yoeddynz

There was a craze in the states back in the 70's for Foam houses. They would build a basic wire frame and build walls with chicken wire. Then they would spray expanding foam onto the walls inside and outside. Once set it could be carved into shape and smoothed. But they soon became obsolete due to health problems from vapours leaching from the foam Looked cool though! I'm sure there are better foams now but I still dont like the idea of being surrounded by manmade stuff. Wood is Good! On another topic, I have posted this build up on Retro-Rides and someone on there doesn't believe the photos from the inside of that modern 6 wheeled truck I put up are real. And after a google search it appears a lot of people didn't believe the photos. So I replied with this... "yeah they are photos from inside that truck - I you look carefully it has a raising roof - quite common , there are even some in NZ using the same system. This gives loads more room. One truck I know raising the roof about 1.5 meters. You can see the scew list in the corners of the living room. So those side windows are exposed when the roof lifts. and the bedroom is above the kitchen area- but can only be accessed when the roof is up. Imagine how tall our truck could be.... But if you still don't believe..." http://www.hoax-slayer.com/garbage-truck-home.shtml unicat offroad motorhomes And while on the subject of total madness here is truck build I followed a few years back. This truck is amazing! I love the build thread- very well written and funny. So make a big pot of tea, stoke up the bong or what ever floats your boat and check out this one... Rob Grays 'Wotthahellizat'

First bits of cladding are up! We will have to get some more though as after a sort through there wont be enough. Off to plankville again on friday then.. Cladding away in the evening sun....

here's some goodies we got while down in Christchurch... lots of polystyrene for the walls etc. 20m thick - we will double it up. Ok Sesame steet people, what does that make? That makes 40mm. Good job big bird- now go 'play' with Snufalufagas and his big 'trunk'. here's some Rimu floorboards- less the 150 odd carpet tacks we removed... I'm going to fill the base of each upright with posh cavity wax- I dont want them ever rusting through and the house falling off when caning it through the S bends on a track day. We started putting up batons today. This is a big moment as it means we shall start cladding it very soon!!! I cant wait. Really windy and its meant to rain later. If it does we will retire to the shed and build window frames to the sound of good tunes whilst inhaling nature. Cosy. And here are some photos a friend sent me of a bloody cool truck. Not my style- but it would be totally my style if I had lots of money! I think its 6 wheel drive too! heaven. I love the way everything has its place for proper offroading!

Mark Brownie at Just GM here in Blenheim has got a mint dohc gem 4 door. quite rare aren't they?

i was thinking along those lines too. The photos show it in a location that i would not want to hang around at for too long. Dodgy as. Cheap truck though- would require full stripping out to remove bodies

here's a cheap project if any of ya's are interested.... cheap dodge housetruck

This weekend in chch we have bought ... 200 meters of rimu floorboards at a bargain price, one lovely western red cedar and rimu door, enough sheets of 20mm polystyrene that we ended up having to leave some - another trade me bargain saving us $400, 4 more leadlight windows, 10 litres of tredgrip paint for the roof, and one oldschool rev counter (for my viva) Van is now packed! Back home tomorrow. Beer and pork roast time now...

They are trying to change the law in UK regarding modified cars but changing laws there is like paddling up shit stream in a barb wire canoe with a tennis racket for a paddle- a long process. The way it stands in the UK is that if a car goes for an MOT and the tester feels that lets say the morris minor is not safe with a 457 chev and drum brakes all round then it wont pass. The truth is a lot of places just don't want to bother with extra digging or hassle - so long as it passes the criteria for a standard MOT its all good. This is great if the cars are built with some thought about safety, which most are but Ive seen some really dodgy builds over there. Things that would have a cert engineer here wearing out pencils. I still love the lack of certs in the UK though! I'm happy to have to cert my car here if the other option was no mods at all like some states in aussie or half the European countries- but I think its bloody expensive! And I still cannot get over the fact a car will fail a wof if the parcel shelf has some holes in it for speakers!!!!!

some questions, When was it that cert's came about? And a friend told me that some cars have older cert's which don't have a plate- they have a piece of paper with the changes noted and its sighted and signed by the engineer- are these still OK and accepted by WOF testers/ police if nothing has been changed since it was sighted and signed. When did they stop doing it like that and go over to a plate?

lots of trees getting used in this one for sure.

Carve a massive totom pole!

what is it with these front mounted oil coolers?....

Finished welding up popout frames and Hannah painted them. Meanwhile I fitted another skylight - this one is above where my workbench will be. The weather got a bit shitty today- didn't rain though...Blenheim so we retired to the shed after having started the woodwork for window frames/sashes. I'm not a carpenter and they are very basic simple frames but have come up lovely! Nice Rimu and what I think might be totara or black beech. We have quite a few window frames to make- a long process! Its getting easier each one and we'll keep building them over the next few days. Lots of varnish will be needed once they are built. We have been collecting various stained glass windows off trade me. We still need a few more. Then we can start cladding the framework knowing where and what size the window frames will be.

We had to piss about with the bedroom floor this morning. Its the one area getting insulated that is just a steel frame with out batons being added- and the steel being 38mm with the insulation being 40mm means the polystyrene sits proud. We thought it might squash down but it didn't- power of surface area eh! So we decided to cut a sliver off the polystyrene. Which was gonna take ages till I made this... 'alex acme' polystyrene planing jig... Now the floor was all done and the ply wasn't getting forced out by over thick poly we carefully (and awkwardly) lifted it up into place. Wow - with a floor down up there its amazing- so huge a bedroom. I tried taking photos to show the size but it was tricky with a small camera. We laid down up there and checked out the view- cool having skylights. Next problem was the bloody aerial- it hits the bedroom floor. So I drilled a hole and it can now extend up into the bedroom.....

fuck yeah- that big eagle in the photo in trademe link- wow. thats the bizzo. im not against roof racks- our sunny has one and has transported many sheets of ply. van has one too- its all bent down now after picking way too big a load of wood for truck. but filling them full of crap - just a bit far. At last years retro show in blighty there was even one fella with a stand selling crap to go on roofracks....

I just had a look and tall ships mascots seem to be in short supply. But I found this...

Gay roofracks are all the rage in euroland! I think tow bars are the next big thing... I love that tall ships bow mascot idea- where could I get some?....(tall ship...?) certainly would be a talking point!

Finished - well almost finished- the bedroom floor today- but man its heavy! 70KG alone. It'll hinge at the back and with rope and pulleys will lift up at front to let the cab swing through. So i guess its only half that weight to lift. plus bed though. the floor in progress.... I'm now thinking of adding a support from behind cab. I dont think it needs it but peace of mind when we have a lot of room to play with as far as adding load. I have mainly been against adding something due to losing quick access to back of cab and aesthetics. But I though why not have it bolt in place! And then add some curly wurly squiggly bits out of black steel making it look a bit more arty farty to go along with rest of truck... ( I knew the 3 months I spent in the blacksmith shop when I was an apprentice would one day come in handy..) Anyway- heres a quick CAD drawing I whipped up on my Mac with my expensive pro cad program and rubber to show all where the support could go.... I got carried away... Any ideas on how to make the support look pretty would be welcome

I think posh ones might level out but no ours- there will be a step up of about 40mm. You can buy posh kits in the states with all the fancy electric drive stuff but ours will just roll out and get locked in place with a couple of catches.

Had a good day- hot and sunny and took my brothers old TVR out for a spin to a hotrod show I'm gonna post up photos of that elsewhere. And the truck- we made the pop out frames today! They ended up going together a lot better than thought. Just took it cruisy style and got into a groove. We made sure everything was nice and square by tacking the pop outs to the frame so they will fit nicely before welding them up. Next step will be to make the rollers. Plus add some bracing to the pop outs for floor support etc.

I need to sit back more often and read up all the car threads on here. Just read yours through- wicked car, wicked engine, well written and funny. would have been a perfect read if I had a cup of tea but i couldn't be arsed to move. Nice fab skills. I love the lexus v8- are they common, easy to get and cheap(ish)....OR not? And I thought most were auto- so you made a flywheel etc but which box did you use? watching this one- now hurry up and finish it!!!

Fuck that seems seriously quick- 0-100 in what, maybe 6 secs? very very nice workmanship there fella- lovely job!

Measured it today- its about 4.1 at the back and 4.15 at the front- legal limit is 4.25. Which most big trucks are at. I followed one through coast road tunnel near kaikoura which are 4.35 max. They have actually cut corners in the curve of tunnel to allow for bigger modern trucks! The truck I followed only just squeezed through! lucky ours has a pitched roof eh- still going to line it up carefully for the tunnels. I know there are some places we wont be able to take it- I think there are some low height bridges on west coast road? we will have to do research before travels!!! I drove it today around the block and reversed it back in - shit its freaky- its hard to tell where the front is and mirrors were not set right. And boy did it get some looks! BTW josh- are you checking out the hotrods this weekend? Lansdowne park i think

nah- its got a 50mm curve- water should run off sweet as. And we'll have gutters to collect rainwater back into main water tank for shower.

we wanted to turn truck around this morning but its now too big to move about on the yard. Unless I could chop down one of the apricot tress.... And there are always cars parked outside on road during the day so I wont have enough room to swing it out onto road! So that's our mission tonight when cars are gone. I took some photos while it was out to capture the roof. here... the full roof front.. The main rafters.. now we are going to get out all the windows we have bought and work out where they will go plus see if we need more. Then I'll hopefully start building the slideout frames this arvo.