Thursday 10 April 2014

Extending the rear storage and fridge unit in the car

Whilst the unit I made is excellent overall and performs really well, I felt it could be improved. Here's what I did:

These tiny brackets are for the thermos, which we've learned needs to be kept in position, especially when bouncing around on a 4wd track.

This is a divider for the cutlery draw beneath the fridge.

And here's the draw with new brackets and divider fitted.


Everything is now tightly kept in place.

This picture shows new side panels under construction.  These extend the top of my wooden unit to go from window to window.  I've cut these to fit the available space precisely using a jigsaw.

Trim going on.

Here you can see the left side panel being test fitted to the main unit.

Main unit back in the car without the new side panels.

With the left side panel in place

It wasn't so easy making a bracket for the edge by the window glass, yet support there is needed. You can see a special bracket I fabricated in this photo.

Here's a close up of my special bracket. I had to learn to weld aluminum to make this.  Luckily aluminum welds at relatively low temperatures so oxy acetylene isn't needed and instead my small propane torch can do it.

These are brackets I made for the main body side.

See how with the panel fitted the available shelf space now extend right to the window, plus nothing can fall down the sides now.

This photo from the under side of the panel shows how all my brackets work to support weight loading on the panel.  The plastic support in the picture is part of the Mitsubishi design and is bolted right through to the metal, so it is a strong place for my special bracket to mount on.

I used the new right side panel to reposition the spotlight to a much more effective position.



Job done. Top shelf surface area has been increased by a approximately 25%.

I also added dividers to the other drawer too.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Day out at Frensham Great Pond in Surrey

These photos are from a day out we had on Sunday 17th March.  We drove down to Surrey to meet Mole and kids in a favourite wee village of ours called Shere.  From Shere we drove to Frensham Great Pond for a picnic lunch and for the kids to play in the sand.

Best to view these photos like a photo album - so just click on the first photo and it will present like an album:











































Morocco: Western Sahara: Tan Tan - Alsa

Our next route was taking us from Tan Tan (the end of first route) across the Western Sahara to a town called Alsa which Chris Scotts whose...