycle rack thoughts..
https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/front-motorcycle-rack.194346/

 

[Coachgeo]

Back to the future Overland ambo/LMTV truck.

got kitchen parts. See https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/kitchen-kit-chuck-box.21268/post-2500517

 

[Coachgeo]

UPDATE 2 some pics of installed seats before seat covers. Middle seat with baby seat will be removed later.


New Driver


New Passenger


seat upgrade

went sorta cheap on seats though friend making brackets on hourly rate may have pushed the price back up to stupid (on my part). Using used and abused seats out of a 2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse spyder I bought for 50 bucks. Adding 50$ cheapish seat covers and to pilot at gell seat cushion for my skinny ********.

On the driver seat the left side bolster was shot.. saw a video that showed someone expanding foam by heating it with heat gun. though he did it with factory cover off... I knew I was going to put a cheap seat cover over it anyway..... so proceded to try it. did ok... till I looked up for a split second and stopped.. burning a hole in the cover... grrrr.... oh well.... turned lemon into lemonaid.... and stuffed thru the burned hole (white spot in pic) shop rags and tada.... nice shape returns... and since I only ride against it while offroad.... it should be fine.


added more Pic(s)....


. you can see all the hardware cut off the Spyder's seat mounts.

We came up with one mount design..... too tall so scrapped it. Plan B worked better. Much lower. maybe too low.


. Test fit pic


. Heat the shiat out of it (approx 450f EVENLY) then spray with rubberized auto paint like chassis rust coat paint.... this heat and spray process supposedly provides a complete seal that sits on it like one has powder coated it. will see..


. tuff finish once cooled.


. final product before welding to seat's oem slide mechanism

for this to work we had to relocate seat belt retractor attachment from its home on piller so it would not punch the rider in an accident. Used proper bolt hardware equivalent to what was there before. put the retracting pulley on wall below side window. Worked great on driver side. For some reason on passenger side the seat belt is more finicky.... at an angle how it sits it will NOT retract. stays locked. Might swap one off rear wall in its place to see if it acts the same way.

it was lateeeeeeee. didn't get pic after install. duhhh. my bad. Will put on seat covers and get final pics soon with new tan seat covers.

 

[Coachgeo]

added update above to seat stuff. another update in a few weeks when get seat covers on

 

[Coachgeo]

confused yet??? start at #1 in the text move upward thru the updates. pictures are opposite...... start at last and work forward. PS this is probably last pics and vids of rear axle in THIS post. think pics are limited to 10 per post... and we are there now

Update 4. (3 pics) started reassembly of the now modified Intermediate/Center axle. Prepped and Installed the hubs and brake end on both sides (first two pics in this update).... and then same with Power Divider (last pic... video coming soon). All went masterfully well with the skillful use of a forklift. Chris kicked ass in nuding things in place. pics below.

video... short and sweet..... but think you get the point


Update 3... (3 pics) added photos below of paint prep, scuffed it good, and FIRE dried. The OEM paint on this NOS axle was the shiats. It was peeling and axle was rusting from a horrible factory paint job. Potentially why this one was released to govt. auction instead of being mounted on a truck. Not knowing why it was peeling so bad (poor prep or bad paint) we went overboard and prepped it with wire wheel, grinder, high grit paper.

Using Duplicolors version of POR 15 was next step. The rust prep primer threw us for a loop for awhile...... strange stuff. You know how it goes...... you rip the cap off..... you paint...... but noooo..... well you do..... but it is deceiving... the stuff goes on CLEAR but turns flat black as it chemicalizes itself with the metal. We saw it changing color finally and we were less stumped..... then later saw on the can (who reads instructions on a paint can right) "GOES ON CLEAR" Once we figured that out rest went smooth. We fired it to quicken drying to fudge the 24 hours drying time that we did not have.(not pictured) Then we painted with Duplicolor chassis paint.... which like POR 15 encapsulates the area painted with a tuff coating that does not allow water nor oxygen to penetrate it..... thus.. NO RUST can form. It goes on nicely and is rubberized as well which I am sure is probably component of the encapsulation. We fired this too (Pictured) Chris my friend and my hired Fabricator, welder, mechanic, machinist, has had great success with fire/searing rubberized paints.

Note for clarity.... in the Fire pic you can see when it was milled we left the oem MTV perch height. We will massage height and angle as needed to get correct axle angle for it to sit right when mounted on LMTV. (axle upside down in pic so Perchs ar at bottom). Thus we will NOT need to weld on a new perch, just massage what is there and drill a locating pin hole for the center pin of leaf spring. LMTV leafspring mount components will clamp around axle tube same way it did on the axle it is replacing. What was milled off is the portion of perch that protruded beyond the axle tube (first pic shows this well)..... and at bottom of axle there was cast in eyes that linkages attached to for mounting this to the end of a leafspring on an MTV. The protutions of Perch Pad and the eyes were in the way for using LMTV rear axle mounting system thus the milling. Could have instead of all the milling removed these with sawzall and grinder... sure... but why when you know someone with a bigg ******** mill. Granted that decision put us months behind schedule waiting to get onto the mill.

Update rear axle 2.. (1 pic) added photo to this thread of more axle shaving. Spring perch protrusion gone and eyes bottom of axle tube removed.

Update rear axle 1... (first 3 pics below) After months of waiting on access to a friend of a friend with a huge milling machine (can fit about a whole chassis in the mill) we finally get started on machining spring perches off my Intermediate/Middle axle from MTV in prep for installing in my LMTV. New (2me) 3rds with high speed and the rear with detroit will be fitted as well. Will use clamp on mounts that are OEM on LMTV rear axle; to mount the Intermediate/Middle axle in the truck same as stock one would. Fingers crossed but semi confident no driveshaft changes will be needed at rear.

 

[java]

Thats a big mill! Nice to see some more progress!

 

[Badmiker]

Update..


snip... Intermediate/Middle axle from MTV in prep for installing in my LMTV. ... snip

Fingers crossed but semi confident no driveshaft changes will be needed at rear.

Is this being done in your LMTV to help with the rear drive shaft angle? I am under the impression that due to the transfer thing-a-majig that allows the 2nd rear axle to have a driveshaft feed this will level the rear drive shaft angle for less wear and tear on the U-joints and possibly reduce the drive-line vibration.