New Build - FG637 Dual Cab + Slide on

[Lachstock]

It’s been a busy day!

Have finished fitting the tray and the tail lights, I’m going to head to a truck wrecker tomorrow and rustle up some mud guards as well. Started to see how the under tray tool boxes will look as well. They’re off a ute and they look ridiculously skinny on the truck.....

I used some leftover extrusion material to make the droppers for the lights, should be strong enough for a while I think. Then tonight I’ve been over at a local workshop where a mate works finalising the cabin roof removal and the last of the strengthening!

Cutting time!

And the roof is out! It was surprisingly stiff with the cross member in there after the top was removed.

Then had to clean it all up to take the aluminium lengths that will hold the top cleanly.

Took a while to make sure everything was measured correctly before starting cutting....

Always worth the wait though, measured 30 times, cut once! Haha

Then time to TIG it all in place

It’s starting to feel like it’s going to work!

 

[GrantBerry]

Am enjoying watching your progress @Lachstock

 

[Lachstock]

Slow progress this week, moving house and living near a hot spot suburb of Melbourne has really thrown a spanner in the works.

Managed to get up today and put the canopy doors back on... and I removed the combing rails to have them cut down to size a bit. The rails along the edge of the tray have an upright that I need to cut down so the canopy doors will open when on the tray. It’s a problem I knew I was going to have but this was the only side rails I could get my hands on!

I need to cut the top off this to be approx 10mm from the current 30mm high. Also waiting for slightly warmer and dryer weather to fix the pop top extrusion to the roof. I’m nervous the glue won’t set properly if not around 15 degrees....

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[Spanna 53]

Lachstock sorry for not getting back earlier to your question my lifters are steel tube it was easy to bend and weld . Next time you’re down G town way after all this lock down perhaps we can catch up my camper is staying in the drive for now can only work on the Man Cave

 

[Spanna 53]

Try the photo again

 

[Lachstock]

Try the photo again

They look great! thanks for the pics, that's good inspiration to build them!

 

[GrantBerry]

Hey, @Lachstock - quick question on the allie tray assembly; Where the ally "plank" sits on your sub-frame, how have you attached ? - Did you drill and bolt each plank to the subframe rails? Did you put a teflon/poly/rubber washer between 'plank' and subframe-rail to allow a bit of movement when flexing (would there even be any?) I'm thinking out what I need for mine. Cheers

 

[Lachstock]

Hey, @Lachstock - quick question on the allie tray assembly; Where the ally "plank" sits on your sub-frame, how have you attached ? - Did you drill and bolt each plank to the subframe rails? Did you put a teflon/poly/rubber washer between 'plank' and subframe-rail to allow a bit of movement when flexing (would there even be any?) I'm thinking out what I need for mine. Cheers

Hi Grant,

I just bolted it straight down, I did think of a spacer/Teflon as you mentioned but didn’t think it necessary. The majority of trays I looked at didn’t have anything between the rails and alloy. I’m also pretty confident that the movement in the subframe will not cause adverse stress in the planks and that a more rigid connection would aid the flex not introducing torsion.

As you can see above, the planks have two landings on the subframe. One is large for bolting through, even has a groove for centring the drill bit. The second is about half the size and not needed to bolt through as it’s held by the previous plank. Hope that makes sense.

Cheers,

Lach

PS: being locked down in metro melb while the truck is parked in Benders is a pain!


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[canter tourer]

Hi Lachlan,

Loving watching your build come together, brings back memories doing my own https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/1996-fg-639-dual-cab-tidy-up.157570/

What have you chosen to use as your pop top roof frame? are you making your own design, or using something like this https://www.diycaravans.com.au/shop/pop-top-extrusion-kit-1/

I'm geting ready to so the same to my truck so keen to hear which way you're going with it.

Dave

 

[Lachstock]

Hi Lachlan,

Loving watching your build come together, brings back memories doing my own https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/1996-fg-639-dual-cab-tidy-up.157570/

What have you chosen to use as your pop top roof frame? are you making your own design, or using something like this https://www.diycaravans.com.au/shop/pop-top-extrusion-kit-1/

I'm geting ready to so the same to my truck so keen to hear which way you're going with it.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Your build thread was a good bit of motivation for mine as well!

Yeah I went with the DIY caravans extrusion, it's pretty good deal for what you get I reckon.
The only issue in my setup will be the slight reduction in internal space. The DIY caravans setup does come in on each side a reasonable amount (65mm a side) which is a consideration.
If I had the time to devise (ironic now that I've got a tonne of time due COVID) my own design I would have tried to design something that was a slightly thinner profile.
The taper of the top of this box is fairly narrow so wasn't ideal for my setup but will do the trick...

All in all though the DIY caravan system looks pretty schmick and I would recommend it!

Cheers,

Lach

 

[canter tourer]

Hi Dave,

Your build thread was a good bit of motivation for mine as well!

Yeah I went with the DIY caravans extrusion, it's pretty good deal for what you get I reckon.
The only issue in my setup will be the slight reduction in internal space. The DIY caravans setup does come in on each side a reasonable amount (65mm a side) which is a consideration.
If I had the time to devise (ironic now that I've got a tonne of time due COVID) my own design I would have tried to design something that was a slightly thinner profile.
The taper of the top of this box is fairly narrow so wasn't ideal for my setup but will do the trick...

All in all though the DIY caravan system looks pretty schmick and I would recommend it!

Cheers,

Lach

Couple more questions then, did you order it online or was there somewhere in Victoria that sells direct? also what are you using for the roof panel, I'm still in the early stages of trying to work out where to get the bits from in melbourne, certainly seems like there's more optons in qld than down here.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Lachstock]

Couple more questions then, did you order it online or was there somewhere in Victoria that sells direct? also what are you using for the roof panel, I'm still in the early stages of trying to work out where to get the bits from in melbourne, certainly seems like there's more optons in qld than down here.

Cheers
Dave

Hi Dave,

I ordered it online as a kit and it showed up really quickly, the shiping was very reasonable as well.
I have got DIY caravans to quote the roof panel and its pretty expensive for the size ($1000 approx).
However I have just purchased a camper kit that someone had purchased and never started which was based around honeycomb panels.
It's has got a heap of panels in it and I'm planning on using them for the roof section and the the internal walls then maybe have enough left over for another smaller build



The kit is for the above plans and came with all the panels, 4x electric Rieco legs and windows, roof vents, rubber seals etc etc etc!!



And the pic above is it all in a horse float where it's been stored the last few years...

Getting it to Bendigo now and then when lock downs finished I'm going to head up and finish it all off!

 

[canter tourer]

Nice score there, i will have to do some more homework on the roof panel, that's a lot of coin for such a small panel.....

Dave

 

[GrantBerry]

So, @Lachstock - I've been looking at sprung sub-frames to get ideas; Yours is unique in that the entire mass of the tray (and load) above is on the "points" of your spring-mounts themselves; - placing the load on 'points' along the chassis rather than along the entire length, as others do, but springs allowing an upward travel (upward only, under conditions where the chassis flex is greater than the load, I guess) . I had raised a question to the facebook brains trust regarding the design of a two-way spring mount, that - like yours, had load at "points" along the chassis (at the spring mounts) - feedback I got was constructive, and I was referred to the Fuso Canter Body-Mount Directive document (extract below) - the general consensus being that (by design) the load aught to be evenly spread along the chassis rails rather than concentrated at (stress) points along it - I guess it all really depends on how MUCH of a load you're gonna put on there, but I wondered if you'd seen the document and done the calculations, or what your thoughts were ?
Full doc available here : https://www.mitfuso.com/files/BDD-Fuso-2015-16-FE.FG.pdf

 

[Lachstock]

Hi Grant,

I wouldn't say it's unique, AAV use this design for all of their ute and camper builds which is why I went down this path. Kyms done extensive miles around the world with this deisgn and the maths worked in my calcs for the loads with a healthy margin. I had looked extensively at the rail on rail designs you've referenced above and went through the body builders manual. I also went down the rabbit hole of 3 point mount subframes and so on, however for how I intend to use the truck it wouldn't have been justified. I was intending on going down the rail on rail path until I came across the simpler solution that I went with. For the weights I intend to carry, there was no justification in my mind for the full fail on rail design. My whole camper setup will be tipping the scales at approx 900-1000kg fully wet, with the addition of the weight of the alloy tray adding another 80-100kg approx. I'm confident the subframe I built, with the added rigidity of the aluminium is going to flex as a single unit similar to a rail on rail design. It will just be much lighter, more suited to the design of the camper I intend to use, and should provide more than enough articulation when needed.

For my usage case, which is regular dirt road/offroad and occasional 4x4 where articulation would become an issue I simply couldn't justify building a 5-10k+ subframe/tray to put the camper on! Thats half a years on road travel expenses right there!

From everything I've read there's no silver bullet for subframes thats for sure, however the justification for what I chose works in my head and by the calcs I did at the time for strength/cost/simplicity/ability to DIY/functionality.

Cheers,

Lachlan