yoeddynz

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.

Well its been a busy few days. Last week on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday we managed to finish putting up all the roofing. The main centre roof rafters are rough edge cuts from Macrocarpa (Cypress) and smell lovely when cut. Sort of peppery. They look great up- all wobbly and rustic. Its really nice to have the roof all done. The main roof is 12mm ply so fine to walk on. There's still things to do- it needs the Aqua tread coating painted on plus I need to put the perspex covers on the skylights. Just a relief to have it up- now if it rains we have cover. Unless it rains sideways. I have not actually taken any photos of the roof finished- will put some up soon. The weekend was all mountain biking in the Richmond ranges- involving a 1200m climb and then drop down to lake Chalice hut and then whisky. What welcome break it was. Here's my bike and here's the lake... Back to the truck monday morning. We sanded the cab down all over, filled most dents and prepped for paint- as always this took longer than expected. sanding in the sun.... Yesterday it was painting time. we brush painted the door edges, jams. Then I got out the Earlex LPHV spray gun I used on the rx3. still amazes me how ell and easy it works. Today we spent time cleaning all the door/window seals of white overspray from when it was painted by previous owner. This took ages but was worth it- helped by a lovely hot sunny day- as usual for Blenheim Hannah repainted the Hino badge and it came up wicked! very shiny... I want some old school hino badges for the door. When we started painting the colour initially seemed too bright but I think its the effect of fresh new paint over manky white. As we covered the truck it started to seem right. Now all the bits are back on it looks great- almost too posh for a house truck. I painted the door tops black and the light surrounds gunmetal grey- it looks smart. I think the colour will go really well with the natural wood cladding.

fuck me- that is art work. what a most perfect stance too! Yet another one on my wish list! Are there any in NZ?

Volvos- I loved volvos when I was a kid and built a model one or two...(its all coming out now.... ) Anything scandinavian is going to be tough- like their cars. If you break down in the middle of nowhere around the artic circle surrounded by just snow and lose your heating your fucked. Hino built cars! ? Google search time....

Oh ok- what- could he get some badges?... what we want are some old style hino badges for our doors- with script type of font. I don't even know if Hinos ever had a style like this though. There seem to be sod all info out there on Hinos actually- not much on older ones. They just don't seem to have any sort of following -unlike other trucks such as bedfords, fodens, erfs etc....

Whos hemi?

can you get us any old hino badges? And some lovely new seats?... or original covers please please please

all the steel forwards of cab came to 100kg- a lot lighter than it looks! The ply on the roof is about 60kg plus rafters at about maybe 30kg. There will be cladding but that will also serve to add shear strength to the overhang. The bed wont be heavy. Maybe an air mattress filled with helium? Funny voices at night.... I did end up adding extra bracing and gussets after a few days of looking at it but i recken that if I welded one piece of the RHS to the roof of my Viva and bolted a chain to the other end I could lift the car up from a crane - until the poor old roof rips out.... viva weighs in at maybe 750kg. I wont do that though - I dont have a crane. When ya stand up there with 2 on very front and jump about the whole truck moves- thats more of a problem- its ruined for track days!

Here's a taster of what we are doing today... its bright- we won't lose this one in the carpark...

This thread is awesome! And the Lvvta.org site is now bookmarked!

we are mtbing up lake chalice in richmond ranges today and staying overnight at the hut. I will take photos. So no house truck building today!!!

brooklyn machine works? Very strong frames! I like oldschool steel frames. Oh how we degress...

yo eddy is the model of my old classic mountain bike made by fat city cycles in boston. I have had it since 1991. Still my favorite frame. So when i got a hotmail account many moons ago its the user name i used as all the alex this and thats had been used. Its sort of stuck now as my default user name on any forum. I keep getting called eddy in emails for some reason.?

We were putting some Macrocarpa wood rafters we had made through the thicknesser this afternoon and it was coming up lovely when something went 'pop'. The thicknesser stopped 'thicknessing'... and I thought oh dear! We have broken our new toy. Someone had warned us previously not to do big cuts but it was only about a 1mm cut! I stripped it down straight away and found a chain that drives one of the rollers had popped a link apart. It must have done it before because I found another link that had a little cross scribed onto it by the previous owner. I rejoined it and peened over the ends of the pin and its all good now. I cant wait to continue thicknessing... I would put up some photos I took but alas my photobucket account is overloaded- I'm not surprised. 2 days time I'll post them up when account is back to normal. Till then you will just have to picture a chain broken and some wood etc....

Cheers Leigh- hows that GT going- no more iffy fuel smells? are you going to make it across to RRG again this year?

Big day today!!! we have finished the first section of roof. And its the harder one to do. Very very windy and quite tricky- the tar paper kept getting blown about and ripped etc. But just as it started to rain we had the last section up. luckily for us (but not the farmers) it stopped raining and the Blenheim sun came out again I'm quite happy now because this section is up high and had awkward shapes at the front to cut and place. Not rocket science but just tricky. Plus we decided to fit a couple of skylights in the roof- one over the bed end so we can look up at the stars So we started using some of the rimu bits and pieces we've been collecting- the thicknesser really coming in handy for this! Rimu being used because it'll be visible so its got to look pretty. me checking out the view... We also picked up 10 sheets of 12mm ply tonight which means tomorrow we can start putting some floors down in bedroom and spare room plus finish the veranda. With a floor down in the spare room over the back we'll be able to easily put the rafters and roof up there. On a roll - well for now...

Cheers dudes, I am actually quite careful with the chainsaw- always try and keep away from potential kickback etc. Jusst scored three big slabs of walnut or something so there will be more sawing coming up Frame work- over cab is about 3m from headboard to front. height of bedrrom walls is 1.3m and a .3m pitch. max height is about 4.1 at front. rear will be a bit higher- almost max at 4.25. deck is 6m long. rear over hang at veranda is 1m and a further .4m up high. so max rear overhang. Every so often I start getting all stressed thinking about its size, speed and overhangs but I have to sit back and remember that its not going to be a truck we tiki tour about here and there like a van- its going to be a big bloody house that just so happens to move. And its still nowhere near as big as some truck out there. I'll just take it easy and cruise- sit back and relax

First bit of wood on truck....woo hoo! Also yesterday we started getting the first lot of rafters up. They are sequoia or redwood. Lovely patterns on them. Its been tricky putting them up as its a bit tall up there plus we are waiting till our source of cheap(er) ply arrives on tuesday so we can get the floor in place over the cab. Till then its a balancing act around the frame work. heres the first lot of rafters up... Today we finished the front rafters and managed to get the front roof sections in place which took a while as they are funny shaped little sections. I wanted to get the ply to line up perfect so I can later seal the joins well and have a smooth join for our magic roof coating to be added later. Now that these bits are done tomorrow we start heading back with big sheets easily. Then hopefully start on rear rafters... plus allow some time for a spot of mountain biking in Marlborough sounds....