Thread: Progress on My Unimog

After weeks of rain, the weather was too good to waste, so we have been spending some time on the beach. South Ballina is now our favourite beach, we can drive down to it in about 2 hour, drive right along and park up for the day. The isolation and distance from the everyone else makes it great - no people near us and only the occasional 4x4 passing along the beach.

The good weather didn't last long however, and it was raining again soon after. The next weekend was a spent re-organising the workshop - the hi-rail train gear has been sold at last. Now all we had to do was get all the pieces together and pack it all ready for shipping. We had to clean the workshop up enough to get the truck past the camper box, then move everything around, clean all the parts and pack them into a container. The photo shows the end result of all the work.

We also got the first part of the floor from Christopher Tuck (the fabricator) last weekend. The first thing to do was to sand down all the interior cross members where the floor is going to get glued on. Then to prime them all with the Sikaflex primer.

I also sanded down the aluminium side of the the floor, and masked off the parts which the glue is going onto, and painted the underside with the etch primer. After putting on large amounts of Sikaflex on the cross members, and then the 3mm rubber spacers, I manoeuvred the panels into place. It took a lot of clamps and 80kg of weight to hold down the floor to keep it level.

Whilst I was waiting for the rest of the floor panels to be made, I finally sorted out the hatch looking mechanisms. I bought all the locks for the the various hatches etc. After much thinking, trialling and finally installation, I finally got the locks working properly. The last thing I have to do is to weld on another attachment point onto the main disc to give it three points of locking. The outer part of the lock is stainless steel and fit flush on the outside. The rear hatch is basically the same as the side panels. Similarly I need to weld on the third locking point to make it really secure.

I also fitted the Land Rover door lock into the entrance door. That will make it fully ADR compliant as the door has to be the same as a car door. The Land Rover lock is designed to work off road, so it should last, and it being typical of all thing Land Rover, it's a fairly simple.

I fetched the last of the panels first thing on Saturday morning. And after a whole day of sanding, painting, priming and gluing, finally, the floor is in - no photographs as I had too much Sikaflex on my hands for most of the day to even think about picking up the camera. All the pieces in the floor are a very tight fit due to the various pieces of cross bracing etc.

In order to get the pieces in, I had to leave a 3-5mm gap between the panels in the middle - and even then it was very difficult to to get things to fit - it was like a jigsaw puzzle, and all the pieces had to stuck in a specific order - and once the Sikaflex has grabbed hold - it was almost impossible to move or lift up. Luckily I got it right, and everything fitted properly with no hammering but there were some worrying occasions when it looked like I would have to do some trimming just to clear a bracket or strut.

I'll sand down the Sikaflex in a few weeks time, when it is properly cured. The final floor that we walk on will be another layer of teak. The rest of the floor will get painted with a decent epoxy paint. The two hatches open to allow access to the battery compartment ( on the right) and the heater compartment on the left.


In less than a month, the camper box will head north for fitting out the interior. This means I have a fair amount of work to do before I can send it up. Christopher is already making the lining panels. The lining is another composite like the floor. It's made from 1.8mm plywood, 4mm of foam and and other 1.8mm of plywood, all epoxyied together on a vacuum back table. First thing is to make a mock up interior out of craftwood - to make sure everything works and more importantly that the things like the fridges and the toilet all fit and work.

Once the craftwood interior has been made, then I will send the whole lot up to Christopher who will made the real cupboards etc out of the plywood composite. I also have to get all the fittings, like the door hinges, the roller sliders and even things like the sink, the shower unit, even the stove. I need to have everything that is going to fit in the interior, so that I don't have to remake things.

A few more photos

Jigsaw puzzle is very apt!

You can really see how it's going to look inside now.

What is the chassis-looking thing in the front of the picture with the tyres?

That's the hi-rail gear - front and rear train suspension and the central rail clamp bracket.

This is a what the floor panels look like - Christopher will be able to give you more details, but let's just say it looks easy, but making sure it doesn't de-laminate is the difficult part requiring lots of prep and the right products.

Originally Posted by Iain_B

This is a what the floor panels look like - Christopher will be able to give you more details, but let's just say it looks easy, but making sure it doesn't de-laminate is the difficult part requiring lots of prep and the right products.

Do you intend on bringing this vehicle back to Australia after your trip OS?

If so I suggest you rethink the use of ply/timber. AQIS will be concerned about timber coming back into the country. I know the ADF has issues with timber and foam that is not closed cell due to the potential to harbour bugs/disease in the timber or in dirt caught in the foam. Pulling vehicles, equipment and cointainers apart is a major issue.

I suggest that you speak with AQIS before you go any further if you intend on bringing the truck back to Aus. It may be that you just have to adopt a very disciplined maintenance of the timber and recoat it before you break the surface treatment.

Just a thought although I am sorry that I did not pick up on this earlier.

Thanks for the head up - it is one of the reasons why the floor is aluminium on the out side. I know of at least three people who have brought their Unimogs in from the USA - AQIS just fumigated the interior. Their floors were made from plywood.
I've thought about keeping the bugs and mud out a much as possible. I've tried to make sure that there are no places for mud etc to collect. All the members underneath or either are sealed or open enough to clean. I have used enough Sikaflex to seal off the floor on the underside, and that includes sealing the edges of each of the main cross members the so it should be fairly bug proof.

This weekend I started on the mock up of the interior - photos are pretty self explanatory. There are sliding drawers under the seat, and another behind the seats accessible when the backrests are tilted forwards. The seats still have their electric motors for the back rest angle, lumbar support etc, and are very comfortable.

There are more drawers under the the bed (the futon mattress is temporary - we will have a sprung mattress). There will be another cupboard over the top of the bed - just need to figure out how deep to make it.

The tall full height cupboard houses the main electrical panel - hence all the conduiting going into it. The cupboard over hole through to the cab will house an air conditioner. The heater will be housed in the same cupboard as the toilet, but totally sealed off from the toilet compartment for obvious reasons. I was thinking of mounting a large bilge type fan that starts up automatically when the toilet is pulled out. There is a small fan built into the toilet, on the inlet to the toilet and a larger solar powered fan on the outlet of the vent tube. This week I'll make toilet slide out.

The cupboard on the door side will house the sink, with a tap that doubles as a hand shower. The compartment under that cupboard houses all the water gear - pumps, filters, houses, calorifier etc. The cupboard opposite the door will hold the fridges. The fridges slide out giving access to either the 35 litre freezer or the 55 litre fridge. We went with the chest type fridge and freezer as even with two it is more efficient than a similar size upright and we can have a decent size freezer - nothing like having an ice cream in the middle of the desert . The rest of the cupboard houses the diesel cooktop, plates, pots and pans etc. There will be appropriate venting etc for the fridges to put the heat outside.

That's for the inside cooking. There will be another kitchen at the back of the truck that houses the gas stove / barbeque etc. That's still in the too be constructed basket.