Building a “Home” in a 80-series Toyota Land Cruiser — part 5
Only 3 weeks left until the trip. Things are coming together. The electrical is almost done. Some of the wires had to be run under the carpet, so we pulled everything off the back and cleaned before starting to assemble.
We used an old Corian slab to build the countertop. It takes a long time to get everything accurate, but once it’s assembled it looks great. The material is easy to work with and the glue lines are almost invisible.
We used 3/8" copper pipe for the water system. Most used compression fitting, except in a few places that used a silicon hose with clamp to relieve the stress of the vibrations.
The lid for the fridge gave us a bit of a problem. For a $1000 fridge, the quality of the lid is not great. It just sits on the top of the fridge and is made of molded plastic with a sheet of Formaica on top. We figured that securing is a must, so we used removable hinges on the back, and rubber latches in the front. All this had to be integrated into the lid and a Corian on top of it all. It was a time consuming task.
The electrical panel is all done and ready to be hooked up.
Interior lights were tested with the ‘bed’ opened.
The layout for the water tanks was done before construction.
The water tanks were finally finished after a pressure test, and installed under the vehicle. We used 8" PVC pipes and they provided 9 gallons each. It heats 9 gallons to 150F in 18 minutes when the engine is running and warm.
We added a protective plate for the plumbing.
The circulating pump was installed inside a PVC pipe to provide some protection. It was installed in the rear bumper.
So the setup for the three modes of the car — drive, cook, sleep are below..
At this point the vehicle was ready for the first test. An 8000 miles trip to Alaska.