Done more work on the truck over the last couple of weeks. The bed is sorted and we're almost finished covering the mattress as well. Also found and fixed an issue with the charging.
Next thing to do after my last update on the truck was to make boards that go across the gap to complete the bed. I decided to do this in two pieces so it's easier to handle.
Cut out around the fridge.
I'm using 12mm board for the tops of the bed, so it's pretty sturdy, but I still want some cross beams to add structure. These will also serve to stop the boards from sliding and then falling into the gap as they'll fit up against the top of the storage units and stop all lateral movement.
Next was to put an upright that can fold away, which will support the corner next to the fridge.
My youngest sister was around and gave me a hand painting while I carried on with other bits.
While all this was happening, the cat sat on the dash to monitor it was being done properly.
A few days later all the paint was dry and the bed fitted nicely. Simple, easy and strong. Will be interesting to see if the 12mm lip will get in the way and be uncomfortable, but we shall see.
Next was to cut and cover the new mattress. I ordered a standard double mattress from
http://www.efoam.co.uk/. One that was pretty hard and 10cm thick. In hind sight, I should have ordered the mattress already cut as efoam cut to order, but anyway...
Ordered 6m of white curtain and upholstery fabric from eBay. My sisters are going to tie-die the covers once they're done.
My grandmother is keen on textiles, so offered to give us a hand. Rianna did A level textiles, so she was chief operating officer, advised by Grandma and I was skivvy/gofer in between watching the Lions games was going on the iPad in the background.
Started with cutting the mattress.
Cut them pretty tight, so there's no gap and they fit snug. There's also 2 shorter ones in front of the fridge, so they can all be put up to pad the "benches" so we can sit comfortably.
Once the mattress was cut, we (mainly Rianna) set about on the covers.
We were doing it at my parents place as they have more space than Rianna and I do at our place. Between Rianna, my Mom, my sisters and Grandma there is always good food, good coffee and often home-baked goodies using eggs from the 80-odd various poultry that my sisters keep, so we interrupted mattress covering with a cup of proper, peculated coffee and home-baked pear sponge cake with vanilla cream.
Then got back to covering.
In addition to making new mattress covers, we used some of the material to make new curtains, which will be tie-died the same colour.
The mattresses are now covered and ready to be tie-died. The die has been ordered and we're going for a three colour combo of dark blue, turquoise and then another colour which I can't remember. There was no pink mentioned, so I was happy.
My sisters are very good, so I have no doubt they'll come out well.
Just hope that the die arrives in time to die the covers and curtains before this weekend as we're all going to Wales to stay near Snowden for the weekend.
Next thing I did this weekend was playing with the electrics more to try and figure stuff out and see if I could figure out what was going wrong. My dad gave me a hand as he's pretty clued up on a lot of things and vehicle electrics is one of those things.
I am embarrassed to announce that I figured out why the leisure battery was not charging and it was down to a simple fuse blown, which I had overlooked before. When I looked last weekend I thought I had eliminated all possibility that it was a fuse or something like that, but clearly missed one. It wasn't a conventional fuse, but a home-made, Heath Robinson approach I've never seen before. I knocked up one quickly. (FYI, this is an approach that has been used in 3 different places in the split charge system on this truck. I've not seen it before. I'm guessing they just put these "small" cables in places on the 12v lines knowing that if they're overloaded they'll burn out?)
What I find REALLY strange though is that after connecting up a 20amp mains charger to the engine battery after I fixed the fuse, the alternator started charging at full 14v. I can only put it down to 1) the charger gave it a kick up the butt or 2) the blown fuse in the split charge system affected the alternator/regulator. Either way, it seems to be functioning now as expected, which is a relief.
My dad found the Sterling Power 20amp mains charger that I mentioned before knocking around his garage, not being used. He actually fitted 2 of them in parallel in his motorhome to charge his bank of four 120ah deep cycle batteries until upgrading chargers a while back, so offered for me to fit on in the truck. I like the idea of carrying a good mains charger anyway and thought it would be good to wire it in properly so that if we ever find ourselves stopped somewhere (e.g. a campsite) that has hookups, we can make use of them conveniently. It also means I can bridge the leisure and engine battery easily and come to full charge in a couple of hours if need be. So we set about fitting it.
Decided I'd put it on the bulkhead behind the passenger seat, above the inverter.
Drilled through (simple alum sheeting) and mounted with 5mm stainless bolts.
Conveniently, there was a pretty hefty 12v cable running straight from the leisure battery in the engine bay to the inverter, so no need to put in a new one. I made the decision just to hook up the charger to the leisure battery as when I'm parked up, theoretically (if the truck has been wired correctly by previous owner, before Jonnie got it) the engine battery should just sit there and maintain it's charge (unless parked for excessive time). Put the eyelets onto the cables and hooked it up.
All fitted and ready to test.
Plugged the charger into mains and checked the leisure battery with the engine off.
Put my tools back behind the seat and moved the seat back.
Hopefully I'll get the die and we can tie-die the mattress covers before the weekend, but otherwise the sleeping arrangements are coming along nicely. Will keep you posted.
At least I know they're out there and maybe I'll find one for less. Thanks for the heads up!
I found that the cause is that the second battery in the engine bay is only carrying 9v, so is probably on it's way out. What is concerning me is that even when the engine is on, that battery still only carries 9v and never increases. What concerns me even more is that my alternator is only outputting 12v when the engine is running. I would have expected it to output 14v when charging, not so? Also, the line that comes from the the after market split charge system from the first battery to the second battery doesn't carry any current (even when the engine is running).
If you look at 
