Recent content by MikePL

ENDING I really enjoy travelling with my Land Cruiser and my kids have learned so many things during our trips. If anyone of you ever hesitates to go overlanding, please don't. This is officially... THE END of my official writeup. Now you can kill me for spamming. :-) There are still...

Movies galore.... Toyota Land Cruiser 80 series build. Part 3 Toyota Land Cruiser 80 series build. Part 4 Toyota Land Cruiser 80 series build. Part 5

And, you guessed it, more tent photos...

More tent photos....

SLEEPING I like roof top tents but there is always something wrong with them. They are quite expensive, they are made to fit a variety of vehicles so they are usually too small for a larger truck, they can only be accessed from the outside of the vehicle and they are heavy. I wanted to address...

CENTER CONSOLE The center console is made of laminated plywood. It is very lightweight and stiff. I could use a different material and of a different color but this plywood was around the house so I used it for the truck. I like reusing things. I am not bothered by the dark red color which...

COOKING We use a 2-burner hob. Nothing special, just a household item slightly modified for ease of use outdoors. Gas is stored in a 11lb canister right by the water tank. Setting up the kitchen is a matter of seconds. Putting the hob on the lower gate is 5 seconds and connecting the hose is 10...

LOWER GATE The lower gate is typical stuff. I have replaced the lining with a hatch-door and I have storage for rarely used items, tools, shackles etc. I used laminated lightweight plywood for the gate mod.

And even more liftgate photos.

Some more liftgate photos...

MORE STORAGE So what is this ostrich-like ass thing on the back? It's a remodeled upper liftgate so that it opens horizontally and no vertically as in the US-spec 80 series. I needed to have a strong build (because of the tire weight) so my upper hinge had to be way up and this meant that I had...

FURNITURE I have made a single cabinet inside the truck. It is made of lightweight ceiba wood (plywood and wood sandwich). Looks nice and gives additional storage. It has hinges with built-in hydraulic dampers so the doors don't slam against the cabinet.

WATER Right by the fridge is the 18-gallon water tank. Inside the tank there is a water pump which recirculates water to the plate heat exchanger in the engine compartment. When the engine is running the 18 gallons of water are heated up to 107*F within 5-7 minutes. When the engine is started...

REFRIGERATOR I use a compressor fridge, made for DAF trucks. It uses the most popular (probably the only good) native 12V compressor made by Danfoss, the BD35f. The fridge is shaped like a drawer which lets me organize food fairly easily, gives me good access and so on. Previously I had a...

RAISED FLOOR I have placed a piece of plywood on a similar height as the folded second row seats. This lets me have a large sleeping area for the kids and some storage space underneath. I used 1/2" plywood which is quite light and if it has enough support points, it can even carry 2000lbs. Yes...