A Cruisers Evolution - building the LX470 (1 Viewer)

[Rubibu]

All spots where I wanted to screw something on to later, I added flanged stainless steel nuts that are normally used for welding and inserted them flush to the panel from the opposite side.

With a thread of M6 (6mm metric) they are about 8mm long which will work fantastic with 10mm plywood recessed abotu 1mm deep. If I remember right I used about 80-90 nuts of this type.

Furhtermore, the evaporator and compressor of the fridge need to get some cool air from the cabin so I came up with a honeycomb pattern in the sidepanel.

Because I was weakening the plywood near to the edge, I added some U-shaped aluminum profile to the end of the sidepanels.

 

[Rubibu]

I also made slots for the compression latches of the drawers to rest against and I recessed some L-Profiles at the end of the drawers as stop blocks (the ones where the Airtic drawer dampers push against and where the counterforce of the latches comes from. These were not only recessed but screwed to the panels with flanged weld-nuts.

Of course shorter screws were used during final assembly so everything is flush

To securely strap down the drawer system to the 100 Series, I added 2 M5 threaded turnbuckles to the rear of the drawer sides taht will hook into the factory D-rings in the floor near the tailgate.

 

[Rubibu]

Two turnbuckles might be far too little effort to hold down the platform in case of an accident for example and the other two D-rings weren't accessible. Instead I used the original 3rd row anchor points by manufacturing two brackets that hook into the original supports. They are welded using 6mm steel plates, cut and shaped with an angle grinder.

Although they are underneath the platforms bottom, sliding the unit in and out of the car for removal is rather easy. This setup gives a very tight feeling no matter which road conditions I experienced til date while still being able to dismount the whole unit in minutes.

Of course, the hooks were rounded, polished and given a good coat of black paint but as it seems I dont have footage of that...

 

[GTV]

It’s a bit late now but FYI they do make threaded inserts for wood.

 

[Rubibu]

It’s a bit late now but FYI they do make threaded inserts for wood. View attachment 2206932

Thanks for that Input, these are worth considering! Regrettably to my experience these work best with solid wood as their teeth have to bite deep into the fibers, forming a channel. If you use them on thin, hard packed and high strength multiplex baltic birch plywood, the plies are only 0.8 to 1.2mm thick before the hard layer of glue and a change in fiber orientation comes. You therefore end up with a tendency to split or crack the plywood. Does anyone have different experiences? I did not try but i can imagine these would work exceptionally well with soft plywood like poplar or with thicker layers and thicker plywood e.g. 3/4".

 

[Njck22]

You are truly skilled, how well are the teflon slides working?

 

[Rubibu]

Thank you Nick! The skills clearly evolved during this project although there might have been a basis already

As I mentioned in one of the posts above, the sliders seem to work quite well unless you do add very heavy loads (kitchen drawer). Maybe I'll try to add a little silicon spray to the slides to see what it can do to the ease of operation. Drifta, the company I copied the idea of non-telescopic slides from, too recomends use of that kind of spray to additionally reduce friction. Theirs slide a little bit easier than mine do at the moment. Maybe spraying will help me keep the teflons for the kitchen drawer...

I tried to avoid posting videos but yesterday I ran over a short one on my phone filmed some time ago in the build process where a drawer's sliding and compression latches are shown. I might create an account on vimeo to share with you.

edit: done...


This is a not yet tuned drawer - just a first try

 

[Rubibu]

It has been some time since my last post as I have been busy updating the platform for a trip to France in March but sadly that one was canceled as borders were closed due to Covid-19.

Nevertheless I am happy to announce: My kitchen drawer is now fully usable with teflon slides! I tuned them and made huge improvements as edited in post #14.
I might get back on you with another vid from all three drawers and maybe a little tour of the whole setup.

To everyone who is considering teflon sliders: If properly done, they are working great even with high loads!

 

[CBeckFJ]

Looks good! I guess us engineers just love land cruisers! I've got an LX just like yours, and am beginning my HS engineering studies. If you don't mind me asking, what branch of engineering did you major in?

 

[Rubibu]

Thanks CBeckFJ! I studied something called "Vehicle Construction: Materials and Components" (maybe my atempt to make everything look like OEM comes from that ) but am working in the plant engineering field at the moment - which is kind of big luck for my LX build as I have access to a whole factory in terms of materials, space and also machines to use for the metal work and maintenance of the cruiser.

Nevertheless, all woodworking and detailing is done in my own tiny little workshop at home that you might have gotten a glimpse of in the already shown pictures.

 

[Rubibu]

To support the sidewings of the platform I had to add angle brackets fitted to the sidepanels. As they have to be removed to get the whole platform through the trunk opening I modified some shelf mounts from aluminium and made custom housings from plywood that are screwed to the sidepanels by use of the already mentioned flange nuts.

These supports do not sit flush with the top of the platform (used spacers of plywood on top of the aluminium instead) to give room for the heavy duty slides that will carry the sleeping area extention board. Also they have a recess at their back to route cables and tubes through later in the installation process.

Testing the fitment and measuring the lenght of the brackets before cutting.

assembled after cutting

 

[Rubibu]

I planed to incorporate a table into the platform but no table was found in the correct size so I decided to build one by myself. I wanted to get the table rather flat and had to stay below 25mm. After assembly of the platform for the first time, I realised I will need more space (round 29mm) for the table so I had to change the 6mm ply separating the table from the upper drawer to a sheet of 2mm aluminium and recut the slots or better say dado housings that were already in the side panels at that stage.

The aluminium was cut to size for a snug fit and got recessed 4 times in the longitudinal sides for screws to be drilled through the side panels thus locking the plate in place. Also it is bend slightly upwards to prevent wobble and drone while driving.
Afterwards I gave it a coat of orange milk paint with "extrabond" (adhesive agent) on the underside (drawer side) and covered the top side with the same carpet I chose for the rest of the platform.

Carpet now is to the sides of the table, to the bottom and also for an inch of width to the top.

I was having this setup for a year now.
Just days ago I cut off the whole middle section of the carpet because it is not compressing and thus bending the aluminium down towards the drawer which will lead to scratching and poor performance of the drawer sliding in and out. There still is carpet for an inch to each side to protect the table from scraping along the aluminium as well as providing just the right amount of friction so it will stay in its place without rattling and sliding. To the front there are about 3 inches of carpet for a nicer appearance and hiding the aluminium.

 

[Rubibu]

Carpet

Regarding carpet I chose the highest grade high pile velours I found on car carpet websites in a dark grey that in my view matches the fawn of the LX's interior pretty well and has sort of a luxurious, soft touch to it very close to the OEM materials. As I have skin contact with the carpet while handling the drawers and sleeping on the platform I wanted to avoid thin, sturdy needle felt because of its rough and hard feel, although needle felt is a lot easier to work with around corners and into gaps.
On small strips where the high pile had to be reduced in length I used a straight razor as well as an electric hair cutter very effectively.

As the color of the carpet shimmers darker or lighter depending on fibre orientation I had to have an eye on the orientation the single pieces were glued to the plywood cause otherwise the even appearance of the assembled unit would be interrupted. I chose fibre orientation towards the back of the truck and towards the ground for a slightly darker grey and for easier cleaning.
To the right of belows picture you can see the different colors coming from fibre orientation.

Make sure you use high quality spray adhesive to avoid delamination over time and when the carpet gets very hot in summer.
I used the rather expensive "Würth Power Spray Glue Plus" and I am very satisfied with the results.

In total and if I do remember right I needed 7 cans of 400ml adhesive for nearly 4m² of carpet.

 

[Rubibu]

Sidewings and Infills

These parts were jigsaw cut from 10mm plywood after transfering the cardboard patterns I made while the platform was inside the car for testing.

The edges were sanded and the infills got a little bevel on top from the outside so you can later grab the sidewing more easily to lift it up.
The Infills are screwed to an 30x30x2mm angle profile of black anodised aluminium by use of EURO-Screws (6.3mm in diameter).
These screws are absolutely fantastic in plywood and have widely been used in this project almost every time I wanted to screw perpendicular to the plys. In Germany they also are called "furniture screws" as they work well with chipboards too.

The other side of the aluminium angles were screwed to the platform with M6 flathead Allen-keyed screws.
That way the infills are pretty sturdy fixed to the platform.

The sidewings only lay on top of their supports and so far didn't need to be hinged or fastened down. Maybe I'll adress that topic some time in the future.

Both pieces received a good coat of milk paint and safe coat and got carpeted on the outside.

 

[Rubibu]

Platform

Once again it was time to work on the platform and get some progress towards finishing the framework.
The Plywood separating the two drawers was made exactly like the bottom of the platform to accomodate the teflon strips and has been made from 10mm plywood too to support the weight of the upper drawer. The track width of the strips was chosen to be not too wide or narrow (wide = better for transfering the weight to the side panels without bending the horizontal plywood divider, narrow= better for distributing the weight loaded into the drawer but with more bend and flex in the drawer bottom itself that might lead to scratching and friction against the divider of the platform).
It is inserted into the side panels in dado housings and once finally assembled locked with 10 woodscrews going trough the sidepanels into the endgrain of the plywood.

After sanding all parts received either the dark grey milk paint or were wrapped with carpet.

For further stability I added triangular stiffeners from 1,5mm stainless steel which had been without adjustability for a year now before I recently decided to get a set of turnbuckles for finetuning as they allow for a more precise placement of the sidepanels in terms of squareness.

Before glueing the carpet to the top plywood, I painted the inside / bottom side and glued / screwed the whole assembly together.

The sidewing supports and all other threaded metal to metal connections received a drop of bolt adhesive (blue "Petec mittelfest") during final assembly.

Afterwards the top was carpeted and holes were drilled above the sidewing supports to fasten the sliders to the sidepanels (see the 10 holes on the edge of the casemaker rail in the picture above).

 

[Rubibu]

Sleeping Platform

As my first version with the temporary platform had a sleeping extention that had to be unfolded two times over the folded down backseats and my experience showed that I didn't like it that way at all, I had to better come up with and alternative:
You had to pick every item that lay on top of the extention, put it somewhere else, unfold the wobbly construction, support it multiple times and in various ways, getting everything rearranged on top and finally crawl on top to have a good night... all in all it took me maybe 10 minutes each time.

The idea that came into my mind was: adding heavy duty slides ( 900mm 300lbs, locked at full extension) to the sides of the platform, double the top plate of the platform and fix that to the slides, then slide that one towards the front of the vehicle and support the overhang slightly with straps that go to the second row handles at the B-pillar of the truck.
To connect the slide with the plywood I used an other piece of aluminium angle profile: 900mm long for each side and 40x30x3mm in cross section. After drilling the holes for the M5 screws I cut parallel slots on one end each to run the straps for the hangers trough.

At a width of just shy above 1m, 10mm thick ply to me is (with acceptance of flex) sufficient for around 200 pounds of static weight on the extension alone. The fixed part of the platform should handle 400+ lbs without a doubt. The fixed platform and the sleeping slider overlap about 2,5 inches and the transition between the two layers is beveled by 2 inches.

The transverse edge is reinforced with a U-Profile of Aluminium 10x10x1,5mm the whole length to reduce bending / flexing (see below).

The bottom as well as the aluminium was painted dark grey and the top of course got carpet.

 

[Rubibu]

Fully extended:

In 'travel mode':

You hardly notice the transition from one part to the other when laying on a mattress >3cm and setting it up takes only about a minute. Everything laying on top can stay there and can be rearranged once everything is set up.

 

[Rubibu]

Table

Another challenge had been to fabricate a table that is less than 26mm in height once folded to fit into its platform compartment, sturdy enough to be suitable for everyday camping life, nice to the touch (usually I dont like metal surfaces or plastic if I can avoid them so wood was very much appreciated) and has an adjustable height from 2 to 3,5 feet approximately if I do remember right.

After doing some research I did not find any table to buy and while rather being a woodworker than a metal guy I started with a board of 12mm (just shy of 1/2") phenolic ply to get a table of 596 x 930 mm [36.6" x 23.4"] (same size as the drawers beneath) in the end.

The legs are made from two sorts of stainless steel tubing that slide into one another perfectly: 17x2 and 12,7x1,65 mm [2/3 and 1/2" outer dia] while being blocked by a locking pin with pull ring from Ganter.

The welding between the pipes and of the nuts was done by a professional in the company where I am working to make sure the tubes will not bend too much from heat shrinking.

Afterwards I pickled and passivated the welds and was satisfied with the outcome.

The legs received plastic plugs so no dirt will come in and each leg can be pulled out as far as needed before being pinched or locked with a knurled thumb screw. That way you can easily compensate for every type of unevenness or slope of terrain.

 

[Rubibu]

The legs are screwed to the tabletop with pipe clamps of 1/2" diameter so they cant move around but can be swung out.

All parts used are stainless steel to prevent rust even when camping on the beach.

To stay under 26mm in height, I had to recess the legs a little into the tabletop.

 

[Rubibu]

The table got a rim all around so it slides into the compartment on wood, not on it's legs which also makes for a nicer appearance and feel when handling the table.
A nice coat of milk paint again and some sealant but in a warm blue this time finished up the top to my satisfaction.

The height adjustment makes eating at the table in very low camping chairs possible as well as sitting on the tailgate and having breakfast - I am quite happy with the range it provides.

The size of the top is adequate for easily having a meal with 4 people and is quite luxurious for 2.

I thought I might need some device to hold back the table from rattling but the carpet is working brilliant to dampen every motion of the table in its housing.
The table also makes for a good sized, variable shelf if drawn from its compartement not all the way.