AJ120s 2009 D4D and DIY camper trailer

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and camper trailer

Well I completed a couple of little jobs tonight.

First up is a lumbar support from Michelle Sacs which fits really nicely




And also from Michelle sacs, a spare wheel bag. When I put it on I was not surprised but a bit disappointed as it hangs all limp and looks a bit sloppy; unlike the photos in the ads. Anyway I have overcome this by knocking up an Aluminium frame to go inside which will also help keep a bin liner in place and make it all neat and tidy.






Cheers Andrew

[MickL Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close MickL]

Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and camper trailer

Andrew,

Top work, on this and your other DIY mods too. One thing though: You must have too much free time on your hands :!: :lol:

Mick

[tinkera Member Find all posts View Profile Close tinkera]

Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and camper trailer

Andrew,

Top work, on this and your other DIY mods too. One thing though: You must have too much free time on your hands :!: :lol:

Mick

HI ALL You,ve got too much time on your hands gee,s I hate that saying when used in this context,I know your only kidding Mick but I,ve had it said to me about the same thing. Mate I just smile and am slightly amused while friends are still procrastinating on there mods i,m done and dustered on mine thats when this saying raises it,s ugly head funny that. :roll: CHEERS TINKERA.

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and camper trailer

MickL wrote
Top work, on this and your other DIY mods too. One thing though: You must have too much free time on your hands

Yeah I know he was only joking but it’s amazing how much "spare time" you have when you work 80 - 100 hrs. a week. The jobs on the Prado are only happening after dark at the moment as I have a little landscaping project on the go as well; that involves, me, a shovel and about 150 tonnes of dirt and gravel. Only about 20 tonne to go :roll: so then flat out on the car before our trip to the Cape. I am really looking forward to the trip because then i might have enough "spare time" to wipe my a#%e.

Cheers Andrew

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and camper trailer

HI Andrew Yeah feel your pain I,am doing my mods.now finished BTW in between tarting the house up for sale.Mate hire a bobcat :idea: CHEERS TINKERA.

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and camper trailer

Well after a bit longer than I originally thought I have my new sliders on and ready to go. In order to gain a little more clearance for the mounting of the sliders I installed a small (8mm) body lift a while ago which doesn't sound like much, but it increases the clearance between the mounts and the body from about 5mm to 13mm which is more than double.
Have a look here for more details. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5400&start=20

Here are a few photos of the finished item.







Cheers Andrew

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and DIY camper trailer

Well I have done a bit more work on the Prado, Stage 1 of my additional rear storage which incorporates a new set of drawers which also house my second battery.

Drawers after construction and before covering.





Covering which was time consuming but came up a real treat.



My second battery sits in front of the bottom drawer and below the top drawer, access is via a removable panel, this is why the top drawer is longer. The second battery is an AGM and the wiring is 6 B&S cable running through a Redarc controller fused at the cranking battery and an auto reset circuit breaker at the auxiliary end. still to wire in my power outlets and inverter.






Heavy duty 100kg drawer slides.



And the finished product.





As I said this is stage 1, I still plan on putting a shelf above the fridge and another compartment behind the fridge.

Cheers Andrew

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and DIY camper trailer

Another job crossed of the list, I installed a set of Polyair bags in the back of the Prado last week.




Unlike most of the others I have read on PP, I decided to link both sides together, so only one valve, and pressure should always remain even.






And put the valve under the little cutout for the spare wheel lift on overseas models.




Between the instructions that come with the air bags, the info on PP and the fact that I have had the rear suspension out of both my Prado’s a couple of times made this a pretty easy install. 2 hours tops.

Cheers Andrew

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and DIY camper trailer

Well I have had a bit of a session the last couple of nights on mud flaps, or to be more accurate stone flaps. With the lift on the Prado the OE flaps are not long enough to stop crap spraying under the back of the car and damaging the paint so I needed longer flaps. My problem is that it would be best to have them almost to ground level when towing the camper trailer, but this would cause problems when you get into some really rough stuff as they are likely to get hooked up :?

The Answer..................... two sets of mud / stone flaps.

This first set bolted to the originals should protect the back of the car when not towing or in really rough country.





And a second set that are removable, i have bolted a length of Aluminium pipe to the rear tank guard and then made removable poles that slide into this and are held in place with R clips, I bolted larger rubber flaps to these for when towing on outback roads. it literally takes 5 seconds to remove them both.








And for good measure i added another set below the stone guard on the camper trailer.




Cheers Andrew

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and DIY camper trailer

HI Andrew.Great setup with the flaps looks like your got everything covered there.I,ve just put flaps on C.T.same as yours maybe a bit longer on mine but to cover same spot.Just wondering the flaps on oem did you extend them only because of your lift as I have been thinking of doing the same for a while but I don.t have a lift :?: BTW how much longer did you make them :?: CHEERS TINKERA.

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and DIY camper trailer

Hi Tinkera,

I assume without the lift the OE mud flaps would be ok but not sure, been a few years since I had a Prado without a lift. To determine the length all I did was run a straight edge from the bottom of the tire to the rear of the bumper, then dropped it a couple of inches at the bumper end for good measure and then measured the length from the top of the OE to the straight edge, 230mm in my case.

Just up at the house for a quick cuppa, fitted my Leigh W voltage booster diode tonight, now reading around 14.3 volts on the Scangauge 8)

Back off to the shed in a minute to finish stage 2 of my storage system, hopefully will post some pics in the next couple of days.

I made a drop slide (platinum style) a couple of weeks ago for my new ARB fridge, made my own runners and all but unfortunately it wasn’t up to scratch, just didn’t run smoothly. Anyway I ordered some heavy duty runners that arrived today so MK.2 for my fridge slide is now on the drawing board (the one in my head)

Cheers Andrew

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and DIY camper trailer

Thanks Andrew for the reply will try the staight edge on the weekend.CHEERS TINKERA.

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DIY Fridge Dropslide

OK, as mentioned before I had a crack at making a drop slide (platinum style) that worked but only just, so I scraped that; bought some "proper runners" and had another go. There were a couple of factors influencing my design.

1. I only had an area 485mm wide to fit it into, the platinum needs 505mm so it wouldn’t fit
2. I had the full length of my black widow drawers, 900mm which was ideal
3. I had a maximum height of 540mm due to my storage system
4. My Slides / runners arrived 9 days before we leave for Cape York
5. I live outside a small country town and don’t have easy access to all the good hardware places.

For reasons that don’t matter it turned out i had to make my storage system first and the above measurements was the space I was left to work with.

After my initial failure where I made my own slide mechanism it was obvious that I needed to buy good drawer slide to do the job, at this point I abandoned all my misgivings about EBay and bought (some say stole would be more accurate) a set of 870mm long 160kg rated full extension slides for $51 dollars 8)






As I said they arrived 9 days before we head for the Cape.

first thing to make was the main supports for the runners, ideally 75mm x 75mm x 3mm angle would be the go, unfortunately to the best of my knowledge nobody makes this size. any way a quick look in my scrap heap revealed a piece of 200mm x 2.5mm C section that used to be part of my carport until i drove under it a few years ago with a high load and bent it horribly.




I have trouble in that I can’t see what I’m typing when my posts get a bit longer, so i will start again in a new one and will probably take a few as I have a lot of pics.

Cheers Andrew

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Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and DIY camper trailer

Continuing, I took to the C section with the trusty 5" angle grinder and soon had two pieces of angle iron 75 x 75mm x 2.5mm @ 875mm long





In order to make my width budget I needed to save every mm I could, so instead of bolting the runners to the frame using nuts, I welded 3mm thick tabs on the outside and then drilled and taped for the countersunk screws, this meant accuracy was critical, 0.5mm out and the screws would not seat and the runners would not work. So out with engineers chalk and tape measure and in with the steel ruler and scriber.






Tabs welded, i screwed the screw through and then trimmed them of flush.





I was then able to weld my cross supports in place and fit the runners, the cross supports were positioned in order to reuse the old bolt hole from my previous fridge slide





Will start another post.

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

Re: AJ120s 2009 D4D and DIY camper trailer

nice work there aj, look foward to seeing finished product. cheers samo