1975 Petersville Camperman Bushwacker

[ForumMod]

Sounds like all the hard work you put into your camper has paid off, jaderd! You've got yourself a great little camper for those quick weekend trips away.

cheers,
Al.

[jaderd]

Yeah really cant wait for easter.

I have added a 3X3m gazebo to the arsenal and also purchased a Wandere (BCF) brand gazebo hub which i got 2nd hand for $100 included in the sale were 6 sand / water fillable gazebo leg weights. Gazebo hub is great, attaches to one side of gazebo perfect for storing food / goods etc or as a tent to sleep in if need to, the picture is deceiving, its actually quite large inside Sleeps up to 6. L290 x W250 x H210cm

Also have since purchased a new solar light kit - Aldi had them for sale last year, the actual manufacturer is quite good and normaly charge alot more than aldi were charging. The orig solar light kit i will use just for charging phones.

Got two BCF moon chairs aswell
Got an older electrolux mini bar fridge, ex Melbour Hilton one $40 this saves eskies as we generally go powered sites.
New folding 4 foot round table to eat at, keep trestle table for food prep.

All these items live in garage at home and get loaded into car / top of camper before we head off each time, wife gets new car this week, brand new VW Passat turbo diesel wagon so room is a plenty

Gazebo Hub Combo looks like this, perfect to "Butt" up against camper


Weights are like these - but BCF brand and 6 of them


Solar Light Kit


Moon Chairs


Mini Bar Fridge


4 Foot round folding table.

[jaderd]

Ok so camping trip over easter went great

The Gazebo hub was brilliant, am buying another one, so can have one for kids / kids toys and other for food etc. Mate who is a cop also works occasionally at Rebel Sport, rebel sport own BCF and Rays outdoors so half price items, means gazebo hub $80 brand new



Daughters first easter and she got to go camping :)


Dads on patrol


Asleep with Mum in the Moon Chair, perfect for letting kids sit beside you

[jaderd]

Vid of camp setup at easter, worked well

s145.photobucket.com/user/sberton/media/11D7B659-2227-4912-8DF0-FEF84A8F9108_zpsojfinixl.mp4.html

[jaderd]

So, bit of an update.

Spontaneous Ebay purchase as I have one toddler and a baby boy due soon, wife planted seed that the bushwacker style tent on trailer and nothing else isn't really enough room and lifting kids up onto side bed and into a porta cot is a tricky task.

My wife had a ezytrail TN230 trailer tent + extra room with some minor packaging defects (tiny holes) for sale from ezy trail. Brand new they are $2000, buy now - with minor holes $1275, I bid and go it for $750.

I was recently looking at getting an annex made large 4x3m which would have been over $1500 I reckon based on restoreme's pricing at place I normally use so decided on this.

Fitting should be not too bad. I will remove the two wooden fold outs off camper and fit the new tent frame to right hand side piano hinge that's already present. Tent will sit slightly off centre though weight wise no real transfer still basically 50/50 left to right, will just look a little off centr., tent Frame width is 175cm, camper is 183cm so only just off centre. Spare 7cm ish on left side I might mount my pvc pole holder. All going well I will use the piano hinge and this will allow me to lift bed base up using supplies gas struts to access items in camper. Worst case I find this mounting style difficult / not possible and I have to solidly mount I do have the door access to camper for items and also 1/2 of the bed wooden base can be removed to access items in camper (actual feature of bed). I think the gas struts may not work anyway as often they need a fair bit of distance I.e. Mounted to tent / bed base and then edge of camper, though I don't have a camper edge as bushwackers have the 30cm depth cupboards build in, which does make it an easy mount point thought, bolt into top of cupboard (19mm wood by the looks) and I'll add a metal plate to spread the tension and protect the wood.

My only concern is weight. I figure removing the wood folding sides, tent, tarp as fly, gazebo, gazebo hub, all things I dont need in trailer anymore might gain a 50kg reduction. I am then adding 150kg approx tent setup so around 100kg up.

Also wife just got a new Kia Sorrento, heaps of space so if I'm relly worried I can put some items in that to travel and reduce weight.

Tow ball weight has always been low(50-60kg)

I will test this post setup, in theory this won't go up much at all, tent frame will sit over the rear of the camper by 20cm and hang over front 8cm ish so if anything a small percentage more weight at rear.

Other concern is the single draw bar but the way it's engineered it runs from hitch direct all the way to rear of camper with everything else running off that, it's solid tube, thinking of ppls 6x4 trailers often they are just A frame but angle steel so similar overall amount of steel as my solid tube. Wife's uncle is a great welder so I may drop past him to reinforce for piece of mind.

Original camper weight is around 300kg, so with items in it and new tent on top I might nudge 500kg-550 I reckon.

Doing it in such a way that I don't ruin and I do keep all the bushwacker items, if then it doesn't work out I might sell bushwacker and buy a trailer for new tent. Or if it does work I still have items for in 5 years when want better trailer maybe.

Cheers

[jaderd]

Ok,

So i have added the Tent to the Camper.

removing the items i no longer need - wooden tops, gazebo, step, old tent, tarp, old poles, old kitchen etc saved me about 85 - 95kg.

The new tent + poles + extra room, everything is around 150kg, so im up around 60-70kg.

New tent happened to fit well in regard to the steel frame lined up with edges of camper cupboards / front edge perfect allowing easy weather seal strip to be used.

As these older campers sides are basically connected to the floor only (wood / can get rotten) they have tendency to sag / twist.

I fixed the back prior to first use a few years ago with bracing and extra brackets around door, using some 300mm angle bracket 4mm thick, welded to trailer and propping up side / rear of camper.



I did the same to the front this week, i jacked up the front corners of side of camper just to remove any sag it may have had (minimal 5mm maybe) and welded in the plates. i can now sit and bounce on the corner and zero flex (i weigh 92kg) so safe there.



Orig aim was going to be to use the piano hing on one side, but the way the tents are made (to really go on a 4 foot or 5 foot wide trailer) would mean to do so and mount to the steel frame the tent would have then overhang one side by 8cm and leave 30cm on other and really lop side the trailer.
the tent is made for a max 120cm drop, my camper is 105 + then mounted has a 8cm horizontal distance before it can drop, still less than 120cm so works. Also the bottom half of the tents cover folds down over the side of the trailer so further protects from any rubbing on side of trailer.

The top of the trailer cupboards i lined with aluminium / aluminium edgin + silicone etc as during transit without this the wood cupboard tops could get wet. When parked up at home i have another tarp to go over the lot and when camping the bottom section of tent cover folds back over protecting camper









The tent then sat on camper great, sealed with weather proof tape / foam stuff that runs along top of aluminum leaving 8cm exposed out to edge, runs across front of trailer then i had to add some wood to enable a seal at the rear and a extra piece of wood to add depth and enable a seal for the back door.








As the front of the camper was solid as now with brackets and the front steel bracket of the tent frame sat flush on top of the trailer front frame front bracing was a little tricky. I felt the best solution was some metal plating, 45mm tech screws into the tent frame and then proper nut / bolt and lock washer with a rear support piece of steel on inside of camper to spread the load and support the camper metal. Did a few with pop rivets but wasnt as confident as using tech screws and actual nuts and bolts / lock washers.

Is as solid as can be and with 16 screws / nuts and bolts holding it on there is a lot of backup as i dont think they can all loosen all fall off at once. Pic is upside down for some reason when embedded.



Then came the rear, as i had to fix the camper and not use gas struts i wanted to enable use of rear door, luckily the tent base is designed that it has two massive 50cm x 120cm trap doors under mattress, another nice coincidence is the width of camper internal is 122cm

so with these and rear door i was happy access wise. I deliberated for a day or two as i didnt want to just secure to rear thin trailer steel, then i clicked that i could make a brace that would server multiple purposes

1. affix to tent steel frame to hold it onto camper.
2. sit flush along body so i could then tech screw trailer rear sheeting to the brace from the inside as another way to stop any sag.
3. affix the brace to the actual trailer steel frame with an angle that then also holds up the back trailer steel so even if floor rots it cannot sag.

so i knocked up these 2 brackets.



They fit perfect (another fluke) between already present tarp hooks and my combination lock for rear door / hinge for rear door so i can still open door to 90 degrees. i have tech screwed them to the trailer and to the frame. i would rather leave it like this and not weld, just in case i want to remove. pretty sure tech screws dont just come loose ? i would check regularly



Next step was after research i realised that though i only have the single drawer bar, its design is the best variety of single bar as in the actual draw bar runs from hitch to rear of trailer and everything is built around that. Still i wanted to brace it. i researched the best ways to brace it and decided on a ladder style brace like below.



I decided to use the 30mm sqaure tubing as i had some from other brackets, its nice and strong etc.
From the instructions above i could see the most important is dont weld underneath on current draw bar as you dont want to create a fatigue area, hence i added the plates which are 85mm, giving me 5mm each side of draw bar to weld it to draw bar and not compromise the bar. I made it last night and have painted it. i plan to add it tonight, though still a tiny bit hesitant as last thing i want to do is ruin a weld and damage draw bar. I think i have decided i will not do it yet, im heading to dromana for weekend to test tent, after the weekend i will add it, then if i stuff it up i have time to repair priro to easter. if i just do small tack welds and take my time i dont think i will stuff it up. My welds are not too bad for zero training just bit of trial error practice, maybe a 5 out of 10

Any info / advice would be much appreciated especially from someone who has done draw bar bracing etc.

Also i rang RACV for no premium increase they have added tent at full RRP so im happy about that.

[jaderd]

So i decided to bite the bullet and affix the draw bar brace, bit tricky welding with 50mm space to get the weld gun into for the braces underneath the trailer, tipped the trailer right back so i could atleast get under easy.

Used a trolley jac to hold the brace up to the drawbar tight at each attach point and hammered the plate up on each side (5mm overhang) so that it cupped the draw bar and gave me a channel to weld in.

Went on well, not happy with some of my welds due to fiddly locations etc.

Sprayed it and draw bar black, worked really well to brace draw bar.

I also adjusted the tow hitch cupping aspect as it had a bit of plat on 50mm ball, got that to a nice level with little play.

Loaded camper up with items needed then headed to Dromana.

Camper towed so well, its fairly light i guess (even still) and doesnt sway at all really. Towing with 2016 Kia sorrento so it hardly notices the trailer.

Set tent up, to my surprise the tent is actually a brand new one zero holes or defects and an updated version where by the poles are all affixed to the tent internally and they just pivot out to position then you extend them, they have velcro tabs to hold them in place then folding up so they down swing down. you then just use (not really required) 2 extra spreader poles to tension main two roof areas, not really needed as each roof area already has two bars installed.

Tent smelt very strong of chemical / canvas aired that out nicely (ill then setup this weekend at home and saturate it so it can swell / cure).

Everything worked perfect, rear access to door works spot on with zippered flap, actually looking at making a slide out table / two baskets that will live under trailer and can slide out to enable some storage space for items, looking to use old pantry basket sliders i have which are heavy duty / hold in excess of 30kg in basket. Will only be used when onsite, nothing stored in them while towing.

Also purchased a new cooker cheap at supercheap, exact same other brand models are $150 +, nice grill feature which is good.

some pics of the camper in action.