Builds Cape Town Troop Carrier CTTC

[cruiserpilot]

Really like the whole thing, truck of course and all your modification ideas. Keep my name, when you get to Vancouver Island
send a PM, would like to have a visit and maybe go for part of your tour with you to Tofino etc. I'm just going to take notes and steal some of
your ideas now. J

 

[Troepadoer]

Really like the whole thing, truck of course and all your modification ideas. Keep my name, when you get to Vancouver Island
send a PM, would like to have a visit and maybe go for part of your tour with you to Tofino etc. I'm just going to take notes and steal some of
your ideas now. J

Hi Cruiserpilot!

I have read your thread on the rear bumper build (as that is something we still have to do...) and you did a fantastic job! Thanks for the invite, we will definitely look you up when we get to Vancouver. Your island and Tofino will both be on our schedule You are welcome to steal away since most of what we've "designed" so far also came from other overlanders who have actually done these great things to their cars.

Cheers from Cape Town!

 

[AlanofOZ]

Alan, will you please send some pics of your electricity setup? It sounds great, and Jan and I have not actually spent a lot of time on this subject. We will appreciate all the help we can get!

Hello Troepadoer, I'll take some photos this weekend. In the mean time there is an IH8MUD thread about dual battery set ups (in the 80 series category) that might be interesting: FAQ addition: Dual Battery Set-Ups

As well as this (very simple, so apologies if it is too basic) YouTube video:
Alan

 

[Troepadoer]

Thank you @AlanofOZ for all the info! Will take a look in the morning. I appreciate this!

 

[Troepadoer]

Hi from Cape Town!

We spent the weekend planning the back outfit of the car, and came up with the following:

The right side (behind driver) will have cupboards for a kitchen, clothing, a water tank and a portable loo (with 75 mm foam cushion on-top to form a single seat). We will have a 400 mm wide gangway running from front to back.

The left side will consist of a 550 mm wide x 400 mm high bench, housing a fridge, freezer, battery, spares etc with a 75 mm foam mattress on top. We will have a 400 x 1950 "plank" as the backboard of the bench with another 75 mm foam mattress attached, which can be placed between the bench and the cupboards, to make up a 1,0 m wide bed - for the co-driver while on the road

Everything will be built with 12 mm "hot wrapped" marine plywood. I know this will be heavier than aluminium, and will take up more space, but I really do not like the look and feel of cold metal! We also originally planned to have the high cupboard on the left side, but have found that we will not be able to fit the slide-out fridge behind the right side wheelwell, and so we swapped everything around.

Please let us know what you think of our plans???

 

[tmarx]

I like it ! Would placement of the fridge closest to the rear door not be more practical than the freezer ? You usually open the fridge more often than the freezer especially when stationary ?

 

[Troepadoer]

I like it ! Would placement of the fridge closest to the rear door not be more practical than the freezer ? You usually open the fridge more often than the freezer especially when stationary ?

They are IntelB 31 and exactly the same, so we will just set different temps. This means we can change their application according to the length and the route of the trip. They are 28 l each, so we might not even always have to use both.

 

[AlanofOZ]

Hi from Cape Town!

We spent the weekend planning the back outfit of the car, and came up with the following:

View attachment 1263213

The right side (behind driver) will have cupboards for a kitchen, clothing, a water tank and a portable loo (with 75 mm foam cushion on-top to form a single seat). We will have a 400 mm wide gangway running from front to back.

View attachment 1263215

The left side will consist of a 550 mm wide x 400 mm high bench, housing a fridge, freezer, battery, spares etc with a 75 mm foam mattress on top. We will have a 400 x 1950 "plank" as the backboard of the bench with another 75 mm foam mattress attached, which can be placed between the bench and the cupboards, to make up a 1,0 m wide bed - for the co-driver while on the road

View attachment 1263216

Everything will be built with 12 mm "hot wrapped" marine plywood. I know this will be heavier than aluminium, and will take up more space, but I really do not like the look and feel of cold metal! We also originally planned to have the high cupboard on the left side, but have found that we will not be able to fit the slide-out fridge behind the right side wheelwell, and so we swapped everything around.

Please let us know what you think of our plans???

Hello Troepadoer, this is looking very professional and I think the layout is very practical - especially the "porta-loo", we have ours in a similar location. Have you taken into account the way the wheel arches will intrude into the space allocated for your water tank?

With regard to weight, 12 mm plywood is pretty solid but for the amount of "cabinet work" it shouldn't excessive. It is the material we used as well. Aluminium might be thinner, but most cabinets and boxes I've seen have an internal frame, so you'll not lose much space at all by using plywood.

Also on the topic of weight, I've been looking at rear wheel carriers for my Troopy and have postponed the installation until after having some work done on springs and shocks. The total mass of the vehicle with flip top, bull bar, winch, fridge, water and other accessories and equipment is getting up to the limits of the standard springs. A decent wheel carrier is around the 70 - 100 kg mark, which is more than I'd like to add to the poor old standard leaf springs on top of their current load. I'll post some details when I've had the work finished.

 

[AlanofOZ]

Thank you @AlanofOZ for all the info! Will take a look in the morning. I appreciate this!

Hello Troepadoer, it has been a hectic couple of weeks here and I've not had a chance to show the battery layout that I promised photos of. Anyway, here are some snaps of the dual battery system we have.

The second battery is a deep cycle sealed marine battery and it is mounted between the firewall and fuel filter.

As you can see, there is a limited amount of space once the second battery is in place.

This is the location of the controller. I'm sorry this is quite a useless photo, except that it shows how relatively small the unit is and where it can be mounted.

The wiring between the batteries is self evident, albeit looking like a bowl of noodles.

 

[AlanofOZ]

The forum only allows five photos per post, so the solar details have to come in this separate post. The solar system connects to the "house" battery via another regulator. The Steca solar regulator manages the power supply between solar panels and battery. Once the house battery is fully charged the dual battery regulator (under the bonnet) directs current from the solar system to top up the charge in the cranking battery.

This is the Anderson plug socket that the portable solar panel plugs into - we have a folding 120 w unit that I'm thinking about changing to a semi-flexible unit to mount permanently on the roof.

This is the solar regulator, the "brain" inside is a little microprocessor and circuit board with some clever German algorithms to manage the power. Behind the panel that this is mounted on is a solid brass "bus bar" (about 12 mm square and 120 mm long) from which all of the 12 v outlets and the lighting connects to the batteries. The box on the left hand side of the Troopy is also where we hard-wired the first compressor we had, also running off the bus bar.

There are four Merit plugs and four USB outlets along this side, this fuse block has a fuse for each line. It just helps to prevent one outlet blowing the whole system.

 

[Troepadoer]

Hello Troepadoer, this is looking very professional and I think the layout is very practical - especially the "porta-loo", we have ours in a similar location. Have you taken into account the way the wheel arches will intrude into the space allocated for your water tank?

With regard to weight, 12 mm plywood is pretty solid but for the amount of "cabinet work" it shouldn't excessive. It is the material we used as well. Aluminium might be thinner, but most cabinets and boxes I've seen have an internal frame, so you'll not lose much space at all by using plywood.

Also on the topic of weight, I've been looking at rear wheel carriers for my Troopy and have postponed the installation until after having some work done on springs and shocks. The total mass of the vehicle with flip top, bull bar, winch, fridge, water and other accessories and equipment is getting up to the limits of the standard springs. A decent wheel carrier is around the 70 - 100 kg mark, which is more than I'd like to add to the poor old standard leaf springs on top of their current load. I'll post some details when I've had the work finished.

Hi Allan!

It is amazing how similar our planning process is to what you have already done, and are planning We are also leaving the the springs and shocks for last. The dual carrier on the back has to go on in the very near future, because I can hear a rattle from the barn door, and that worries me, but... THESE CARRIERS ARE SOOOOO EXPENSIVE I can't get myself to pay that amount of money for a piece of steel!!! But I guess I have no choice

We will make a stainless steel water tank to fit into the little space in-front and over the wheel arch, but have decided to put our main water tank (70 l) under the car on the left side, just in-front of the back axle. This will be the best for evenly spreading the weight.

 

[Troepadoer]

Hello Troepadoer, it has been a hectic couple of weeks here and I've not had a chance to show the battery layout that I promised photos of. Anyway, here are some snaps of the dual battery system we have.
View attachment 1263753 The second battery is a deep cycle sealed marine battery and it is mounted between the firewall and fuel filter.


View attachment 1263754 As you can see, there is a limited amount of space once the second battery is in place.


View attachment 1263755 This is the location of the controller. I'm sorry this is quite a useless photo, except that it shows how relatively small the unit is and where it can be mounted.


View attachment 1263756 The wiring between the batteries is self evident, albeit looking like a bowl of noodles.

Jan has decided to put the second battery inside, because he was worried about excessive heat being a problem in the tight engine bay. Are you happy with yours being in-front?

 

[Troepadoer]

The forum only allows five photos per post, so the solar details have to come in this separate post. The solar system connects to the "house" battery via another regulator. The Steca solar regulator manages the power supply between solar panels and battery. Once the house battery is fully charged the dual battery regulator (under the bonnet) directs current from the solar system to top up the charge in the cranking battery.

View attachment 1263758 This is the Anderson plug socket that the portable solar panel plugs into - we have a folding 120 w unit that I'm thinking about changing to a semi-flexible unit to mount permanently on the roof.

View attachment 1263759
This is the solar regulator, the "brain" inside is a little microprocessor and circuit board with some clever German algorithms to manage the power. Behind the panel that this is mounted on is a solid brass "bus bar" (about 12 mm square and 120 mm long) from which all of the 12 v outlets and the lighting connects to the batteries. The box on the left hand side of the Troopy is also where we hard-wired the first compressor we had, also running off the bus bar.

View attachment 1263760
There are four Merit plugs and four USB outlets along this side, this fuse block has a fuse for each line. It just helps to prevent one outlet blowing the whole system.

Thank you for all this info and amazing pics! Jan is in Johannesburg this week, and as the electrical layout and planning is all his baby, I will show him this over the weekend. He will be very pleased with all this info!!!

 

[AlanofOZ]

Jan has decided to put the second battery inside, because he was worried about excessive heat being a problem in the tight engine bay. Are you happy with yours being in-front?

Don't worry about the heat and any negative impact on the battery (no pun intended), they are tougher than you think. Besides, car batteries have lived under the bonnets of cars for the past hundred or so years without any major catastrophic events. When a battery is being charged it gives off hydrogen gas, all lead acid batteries do. Under the bonnet the gas dissipates and is not a problem. Inside the vehicle the hydrogen builds up and becomes a very serious problem - think having a potential Hindenburg under your seat. I also think that you could free up a lot of valuable storage space inside the vehicle by putting the battery under the bonnet.

Just on the topic of wheel carriers, ARB sell a locally made Kaymar unit here in Australia - $4000 fitted and weighs in at 100 kg. Lesser beasts imported from Thailand are about $2000 plus fitting. Of equal quality to the Kaymar but made by smaller fabrication shops are about $2800 plus fitting. I've contemplated doing a welding course at the local tech college and making my own - but I know I'll end up stumping up the cash in the end.

 

[wildphoto]

Hi Troepadoer.

Great plans (like the software too - please share name), and like that you have the higher stuff back on the right!

Try contacting Johan at 1st Alignment Centre in Stikland, and explain about the tyre bracket - He had one on his cruiser, and might know where to get one more reasonably. www.1stalignment.co.za He can also advise on suspension, etc.

 

[Troepadoer]

Hi Troepadoer.

Great plans (like the software too - please share name), and like that you have the higher stuff back on the right!

Try contacting Johan at 1st Alignment Centre in Stikland, and explain about the tyre bracket - He had one on his cruiser, and might know where to get one more reasonably. www.1stalignment.co.za He can also advise on suspension, etc.

When we changed the design back to the high cupboards on the right, I said to Jan that at least you would be happy with the change I did the plans on SketchUp 2016. You can download it for free for a month and is a really easy 3D program - perfect for the task!

 

[wildphoto]

Now that I have downloaded Sketchup, I am incredibly impressed at your drawing skills. I am still trying to work out how to draw a simple box, let alone one that has to correct dimensions for the cabin ! Are you willing to share a .skp output file that we can use to start our drawing?

 

[Troepadoer]

Now that I have downloaded Sketchup, I am incredibly impressed at your drawing skills. I am still trying to work out how to draw a simple box, let alone one that has to correct dimensions for the cabin ! Are you willing to share a .skp output file that we can use to start our drawing?

Hi Wildphoto!

Just keep playing with the program - you'll get the hang of it soon I will gladly share the drawing I started off with, but will have to email it, as I cannot upload this kind of file to the forum.

 

[Troepadoer]

Very, very slowly the "build" has begun I have started to take all the side-panels and floor covering out. Saturday will be spent applying sound deadening pads on the inside of all the cavities. The product has a messy black rubber substance, so I'm not looking forward to the job. I'm expecting the plywood boards on Monday or Tuesday, so then the fun part will start

 

[tmarx]

Bump !