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LJ70 Build Thread!
- Thread starter Ben
- Start date
fridayman
Well-Known Member
Awesome thanks mate.
We will grab some bags from our local aquarium shop.
I used to courier fish all over the uk. The main challenge was keeping them at the correct temp for the whole journey. In Aus that isn't really a problem. You will need to open the bags for fresh air every 24 hrs though. And also don't feed the fish for a couple of days before transport so that their water will stay fresh for longer.
Paddler Ed
Well-Known Member
The tow frames that Pat refer to are quite common in Aus as well as over the ditch; however, they are permanently mounted on the car (frequently things like Suzuki Swifts as small cars, and Grand Vitaras as the bigger option) and splice into the brakes and lighting (rather than a trailer board) as the car otherwise would be classed as unbraked. Rules for tow frames are here from RMS, and an example of the a-frame is this. HOWEVER, it seems that the a-frame is specific to an individual car being towed (and the Astra is not on that list). Bear in mind that not all the rules from RMS (there will be some that come from national level, but most are state specific) would apply to Ben as he is not registered in NSW, whereas they would apply to me as I am...
Beau
Well-Known Member
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All my family use a homemade car dolly something like this
I'll be careful with one those dollies Shayne... They're ok for light use and the occasional short trip, but I had a bad experience with one. Was towing a Volvo V70, went round a very tight corner at a car park and the frame snapped apart. The dollies I use now have a pivot and a shock that actually allows the vehicle being towed to move slightly on the dolly so it doesn't strain the frame. Just my experience on them anyway, 99% of the time, I'm sure they're fine. But for a long trip, sometimes the better quality ones are worth it!
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Thanks guys. 
Gives me a few more things to think about.
Been offline for the past week as been at the farm working flat out on the tree house project!
Got hundreds of pics to sort through, but will try and get them up soon.
Truck test tomorrow.
Gives me a few more things to think about.
Been offline for the past week as been at the farm working flat out on the tree house project!
Got hundreds of pics to sort through, but will try and get them up soon.
Truck test tomorrow.
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Good luck with your truck test Ben. I expect you'll have no trouble passing.
Knock em dead Ben...
err on second thoughts....
err on second thoughts....
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Thanks guys.
I bloody smashed it!
The test not the truck.
It wasnt easy!
Just getting the hang of all the gears and flicking up and down between the high and low range gears took some getting used to and making sure the truck didn't go over any lines I wasnt meant to!
I'm so relieved its over and done! Now I can book the hire truck for just before Christmas and then finally get on with the 3500km journey.
I bloody smashed it!
The test not the truck.
It wasnt easy!
Just getting the hang of all the gears and flicking up and down between the high and low range gears took some getting used to and making sure the truck didn't go over any lines I wasnt meant to!
I'm so relieved its over and done! Now I can book the hire truck for just before Christmas and then finally get on with the 3500km journey.
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Well done Ben! Where's ya Yorkie bar?
10:4
etc etc
10:4
etc etc
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- 6,055
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Trailer Project.
Thanks Steve.
OK...................update time.
My boss recently bought a heavy duty trailer at an auction.
The plan is he will use it to tow the Solar Suzuki to the desert next year and as it has much heavier duty construction, suspension and load capacity, he hopes it will actually survive the corrugations unlike the last one!
He also likes the fact that its the same width wheel base as his 80 and 79 series so will follow the path of the tow vehicle meaning he will hopefully avoid some of the huge rocks on the terrible dirt road from Mount Dare to Dalhousie.
I had a few jobs to do on it.
He wanted me to remount the jockey wheel to make it more user friendly.
One of the hinges was broken on the front of the storage box and needed repairing.
I also needed to repair a cut out section on the bed.
Jockey wheel first.
Cut it off.
Cut, bent, drilled and welded some 6mm steel to make a new spring loaded mechanism.
My next job was to mount a winch for winching dead cars onto the trailer with.
We chose a second hand Warn for the job.
The plan was to mount it under the bed so its completely concealed when not in use.
Made up some mounts for it out of some thick walled angle.
Bolted them to the winch.
Marked where to cut the bed.
Cut it out and bolted the winch in position.
I welded a piece of flat to one side of the piece I cut out and welded a bolt on the other side.
I welded a piece of flat to the bed for the cut out section to drop onto and drilled a hole in it for the bolt to go through.
I also welded in some receiver hitch box section to the winch mount for the fairlead.
Bolted some box section to a fairlead.
That drops into position on the bed.
And the end of the rope pushes through. That will then have a D shackle threaded through it to secure it to the dead vehicle.
I repaired the hole in the bed.
That was as far as I got on the trailer project.
I need to build some ramps for it next and re-mount the spare wheel on the front.
After the desert trip my boss will get the whole thing shot blast and spray painted. No point doing it before as the other one came back with hardly any paint on the front after being towed behind the 80 for hundreds of k's on dirt roads.
I picked up the freshly powder coated cage for the Solar Suzuki.
And that was work when I got back from our holiday.
I did a bit of work at home.
Gave LJ an oil change ready for the big road trip up to our new home in Queensland.
While Bec is busy getting rid of stuff on ebay and gumtree I've been acquiring more stuff to move!
I'd found my metal power tool cabinet.
Simply wasnt big enough for all my power tools.
So I got another one off my work mate.
It came from an auction at an engineering place that was closing down, so was covered in a thick layer of grease and oil. An hour with a rag and some thinners though and it came good.
The garage now looks like a bomb site though as I'm currently getting everything packed up into my super market crates ready for the move!
Fingers crossed I can squeeze it all in the biggest truck Budget hire, along with all the house hold stuff.
Tree house build update coming as soon as I've sorted through the 190 pics I took this week.
Thanks Steve.
OK...................update time.
My boss recently bought a heavy duty trailer at an auction.
The plan is he will use it to tow the Solar Suzuki to the desert next year and as it has much heavier duty construction, suspension and load capacity, he hopes it will actually survive the corrugations unlike the last one!
He also likes the fact that its the same width wheel base as his 80 and 79 series so will follow the path of the tow vehicle meaning he will hopefully avoid some of the huge rocks on the terrible dirt road from Mount Dare to Dalhousie.
I had a few jobs to do on it.
He wanted me to remount the jockey wheel to make it more user friendly.
One of the hinges was broken on the front of the storage box and needed repairing.
I also needed to repair a cut out section on the bed.
Jockey wheel first.
Cut it off.
Cut, bent, drilled and welded some 6mm steel to make a new spring loaded mechanism.
My next job was to mount a winch for winching dead cars onto the trailer with.
We chose a second hand Warn for the job.
The plan was to mount it under the bed so its completely concealed when not in use.
Made up some mounts for it out of some thick walled angle.
Bolted them to the winch.
Marked where to cut the bed.
Cut it out and bolted the winch in position.
I welded a piece of flat to one side of the piece I cut out and welded a bolt on the other side.
I welded a piece of flat to the bed for the cut out section to drop onto and drilled a hole in it for the bolt to go through.
I also welded in some receiver hitch box section to the winch mount for the fairlead.
Bolted some box section to a fairlead.
That drops into position on the bed.
And the end of the rope pushes through. That will then have a D shackle threaded through it to secure it to the dead vehicle.
I repaired the hole in the bed.
That was as far as I got on the trailer project.
I need to build some ramps for it next and re-mount the spare wheel on the front.
After the desert trip my boss will get the whole thing shot blast and spray painted. No point doing it before as the other one came back with hardly any paint on the front after being towed behind the 80 for hundreds of k's on dirt roads.
I picked up the freshly powder coated cage for the Solar Suzuki.
And that was work when I got back from our holiday.
I did a bit of work at home.
Gave LJ an oil change ready for the big road trip up to our new home in Queensland.
While Bec is busy getting rid of stuff on ebay and gumtree I've been acquiring more stuff to move!
I'd found my metal power tool cabinet.
Simply wasnt big enough for all my power tools.
So I got another one off my work mate.
It came from an auction at an engineering place that was closing down, so was covered in a thick layer of grease and oil. An hour with a rag and some thinners though and it came good.
The garage now looks like a bomb site though as I'm currently getting everything packed up into my super market crates ready for the move!
Fingers crossed I can squeeze it all in the biggest truck Budget hire, along with all the house hold stuff.
Tree house build update coming as soon as I've sorted through the 190 pics I took this week.
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2010
- Messages
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An Entrie Week Working On The Treehouse Project!
Last week was possibly the hardest working week I've ever done.
I'm pushing really hard to get the tree house completed before I leave Piranha, so last week I worked 6am to 8pm everyday and worked flat out to get as much done as possible.
When we first got to the farm on Monday morning we were checking the livestock.
When we discovered some of the sheep had escaped, so we lost the first hour trying to chase them back in, which I loved as I got to ride his 250cc dirt bike round.
Once that was done we could finally get back on with the tree house build.
So this was how we left it last time.
With the half finished roof.
My first job was to finish cladding the roof.
We got the tower setup on the side.
Insulated the wall.
And start cladding.
We fitted the window so we could clad around it.
The roof was by this point almost clad in tin sheets, but I had left the last couple of sheets off for access.
And that was the first day done.
The next day nice and early I climbed up onto the roof for the first really dangerous part. Shimming along the ridge on my bum with a leg each side to install the capping pieces. A fall from this height really wouldn't have ended well, so I had to be bloody careful.
The next job was to finish cladding the bell tower.
Alan cut me some tin sheets.
I pulled them up with a rope and got them screwed on.
And finished cladding this first side.
My work colleague Michael came up to help us for a couple of days and we cracked on with the next side.
Insulation first.
Next window went in.
A pic of the completed roof.
The next morning.
We cut off the excess.
Next window went in.
*I should point out here that I should in hindsight have put this window much higher up the wall, but more on that later.
Insulation went in next.
This was the next really dangerous bit!
The only way to get up to clad this side was up a very steep ladder resting right to the edge of the platform.
Michael cut the boards to length and I fixed them in position.
The other side looked awesome now it was lit nicely in the sun!
Alan chainsawed a seat and drinks ledge into the stump.
Meanwhile Michael and I finished the other side.
Front next.
Insulation and windows fitted.
The next morning we finished off cladding the front.
This side was time consuming cutting around all the windows and door.
And lots more cuts around the roof trusses.
Front done!!
Timber for the veranda next.
Did some more notching on the pine posts.
Started fitting them.
Roof rafters next.
Fitting the veranda roof revealed a huge cock up that I had made.
The window on the gable end is far too low to allow the veranda roof to run all the way round at the same height we wanted the front to be at.
I'm really pissed that I didn't pick up on it sooner, as moving the window up before we did the cladding would have been easy. Missing this mistake on paper when I drew the plans up is OK, things like this often get overlooked, even by experienced architects, we used to come across problems like it all the time when I was building. But I should have picked up on it sooner.
My boss was cool about it though and isnt stressed at all!
So the roof would need dropping slightly on the side.
Tin sheets next.
I screwed all the sheets down and then got up on top of the roof and cut them to length with a 7" angle grinder cutting disc in a circular saw. Worked great!
Cut the rafters for the other side and beveled the bottom edges with the plane like I did on the main house roof.
The roof will have a slight step in it after the hip. Thankfully its on the least seen side and wont interfere with how the front looks.
This is where the firemans pole will be and the roof will have another little hip and roof section above the pole.
And that was as far as I got.
We need to go back and:
-Finish the veranda roof.
-Fit the firemans pole.
-Fit all the handrails around the deck/veranda.
-Build and fit the staircase up to the tree house.
-Finish off fitting out the inside with the OZ Pig, mezzanine floor with ladder and bed and architrave around the windows and door.
I'm really hoping I can get it finished before I leave.
The next 2 weeks I'm at Piranha finishing the trailer project, Solar Suzuki and doing some more on the airboat.
Last week was possibly the hardest working week I've ever done.
I'm pushing really hard to get the tree house completed before I leave Piranha, so last week I worked 6am to 8pm everyday and worked flat out to get as much done as possible.
When we first got to the farm on Monday morning we were checking the livestock.
When we discovered some of the sheep had escaped, so we lost the first hour trying to chase them back in, which I loved as I got to ride his 250cc dirt bike round.
Once that was done we could finally get back on with the tree house build.
So this was how we left it last time.
With the half finished roof.
My first job was to finish cladding the roof.
We got the tower setup on the side.
Insulated the wall.
And start cladding.
We fitted the window so we could clad around it.
The roof was by this point almost clad in tin sheets, but I had left the last couple of sheets off for access.
And that was the first day done.
The next day nice and early I climbed up onto the roof for the first really dangerous part. Shimming along the ridge on my bum with a leg each side to install the capping pieces. A fall from this height really wouldn't have ended well, so I had to be bloody careful.
The next job was to finish cladding the bell tower.
Alan cut me some tin sheets.
I pulled them up with a rope and got them screwed on.
And finished cladding this first side.
My work colleague Michael came up to help us for a couple of days and we cracked on with the next side.
Insulation first.
Next window went in.
A pic of the completed roof.
The next morning.
We cut off the excess.
Next window went in.
*I should point out here that I should in hindsight have put this window much higher up the wall, but more on that later.
Insulation went in next.
This was the next really dangerous bit!
The only way to get up to clad this side was up a very steep ladder resting right to the edge of the platform.
Michael cut the boards to length and I fixed them in position.
The other side looked awesome now it was lit nicely in the sun!
Alan chainsawed a seat and drinks ledge into the stump.
Meanwhile Michael and I finished the other side.
Front next.
Insulation and windows fitted.
The next morning we finished off cladding the front.
This side was time consuming cutting around all the windows and door.
And lots more cuts around the roof trusses.
Front done!!
Timber for the veranda next.
Did some more notching on the pine posts.
Started fitting them.
Roof rafters next.
Fitting the veranda roof revealed a huge cock up that I had made.
The window on the gable end is far too low to allow the veranda roof to run all the way round at the same height we wanted the front to be at.
I'm really pissed that I didn't pick up on it sooner, as moving the window up before we did the cladding would have been easy. Missing this mistake on paper when I drew the plans up is OK, things like this often get overlooked, even by experienced architects, we used to come across problems like it all the time when I was building. But I should have picked up on it sooner.
My boss was cool about it though and isnt stressed at all!
So the roof would need dropping slightly on the side.
Tin sheets next.
I screwed all the sheets down and then got up on top of the roof and cut them to length with a 7" angle grinder cutting disc in a circular saw. Worked great!
Cut the rafters for the other side and beveled the bottom edges with the plane like I did on the main house roof.
The roof will have a slight step in it after the hip. Thankfully its on the least seen side and wont interfere with how the front looks.
This is where the firemans pole will be and the roof will have another little hip and roof section above the pole.
And that was as far as I got.
We need to go back and:
-Finish the veranda roof.
-Fit the firemans pole.
-Fit all the handrails around the deck/veranda.
-Build and fit the staircase up to the tree house.
-Finish off fitting out the inside with the OZ Pig, mezzanine floor with ladder and bed and architrave around the windows and door.
I'm really hoping I can get it finished before I leave.
The next 2 weeks I'm at Piranha finishing the trailer project, Solar Suzuki and doing some more on the airboat.
Last edited:
The tree house is looking great, well done.
Did you do the HR truck licence? I've just booked in to do the course myself. What did you have to do theory and practically wise? They told me its just 15 hours over two days. I thought it would have been more in depth than that?
Did you do the HR truck licence? I've just booked in to do the course myself. What did you have to do theory and practically wise? They told me its just 15 hours over two days. I thought it would have been more in depth than that?
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Thanks guys.
Yes I did the Heavy Rigid license.
Theory was half a day in a classroom learning with a test at the end. Then the practical was 7-12 Saturday morning with 4 hours of practice and then an hour long test. If the instructor had felt I wasnt ready for the test I would have had to book in for more hours of tuition.
My advice to you would be to book the practical for a Saturday as the roads are so much quieter. I had to wait another 3 weeks to get a Saturday spot but IMO it was well worth the wait.
I wish I could Pat but the hire trucks dont have towbars and I've got no way of getting the trailer back to Melbourne as it wont fit inside the hire truck, easily.
I've got people who have kindly offered to drive the Astra up for me for free. But once you factor in fuel, a night in a motel on the way and an air ticket home for them from the Gold Coast its as much, if not more than the $600 we've currently been quoted to have it trucked up.
I'm thinking paying the money and getting it trucked up is going to be the best option.
Yes I did the Heavy Rigid license.
Theory was half a day in a classroom learning with a test at the end. Then the practical was 7-12 Saturday morning with 4 hours of practice and then an hour long test. If the instructor had felt I wasnt ready for the test I would have had to book in for more hours of tuition.
My advice to you would be to book the practical for a Saturday as the roads are so much quieter. I had to wait another 3 weeks to get a Saturday spot but IMO it was well worth the wait.
I wish I could Pat but the hire trucks dont have towbars and I've got no way of getting the trailer back to Melbourne as it wont fit inside the hire truck, easily.
I've got people who have kindly offered to drive the Astra up for me for free. But once you factor in fuel, a night in a motel on the way and an air ticket home for them from the Gold Coast its as much, if not more than the $600 we've currently been quoted to have it trucked up.
I'm thinking paying the money and getting it trucked up is going to be the best option.
