Modifications 2

25. Fridge Stop. On a rough road the fridge door came undone and deposited a litre of yoghurt on the floor. The cutlery drawer also came out and so we had quite a mess in the back of the camper. Phil (on the forum) came up with a good idea to hold the fridge door closed. This is just a little hinged block, that when lowered stops the fridge door opening.

26. The canvas was was wearing where the gas strut folded down. Lars supplied some canvas which was glued in place to add an extra protecting layer.

27. Light the stairs. Some nights are so dark that it was hard to find the way up the stairs.....nothing to do with the wine. A led 'number plate' fitting was added near the support rail to light the stairs. This aims the light down onto the steps and doesn't get into your eyes. I picked up the power from the accessory socket at the back. An illuminated switch is located just inside the door.

28. Weight:

You have to be careful what you carry as it is easy to go over the GVM of the vehicle. At the original time of writing my 2009 Hilux could only carry 940kg.........and that doesn't leave space heap of extra gear! The problem is the back axle which can only carry 1650kg no matter what you do to springs. So we swapped over to a 2011 Ranger in the runout before the new model. I was surprised how well the Ford Ranger went compared to the Hilux..... and so far no problems, (unlike our Hilux which had to have the steering mechanism replaced, the diff resealed and & the centre bearing replaced.) It also meant that we could legally carry the weight with 1200kg available. The Ranger can carry 1850kg on the real axle.......200kg more than the Hilux. You still have the problem of 'porpoising' because the weight is so far behind the rear axle. This is most noticeable on some tarred and concrete roads but not on dirt roads. This porpoising on dual cabs must lead to chassis fatigue so we saved up to have the chassis reinforced and lengthened. This not only improved the load carrying but also the ride because of the longer wheelbase. John Burke at Specialised Vehicles says that all the dual cabs suffer from this problem and he has reinforced many vehicles needing to carry a load.

See section on Chassis Extension.

29. Side access hatch.

We were using three boxes under the seat near the water tank....two for clothes and one down the bottom for extra supplies. What a pain to get to the bottom box. So, rather than pull out the box & accompanying clothes, I have added a hatch in the side and boxed in the area so that it can be accessed from outside the camper. The hatch has to be located carefully as there was no room for error. I have used the same sort of hatch that was used for the LP gas area, just turned it horizontally. The inside panels are made from construction plywood and are screwed into place so that if the water tank has to be removed at some time then the panels can be removed to allow normal access. The 'box' sits at the same level as the water tank under the seat so I can still use the area to store clothes. Now I have a great spot to store the wine, beer and other important ingredients and access them without unpacking the clothing area!

30. Fan.

Summer heat made sleeping restfully problematic at best. So a fan to stir the air was needed. I did try one of the cheaper 'car' fans but it spun like a cyclone on steroids. So, after some investigation I have found a quiet, 3 speed fan that has only a small current draw and also has a timer to switch the fan off after a period of time. Whitworths Marine were the suppliers (on special!) of a Caframo Sirocco 360 deg fan. I have mounted a couple of pieces of timber on the roof with mounting tape & screws, both with a 45 deg bevel. The fan is not heavy and it is mounted on another piece of timber which allows it to slide into place when required on those hot nights. A 12 volt 'T' plug connects it to the camper power. Now we can get a breeze flowing into the sleeping area!

31. Slippery Steps.

Clark rubber supplied some ribbed rubber to contact glue onto the steps. After nearly falling down the steps one frosty morning I have been careful to descend backwards down the stairs. Now, with the rubber steps in place I will probably still go down backwards but more sure footed!! Time will tell how well the contact glue stands up to the weather....so far it has been excellent.

32. LED lighting

At long last the two halogen bulbs have been replaced with 4 swivel LED bars. The fluro has been retained in the centre as it is so good for lighting the table area. The LED bars were purchased from Whitworths Marine & Leisure. They come with two wires that have no set polarity. Just a matter of adding some connectors and extra wiring. The wires are so small they can be slid under the canvas to connect to the wiring loom. I had a bit of wire covering left over so have used this to hide the wires....but they are so small you could easily just leave them against the roof.

33. Night Light.

Some nights it is pitch black and rather then be blinded by a bright white light a small LED push button, battery operated light has been added. A red lens reduces the light and maintains your night vision. These are cheap to purchase and the red filter is just a pieces of red perspex cut to size. The circuit is so simple you could easily replace the white LEDs with red ones.

34. Power extension.

I found scrabbling around the floor to plug in chargers could be difficult. Thus a 'extension' power point was added above the fridge. This is mounted to a sloping piece of timber so that power packs can be plugged into the point without hitting the bench top. The wood is screwed to the aluminium hollow section. Now I can plug the 'extension' point into either the inverter power point or the 240v power point and use the more convenient points above the fridge. The 'Vision' temperature monitor keeps track of the fridge temperature (available from Bunnings).

35. Cutting Boards.

I made two new cutting boards from an old piece of Kauri pine. I added a small strip to the inside of the drawer so that the two cutting boards can sit above the plates, glasses etc, making them easy to get out.

36. Hinges.

I've added two new hinges to the front of the camper. They are stainless steel but quite a bit bigger, hopefully distributing the load over a larger area. The top two bolts penetrate a steel plate embedded in the fibreglass. I have lock nuts on the bolts so they won't shake loose and dome nuts on the ends so not to damage the canvas.

37. Drawer Handles

We've broken a few drawer handles over time. Probably because we have had too much in the drawer so that more strain was placed on the plastic centre of the drawer pull. So now handles have been added so that the catch is only turned and the weight of the drawer is taken on the handle. The other cupboards have a push button lock. Sometimes this can be difficult to pull open also despite some lubrication. Consequently handles were added here as well.

38, Sub Power Board.

With more 12v items being added to the camper an additional set of fuses was required. The sub-board is connected to the main board using 8mm core wire allowing a number of items to be hard-wired to these additional fuses.

39. Charging Issues to the Camper Battery

On our last trip the camper battery was not charging from the alternator. Luckily we had the solar cells and lots of sunshine. At first it appeared to be the Anderson Plug connection so I replaced this and it seemed to fix the problem, but only for a short time. After further testing with the volt meter I found that the circuit breaker between the car and the camper was defective. I spoke to an auto electrician and he suggested a fuse instead. Although they don't reset like a circuit breaker they apparently cause less problems. So I have put an 80 amp fuse next to the battery. Now my camper batteries are charging fine. I also added a digital readout on the dash of both the car & camper batteries so I could monitor the charge in each.

40. Screen Rear Door.

We found that looking through the camper window to the traffic behind was problematic. A lot of the time all we saw was a reflection of the road ahead. So we installed a rear camera that can be switched on and off in the cabin. This freed up the area in the camper near the window for storage. Rather than hang a towel etc over the door rail we have placed an opaque cloth over the door and it is held in with the rubber used for fly screens....readily available from Bunnings. Now we can shut the rear door at night ensuring privacy.