Step 15: Cooking with gas.

It's been a fairly productive month. FINALLY (I think) I've finished ripping stuff out of the old girl and really am just replacing.  With the advent of the new truck, the old wheel arches suddenly became redundant and were slated for removal. A bit sad to be ripping out the woodwork I had put in, but no matter, it's all in a good cause. This how the galley used to look.

Functional I suppose, but not really in keeping with the rest, besides which the bench top was not flat anyhow, there being a huge dip in the right front corner.
I decided to do the left side first, it being the smaller of the two sides and would hopefully (did) provide a few hints about how to proceed with the right side.

Removing the woodwork I had put in was easy, the whole thing was only held together with screws against this very eventuality, removed screws and it all falls to pieces, too easy!
This left the rectangular wheel box exposed and the first problem. The wheel box was flanged and screwed to the underside of the floor from below, with the transfer to the new truck under access was impossible. No problem, the solution in the form of a sledge hammer presented itself. A couple of good clouts on the corners and the half inch wood screws the box was held in with either snapped or pulled out of the floor ply.  A couple more whacks to cave in one corner and whole thing pulled out through the hole in the floor, job done!

I braced across the hole with a  couple of 100mm x 50mm beams slathered with builder's adhesive and screwed into place to provide a solid platform for the plywood patch the filled the hole in. My plywood collection was running low by this stage, I had to join a couple of pieces together to get the size right but it seemed to work out ok. It was the last of the original dining table.

Then it was just a case of shortening the seat box. I left the step at the end in, it makes a comfortable place to put your feet when you are sitting lengthways as well as providing a bit more room inside the bin. Worked out well.

This opened out the floor space to something like it's final size and made a comfortable chair possible. More about this shortly.

Now it was time to make a start on the right side seat/stove/galley unit.  I had scratched my head a bit over just where to put the stove, in the end I decided the right hand end of the bench, more or less under the window was the best option. So, clear the decks and see how we go.

Not the best photo but you get the idea. The sledgehammer technique was applied to the wheel box, and now I knew how it was done, had it out in no time flat.

This time I covered it with freezer panel, having run out of plywood. Not really safe to walk on but no problem since it would be buried under stove anyhow.

I wanted to move the bench up and to the right, 45mm up and 55mm to the right as it turned out. The sink was tucked away under the ledge formed by the bunk, not really ergonomic, leaning against the bunk ledge naturally placed your hands at the far right of the sink basin. Not to be helped in the original layout, but now I had some space to work with. Once the bench top was raised up and moved over, I screwed it to the wall to give me a 'zero' to work from. First order of business was the right hand wall. By happy chance I had exactly the right amount of tongue and groove left with no room for error.

 

 

Since nothing was square, I was cutting and trimming one board at a time. This took a while but was quite enjoyable.

Looking good! For now the underside is going to remain open, I haven't decided on how that's going to turn out. Initial plans called for a tin box behind the outer hatch to house the gas bottle, but future plans call for a pair of 9kg cylinders,so those are better mounted outside somewhere. Probably they will get mounted on the truck chassis along with the gray water tank. Mean time I'll keep on using the 2 jerry cans under the bench. Plenty for short trips, weekends etc. Mean time, the new woodwork gets wiped down with Linseed oil to match the rest. Oiling rimu timber is very satisfying! I think it looks great! Now to start on the stove stand.

I had given quite a bit of thought to stove height, in the end I decided I wanted the cooking surface just below the end of the bench so hot pots and pans can't slide onto the bench. With a bit of work, it ended up 15mm below the end of the bench, perfect! At this stage there is nothing to stop pots etc from sliding off the right hand side of the stove and ending up uncomfortable close to whomever is sitting on the adjacent seat, but sooner rather than later I'm going to make a nautical style rail to stop this from happening. Just have to be careful for now.

Making progress! Clearly visible is the piece of freezer panel I used to cover the hole left by the wheel arch. I had been saving the ply left over from the original stove stand, this got a small trim and was put back into service. The end piece of the tongue and groove was left as a whole and cut to make the right hand support for the stove stand, later I made a filler strip for the gap between the side and the front. The hole between the seat and stove stand will get a lid and be used for storage. Meantime, I have to re-install the asbestos sheet I saved from the original stove unit. That was a fairly easy if slightly ugly job, it needed a number of filler strips to cover all 3 sides, but I got there in the end, then covered the whole lot with ali diamond pattern sheet left over from the original stove stand. The outer side was a bit grimy from 30 plus years of fry-ups, but by just turning the sheets around, Presto! Good as new!

Quite good! Some new 8mm internal diameter gas line was had from the Foxton Camper and Caravan Shop and duly installed, I've decided to put the gas bottle/s in the back box I haven't built yet, in the mean time I'm going to use a 2kg gas bottle that will be connected and disconnected as needed, a minor pain I'm hoping will inspire me into getting on with the new box. Notice I've put in the vertical filler strip and made a lid for what is now the new pot n pan storage space. More linseed oil and it's all looking most satisfactory! Time to install the stove.

 

Excellent! Firmly bolted down, gas bottle connected outside and hold down the primer button on the stove until I smell gas. Add a match and...

Whoosh! Houston, we have lift off! How pretty is that? As an added bonus, what I thought was a non-functioning piezoelectric starter for the oven turned out to be a 'flame out' safety device that works just fine. Starting the oven means reaching in with a gas match or lighter, but I'm sure I'll get used to that, the more that I probably won't be using it that much anyhow. The grill seems to work well, Cheese on Toast is definitely on the menu! Good deal! Note the 'step' between the cooking surface and the bench top.


A closer view of the filler strip at the left side of the bench.

Only a couple of inches but makes the sink much nicer to use. All in all and a bit of faffing about, but a major improvement!


And speaking of major improvements, I decided ages ago I needed an actually comfortable seat to veg out in. The table seats are ok if you are sitting up right, but no much good if you are going for a mega-relax.
Now that I have good usable floor space I thought a car seat on a plinth might be good, compact and armless, perfect for playing guitar while sitting. I fished about on TradeMe ( www.trademe.co.nz  , eBay for the Antipodes) and looked at bucket seats. Some scouting later an in the $1 reserves I found the front passenger seat from a Nissan Primera within a 20 minute drive of home. Looked ok if a bit tatty, I thought to just get a seat cover for it. No one had bid on it yet, so I posted a one dollar bid, waited 4 days for the auction to end and won it! You beaut!

So I contacted the guy, we set a time for me to go get it and I duly did. What I wasn't expecting was for the set to be in pristine condition, a very attractive dark gray. The guy said it was too good to just toss, he was hoping someone would find a use for it....I was so pleased with it I paid the guy double, $2! Seems Nissan had after market seat manufacturer Ricaro  make a run of unmarked seats for some of their cars. The main difference being instead of a steel frame and springs like a usual seat, these were based on 2 molded steel pans, giving a firm seat with excellent rigidity. Looks the part, too.

So I got it home, experimented with seat heights a bit to find one that let me rest my guitar comfortable on my knee, then built a plinth for it from 100mm x 50mm timber. Nice and solid (and the only timber I had that would do)  The seat was coach bolted to the base, I left the seat slider in place so it can be slid back and forth. The thinking here was that by sliding the seat all the way forward, the seat can  be safely reclined without fear of tipping over backwards. Seems to work. Comfy!

I thought I'd have to restrain it somehow to stop it sliding about while driving, but the weight of the thing seems to take care of that. After a month of driving around I've yet to find it moved from where I left it. I'll stain the base to match the next time I buy some, but at NZ$24 for 200mls, that can wait.


Is it just me or am I gaining?

Step 14: Trash the joint some more.

Now that the North Wing was done and dusted, I could turn my beady eyes once more to the insides. First off I ripped out the stove stand saving both the stove and diamond pattern ali plate that lined the 'hot' area. Saved both for later.

The increase in floor space was obvious and only spurred me on to deal to the wardrobe as well. Slightly annoyingly I made a bit of a mess of the ceiling panel, it looks like the ali cladding sheets were the last things to go on, the top of the wardrobe having been screwed in place from above. Oh well, cant be helped.

With the wardrobe gone was well, the place was starting to look huge! I was a bit concerned about removing the ceiling support but adopted a 'wait and see' attitude.

Next trick was to relocate the fridge. This was quite easy since the fridge was already in it's own custom wood box, I just had to unscrew the roller feet to be left with a rectangular box. A short search of the wood heap turned up a short piece of board that would do very nicely for a rear support, this was cut to length then angle bracketed upright on the floor of the North Wing to provide support for the back of the (surprisingly heavy) fridge. The  I blocked up the fridge until it was the right height and just drew around it for the right sized hole. 2 Minutes with a jigsaw and I had a perfect sized hole.

There was a small amount of back and forth to establish the optimum inset for the fridge, I just swung the door fully open then pushed the fridge back until the door was flush with the wall. Easy!

That's better! Note the outline of the old wardrobe and stove on the floor. Then it was just a case of trimming some left over paneling to make it look a bit more presentable. While I was at it I moved the bunk ladder over to keep the path into the north wing clear and make the bench accessible with the ladder in place. Wiping the whole lot down with wood stain improved the general look no end.

Not the best photo, but you get the general idea. Now that I had that under control it was time to brighten the place up a bit. I'd gotten sick of looking at the unlined side of the door so covering it up became the next project. My sister had been given a huge mural painted on a 1200X2400mm panel of  wall board, a quick negotiation and I secured for my own use. It was almost the perfect width but much to tall, so in order not to ruin it, I carefully trimmed a piece off top and bottom so the picture was mostly undisturbed. Then I cut out the door panels and riveted the whole lot in place.

 
Quite good! They look like bananas, but it's actually a Kowhai (Saphora microphila) tree in full bloom. I'm liking it! The fridge looks like it belongs, too.

Next on the hit list is the galley. I'm not rushing into this one, it needs to be thought through just a bit....

Step 13: All things to those who wait.

1/3/2011.   It's been an interesting (read frustrating, irritating, trying) bunch of months since my last post, the ups and downs have been many and varied, but it boils down to this: Got The Bitch Sorted! Who's your Daddy! Me, that's who!

I had had a total gutsful of self proclaimed experts, engineers who didn't return phone calls and generally jerked me about for weeks and bureaucratic weenies who wouldn't give a straight answer if you held a gun to their pointy heads.  In the end I did what I should have done in the first place and took the old dear to an engineering shop, parked both vehicles out front, pointed to them and said 'Sort it.' 

Even this was not without it's excitment. The engineering shop who eventually did the job were flat out with other work and had me booked into a quite specific time slot.  I actually quite liked this, it meant they were not going mess about getting it done. By mutual agreement I'd deliver both camper and new truck to them the day before so they could make an early start. Somehow I got the idea into my head this was a thursday nite, get it done friday. A quite random check of my emails one afternoon revealed that today was delivery day, not tomorrow like I had thought. Oh hell. So the best laid plans of mice and men (delivery drivers, getting picked up etc) went all to pot and I had find someone who could help me NOW!!! Luckily for me the nice lady living next door came to the party and drove the pick up car. So, with me driving the new truck and towing the camper with my dad at the helm, we all set off for the 20 minute trip. I would spend the night in the camper, parked outside the engineering shop, then in the morning when the gates opened I'd drive both in. A last minute not so perfect plan but the only one I had.
Sort of fortunately, the place was out in the sticks, so I didn't have to spend the night in an industrial area, tho it was just meters away from the main road north from Palmerston North, so I got traffic noise in my ear all night. I made ramen noodles on a Trangia stove by candle light, then got a horrible night's sleep.

The main road is a few meters on the other side of the trees. This is the last photo ever of the camper with the Transit under it. I rolled both in the next morning, had a brief conversation with the workshop foreman on what I wanted and then left them to it. 7.15 A.M. on what was showing to be a nice day, my ride hadn't arrived, so I started walking. A couple of hours and 8kms later (no point rushing), dad and the lady next door again (Thanks Vicky!) show up in the car and save me the last 30 kms. It felt strange to sleep in the house for the next 2 nights.

A phone call to the shop and it's all systems go! Yeah baby! NZ$1100 later and I have both vehicals back home, the change over certificate grasped tighly in my hot little hand. To tell the truth I'm a tiny bit shell shocked, all my planning, scheming, phone calls, moaning and bitching and here it was, hard part done and rest all down to me.

Freakin' Tahdah!!! Damn it looks funny! My only tiny moan (and nothing I can do anything about except deal with it) is the box is exactly in line with very front edge of the tray, I had asked for a spare inch back from here so the new front panel would follow the line of the top curve of the roof. No matter, done now and I can work around it easily enough.

The naked Transit. Almost sad, really, 30 years together and now seperated forever. I put the thing on Trademe and few days later got NZ$300 for it from a chap in Auckland who wanted to fully restore it as a flat deck! I explained about the rust, sent the chap warts-n-all photos and he still wanted it. Cool! A couple of days later a huge car transporter turned up, we drove the thing on and that was all. Byebye Ford, like every other one I've ever owned, it's been painful knowing you!

Now down to work.

First thing is to strip away the old cab combing and wipe down the now exposed surfaces. Once again I was struck with fair shape the camper body was in, who ever built it did a very fair job.
Then it was drag out the freezer panels and start cutting them up using an off-cut wheel on the angle grinder. Which promptly blew up in a stinky cloud of smoke. OK, I had been expecting this, it was old and cranky. Trip off to The Warehouse and buy a nice new generic one for NZ$29.95. Blow this one up after about 10 minutes use. Hmm. Track back the The Warehouse, receipt in hand and exchange it for nice new one. This one seems to go OK and work is resumed. Floor first. I riveted  and siliconed ali angle stock on all four sides for the new walls to slot into, then lifted and pushed it into place, layering the deck first 3mm thick garden mesh so there would be an air space between the underfloor and wooden deck. I didn't want the steel to be laying on wet wood for 6 months of the year. Using one of the bigger panels, I was able to cut the floor out in one piece.

Levering the floor into place, I was slightly pleased to notice I had cut the front-to-back distance just right, locating the front edge first, I had to jump up and down on the back edge quite a bit to get it slot in, which it eventually did, tight as you like. An auspicious start!

That done, right side wall was next, also one piece. This one was bit more tricky, I had to cut and fold the front vertical joint to accept the front panel neatly. A special bending tool was devised for this, 2 pieces of 25mm iron angle stock was clamped together in a pair of vise-grips and tack welded in place, giving me 4 inch (100mm) wide jaws. By carefully working my way back and forth along the bend lines I was able to get nice neat right angle bends.

Floor, right hand wall and half of the front panels in, this is starting to look good!

Right side view, not all bad. I was stuck by how solid the whole arrangement was.

Coming along nicely. Much silicon, many rivets. Both are cheap and leaks blow royal corgi. Note the offset at the top of the front panel, the lost inch I was talking about above.

There we go! 2 Days, 2 tubes of silicon and about 300 rivets later. The over hang at the back of the truck is going to be taken up by a box I'll build later. Note the 4 steel plates added by the engineering shop.

Left rear mounting bracket spudded through to a steel cross brace. There are 8 (!) of these held down by M16 bolts! What ever else may happen, the steel floor frame is going nowhere. Ever.

The new addition is nick named The North Wing and is excellent! It could be a whole new bunk room, but that's not my plan. One of the things to remember about this is that nobody can ride in the back while underway, no seat belts etc and no access to the cab. I was sorely tempted to punch through the front wall and join up with the cab, but after much thought decided I would rather be able to roll the cab over for maintenance.  Also, the number of seat belts in the cab has to match the number of bunks in the back, some sort of bureaucratic detail that could have been a problem if I hadn't already decided on a '2+1' format for sleeping arrangements anyhow. So, the North Wing is strictly storage, all the junk inside the camper easily fits in with room to spare Bloody good!

I toyed with the idea of ripping out the main bunk and lowering it to make sitting up in bed possible, but that would have reduced the North Wing to an awkward rat hole, as well as being a major rebuild, so I left it as is.

The next couple of days was spent painting the outside to match the rest of the camper, 3 coats of paint and it looks as good as it's ever going to.

Oh my readers, it has been such a long trip getting it where it is now, weather tight (I hope!) and fully drivable. The ups and downs have been mountainous. Hind sight is always 20/20, if I had done all this when I 1st started, I'd be 6 months ahead, but where's the fun in that?

Step Twelve: Lining up the ducks.

I'm starting to run out of patience with this whole changeover thing. What should have been an easy swap over is becoming somewhat complicated thanks to the bureaucratic weenies who invent laws just to prove they were not looking at TradeMe or porn. I suppose it makes sense, in an over-regulated red tape sort of way, but it is still bugging me. Here's the thing. I cant just drop the body on the back of the truck, bolt it down and then trundle happily off in to middle distance. There is going to be a change in registration from 'light truck' to either 'camper', 'motor home' or 'motor caravan'. I have no idea how you tell them apart, but no doubt there is a complicated way of working it out, most likely with me having to pay for it. Almost for a certainty if I just went ahead it would not be certifiable, tho I'm starting to think I maybe.

I've been talking to a few different people about this, I have as many different opinions, and it would seem, all spurious. That's the definition of a free opinion I guess.
So today I went and saw the guys at a truck fixing and modifying shop who are also certified to provide certifications (pardon?) When it turned out I wanted to do the change and just get it certed, they in turn put me on to another chap who is also allowed to certify but works for himself. A conversation with him on the phone and now he's coming to see me at home, look the truck(s) over and tell me what I actually need one evening this week as he can fit me in.
After that (insh'Allah!) I SHOULD be able to (finally) get my act together, pull my head from my butt with a resounding pop and make the change. Of cause if I had the scratch to spare I'd have left both at the truck place and told them to give me a ring when it was done. That would have been nice....

Step Eleven: Don't be frightened, dont be scared, be prepared.

It's been a trying few weeks, I'm having to sort a load of different petty details before I can do a solid job of transferring the camper body from old truck to new. Everything below the steel frame the body sits on has to be removed or repositioned so it will slide neatly (I hope!!!!) onto the new deck. I also have to take into account that access to the underside of the camper body will be nearly impossible once it's on the new deck. So, anything below floor level has to go.

The big job here was ripping out the step well in the front (side? only?) door and filling in the hole. Not overly hard, most of the screws holding the step well in were either rusted away or the timber around them had cracked or rotted. Fill the cracks with building adhesive, scrape away the rot and replace with fresh timber or steel. Right about now the thinking ones among you will saying 'Yes but if he rips out the step well, the door will be too short!' And you'd be right. First things first, fill in the hole left by the door step.

I got a length of 25 X 50mm box steel and welded up a T to provide a solid base for the new floor. This was welded to the floor frame and a piece of the original table was cut to fit the gap. The new panel is held in place with building adhesive which also served to fill in the places I scraped rot out of. Worked out nicely.

You can see the stainless steel lintel cover I made out of the trim that covered the old top step edge. That was an exercise in lateral thinking, it's 90 degrees over and carefully cut to fit it's new home. There is a 8mm lip at the bottom of the door frame for the new door to sit on, the thinking here being that in years to come as the door settles, it'll be steel to stainless steel. I taped a couple of rivet shanks in place on the lintel to sit the new door on while I fixed the new hinges in place. Worked a treat!


An early view of the door-hole just after I had removed the gas tank and well step. The gas tank had to go for several reasons but mainly because I had to cut off the original left side lifting point. This was just a steel tube about 10 inches long welded to the floor grid right at the front. From this and it's mate on the right side the builders would have suspended it to get the truck underneath. I don't need them, so off they come. The left one was hemmed in by the filler pipe of the gas tank, meaning I would have had to used an angle grinder with a cut off wheel about 3 inches from the filler cap. Like hell! So I cut the straps holding the tank in, clamped off the fuel line and cut it, then slid the whole thing out. I rescued about 30 liters of petrol from the tank. That filled the family car with the overflow in jerry cans for the mower. Waste not, want not! The hole is covered by the piece of ply I eventually cut to fit. Note the cut steel straps. With the tank out of the way it was safe to go mad with the grinder. I shortened the fuel line and wired an empty meths bottle between the left headlight and the radiator. Poked a hole in the cap and stuffed the fuel line through. Now I can still move it short distances, ie in and out of the garage. Damn thing is too heavy to push!

Door frame under control, now I can start on the new door(s).

Happily there is enough room over the door to rebuild the door to 1.9 meters. Cut the ali cladding, Cut and move up the door lintel, fold the hanging flap under, trim to length and  screw into place. Easy! Well, sounds easy, anyhow. The lintel was a bit of a drag, I had to plane down a length of treated pine to 26.5mm thick and 104.5mm high, a tedious job since I had to try it for size about 20 times until I got a tap fit. I shot building adhesive up into the hole, tapped the new lintel into place then folded the ali cladding under and up, adding screws as I went. I put the new lintel in first, then cut out the old one once the glue had set.

The above pic clearly shows the new gap. All along I had planned to ditch the original door anyway, at some stage in it's life, some moron drove off with the door open and smacked it on something that was harder and heavier, it's actually broken right across just under the window and is held together by the cladding outside and interior panel inside. A shake of the door handle and it flaps like it's trying to take off. Poor thing.

So, the steel box section that made up the old bunks was pressed into service to make 2 rectangles for the door frames and a freezer panel was selected to chop up to make the new cladding. Right from the second I decided to replace the door, I wanted a Dutch barn door for the new one, I like the idea of being able to just open the top part for ventilation and views. I made the bottom section 1.1 meters tall, good leaning height, the top is a tad over 800mm. Welding the steel proved problematic. At 1mm thick, the steel box section just blew away about 2 seconds after I put the arc welder to it. Hmm. So, I sourced some 2.5mm welding rods, turned the power down to minimum (80 amps, low earth setting) and practiced on some scrap. I hadn't used an arc welder in nearly 2 years, but some experimentation and my welding mojo returned, I was in business! Still had to be quick tho, stirring the arc rod to get a nice red puddle of liquid weld then going from there was not an option, the second the arc started it was go man go!


Also slightly painful was the fact that the door frame was not straight, putting a straight edge to it revealed a whole tribe of high and low spots but I got around this by bending the steel as I went to suit it's new home. Fairly trying, but I got there in the end. Then it was just a case of peeling off the steel on one side of the freezer panel, laying the new door frame on it and marking off the inside of the frame with a marker pen. Cut away the excess with a sharp knife and press the steel frame into place, squirt silicone on the steel frame where it meets the cladding, clamp and rivet. The freezer panel is 50mm thick, I needed 25. The excess was cut off with a wood saw that was just longer than the door was wide, jiggling it back and forth with the 30 or so mm of movement left over. Slow going but I got there in the end.

Bottom section in place, top section dummied up to see if it fitted, some grinding, pounding on the door frame with a wooden hammer and a couple of strategic micro bends in the steel and all was well. The small bar on the bottom left side corner of the top section is the mounting place for the new door lock.

Bottom section in place and awaiting it's new hinges. The steel is a slightly different pattern to the original cladding but not at all bad. I added a shot bolt to the bottom corner of the bottom section for locking when the top section is open. I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. I don't have hinges for the top section yet, that comes tomorrow when I go off to get those and some angle steel to make the mounting brackets to hold the box onto the new truck deck.

That was the interesting part. The tedious part was the endless prep I had to do elsewhere.

As mentioned, everything below floor line had to go, including the skirts that gives the camper a nice round shape. These were ali covered boards bolted to steel brackets, so, mark and cut the ali cladding then cut the brackets holding the boards up and the whole mess falls off. Sounds nice and neat, it wasn't. Now the bottom edge of the ali cladding isn't fixed to anything, so I went right around the outside screwing the cladding to the floor boards. The screw heads got a blob of silicone to (hopefully) protect and seal them, then painted over. Note I haven't filled in the step hole yet.

The stern of the camper got the same treatment, the bumper and tow bar were both removed along with the tail lights. They came off just after this photo.

Note the sides are slightly lower than the back, this is the height of the steel floor frame. It's taking awhile.....

There was one small event that cheered me tho. It was the excommunication of the Ford Transit badge from the rear of the camper. I was going to leave on, cross out the 'Ford' and write 'Isuzu' over it, but in the end I decided to just take it off. Who ever put it on had used stainless steel rivets, too hard to drill out, I ground the heads off and peeled off the badge.

Going....

Going....

Gone! Leaving only 31 years of dirt and spider webs. A minute with a wire brush, then a rag dampened with meths and only 2 holes to show it had ever been there. Fill holes with silicone and paint over. Done. I'll save the badge for later, might do something interesting with it.

I'm on a roll now, things are finally coming together. Hopefully (ever so!), The Big Transfer will be in a week's time, giving me time to finish up the door and do a couple of other small jobs.

Bring it on!

Step ten. Ok, back on track.

After a low month of incessant, verging on compulsive, TradeMe trawling rendered up an 'Ooo, should go see that!' in New Plymouth. It was a new listing and a couple of other trucks I thought might do vanished within a day or so of their going on the market. So a phone call later and a trip to the upper Waikato was on for 1st thing next day.

Three and half hours after an 8.30 start saw Pop and I looking over this.

Oh my! Well hello! An '89 Isuzu Elf in nicely tarted up condition. It was sort of karmic tho, it was supposed to be the daughter's horse truck, Daddy being of means and inclination picked this up in less than lovely condition. A well used delivery trick with rust and generally ickiness. It started life with a 5 speed automatic gear box that was replaced by a 5 speed manual item by Daddy. There is a whole christmas tree's worth of now non applicable lights on the dashboard. No a/c or exhaust brake either, sadly.  24 Volt. Went for a short drive, seemed to go ok.
 
On the bright side, daddy's panelbeater cut and welded all the rust then painted it a nice nondescript white. The cab upholstery was redone in red paisley and a huge tray and solid tow bar added. The deck is huge , 4550mm by 2200mm. By my measuring it'll swamp the camper body by about 90mms a side. More on this later.

Some brake and injector work later and it was given to Daughter. Dad, it's too slow, I want a faster one. So a short deal later it was all mine.

Dad was a nice guy, an earth works and transport contractor as it turned out. Now the truck was mine, how to get it home...

My original plan called for leaving it there and coming back a couple of days later with a driver. Dad's wife Mum (nice lady too, must be something in the water.) worked for a car hire company. She had it figured that I could pick up a rental for delivery in Wellington, drive it to New Plymouth, pick up the truck and drive home. Long day in the saddle but well do-able.

Or.....


We could put the station wagon on the back of the truck......ooooooo..... 'Oh sure,' said Horse Truck Dad, 'no problem.'  Oh right, there will be a ramp here some place. No, better.

Oh yum yum! Daddy's drive, a nice new Volvo flat loader. Back the Honda up the ramps and...

The man carries dozers and diggers and stuff, of cause my Dad's Honda'll fit...just drive straight ahead and think happy thoughts...

I've paced it out, I'm sure it'll fit, but that deck doesn't look very big even so. This is silly, I'm less than a meter up and I feel like I'm on stilts, harden up!

Tahdah!

I was all set to buy a bunch of rope, but no, good egg that he is, Horse Truck Dad came to the party with 4 large ratchet tie downs and in less time that it takes to tell, Honda was hog tied to Isuzu. Hope they get on. I offered to courier the tie downs back, but no, they were a present. Thanks! Nice guy.

I figured the Honda for a bit over half of the Isuzu's max loading, so no strain there, certainly it didn't feel funny once we were under way. I could see what the daughter was on about, though, no land speed records here. Patience and spacing the 5 gears eventually resulted in a comfortable 85-95kph, unless there was a hill. For a 3.3 liter diesel it seemed pretty relaxed about the whole affair. Still. Go it did, and in adequate comfort and handling. Not as loud as some I've driven, a conversation with the passenger is easily possible but I dont think I'll be fitting a stereo anytime soon. There is one, an A.M only radio in the dashboard hooked up to a single speaker someplace buried. OK when you're parked or in traffic. The thought didn't escape me that the Transit was easily as fast and a lot nicer to drive, But that's ok, all in all apart from the slightly hunched seat it's a running thing. A couple of hours later the hunched seat thing started to really piss me off. I was sure the seat was as far back as it would go, or at least that's what I thought. A tug on the seat slider and the seat lurched back another 6 inches, oh better! A grope and pull on the back rest adjuster and I had optimum driving configuration, yeehah! Now why didn't I do that right at the beginning...

Leisurely pace not withstanding, the trip home was nicely uneventful. Now all I had to do was figure out how I was going to get the car off the back of the truck once we got home. Hmmm. Just as we drove into Shannon I vaguely recalled seeing a loading ramp in the rail yard near home. A quick investigate and success!

Job done! Home was a 2 minute drive away and all had gone swimmingly! I like the truck, it's easy to drive (idiosyncratic gearbox not withstanding. Gear changes need to be lined up with some care if you don't want to be left hanging in the middle of an intersection in Wanganui, eek!), all in all I think might have got lucky! Time to start thinking about the swap over.

A musical interlude.

It's been a long month, the truck rust thing was weighing on my mind, TradeMe lists were scrutinized  and deliberated over and over. Time for a break.

 I've been going to Sanctuary Sounds Music festival near Waipawa  in Hawkes Bay for the last couple of years, a pleasant little event on a lifestyle farm. They keep ticket numbers to 300 per year, a cunning move in my opinion. I was itching to take M-B but alas...so I tossed some camping gear into the folk's station wagon and kicked off. The drive was nice in early summer sunshine, a couple of hours and I was there. Flash my ticket at the gate and park under some trees. It was only just lunch time, still lots of camp sites, so I grabbed the tent and headed off to get me some real estate.

This looks good! The tent is a milsurp item from the NZ army. No flyleaf or floor and many peg loops and guy ropes as well as neat lil 5 piece ali poles. Quite sturdy and in one of my favorite camos schemes. Once the tent was up I just spread a tarp inside and tossed my therm-a-rest on top, home! It's a good size inside, 3 blokes and all their junk easily. It has a tape running from end to end, so stretching  it into shape is quite safe. Well made!

Tentage achieved, it was time to wander off. A very short stroll brought me to the stage area.

This is the porch/stage at the back of the owner's house with people standing around on his lawn. I'm leaning against the sound booth at the back of the lawn. The quality of the sound is very fair, good gear and a competent sound guy made for good balanced sound. Things were looking good for a noisy night :-)

In one of those cosmic coincidences, I bumped into the chap to whom I sold my furniture truck about 3 years ago. Interesting bloke by the name of Gypsy, he used to own the Shannon second hand store, a place my Mum loved to go to buy books and knicnacs as well as talking up a storm.
It was just a bare luton box body sitting on a Mitsubishi L300. I loved driving that truck, it's lil 1600cc Lancer petrol motor buzzing away at a sedate 85 kph. Sadly tho, the whole deal was a bit ruined by my not being able to stand up straight in the box. I thought about lifting the roof, but sheesh! Too hard for just 4 inches and would look top heavy anyhow. So, that never happened, the truck was sold and I got a Nissan Sentra instead.

Fast forward 3 years.

He's done a solid job of the conversion, not his first.

Very comfortable! Easily my favorite part was the neat lil wood burner stove Gypsy and a mate constructed especially. It's about the size of a shoe box on end and runs of pine cones and small bits. Very cool!

Even a trivet to cook on! I could sooo see something like this in M-B, might have to give that one some thought...nice lil truck.

The afternoon rolled on, the stage and the bar  both opened at 1pm and 1st acts go under way. The ladies singing acapella and being served tequila shots as they sang, funny stuff as they got the 4th or 5th one down.

As the afternoon wore on, I thought I'd get the sleeping bag out of the car and put it in the tent all set for the night in case I was a bit the worse for wear. Got back to the tent and discovered my peace and quiet had turned in to suburbia.

Argh! There goes the neighborhood....oh well. Layed out my sleeping bag and headed back to the stage area.

Eventually got dark, the bands got louder, people drank, danced, hung out and a good time was had by all. As a family event there was a double handful of kids running about the place and having a good time, it's good to see that sort of thing. Even the couple of obvious drunks were well behaved and we partied into the night.


Eventually the stage closed at 1am, most people had quit for the night and it was no struggle to wander off to the tent, crawl into bed and just close my eyes and fade.
Wasn't boozed worth the mention, so work up in the morning feeling like a coffee would set me up to face the morning nicely. Wondered over to the coffee stand and discovered they were out of milk. Oh the horror! So pausing only to roll up the tent and load all my junk back in the car, I flounced off back home, stopping at the 1st coffee cart I came to. Another excellent weekend, would have been better if I had M-B, but there is always next year....