While I was flitting off to Melbourne for 10 days to catch up with the kid’s and attend the work party (very important stuff and a good time had), Fred soldiered on with the build. What a trooper!
While the subframe and chassis are still open and easily accessible, we thought it was smart to work on the steps/entrance. Our idea at this time was to construct a set of steps that would fold up, inside the habitat box and fit flush to the floor. While designing this system, we realised that for this design to be successful and to have the door open or closed with the steps up or down we would have to modify the purchased motorhome door. We don’t want to compromise the integrity of the doorframe so a new plan was needed. Another issue we discovered was the steps would have to be too deep, approx 300 – 350 mm and the cut out would be a large encroachment on the floor area of our floorpan design, which then increased the potential for falling down.
Due to the height of the floor of the habitat box which will be approx. 1.5m from the ground to the floor, I did some research and checked out some existing setups. I found that the steps were pretty much a basic ladder on the side, narrow, steep and had no rails at all. I wasn’t comfortable with this as I was predicting an accident waiting to happen, especially with my wine habits lol.
At this time, Fred had already constructed the stairwell. All good though, as this can still be utilised with a design that folds up differently inside the stairwell instead of inside the habitat box. This means we will have 1 permanent step inside the doorway and the remaining steps will work on a concertina effect. Hopefully the end result will be 600mm wide by 200-220mm high steps. This width makes me feel confident that we won’t feel unstable climbing in and out. I also want some sort of rail. We haven’t quite nutted that out yet but have an idea of a wire rope that can be removed and stored when driving. The step treads will be aluminium and ideally for weight, the frame as well, but we don’t have the capacity to weld aluminium. We estimate the difference would be 14kgs v’s 28kgs. We don’t have a weight issue overall so we can go either way.
We plan to motorise it so the lighter weight would be better. This is all still an idea cloud in Fred’s head, yet to be proven, will let you know what eventuates.
Next thing he tackled was to construct the frames and straps for our underbody storage boxes. From the last blog you would of seen that our toolboxes arrived and we were very impressed with the quality of them. It was now time to mount them to the underside of the subframe. The reason we mounted to the subframe and not the chassis was so that we could align the outside of the boxes with the outside of the habitat box Another reason was so that the boxes were not fixed to the chassis rail thus allowing for movement and not having to worry that they would smash into something while 4wd’ing. We purchased sizes purposely to fit into the existing gaps of the underbody. We want to use all the available space as smartly as possible. This meant that the 800mm boxes are set towards the front beside the steps and the 1200mm ones fit behind the back wheels on both sides.
Fred constructed a frame for each box. These were fabricated in such a way to ensure that the boxes could be secured by 2 full straps. The frames had to be designed to facilitate allowing the straps to encase the boxes and the top of the boxes needed to be 20mm below the bottom edge of the habitat box panel which is 100mm below the top of the outriggers. Add a lick of paint, whack it on and bam – done! Seemed so simple to me who was sipping on a glass of Rose’ in Melbourne at the time.
After the boxes were attached, Fred tested them for stability. 3 out of 4 worked a treat but there is always one that won’t conform and he found one wasn’t as stable as he would of liked. Now originally when designing the subframe we had the intention to fabricate and brace the outriggers.
Upon construction, it didn’t seem necessary as it was all quite stiff. However, after attaching the boxes it became evident that the bracing was definitely required. At this time Fred cut and shut the steel he had previously bought for this job, 14 pieces in total. These were welded to the subframe in strategic positions which now meant no compromise to the structure integrity.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for next week’s exciting adventure where we road trip to pick up the habitat box panels and joiners……….