yoeddynz

Yeah thats a point. The truck electrics are in no way connected to the house battery. So this gli - does it just go between the earth and the battery? Or in line with that?

Damn- I don't like being raped up the shitter with a pineapple! I thinkk its a disgusting price to pay given the time involved was pretty much the same as a car. And twice a year! I guess we can offset it by knowing that our annual licence is $200 less as its now a motorhome. I'll check out some noise surpressors - maybe Jaycar? jakesae101- I will PM you if I have any questions.

yeah leadlights are well nice. I'm really glad we fitted them as the light that comes through is great- well the coloured ones at least. I didn't realise at the time because Hannah paid but the COF cost us $117 !!!! bloody hell! thats a bit much- it took them less time then most car tests I had done. I hope its cheaper at Vinz. Still- just happy it passed. Yep- that above diagrams of a GLI doesn't make sense to me.

Wicked! Hey whats involved with that leckywoof on a camper? I heard its just the connection from the campsite box to the camper that gets tested? We have a pretty basic setup- just an extension cord hanging out the bottom which is wired into a plug on the wall. I was just going to fit the relevant connector and a proper camping extension cord to suit.

Yeah!!! please if you PM me some prices on bits and pieces involved. I'll tilt the cab at some point and have another look but yeah- a couple of the tie rod ends were sloppy etc so an afternoon spent replacing them will work wonders I bet.

Now that its all road legal I am busy cracking on with the other jobs..... Well it is raining outside and cosy inside. ^ this explains why we are so slack. I think cats are a major contributing factor to overall slackness.

cheers guys!! yeah serenity is all good now. It was just amazing yesterday to be sitting in our house and instead of looking at a hedge or house and hearing cars on a busy road we were able drink our coffee looking at the sea and listening to the waves It would be cool to A frame the Viva. This old bearded builder guy swung in where we were parked up and chatted away- he used to build and live in housetrucks up north. He now travels the south island with a funky old 60s caravan that he has put cedar shingles on. He picks up building work here and there. Interesting old dude. He just built a mobile workshop so now has to do two trips. But yeah- cant travel far yet as we need money. Still have a small amount saved in blighty but exchange rate is getting worse everyday. Just need to bump our funds up for a bit. Not looking forwards to that whole work thing..... quite enjoying getting up late

Yeah- couldnt sleep last night. we were in best place nice and peaceful and I just lay in bed wondering what might it fail on etc etc. Going to bed now- gonna sleep happy. Bloody noisy road again though....

Woo hoo!!! We now have a fully road legal house! Yesterday was a day of many little jobs like putting catches on anything that may fly open around corners, fall and smash or just move about marking things. Finally after waiting till all the traffic died down and the cars parked opposite had left I swung the house out wide onto the road, avoiding taking out the gate we drove up to Taylor dam - a nice spot about 8 kms from home in the country. The truck was surprising to drive- its actually far less slower than I thought it would be and rode much smoother than I was expecting. I'm not used to driving such a long truck but that aspect was fine. What did scare me is not being able to see exactly where the front overhang finished- I kept thinking I might take out a sign with our bedroom. Hannah just sat there insisting we were really close to the curb- but thats what all passengers say eh? Steering is fine- steers like an old truck but at least it has power steering which the Bedford didn't have. Brakes felt fine. But the gear change is sloppy- I really want to tighten up the linkages as its tricky to find the gears on downshifts. The gearing is really low- 80 kph will be tops unless I rev it hard. Its sits on 80 fine though. Its low geared for sure but at least its good for acceleration and around town/hills. At 80 I'm doing 3500rpm and off the green sector on the rev counter. Parked up by the lake/dam and chilled out for the evening- really kind of weird not hearing town but instead hearing ducks and other birdlife. We slide out just one pop out and tried the invertor out- watched a dvd. Annoyingly our new 'pure sine wave' invertor seems to create a hum through the speakers if we play the dvd sound out through the headunit. If we just use the TV speakers there is no hum. Both the invertor and the stereo are off the same battery. Can I put some sort of filter on the power feed to the stereo? In the morning we woke to a chilly but not frosty clear day. The views are great out here- so close to home but so peaceful. I took some photos, hannah made coffee, I got nervous as it was test time. Taylor dam.. The Ned (950m) in the distance with morning cloud... We arrived at Blenheim's VTNZ about 9.30 and there were 2 trucks in front. The guys were well interested in our house and all piled indoors for a looksie. They loved it and gave lots of praise which is nice. Every thing was looking. Dave who works there and has been helping with info on certain requirements like windows etc mentioned we could change the usage over to motor home- this knocks licencing from $600 a year to $400!!! Cool. The truck flew through the test until it came to the rear brakes. The came up imbalanced so given it was cold plus we hadn't hardly used them at all Dave suggested taking it out for a good session, work the brakes and get the truck weighed while we were at it. We needed to know the weight for the reclassification plus for buying more road user charges. The nearest weigh bridge was about 7 kms away and all the way there I kept doing hard stops and some left foot braking in true rally style. A lovely welsh lady at the coolstores weighed the truck. Its max weight allowed is 11.5 tonne. We were hoping it would be under ten. To our surprise it was under 9!! 8.4 tonne. Cool- that saves another $32 per 1000 kms. We went back to VTNZ- no queue this time- straight onto the brake rollers and much much better. Its a pass. They reckon they should get better with some more use too. The brake dials of doom... So Hannah did all the paper work involved with change of usage and I showed more of the workers plus some random truck driver inside the truck. As we wouldn't be able to get back into my olds place while cars on the road we decided to head to the beach. Bought some hot pies on the way to celebrate (yeah- I'm hardcore) and chilled out at the beach for the rest of the day which was awesome- so cool to have the door to our house open out onto the beach. No one else around. Lovely sunny day too. I took loads of photos- they aint great as I only have my phone. I must borrow mums camera next time. On way out to beach... Settled in nicely thank you.. View from back door... View from window in spare room... Some others.. This evening we watched another movie with the sound of waves in the background and then we packed up and headed back to my olds about 9pm knowing it would be clear to get truck back through drive. And here I am now- back in wifi zone uploading photos- very very happy I am. In two weeks we plan to head south in truck to the Kaikoura coast for the winter solstice. That I am very much looking forwards to. Still lots of jobs to do but at least our house is legal now! EDIT; whoops- hannah spotted a double up of photos.

ahhh yes. ^ that would be the common or garden variety hc viva. Mine is a rarer and much more desirable hb. (Runs and hides from expected onslaught of rude comments from hc owners..) Anyway- off in truck soon for the night. Wont have nerdnet access so wish us luck for cof tomorrow.

Its fun building them thats for sure. But I wish I had a barn to build it in so not worry about weather.

I know I'm nervous when I start farting heaps....

Last night I drove it out the drive once the traffic had died down. We had check that the rear overhang would clear the footpath due to gutter dip. From 500mm off the ground when level to only 90mm with back wheel sitting in the gutter. But it made it!!! Tomorrow we go for the COF. It started straight away and sounded lovely. It seems so big even though reality is that its only 1m longer than when I drove it from Nelson. I will have to really watch that rear overhang when swinging into side roads though!!!! We cant leave parents house during the day because if there are cars over the road during the day I cant go out far enough to get out from drive as the truck is too long. Slightly nervous as well as excited. I will drive it out tonight and park out of town at a nice rest area in front of local hills. Then in morning we can drive to test in a relaxed manor.

Yeah its a good one- I too tried squashing it, then sent PM to bloke on another forum who had it and asked for link. $500 is a lot of money eh!!! crikey. We used to machine them up years back and Cuddons where I worked had plenty of stock of the stuff in different grades. I guess it adds up but thats still alot.

Just need to make another number plate as one is missing plus in the middle of hacking a pod filter apart and shortening it. Waiting for a wideband gauge to arrive as well. Then its cert time!

Hmmmm lovely. Keep it simple and clean. Always a winner. One day in the future I will again own a 7.

Where did you get the wheels? Looking good. It nice to have it back rolling eh?

How much for those bushes listed above?...did I see $500? nahh.

OK....

I think a cat thread in off topic needs to be started ....show us your pussy...

Ok - finally an update. We have both now become a bit slack and have started getting up late, doing way to much looking at old trucks and vivas on the internet (well I have....) and playing with the new Maine Coon kitten my Mum got recently. So close to being able to cof the truck and hit the road but hey- no rush. First off- we finished the rear brakes. Once the near side was sorted with cleaned up shoes, new cylinder, seals in the other and new oil seals we checked the other side which was all good. As we had it apart though it was thought prudent to replace all the seals to be sure. Then we bled the system which took ages as I discovered the reservoir had two separate section- the one for the front brakes was hard to view and it must have got low then got loads of air in front circuit. Finally got the pedal up hard so hopefully the brakes are all good now. The front shoes look brand new too when viewed through the little slots in the back plates. So other things we have done are fitting a 180 watt solar panel, IVT mppt controller, and huge battery. Really cool to know the battery is getting charged up. Comparing against the amount of petrol we used to use in the last truck we have worked out that it will take under a year and a half to pay it all off. Plus no more mucking about getting the genny out and filling it, no more noise. sweet. I have made it so the panel can be angled towards the winter sun which makes a huge difference to the output. We built a little book shelf upstairs with a cupboard at the end to house the controller. Hannah also built another bookshelf in the spare room- it now houses plenty of Haynes manuals among other books...sweet. So not a lot of big jobs but many little ones. Finding places to stash stuff, making little shelfs cabinets. We took time and enjoyed building a little wall cabinet over the work bench- I needed something to mount a little spot light from and thought a nice cabinet, again made from a whole mixture of woods, would be fun to build. Very happy with the result although the little light has turned out to be a bit weak. Oh well. Have a nice extra storage space now. I built some extra bits on the side to stash lots of pens etc while I was at it. Today we went and looked at another massive Housetruck- a really big Mitsubishi 4 axle truck. It has 4 slide outs.They need the space as its catering for a family of five. Very nicely made too - not surprising given the fella who built it is a coach builder. Load of great ideas that I would have nicked from it had I seen it before we started ours but thats life. They are coming to have a look at our truck tomorrow. I didn't think to get any photos but here is a link to their build blog... http://www.ourbigtruck.co.nz/photos/ Something else I have started on is a front support combined with a bike rack. We will want to take our old bikes with us - Hannahs old 1940s bike and my Rod braked Royal mail post bike. Rather than stash them inside I thought a rack on the front. Combine that with a front support and all sorted. I have become paranoid about the overhang even though I have added side supports. I thought no harm in a removable support for when we are driving- just there in case we hit a sudden dip at speed (like 60 KPH- now that would be fast) and the bed wanted to land on my head. Luckily the chassis rails extend forwards enough to bolt a big section of channel onto them behind the bumper bar. I bought more steel and built this lot.. I had to notch the channel to clear a roller for the park brake cable to run in when the cab tilts. I will weld a plate onto the bar and then build a bike rack that I can bolt onto it. What was a nice discovery was that there was a teeny tiny bit of slack aound the bolts holes for the bar so while hannah wiggled the bar I went inside and into the bedroom. It wasn't until I got to the very very front that the framework must have sagged enough for the slack to go. This was all with out the side supports bolted in either. So now I will have no fear of the waking up in the morning to discover the steering wheel against my chin. Tonight we finished my special project. I have planned to build it for ages- my 'workshop under bench stool and cupboard system' or 'Wubsacs' for short. It makes more use of otherwise wasted space. I have been really looking forwards to building this. Yet again I have used lots of different types of wood. In fact I had no choice as the supply is dwindling and there is no point getting more as we may as well use whats left. Hardly any more things to build. The stool has lots of little storage spaces. Hannah has varnished it and made a cushion for it from an old curtain we brought over from our last truck. I need to make some cupboard handles and some rope handles so I can lift it outside. The idea is that I can put tools in it like ring spanners then I can use it outside if working on the car/van etc and have a little built in shadow board. Its really just something I wanted to make. We really hope to get our act sorted and take the truck for its COF next week. I must admit I'm quite nervous about driving it- even though I have already driven it enough when we got it. Now its a house and its a touch longer it seems loads bigger- but its not really. I'm sure I'll be fine and enjoy it. Hardest thing will be reversing it back through the gate as the gate is narrow, the road is bllody busy and if anyone parks opposite I'm stuffed as its too long to make it without the rear swing taking out the fence. Oh and lastly- not truck stuff but still sort of related as it stops us getting anything done!!! The new kitten... His name is Morris. Dad named him that- after the cars. He will be big. Where we got him they had another Maine Coon who was only 3 year old and weighed in at well over 13kgs!!! He was so huge. Mum couldnt pick him up. When he was sitting his head was higher than Hannahs knees. I have never seen a domestic kitty cat so big, And he'll get bigger too as Maine Coons take 5 years to get to full size. I hope our new kitten gets to that big. Its looking promising. And for your interest..Mac- the bloody big Maine Coon...

Cheers man. We need more housetrucks...

its pretty easy. I reckon easier in nz too as we have so many farms and people are always up for a spot of extra cash in their pockets in exchange for rent of a spot of land. especially these days. Plus so many people live in vehicles here where as in the uk or euro land you get instantly labeled- i had to pick who i would tell as some people just cant understand. For an idea on rent at posh motorcamps in nelson are charging between 90 and 110 a week for 2 permanent stay. Much much cheaper to find a friendly farmer etc especially if all you might need is water. I lived on streets of oxford in mk 2 transit for over 2 years and then another 2 in my big iveco mail van i fitted out. Worked 40 hours a week at local push bike shops for 10 years. When in transit i joined uni gym and had my showers there. After a gym session in winter then shower i could chill out and watch girlies playing badmington:-) van had no heating- winters there are bloody cold. But i paid no rent for almost 5 years. Then moved out to country side when hannah bought her tk. For 6 years we paid £5 each a week to live surrounded by oak trees and fields 6 mile bike ride from work. Was fantastic! Do it! All you need to do is get rid of shit ya dont need (except old cars and bikes...) You never own stuff- it owns you.

Oh no... not for us. We had the lovely 330 straight 6 diesel and it had been reconditioned by the BBC mechanics- paid for by the tax payers! I was telling Cam how it is all alloy body- tig welded alloy framework, alloy skin, stainless fittings- was beautifully built. Four were made to order for the BBC. It was a mobile video unit that travelled all over Europe. We paid 1500 quid- was such a bargain. It was 1982- one of the last TKs. I loved it. 3000 mile trip over 4 months around Europe and it returned 15mpg!!! Not a single fault. Was a touch slow climbing up some of the cols- like at 2500 meters. Second all the way up. I had fitted an exhaust brake from a volvo onto it and that worked a treat- we would have cooked the brakes otherwise. In fact I had to put cardboard over the radiator on the long downhills as it wouldn't get warm otherwise. I put newer TL (did NZ get TLs?) into it- they bolted straight in. They had adjustable armrests for ultimate cushtyness. The inside. watching the tour de france come over Col du Galibier from roof of truck. BBQ, sound system, beer. We saw so many cool old trucks on that trip- I'm gonna start a cool truck thread....

Fuck yeah- TKs rock eh! The photos I emailed you earlier Cam of our old TK, well i found more, I miss that truck- was ace.