Progress over the last few weeks
After weeks of rain, the weather was too good to waste, so we have been spending some time on the beach. South Ballina is now our favourite beach, we can drive down to it in about 2 hour, drive right along and park up for the day. The isolation and distance from the everyone else makes it great - no people near us and only the occasional 4x4 passing along the beach.
The good weather didn't last long however, and it was raining again soon after. The next weekend was a spent re-organising the workshop - the hi-rail train gear has been sold at last. Now all we had to do was get all the pieces together and pack it all ready for shipping. We had to clean the workshop up enough to get the truck past the camper box, then move everything around, clean all the parts and pack them into a container. The photo shows the end result of all the work.
We also got the first part of the floor from Christopher Tuck (the fabricator) last weekend. The first thing to do was to sand down all the interior cross members where the floor is going to get glued on. Then to prime them all with the Sikaflex primer.
I also sanded down the aluminium side of the the floor, and masked off the parts which the glue is going onto, and painted the underside with the etch primer. After putting on large amounts of Sikaflex on the cross members, and then the 3mm rubber spacers, I manoeuvred the panels into place. It took a lot of clamps and 80kg of weight to hold down the floor to keep it level.
Whilst I was waiting for the rest of the floor panels to be made, I finally sorted out the hatch looking mechanisms. I bought all the locks for the the various hatches etc. After much thinking, trialling and finally installation, I finally got the locks working properly. The last thing I have to do is to weld on another attachment point onto the main disc to give it three points of locking. The outer part of the lock is stainless steel and fit flush on the outside. The rear hatch is basically the same as the side panels. Similarly I need to weld on the third locking point to make it really secure.
I also fitted the Land Rover door lock into the entrance door. That will make it fully ADR compliant as the door has to be the same as a car door. The Land Rover lock is designed to work off road, so it should last, and it being typical of all thing Land Rover, it's a fairly simple.
I fetched the last of the panels first thing on Saturday morning. And after a whole day of sanding, painting, priming and gluing, finally, the floor is in - no photographs as I had too much Sikaflex on my hands for most of the day to even think about picking up the camera. All the pieces in the floor are a very tight fit due to the various pieces of cross bracing etc.
In order to get the pieces in, I had to leave a 3-5mm gap between the panels in the middle - and even then it was very difficult to to get things to fit - it was like a jigsaw puzzle, and all the pieces had to stuck in a specific order - and once the Sikaflex has grabbed hold - it was almost impossible to move or lift up. Luckily I got it right, and everything fitted properly with no hammering but there were some worrying occasions when it looked like I would have to do some trimming just to clear a bracket or strut.
I'll sand down the Sikaflex in a few weeks time, when it is properly cured. The final floor that we walk on will be another layer of teak. The rest of the floor will get painted with a decent epoxy paint. The two hatches open to allow access to the battery compartment ( on the right) and the heater compartment on the left.
In less than a month, the camper box will head north for fitting out the interior. This means I have a fair amount of work to do before I can send it up. Christopher is already making the lining panels. The lining is another composite like the floor. It's made from 1.8mm plywood, 4mm of foam and and other 1.8mm of plywood, all epoxyied together on a vacuum back table. First thing is to make a mock up interior out of craftwood - to make sure everything works and more importantly that the things like the fridges and the toilet all fit and work.
Once the craftwood interior has been made, then I will send the whole lot up to Christopher who will made the real cupboards etc out of the plywood composite. I also have to get all the fittings, like the door hinges, the roller sliders and even things like the sink, the shower unit, even the stove. I need to have everything that is going to fit in the interior, so that I don't have to remake things.
