Offroad MK3 Camper

[axxez]

Thanks a lot guys I will keep this old lady running and make an expedition vehicle out of it!

I made some more changes before. It is about the whole air ventilation, which is a bit tricky on a stealth-camper. I bought some window grills for the front, so the idea is to let the air circulate from the front windows through the car, leaving on the roof windows (chimney-effect). In fact, there is not too much ventilation going on, but still better than none. Those grills inside the car can be closed so they are airtight and also theft-protected as they are massive. This ventilation is partly inside of the kitchen, but the doors of the kitchen have fins, so they let air through.

I am still looking for a grill for my sliding-window, but they are hard to find... If you got one, let me know!!

The pics:

[axxez]

Some more electrics today. I have to admit that the switches didn't look that big and massive when I saw them on the web. Maybe more than 1kg of weight, the 3 of them...!

[axxez]

[axxez]

As none of you offered me a ventilation grille for my sliding window, I had to start building my own. As you can see, I started by creating some sort of model with paperboard. That was really fun! I should do that more often. Maybe I would even have modelled the whole interiour of my car before building it
So after that, I used an old metal door of a metal closet and some aluminium from the hardware-store. The blind-rivets where the first I ever did, so they look really bad. As usual I don't care and they do what they should. The problem was that they where a bit too short, so I had to redrill the alu.
To be continued, maybe tomorrow.

The Pics:

[axxez]

Finished, only the paint is missing. Not to attract too much attention (bling-bling-shiney aluminium!) I will paint it black, fitting the black tinted window. But not today.
The ugly spikes are left for anti-theft purpose. Try to put your finger inside and I will be laughing
By design it's quite hard to impossible to open up the side-window by pushing down the button, as I designed some of the cross-members diagonal. However, I won't leave the van just with this airvent alone. It's just for ventilation while sleeping in it. So I think I will wake up from anybody trying to open it, have enough time to dress up, maybe have a short coffee and then open the door to knock the burgler out...NOT!

Pics:

[transitandy]

Great thread m8y

[axxez]

Thanks

So.. those days I derusting my 2 new steel-rims (2 offroad-tires are waiting to be tested on them) and started painting them and the window-vent. I tested the air-compressor I bought to fill up tires after reducing air pressure for offroad-purpose. It is the "Ring Automotive RAC900" with a lot of good ratings on amazon (whatever that means). Let's see how good it will work.
I also installed 3 Hella fans, 2 in the driving cab and 1 in the rear. I call that "aircondition", wasn't it that way back in time?
And finally, I continued to work on the roof rack. It's really not too far from beeing finished!

[axxez]

The top bar is part of my roof rack, the lower part of the base roof rack (inside also hollow, but can not be bothered to draw the still). Both are to be screwed together with 4 screws. Which of the two scenarios is the more stable version?
The one on the left would be more practical for me because I need only long screws.
With the option on the right I would have per carrier 2 rectangular nuts that fit exactly into the profile, the other 2 I had to somehow improvise, welding or sth like that (quiet an efford!).
I tend to the left, as I said but it is holding the question whether it is sufficient to stability.

By the way, it is drown from the side perspective of the car and. So think about 2 more bars and you have the complete configuration (4 bars, 1 cage -> the one on the pics before!, 16 big screws to hold it together). The bars don't have open ends as painted, that's more for understanding how the inside of the important parts looks like.

What do you say? Hope you understand my bad English and technical weirdplaination xD

[MinorMatt]

Left hand configuration will crush the box, unless you put a crush tube in. Right hand is the stronger arrangement though (look up unistrut)

[axxez]

Just a short test...

[axxez]

So I continued with parts of the roof rack. Thanks MinorMatt for the thought. Most of my mates agreed with this config, so I choosed it the one to be.
As I only have a flat and didn't want to annoy the whole street, I worked in my kitchen again Still only have got 3 basic tools: a drilling machine, a flex and a jigsaw. Far from any precision, but I guess it will work.

[axxez]

Some more roof-racking, 2 days of damn adjustment, drilling, screwing, tractor lifting, painting.... However, it's stable now. Still has a little travel to the sides, but that is not too much. Tested a full break, some tailwaging, on the highway, and on normal roads. Works great, except from the car beeing more instable than before due to the bad weight transformation.

Some pics (more to come):

[axxez]

Painted the aluminium-parts of the roof-rack black, very ugly paintjob on purpose I also had a chance to check the weight of the car. Should be around 2.6to empty. Not too good, but also not too bad.
As I got some more gauges for the drivers cab, I need the space to install them. So I decided to get some aluminium for the dashboard and started to bend it, by hand with some wood and a hammer. Here are the pics:

[axxez]

[axxez]

Installed a ladder to climb the roof. All the mounts will be protected, so it won't be easy to unmount. A nice and intended side-effect is that I can now open the roof windows without anyone beeing able to come in.