MB 1120 Coming to America! Purchase, Build and Now Travel!

[VerMonsterRV]

A bit more work on the headboard. Still need to build the upper cabinet on the back wall (the square hole on the right top in the picture). The middle opening in the headboard will be for something framed, I have a couple of small adjustable flush lights on order for the top panel. The small cabinet on the top left will have a reading light and Hella fan mounted on the bottom, sort of the main reason for that cabinet. The doors will be 1/2" baltic birch plywood with the FRP skins (from the foam panel cutouts) bonded on with epoxy. The small inserts and bottom bit of the headboard have been done this way. If there is any condensation from the mattress I wanted FRP there to make it more durable.


As a bit of filler work while glues dried we mounted the freshwater pump under the kitchen sink near the 2 stage water filters. The pump is variable speed and although I have never used this brand we have a similar type of pump on the boat and it is practically silent (it is a few years old and has been discontinued and replaced with one with a "brain", which was a mistake on their part as we have had great success with ours and a friend had terrible luck with the new ones).

On a side note, I have talked with a local shop here about installing A/C in the cab. With the pictures from Joe917 we have a plan. He is recommending a "agriculture/heavy equipment" A/C compressor for 2 reasons. First is the seals are better (the compressor would be mounted under the engine) and some heavy equipment here in the USA is 24v. The estimate is $3200 installed, which does not seem too bad. I may have him install/fabricate the compressor and install the rest myself to try and save a bit of money. He is open to this but I need to find out roughly how much money it would really save, would be nice to drop it off and come back with it all working. They are also fabricators so may work on the rear tire/motorcycle rack and under body boxes.

 

[jostalli]

Just seeing this thread so forgive me if it has been covered. How are you attaching cabinetry to the composite box? Adhesive? Screws?

Have you already upgraded the alternator? If not then I would approach Nations to have them make you a high powered one that will adequately charge your house batteries and run your A/C.

Regarding your A/C I would advise a DC compressor A/C so you could run it off your house battery to also cool the cabin while parked.

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Just seeing this thread so forgive me if it has been covered. How are you attaching cabinetry to the composite box? Adhesive? Screws?

Have you already upgraded the alternator? If not then I would approach Nations to have them make you a high powered one that will adequately charge your house batteries and run your A/C.

Regarding your A/C I would advise a DC compressor A/C so you could run it off your house battery to also cool the cabin while parked.

I am using Sika 252 with the 215 primer for the wood. The FRP is sanded. It is also screwed but those are mainly there to hold the pieces in place to let them cure. I would never trust only screws as I am pretty sure the would not hold.

I have not yet upgraded the alternator. Not sure I will, will wait and see. I have a LifePO4 battery bank at 12v, so I am planning on a Sterling DC-DC charger (the 24v-12v one). It should pull around 35amps (24V) at full tilt (charging the 12v bank at 70amps). I am thinking the stock alternator should be able to handle that. I also have 800 watts of solar panels waiting to go onto the roof.

For the truck cab I will likely get an engine drive compressor. I don't think I want to put a unit on the roof and not enough space on the rear wall. Plus it would definitely require an upgraded alternator. I am thinking the combined cost would easily exceed the engine drive, plus the engine drive unit will be far more powerful so can cool the cab down quickly. For the habitat I have a Coleman Polar Cub 9k BTU rooftop unit. From what I have read putting in a soft start should allow me to run it off the battery bank for a bit to cool the box down (400Ah). Plus I am installing 4 Hella fans, 2 in the "bedroom" and 2 in the main seating area. I also have a MaxxFan for the bathroom. I am hoping needing the A/C will be rare.

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Sneak peek at the flooring (Lumber Liquidators Bellawood Acacia) we will install. These are lifting panels beneath the table. Still need to cut in the hinges (you can barely see on the left I have started to cut them in) and lift ring. will likely get some friction latches from Lowes. The tape is just so it is easy to get them back out.


This is just beneath the kitchen sink, the 2 stage water filter and freshwater pump (no pressure tank needed as it is a variable speed pump).

 

[Arjan]

Love the write up !!
Please keep it coming.
Thanks

 

[LostInTheWorld]

Wow, it looks great! The flooring is going to be really nice.

 

[luthj]

Agreed, very enjoyable to follow. Also, you must weigh the rig when your finished. I am very curious to know just how light it ends up.

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Thanks guys, there will be a little lapse in the build for about a week. We are heading to FL to get a few things done (although we live nowhere full time, we are officially FL residents as that is where our mail forwarding service is), one of the most exciting things is to pick up our water tank, less exciting are dental and doctor appointments. I'll post pictures once we get our hands on it on Thursday. Once we get that then the forward seating area can be finished. I did manage to get all the upper cabinets in the "bedroom" (minus the doors) built and in place today. Now Heather needs to jump in and paint the insides and varnish the outsides. From first look I think we will have plenty of clothes storage.

We will weigh the truck when fully loaded, will be interesting to see where we end up. My guess though is I would not call it "light" .

 

[luthj]

There is light (in general), and then there is light for a vehicle with a washer/dyer and queen sized bed!

 

[VerMonsterRV]

We picked up the freshwater tank Thursday morning. I am no expert but it looks to be well made (1/2" welded polypropylene). We are still in FL but as soon as we get back to N.C. we will drop it in place. I had the guy that made it weigh the tank when we picked it up, 112lbs. It has 3 full height internal baffles with a pie shape cutout in the top of each baffle. You can see the fill in the far right along side the vent. The outflow is on the left vertical panel. The single inspection port will not allow me to see/clean all corners but we can get a hose in there to clean thing out. Once in place I can finish up the framing of the seating area.


And the work in progress upper cabinets in the "bedroom". All the upper doors will be inset and open up towards the ceiling.

 

[Grenadiers]

We have an internal 50 gallon tank not sure if polyethylene or polypropylene was used, it’s a Euro build. I also installed vertically, a 38 gallon ABS Valterra tank on the outer front bulkhead. For both tanks, it’s recommended to disinfect the tanks and system every six months. Using bleach filling the tank with a portion of bleach and water. Letting it sit for a few hours, run the taps first, then drain. Refill with water, run faucets till you can’t smell the bleach. With that, you should not have clean any corners.

 

[Jostt]

Nice, the tank looks huge!! How many liters you have? I can recognize the marine foot for the table, I have the same and It works very well, we use to build a extra bed just in case

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Nice, the tank looks huge!! How many liters you have? I can recognize the marine foot for the table, I have the same and It works very well, we use to build a extra bed just in case

Given the odd shape I have not figured out the exact capacity yet, though I have a rough guess of around 400 liters. I need to take a few minutes to figure Sketchup out on how to turn a solid shape (how I modeled the tank for the builder) into a hollow tank. Once I figure that out Sketchup can calculate the capacity.

The table pedestal seems to be very well made and I have it in the back of my mind that the seating area can be easily converted to a bed if needed. For starters we will not make a filler cushion as we rarely have had a couple visit us while traveling on the boat. Plus you would need to have a place to store the extra cushion. Would be interesting if there was any sort of custom "air mattress" that could be used for a filler.

 

[loonwheeler]

The table pedestal seems to be very well made and I have it in the back of my mind that the seating area can be easily converted to a bed if needed. For starters we will not make a filler cushion as we rarely have had a couple visit us while traveling on the boat. Plus you would need to have a place to store the extra cushion. Would be interesting if there was any sort of custom "air mattress" that could be used for a filler.

If you can, you can design the cushions for the seat and the back for each side in a way that when the table is lowered, all four cushions together are the same width as the space creating one large bed area. This is how our dinette and cushions are designed and works very well. The Springfield pedestal is a huge bonus because of the ease of adjustability. We currently have a swing-away pedestal which requires us to lift the dinette table up and down manually. Not ideal to do on a daily basis. But then again, we are not living in the truck full time and use it mainly for short excursions and trips up to two weeks at a time.

 

[Victorian]

If you can, you can design the cushions for the seat and the back for each side in a way that when the table is lowered, all four cushions together are the same width as the space creating one large bed area. This is how our dinette and cushions are designed and works very well. The Springfield pedestal is a huge bonus because of the ease of adjustability. We currently have a swing-away pedestal which requires us to lift the dinette table up and down manually. Not ideal to do on a daily basis. But then again, we are not living in the truck full time and use it mainly for short excursions and trips up to two weeks at a time.

We did this in ours. The backrests will fill in to create a queen size bed.