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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324  
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Those that saw the advert will know that my wife and I had decided that the 2.4m Howling Moon tent that came with the trailer was just too big for our needs and so a swap for something smaller was in order. It sold very quickly via eBay (much quicker than I expected, if I'm honest) and so off it needed to come!
With the help of my son, the eight bolts securing it to the roof of the trailer were undone. The heads of these bolts sat in the standard channel fixed to the base of the tent and then passed through some 50mm square ali extrusions and down through the trailer roof. With a bit of brute force and ignorance, we managed to lift the thing up enough to clear the bolts and eventually down onto some trestles to await collection:  Click image to enlarge It's bloomin' heavy and I won't be sad to see some of that weight being lost from the trailer. The ali extrusion beneath each mounting point had been stuck to the roof with something like No More Nails, which was a  to get off. Eventually though, I managed to clean up all of the holes in preparation for sealing.
Before and after: Click image to enlarge For the time being, I've temporarily sealed the holes with duct tape to keep the rain out. Eventually, most of them will need to be permanently patched but I want to see if I can re-use any for the new tent before I commit myself. The roof will also need a proper wash, too: Click image to enlarge So, for a little while, the trailer sits semi-naked until a new tent gets fitted: Click image to enlarge Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia Last edited by LandRoverAnorak on 23rd Oct 2022 9:04pm. Edited 1 time in total |
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3rd Sep 2022 2:47pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Yesterday saw a 300-odd mile round trip to Exeter (in my wife's D4
 ) to attend a University open day with my son. Luckily for me, that coincided with finding a virtually new 1.4m Tuff-Trek roof tent for a bargain price on eBay  Roof bars and ratchet straps got it home and today's job was to fit it to the trailer.
All of the fixings that come with the tent are designed around roof bars, which didn't help at all as the trailer doesn't have them. Instead, I made a pair of what I'll call roof rails for want of a better description, that included brackets to accept the tent fixings. These roof rails consist of two 1m lengths of 50 x 50mm aluminium box section with the ends cut at 45 degrees to allow for fixings to the trailer roof. They're each fixed with two M10 bolts and the undersides are lined with neoprene foam as a gasket. Following a lot of careful measuring, 50 x 50mm angle brackets were cut, drilled and fixed to the sides of the box section to line up with the mounting tracks on the base of the tent. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures of all of this before the tent was mounted on top but hopefully you get the idea: Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge For inside of each of the four mounting points, I cut some 50 x 50 x 3mm spreader plates: Click image to enlarge It took most of the day to fabricate all of the brackets and get the thing in position and I ran out of time and energy to open the tent out, but it does look very smart so far: Click image to enlarge Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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11th Sep 2022 8:22pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Had chance to open out the new tent this evening and very smashing it is, too
Click image to enlarge Having decided to go for a smaller tent, we'd pretty much settled on the 1.4m Tuff Trek TT-02 Ruggedized and it was pure good luck that we then managed to find exactly that one for sale on eBay. The width was chosen as the widest possible whilst retaining easy access to the gas and electric lockers at either end of the trailer when the annex is deployed. It's wonderfully roomy inside 
Click image to enlarge It was far easier to pack away than the big Howling Moon, which really was the whole point of the swap. It has, however, confirmed our thought that easy access to the roof of the trailer would be really useful. There's not a lot of useable wall space left for a permanently fixed ladder but I've got half an idea about adapting a loft ladder that could be stashed on the roof  Darren
110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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12th Sep 2022 7:13pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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A couple of weeks ago I started what was supposed to be a quick spruce up of the two jerry cans that came with the trailer. As with pretty much everything else that I've touched though, it escalated
I ended up drilling out the pins that secured the caps to separate the parts and attacking everything with a flap wheel in an angle grinder:
Click image to enlarge The pins were replaced with M4 and M5 stainless bolts with nyloc nuts and the smaller ones that fix the caps to the cans were sheathed with heat shrink: Click image to enlarge Everything was treated with etch primer and several coats of satin black before a final coat of clear lacquer: Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge Having spent so much time and effort on the cans, I thought I'd try and preserve them by tweaking a few details on the holders. Firstly, I countersunk the bolts that secure the catches and added some neoprene foam to the sides: Click image to enlarge I then cleaned up and re-lined the securing brackets: Click image to enlarge Combined with the rubber pads that I added when I re-furbed the holders, the cans don't now rub against them at all, which will hopefully save the paint and stop them rusting away again: Click image to enlarge Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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16th Sep 2022 9:04pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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I set about sorting out the wiring for the solar panel today - basically moving the connection from the roof to the front panel. With the existing cable outlets removed from the roof, patching the holes left followed the same pattern as those for the tent mounts described above - clean up the area around the holes and then patch with a sheet of plastic, cut to size and stuck on with Sikaflex:
Click image to enlarge I also took the opportunity to patch the holes in the front panel left by removal of the solar control gubbins some time ago: Click image to enlarge I then tried to work out where to drill new holes for the cable exit but that's where it got complicated. To access the right part of the front panel from inside I had to dismantle the box that contained all of the electrics. One thing led to another, and I then ended up spending three hours disconnecting, tracing and labelling cables: Click image to enlarge I can only assume that the wire cutters had been misplaced when the trailer was built as there were masses and masses of wires all coiled up and umpteen joints with lots of things daisy chained together. I've already stripped a lot of the surplus out and the rest will be trimmed to length and routed properly once I've rebuilt the enclosure to a better standard. On the plus side, I think I've found where I can shave a few kilos off the weight of the trailer! Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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17th Sep 2022 11:11pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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In the lull before returning to the wiring, I've been able to deal with a relatively straightforward issue that arose during our last outing a few weeks ago. The trailer came equipped with a Waeco CF-80 fridge that slides out of a very snug locker and not long after we set up it became apparent that one of the lid hinges was broken. I initially blamed my sometimes ham-fisted son for the damage but on closer inspection it had been broken and repaired in the past. I've since discovered that the other hinge was on its way out, too:
Click image to enlarge I was casting around for replacements, which seemed to be quite expensive and also not available in the UK (lots for sale in Poland, for some reason  ). I then came across Billet Parts in Australia who make a complete set of hinges and catches in aluminium. It seems that these fridges are pretty popular over there, justifying a market in upgrades! An email about postage to the UK was answered very quickly, a virtual wad of cash was handed over and they arrived today:
Click image to enlarge Fitting is really easy: the hinges and catches are secured with a selection of M4 countersunk screws and the new hinges came with new stainless replacements. Ten minutes with a screwdriver and I'm content that the fridge will now be robust enough to allow my son to use it again 
Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia Last edited by LandRoverAnorak on 24th Oct 2022 10:49am. Edited 1 time in total |
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20th Sep 2022 7:45pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Since pulling all of the electrics apart a month or so ago, I've been working towards putting it all back together again. Some of that has been time spent working out how the control panel works. It's a reasonably sophisticated bit of kit but is being used for an application that it was never designed for, so I've been pouring over installation manuals and creating endless spreadsheets to plot functions and connections. More of that later, though.
On a more practical level, I've been working on building new enclosures. What was there before was a pretty rough ply box which, having read the original build thread, seems to have been built in a hurry to get the thing operational: Click image to enlarge What's not apparent and came as a surprise to me, is that there's a mains distribution board concealed inside that, too. It turns out that's a consequence of the way that the control panel drives the battery charger and is a bit of a fudge to allow for the inclusion of a large inverter in the system. That's now gone and will be replaced with a slightly more elegant solution of a mains powered relay but again, more about wiring later. For now though, I've built a new, smaller, enclosure for the control panel, battery charger and mains switch: Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge It's built from the sort of board you'd use in your bathroom instead of tiles (left over from a project) and a variety of aluminium angles. It's been very time consuming to build, mainly because every little bit has needed to be fabricated, fitted, taken off again so the next bit can be fitted, and so on. Still, I'm really pleased with both the finish and the practicality of it, which will make it much easier to reassemble the wiring: Click image to enlarge I'm part way through building a new battery box in the base of this locker and then I'll have no more excuses not to deal with this: Click image to enlarge   Darren
110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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22nd Oct 2022 7:04pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Homemade cable trays - weldmesh, aluminium strip and lots of cutting and drilling!
Click image to enlarge Fitting will have to wait as rain has stopped play  Darren
110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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23rd Oct 2022 12:50pm |
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| AJC Member Since: 30 Nov 2015 Location: Lancashire Posts: 1364
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Nice work. Can i ask what the 2.4 sold for please?
i have same tent and i am considering a change myself |
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26th Oct 2022 7:25am |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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It went on eBay for an offer of £1600 based on a starting price of £1800. What really surprised me was how quickly it sold - within a week! Darren
110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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26th Oct 2022 8:22am |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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A bit more time today saw me complete virtually all of the fabrication and construction of the battery box. Firstly though, I created some better openings for routing cables through to the adjacent fridge locker and wardrobe to aid with when I put it all back together:
Click image to enlarge With that job out of the way, I was able to assemble the front and sides of the battery box and also install my home-made cable trays: Click image to enlarge I got slightly carried away with these as I don't have an immediate use for the ones on the right anymore. Originally, I was expecting to have a distribution board mounted in the space in the top right of the locker and all of the mains cables would have run to it up that side of the rear wall. That's no longer the plan, though. I even made provision for cables to pass through the central rib by drilling it out and lining the holes with lengths of conduit, although this might still get used for solar panel cables: Click image to enlarge And with the rest of the panels in place: Click image to enlarge The battery box lid has a raised aluminium lip on the front edge, which is to contain a rubber mat in a similar way to the REAR LOAD DECK that I built for my 110. All that's left to complete this stage is to fit a catch to the lid and drill the rear wall panels for their fixings, and then it's on to the wiring! Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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29th Oct 2022 10:00pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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A bit of final tidying up this morning saw the back panels drilled and countersunk rivnuts installed:
Click image to enlarge And then, with those panels in place, the finishing touch was an over centre catch on the battery box lid: Click image to enlarge Next job is more brackets, this time to secure the batteries and inverter. Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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30th Oct 2022 2:26pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Another day, another bracket! The ones at the rear are anchor points for the battery clamp and the two at the front are for the inverter, which is another substantial lump. I've recently discovered the joys of a countersunk rivnut and now wonder how I ever managed without them
Click image to enlarge I have to wait for various hardware to turn up now, before I can put these into action. Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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31st Oct 2022 5:51pm |
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| X4SKP Member Since: 29 Nov 2013 Location: Berkshire Posts: 2295 
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Hello LRA / Darren
Great work as usual Darren, this is a general  for another comprehensive thread from you.
Thanks for the step by step 'this is what I did' commentary together with supportive photographic 'evidence'... Hats Off 
Good luck... SKIP https://www.defender2.net/forum/topic83242.html |
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1st Nov 2022 9:27am |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Thanks, Skip. I realise that it's a bit of a niche subject but there seems to be plenty of people watching so I'll keep plugging away at it. Darren
110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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1st Nov 2022 10:13am |
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