Now we are back in Rockhampton with De Trucksta, it’s time to get this show on the road. Our hope is to have him complete and ready to roll by June 2024 as we have signed up to volunteer at the Big Red Bash again.
There is so much to consider and I need to have a plan. Fred is a visionary and can have these lists in his head, but me, I need it to be more tangent. I’m a physical list person. So here is my take on it:
- Find the right vehicle. I’m lucky that Fred is a research wiz. He’s like a dog with a bone until he finds what he is looking for. So within a week he found our truck. It was in Adelaide and lucky for us the owner, David, wasn’t in a hurray for us to pick it up.
- Floor plan – work out what size you would like it to be and hope that matches what size it can be legally. What will be in it and what material will we build it from? Where do we store our bikes as we no longer have a car and trailer? What’s the best utilisation of space for storage. So many questions. We have decided to go with a false floor to allow the tanks to be stored in the false floor which is a double win. This means that the tanks are protected and insulated and all the outside space around the chassis can now be storage.
- Next considerations are the material things. Do we have gas? Do we stay with compost toilet? How do we fit it all in as we are downsizing from 12 metres to 6, we have come up with a fancy bed idea woo hoo. Air conditioning – definitely! Washing machine – top or front loader? Water capacity; sizes of black/grey and fresh/drinking. Hot water system?
- Now to think about powering it all. We have decided to go without gas this build. This means we have to be sure to have enough power to meet our needs. Firstly we needed to sort how much power we will need to determine size of batteries, number of solar panels and what size inverter to run it all. We are going with one fridge this time, one tv, one water pump and all will be 240v. As we won’t have our gas BBQ our cooking will be induction cooktop, convection microwave and of course good ol’ outside fire. All of these needed to be taken into account to work out the size inverter required. And after much research, we have decided to go for a 48v battery system instead of 24v.
- So with all that stuff sorted, we now need to work out how our home will attach to the truck and reliably remain there. This brings up the style of subframe we will have. Will it be zero torsion or spring mounted? Enter Fred the genius of the family. Firstly we needed to test the twist of the chassis in an off-road situation. And test we did by driving out to Parkhurst and playing around with large rocks and uneven ground. And the winner is spring mounted.
- Now a very important thing when undergoing such a venture is to engage an engineer to sort the build legalities to get the tick of approval at the end. Compliance is key, not only for our safety, but for registration and insurance. This is something we didn’t do upfront with De Busta not realising how difficult this can be after the event. We thought if we documented along the way with pictures etc we would be fine. It’s not that simple and we have to admit that we were very lucky with De Busta that it all worked out in the end. Being our second build, we are much wiser and very early on Fred met with Josh Whitcombe who is happy to help and advise us through the build.
- After discussions with our engineer, Josh, we confirmed material sizes for the subframe. With the steel ordered, Fred is now in his happy place, masterminding and bringing to fruition his vision. The subframe is to attach our home to the truck.
- Once the subframe was worked out, it was time to order the panelling. Again research is key and Fred comes to fore. Seems like I’m just here for looks and of course, to blog and take photos. We ended up ordering fibreglass composite panels with a PVC foam core from DIY Caravans. We placed the order, paid the deposit and are now waiting. We were originally given a 4-6 week lead time which changed to 6-8 weeks and has now blown out to a possible 2-4 months. We are a little concerned and are optimistic that we can be on the 2 month end. The noisy wheel gets the oil hopefully and we plan to follow up regularly. The blow out is due to a big motorhome company placing a large order apparently.
- Other things to think about are the extras such as levellers, tool boxes, roof rack and entry steps. Due to extended lead time on the panels we decided to use this time to fabricate the under body and extras.
- At last we get to the internal build; bathroom, kitchen and living areas. We had worked out the basic floor plan previously in my notebook so before removing the tray, we measured and marked it out with masking tape. This made it all real to see just how small 6 metres is lol. But it also proved it can be done. We have jigged it a few times now, switching things up, but now believe we have the final blueprint.
- Finally the last few considerations. Wheels and tyres. We currently have duals on back and would like to change all the wheels to super singles which would allow us to reduce back to 4 wheels in total and all would be interchangeable. We will fit a tyre inflation system cue Fred’s research skills.
- Fuel capacity – do we need an extra fuel tank? Originally we thought we would install a second tank but after driving home we think the existing 400 litre tank will be plenty.
- Cab space – this will be my project as I want to make it more travel friendly to include cup holders, area to hold snacks, rubbish bag and pockets to hold phones, notebooks, sunnies and other stuff we normally have with us when we are driving.
Easy as hey and ta da it’s done.
Stay tuned as I will blog about each of these areas separately as we tackle them……..