Toyota Hilux - Rooftop Camper & Canopy Build

 The canopy was made from 9mm marine plywood with CNC finger joints on all edges bonded with epoxy resin.  The joins were then fibre glassed inside and out for strength and water tightness.

Panels for the canopy being glued and clamped in place.

Prepared corner joint ready for fibreglass.

Fibreglass cloth prepared

Laminating the corner joints.

Filling and fairing the canopy in preparation for paint.

CNC routing the panels for the roof top tent.

Gluing the panels together ready for glue filleting.

Using a common and simple boat building technique of "Stitch & Glue" using tie wire to hold the panels together while the glue sets.

Inside of the roof top tent nicely filleted and given a finish coat of clear epoxy resin.

Flipped over and ready for fibre glassing the outside joints.

Canopy fitted to the car ready for the roof top tent section and doors.

Side doors fitted.

Designing and fabricating the "pull type rams" using ropes, pulleys and a boat trailer winch to raise the roof of the camper.

Lifting rams installed.  (This is a difficult application for gas struts due to the pivot point location, geometry and the way the centre of mass changes with opening angle).

Leveraging my sail making experience and sewing the canvas for the roof top tent.

Main sections of the tent.

Installed and working on the solar panel fit out.

Installing the drop down fridge slide and starting on the internal fit out.

Electrical switch box ready for installation.

And here it is, in the Kimberly's W.A where it was our home for 8 weeks straight.

Toyota Hilux - Aluminium Tray Design & Build

 This section gives a summary of the aluminium tray I designed for the ute.  The goal was to create a flat ute tray that contained a large trundle drawer, internal water tanks and battery storage to keep the centre of mass of the camper design to a minimum and utilise as much space under the tray as possible. 

Basic CAD model of the tray and canopy assembly.

View underneath.  The tray was designed to be made from aluminium extrusions and gusset plates that are pop riveted together using multigrip 4.8mm rivets.  The idea was to minimise the use of welding to keep distorsion down and maintain the base metal strength of the aluminium extrusion (e.g. heat treatment).

The CNC router was used to accurately drill as many of the holes as possible to speed up the assembly process.

Finished gusset plates ready for assembly.

A halving joint technique normal used in timber joinery was used in the aluminium extrusion.  with 50% of the holes able to be pre-drilled with the CNC router.

Test fit of the joint.

Assembly of the extrusion sections.

CNC routing the side / tie rail plates from 3mm checker plate.

Cutting the tray topside and pre-drilling all rivet holes.

Rivet holes where counter bored to allow the rivet head to sit flat on the aluminium sheet.

I was very impressed with the hole surface finish using the CAM "Helical Boring" strategy.

Fitting to the ute and assembling the 1400x1100x220mm trundle drawer (made from CNC routered aluminium honeycomb).

Tie rails, tail lights and steel SHS chassis mounts.

Toyota Hilux - Preparations for 2018 Kimberly's Trip

Some of the preperation work and maintenance I undertook on a new vehicle I purchased for a 2 month 4wd expedition through the Kimberly's in Western Australia.

New front wheel bearings, suspension bushes, front diff output shaft oil seals and brake pads.

New timing belt, water pump and idler pulley.

Starter motor rebuild and replacement brushes.

Replaced engine vibration mounts due to cracking rubber on the originals.

Gearbox has come out to fix a problem with reverse gear.  Also inspection of clutch and replacement of pilot and throw out bearing.

Gear train out for inspection.

The damage reverse gear teeth, also found excessive wear on white metal bushing material for the idler gear, which was out of tolerance.

Complete overhaul with inspection of oil clearance, backlash and run out tolerances.

New coolant pipes and new aluminium radiator.

Ute tub removed, ready for the aluminium tray design and manufacture.

CNC Milling Machine

New Prolight CNC milling machine with automatic tool changer.  

Needs a new spindle motor as the brushed DC 750w motor burnt out the windings and cooked the controller.  So we are going to try and use a 1800w brushless DC hobby outrunner motor.

Its a lot smaller, so i'll be interested to see how the thermal management side of things go.

Stay tuned.

Hydrofoil - Mk1

CNC profiled hydrofoil timber blanks (ag24-il section)

Test fitting on the windsurfer board.

Laminated foils with carbon triaxial cloth and epoxy resin.

First test flight - sort of.

Second test flight - sustained for a second or two.

Partially defeated, but still smiling.

Stay tuned for Mk2.