A little project update on Chug A Lug

I'll post a photo of the kitchen set up for use here in a day or two.

Ok the platform is all fabbed up and ready to be taken apart and sealed when I get time.

You can see the bolts where its attached to the Micarta surrounding my roll bar plates

The straps will hold the gear in place. I need to come up with two more Footman loops to get the middle straps finished

with the Kitchen Cooler and Water jugs stored below

And with the gate closed

Next I need to make a tray to hold my Jeep fluids and some misc. stuff in front of the Water jugs and Recovery gear.

Then finish out the Kitchen Box. I need to make legs for it as well as a way to secure it to the Tail gate when pulled out to be used. And then make a shield to keep cooking what ever off the inside of the Hatch.

OK some progress on the camping setup for CHUG

First up is a photo that shows the Kitchen box on the left Cooler in the middle and water jugs on the right.

The kitchen  box has work yet to be done on it but its pretty much fleshed out. The Coleman stove and collapsible sink will along with all Kitchen gear and the non refrigerated food will store inside of it. The BBq grill is in the black pouch on top of the box. It assembles and makes a grill just big enough to do a couple of steaks to feed two people. The top of the box which is shown actually upside down will have a Formica top I happen to have a scrap of our Kitchen Formica from 25+ years ago (glad I kept it as that stuff is insane expensive now) The top flips over and ends up extending the box working surface to be 21" long. The stove sits down in a pocket so it can't move around (I put Velcro on the feet to make sure) I'm working on a  shield to make so cooking heat and grease doesn't get into the Hatch upholstery may end up just being a piece of .040" aluminum that Velcros to the underside of the Hatch. The kitchen box will get about 3 coats of Sanding sealer inside and out I doubt I will do more then that no need for it to be painted.

The cooler is .040" aluminum sheet folded to make the center section with the ends being riveted on to 1/2" aluminum angle The the top edge is 1" angle. The lid is recycled road sign (the metal recycler sells them with the sign peeled off for $2.50 a pound)  real simple just a flat sheet. With the Insulation Epoxied to the under side. As I said above insulation is 2"  in bottom 1.5" in the sides, ends and top. This gives me a 7" x 10.5" x 23" or a 24 quart cooler. I will be using 6) 1 quart square bottles to store Ice and Dry Ice leaving me 16 quarts for perishable food. As we are planning on no more then 4 day out and about at a time that should work fine as I also have my Lunch cooler (shown ahead of the main cooler painted White which is another 7.5 quarts though with Ice in it that will drop to about 5 quarts.   The cooler is amazingly light.

And then on the right side you can see the two 3.2 gallon water jugs. Behind those will be my recovery straps and such and then ahead of that room for a bag of briquets and the Jeeps support fluids etc. (these will be able to be accessed by tilting the pass seat forward) I can also if need be wedge another water jug into this space.

Inside of cooler

And the Platform its 31.5" front to back by 38.75" wide it sits 3.5" above the roll bar plates on the Wheelhouses. I will secure it in place with 4) 1/4" bolts threaded into the almost 1" thick Micarta that surrounds the Roll bar plates) On the leading and trailing edges of the Platform I will be putting 4) Footman loops to attach ratchet straps to so that the gear stored on to of the platform can be secured. I'm going to rework some of the 20+ sets of ratchet straps I have so they work real nice for this.

My huge first aid kit, travel bar. and firearm support bags will all fit nicely on the sides of the platform As will a clothing bag for each of the two of us. Granted packed for adventure I will loose a lot of that great visibility out the side windows.

We plan on packing

A so called 4 man vertical wall tent

A 6 x 6 popup canopy

Two full sized cots

Two air filled sleeping pads

Two sleeping bags as the planned adventure will be in the summer I have a very compact summer bag the two of them take up less room then one normal sized bag.

Two folding camp chairs

a small collapsible table

Pillows

2 to 4 rifle bags

Some sort of folding camp toilet or a Bucket etc. Yet to be figured out.

I can also store some items on the ceiling of the hard top I have a rack for three fishing poles and footman loops for items like a wool blanket or even a soft tackle box.

Its going to be my great big Backpack on 4 wheels

With a 300-350 mile range between fuel stops with the two fuel cans.

Seriously thinking on either Air shocks or a new set of rear springs. CHUG is starting to look like one of them stupid squatting trucks. OK no where near that bad but not good. I'm thinking the Springs I bought back in 2004 were not of the highest quality. Though the fronts seam to be doing just fine.

Air shocks are the easier and by quite a bit cheaper solution. I can use the current rear shocks on my Trailer build as its going to mimic the rear end of CHUG for suspension. FOr that matter I could do the same with the springs as the Trailer will hopefully be a good bit lighter then the back of the jeep especially with the tongue weight on it.

Sure enjoyed the run into Salem today. Just cruising along in 3rd Over at 2600-2800 rpm 55-58mph maybe a little faster. Driver window open and the vent cracked about 1/2" Tunes at 42 on the volume control. Going to have to find a reason to drive somewhere tomorrow before the weather goes to crap again next week.

Two fire extinguishers?

As we say in the Marines --- "Two is one, one is none".

Expecting electrical trouble?

Short and to the point .

The front corners are ready for primer. 

They are both now enclosed contoured and weather stripped. Everything's sanded down to 220grit. They will set that way rain or shine until I can get the doors skinned and then I'll start prepping the whole top for primer. I can do that as I go with Aluminum no worry about rust. Ideally I would scuff it all up one weekend then get the majority of it masked off. And Primed the next weekend. Once primed a blocking with 400 grit and it will be ready for the Epoxy sealer and right away after the Arctic White top coats. Thinking about 4 good coats maybe five so I got plenty to color sand and buff.

Then I touch up all the scratches and chips in the Blue and Black and I'm done. It can gracefully make its way back the patina.

I got a few things on the mechanical to do list like finally getting the OD to stay in Direct, adjusting the E brake, an Oil change and Lube job, looking at changing some steering geometry, adding a way to add tension to my hand throttle, and choke, Oh and I want to add more spring to my throttle it likes to float a bit before going back to idle.

Always something

After almost two year obsessing on how to make the front corners on the hard top Yesterday I just went at it and ended up with a simple easy design that looks pretty good flows into the windshield as well as can be expected considering I should have made the front of the top about 1/2" wider over all. 

Now to score some tiny 4-40 x 1/8" long flat head screws to hold the single piece of .040" aluminum that wraps around the corner to the front edge of the Top and then to add a couple longer screws to hold the other edge to the Micarta blocks I will be using to hold it in place. Going to bond this little piece with JB weld as well. That way I can use the JB Weld to fill the little gaps and such. I Had to work today other wise the assembly's would be curing over night right now.

This is such a load off my brain. And it turned out so simple. I used the hyd. press a piece of heavy angle iron and a heavy wall aluminum tube to put about a 2" D bend in a piece of aluminum about 4" X 6" then just started whittling it down until it fit. Once I had the one on the right done I made a masking tape pattern and after bending another piece of .040" I centered the pattern on the curve and cut it out. A little more whittling and I had both aluminum pieces done.

The Micarta blocks that will secure the door side of the curve came from my scrap pile and except for getting the curve on one of them to match the Windshield corner curve were super simple to make. I need to look really close at how this all goes together tomorrow to make sure I don't screw up being able to get the top off should I decide to.

I will need to put the weather stripping on the back side of the Aluminum before I glue and screw it in place. I'm also going to make a small Micarta block to wedge into the end of the Rain gutter to lock the little tab of aluminum that goes into that area. This is one of the places I have to figure out how to assemble without causing disassembly problems later. Maybe some carefully placed wax paper to control the JB weld.

OH good grief I just got an email about a new Cobra CB that is the upgrade for the one I have in my pickup. This one is a all in one with all controls in the Mic's and a WIRELESS connected control box that can be mounted most anywhere in the vehicle. And the Mic only needs to plug into a USB which I have on the ceiling above the GMRS radio. I would end up with just two mic's hanging from the ceiling. Its AM/FM with weather channels. No SSB but its also $80 cheaper then the President George.

Hmm I can really reduce the size of the console if I get the CB out of it. Then I can move the passenger seat 1.5" to the left. That would get the wife some elbow room.

Decisions decisions.