Hi Hank & OT,
Yes I also built a camping trailer in the late seventies towed it with a diesel Daihatsu, used cheap leafs (hard as a rock) and Holden bearings and big tyres thought that would make it heavy duty off road. After some time sold it to a friend which is not a good move and he took it up the Stuart Highway to Alice before the highway was sealed. Spring broke and axles broke, from his experience I started to realise hard suspensions do not work on rough roads.

I know the type of trailer you are talking about OT like my neighbours always full of rubbish and when I need a lend I have to empty it first, he has it worked out never needs to empty it himself.

I have threatened not to use it anymore if he doesn’t keep it clean but that doesn’t work.

JR

Allan,
I have a slight advantage having finished my van so it is easier to give an overview of the project. Wish I had taken more photos as you have, there is so much that needs recording.
Also one other small thing is I am retired so even though they say once you retire you wonder how you ever had time to do anything when working, well I don’t think that is always the case.

Thank god OT pointed out the 900pixel limit on photos or it would have made things so difficult using Photobucket all the time.

I thought showing CAD stuff would help people get a better picture of what is going on but don’t think it is essential. Actually saving the CAD as a BMP and then converting to JPEG sometimes the quality is lost so I have actually printed some CAD drawing in black and white then scanned them. Turning them into PDF is to fiddly for me, I need to open the file in Auto CAD and save it as Auto CAD then once saved will open in DWG True View which allows me to save it as a PDF format which is good quality but then once it is converted to JPEG the quality lost!

JR

Stage 4 Assembling the Walls & Ceiling

First wall to go up was the wall between kitchen and bathroom

All the walls and the ceiling had their inner ply glued on to the frame so it was just a matter of screwing all the walls and ceiling together.

Note the van body curved sections were covered with an underlay of aluminium sheeting to make sure that the outer aluminium covering did not start to show dents from the wood frame profile.

Around the outer edge of the chassis H4 treated pine was glued and tech screwed, by the time I took the above photo it was painted with Hammertone.
The front and back walls where framed up so the miranti 19mm section attached to the walls therefore the wall thickness was 41mm.

LHS front showing strengthening metal strap, two screws past through the metal

The bottom section of the wall frame is 41mm deep and 75 to 85mm screws were used to attach the walls to the H4 pine base. The pine base was 50mm deep and with the floor 12mm and the vinyl 3mm made a total thickness of 65mm to screw to.

JR

Stage 4 Assembling the Walls & Ceiling Cont.

Standard Jayco ply colours were used; the wall was Loconia and ceiling White Trpan. By using standard Jayco ply I was able to also use their wall joining strip to match the Loconia. After market ply does not have matching joining strips available and also the jayco ply colours should be available in years to come as a spare part from Jayco.

When fitting the roof the ceiling ply needed to join to the next section of ceiling by using divide mould. The wall join to the ceiling was finished off with corner mould and the wall to wall joins were covered with a matching wall joining strip.

Van RHS back corner frame showing wall attached to pine and pine attached to chassis


Van RHS Frame and wall


JR

Geeze, I wish I had the skills to do that sort of work!
I can barely build a box!

Stage 4 Assembling the Walls & Ceiling Cont.

Rear frame is 41mm deep between the inner and outer wall as is the front frame

Another view of front and LHS, also the grandkids checking the work


JR

Stage 5 Fitting out the interior

The walls went up quick but now things will slow down.

Mounting some of the auxiliaries

Before building the cupboards some of the auxiliary equipment went in.

All of these auxiliaries are mounted under the kitchen dinette seat

This view of the auxiliaries was taken after completion, the diesel heater has one outlet into main area of van and the other outlet is into the shower cubicle. I used special heat resistant foam tube over the heater ducting to deduce heat radiation.

View showing the seat covering auxiliary equipment, out of site out of mined but very accessible if required


JR

Stage 5 Fitting out the interior Cont.

Vinyl floor protection:
The vinyl floor is quite durable when walking on it but it is a different story when build on it. The floor needed to be covered with mats or protective materials while working as all you need to do is drop one screw and then stand on it and you end up with a puncher hole through the vinyl.

Materials:
Again I used Jayco materials for the cupboard frames but had the cupboard doors and draws made by a kitchen manufacture in Melbourne. The standard domestic kitchen doors are 18mm thick MDF but Albedor Industries (Croyden) was able to make my doors 12mm thick with a vacuum vinyl finish, very durable and a 30% reduction in weight. I tried kitchen companies in Newcastle and Sydney but they were not interested in making 12mm thick doors. I emailed the sizes to Albedor and every door arrived at my front door well packed and sized exactly, even the wood grain was matched to flow from one draw to the next.

The standard Jayco colour for cupboards five years ago was Cherry. I was able to match this colour with a standard colour available from the kitchen manufacturer. There was very little readily available for the caravan home builder in the way of door and draw fronts five years ago.
I remember talking to an Italian company at the Sydney (Rose Hill) Caravan Show who supplied kitchen cabinet products for the caravan industry but was not at all interested in a one off order, don’t understand why they were even there.

Only last month while at the Sydney Caravan Show I saw products for the DIY builder that would have been ideal for what I wanted.

I used Jayco Cherry paper covered ply:
3mm ply
9mm ply covered both sides
12mm ply covered both sides

You may think how cheap using paper covered ply, I found on my old Jayco van that the paper covering lasted well, only on the cupboard doors did the paper start to fade or wear. When working with paper coved materials you must be careful but once assembly it proves to be very durable. Naturally if you run a knife across, it will cut but wears quite well under normal conditions.

Example of durability of paper covered ply

Jayco timber sections I used to fabricate the cupboard frames

The cupboard framing was mainly held together with dowels and glue
My dowelling tool was my fathers and it is approximately 55yrs old, I see they are still available in the shops.


JR

Hi JR Something that you don't see to often now is made in australia that is on your father Dowling tool .Keep it coming as is very interesting Yours Loub