The project began life in 2002 - nine years ago at the time of writing this. I bought a slightly rusty 4x4 Canter which had some mechanical damage - the transfer case needed repair and the shock absorber mounts were all snapped off. Although it only had 50,000 klms on the clock it appears those kilometers were accumulated either with the wheels spinning whilst the truck was airborne or whilst driving through saline sludge. :-/
Nethertheless, I repaired the broken bits and worked on the camper body consistently till the body was virtually complete.
I wasn't happy with the number of mistakes I'd made and (unlike doctors) I have to live with my mistakes so ..
I pulled the body off, chopped it into little bits and started again with just the cab (with the roof and back cut off) and the chassis. See here for details. (opens in a new window)
Years further down the track, I'd come a long way towards completing the camper body, this time clad in aluminium chequer plate and with a flat (rather than stepped) floor. The rust in the chassis by this time is looking BAD. The pictures below gives an indicaton of the comparitive states of the same general area of the chassis. The latest truck is on the left.
As luck would have it I found a 4x4 Canter sitting in a yard in Boulder. It had been owned by an aboriginal community in the desert east of Kalgoorlie and the chassis of this one had been preserved by a protective layer of mud. However, cosmetically it was crook - all the windows were smashed, the dash destroyed and the roof mangled. The motor was also stuffed as a result of driving it without an air cleaner - a handymans dream in other words.
Thus began the process of moving everything to the "new" chassis elaborated upon here but alas, once the body was elongated to suit the longer wheelbase and storage compartments, solar panels etc. added it weighed close to 5,000 kg. - the legal limit for the vehicle. That would be fine but as soon as we put some diesel in it and one person jumped in to drive it, it would be illegal to drive it, rather defeating the purpose of the whole exercise. :-/
So .. we hunted around for a later model Canter which would be rated at 6,000 kg. and soon found a suitable-ish candidate in Perth but it was a short wheelbase (SWB) and the motor home was built to fit on a Medium Wheel Base (MWB) chassis. We found a place, also in Perth, that performs chassis stretches and we ended up with a chassis slightly longer than the normal MWB .. sort of a MWB+. See the story of the chassis stretch here.
Because the MWB+ chassis was now longer than the motor home body built to fit a MWB Canter, the body needed to be extended. The unpainted aluminium in the photo gives an idea of the length of the extension.
So .. we hunted around for a later model Canter which would be rated at 6,000 kg. and soon found a suitable-ish candidate in Perth but it was a short wheelbase (SWB) and the motor home was built to fit on a Medium Wheel Base (MWB) chassis. We found a place, also in Perth, that performs chassis stretches and we ended up with a chassis slightly longer than the normal MWB .. sort of a MWB+. See the story of the chassis stretch here.
Because the MWB+ chassis was now longer than the motor home body built to fit a MWB Canter, the body needed to be extended. The unpainted aluminium in the photo gives an idea of the length of the extension.
Provisions also were made to create a crawl through so the cab can tilt relatively easily. Also the chassis rails on the new chassis were wider and that required the judicious use of Mr Angle Grinder and a complete rebuild of the storage compartments in the under floor compartments in a lot of places. :-/
See the construction pages for details of the project from this stage ...
