If It's Broke - FIx It ...

After having the new springs installed it was back to Sich's place to continue with the fit out, and while driving back and forth to assess the effect of the new springs.
First impression was quite favourable.  The height had been restored and there was some added resistance to roll.  I know the three point mounting system is to remove torsional stress from the "house cabin" but having the pivot in the middle means that only the rear springs resist the entire mass moving from side to side. Normally a rigid chassis would transfer some of that force to the front wheels as well.  Not in this case.  Exacerbating this problem are the steering issues mentioned in the last post.  When turning into a corner the the house starts to roll from the rear end of the truck until finally some of the forces begin to take effect at the front at which point the weight begins to come off the inside front tyre and onto the outside one which then takes up the play in the steering system by trying to continue straight on.  It means you have to turn the wheel quite a bit more to make it go around the corner.  This is normally a recipe for a rollover.  While the "yet to be fixed" steering will improve that a lot it is still a very uncomfortable feeling!!
So while continuing with the fit out all sorts of ideas for improved stability are being contemplated in the background.

 Meanwhile . . .
The window frames are made and test fitted

















on both sides

These will now be pulled out and "polished" before final fitting.
Also the door for the narrow cupboard above the air con. return duct has been made and hung and a lock fitted.






















It will also be taken out again and lacquered white to match the rest of the cupboard doors.

 While this has been going on I have finally decided to fix something which should have been addressed much earlier.  Along with the idea of being able to fit the house and truck into a sea container, which dictated many design decisions, was another idea of being able to lift the house off and use it while the truck did something else.  Perhaps if it was going to take a long time to get something repaired on the truck it might be possible to live in the house unit nearby.  For this reason it was desirable to be as self contained as possible: so the batteries were to be stored in the house unit.  However when the actual batteries were chosen it was impossible to store them in the original position it was intended.  A snap decision was made to store them in the compartment under the table as it was a little higher inside and could fit them all in the one place.  Unfortunately this was right at the rear of the house and therefore well behind the rear axle of the truck.  Probably the worst possible place to store anything heavy, and the batteries weigh about half a tonne!!
On thinking more about this it has become obvious that solar panels and either mains power or the generator can be used in this situation and the batteries can be mounted on the truck itself further forward and a lot lower down.  A much better arrangement with regard to dynamic stability!
So, although nothing is broken, I'm going to fix the battery location problem now before too much else is fixed in place.
Off with the house.
This was not quite as simple as last time as the weight of the house is now about 3 tonnes, until all the batteries are removed anyway.  Not wishing to stress things too much it was deemed advisable to have two more lifting legs to make a total of 6.  As 6 airbags are available anyway it "just" required two more lifting legs.  There's that "just" word again.  This time it equated to two days!  Never the less the house now came off easily and with a lower "pucker factor".

This large empty space between the chassis rails, right over the rear axle will fit 8 batteries nicely and the smaller space behind will hold the other 4.


















The only consideration now is how to carry all that weight in a frame that will not be distorted when the chassis twists and possibly damage the battery cases.
That took about a day to try a few options and tests and decide which of the 6 different possible ideas was going to be easiest to construct.  Sometimes it's easier when there is only one possible way!
At the moment it seems to involve quite a bit of "angle iron" so it's off to the local supplier again and start cutting.

Tomorrow I guess will be all welding . . .