Oldmate

At least you are busy mate. Will keep that in mind. I'm a chippy bit slow at the moment.

Be sad to see it go. Been a great rig and will continue to be for the next owners.

Bought a Colorado 7 mate. Newer, auto, still pull the camper to where we want to go and easier in the traffic as the wife's daily drive.

Fitted dawes and needle valve today. Hopefully prolong the life a bit on the ZD

Hi Guys i will attempt to throw up as much detail as i can.
This is the table i made for my GUII. Should be same for other models but double check sizes first.
Being stainless means it is easy to keep clean, and you can also put hot things striaght onto it if need (billy, camp oven, pots etc)
I use it as a chopping board and everything.

Materials
1.2mm stainless splashback 865mm x 420mm(got from sheet metal place)
1.2mm stainless table 820mm x 415mm with 7mm folded and welded edge (got from sheetmetal place)
1 peice of 7mm ply 900mm x 450mm (trimmed to fit under table)
Contact adhesive
1 Piano hinge ( i used stainless one)
Marine carpet to cover ply
2 wire eye straps
1.2mm stainless leader wire (got from BCF)
Wire crimps (got from BCF)
1 Latch (as in pictures)
Rivits.

Tools
Screwdrivers
Grinder with thin cutting blade
Rivit gun
Drill
Paint brush (cheap)
Circular saw
Stanley Knife
Pliers or crimpers

Now i apologise that i do not have any pics of me actually making this, don't think about this till after. I did get a few midway though.

Cut plywood to size to fit on underside of table and glue in with contact adhesive. I clamped it and sat weight on it overnight till it dried.
Drill 3mm hole in edge in prep for wire stays later

When that is done cover ply with marine carpet.

Remove plastic trim at top off door.
Remove door trim if you wish and to look at were wires etc are.( I fitted my splashback over the door trim as it the slashback doesnt cover the whole door. about 40mm short at the bottom, so when table is fitted it does not foul on pinch mould when door is closed.

Hold Splashback into postion and mark the top righthand edge to trim off with the grinder. (edge of door angles back in)

Once back is cut and happy with where it will sit on door( Mine is **mm short from bottom and sits just high enough that the plastic trim when refitted will sit over the top edge),

attach the hinge to the "Table" side first.

I wanted it so you didn't see the hinge, so all you see is the knuckle. So the hinge is fitted to the table through the back egde with rivits. It is fiddly as you only have 7 mm to work with.
Once done, Hold the splash back under hinge and mark holes piano hinge and drill. (only as many fixings as you wish. I did every hole)
Fit slashback to door using only a couple off rivits at top to start with.
Then you can fit table and hinge to bottom of splash back. You want the hinge to go behind the splash back, and attach with rivits in 2 holes only. You can do all rivits once all fitted and fit splashback to door. (i used 3 rivets down each side and a few across the top

Have a piece of timber to support table

With the top trim still off you want to fit these to top of door frame with rivits

and cut slots in trim where needed and mark holes for latch (i put thin peice of ali on back of trim for something the screws could bit into) and refit. Attach leader wire to table using crimp and feed though eye at top at fit off a required length with crimp

Close top and fit latch to bottom of table


Finished Product




I also fitted LED Strip to around top of door frame before i did the table.

ENJOY


Cheers olly
Hope you can all make sense of all that scribble.

Hi mate. I have swapped them for manual hubs, but haven't had a chance to lock it in 4x4 since, so not sure yet if I have fixed the issue. I will update here when I know.

Roof sliders hey. Nice. Be careful parking in carparks though, you may find the local skate boarders using you roof to do grinds on or whatever they call it these days lol

Roof sliders hey. Nice. Be careful parking in carparks though, you may find the local skate boarders using you roof to do grinds on or whatever they call it these days lol

Couple of pics of the rear in progress.

Got some more done today got the roof welded up with out warping it ( was pretty worried about it warping being so thin ) but come up awesome, Now a have something to work with here some pics.


This should clean up really well, a bit more welding then bog time.

Black wolf 300 plus with a oz trail deluxe gazebo for us. Nice and simple for the long stays and short one just the tent

Well i think it has gone well guys. Just tweaking adjustments now. car already seams to drive a lot nicer without the bad lag that it has always suffered. Thanks for all the info guys.

Nice one mate

i've already told you! you dont have friends, but you do have a wife that is happy to beat you to death

Hahaha. What are mates for hey

Fitted dawes and needle valve today. Hopefully prolong the life a bit on the ZD

OK, I know a rear door table isn't something new; however I thrive on borrowed ideas and necessity. The thing I love is that it is cheap to do these mods, practical, and no-ones going to sweat about a few holes in the car. There are a thousand pics of door tables on the net, but here's mine. I've seen quite a few others, taken good points and bad points. Hope it gives people some good ideas for their own.

Aim: Functional, maximum shelf space, to use mostly stainless steel

Materials:

2 or 3mm thick stainless steel from the tip shop $8
A fair amount of stainless fittings. The final ones were not too dear. The amount I bought anticipating it would work, is amazing. (I'm sure the local hardware now see me as competition with the amount of fittings I now have.
Marine carpet scrap I was given by the local trimmers (Thanks guys!)
LED self adhesive light strip $20 approx
12v dimmer

Click on pictures to enlarge. Some pictures may be too dark to make sense on eg tapatalk.

This is the finished product.




A full length hinge was used to strengthen the table, instead of glueing a backing or bracing on.




Put a twist or half twist in the supporting cable so the cable twists in as it folds up.




The table folded up.




Closeup of the fittings used to support the table. This part caused me much thought and trouble. When I initially planned it in my head, I needed to see it before going further. When I actually got this far, I found several shortcomings in the work so far. I knew I wanted to suspend it on a cable, but how? How to keep it up when folded? Spent quite a while browsing online marine shops, google images etc. Finally went to the local show, and someone was selling stainless steel bits. I could wander, fit bits together etc.




Side view of table folded. Sorry about the not-rotated pic. The edge was rolled - a tricky task. If you choose stainless steel, it is hard to work without a workshop. The rolled edge gives it a bit more strength.




To best view this pic, make sure no-one is looking, then tilt your head to the side. A daytime view of the LED strip. Quite unobtrusive.




Here is the LED switch and dimmer knob -off. The dimmer came with it's own box, the knob on the box. I opened the box, and there was enough length in the ribbon cable to cable tie the box near the variable resister (unseen part of the knob) mounted near the switch.




Here is the switch and dimmer - on. I love that switch. Ebay jobby, and it sits almost flush with the trim. The LED can be wired so it is always on, only on with the switch, or off when the switch is on. Polarity doesn't matter!




Detail of the top of the table surface and support.



Boring pic - I meant to show how dim the LEDs would go. Literally if you are really steady with your hand, you can dim them so they are visible, but don't give any usable light.





An example of how dim the LEDs go. Minimum practical lighting. If you once again turn your head on the side, and imagine the pic taken facing the end of the RH rear door.




Facing the table, with minimum practical lighting. Of course it is a bit hard to compare the pics directly. They are taken on the phone. The phone tries to make everything the same lightness. Maybe in a few weeks when I get the DSLR back up and working, and set it to manual. Maybe not - it's not a headlight comparison!




Maximum brightness.




Maximum Brightness. In this one, you can see where I have muffed some polishing I did. I have some polishing attachments for a drill. Unfortunately the fine cotton wheel was slightly out of round, and I didn't clean off the rougher polishing grit. So it roughed instead of polished!



My humble pieces of advice:

Stainless steel is hard to work with.
Wood is easy to work with, and provides easy options for support, bracing etc.
Do some browsing around for ideas/inspiration


If I was to do it again:

I would fold down the edges of the table and braze/weld the corners. The sides would allow somewhere to mount the cable support.

Just came across this westy and thought of you mate.
I'm not sure how helpful it is as it appears to be written by a woman and you have to take every thing on the net with a grain of salt anyway.

Some of what they say no too looks perfectly OK to me and I can't see the problem but maybe it's a politically correct thing or something. Might be OK to print out and put in the babys room or something.

Anyway, hope it helps.

Fitted up the diff armour and replaced my aux battery

Got my ARB awning fitted... Very nice.

Very well done.

Probably saved yourself about $300+ at accessories shop prices and come out with a lot better product.
Nothing more satisfying than a DIY project you know is better than anything you could have bought.

Well been a big day. Many many thanks to Gissmo for coming over and giving me a hand, really appreciated it mate.
Got the sony in and working right




Got the anderson plug in and wired through a seperated VSR to main battery and a new 7 pin plug


and also got the brake controller in for the new trailer.

Cut the bonnet and hang it out the top..
Or put a scoop / bonnet bulge to give you the extra height if needed..


Sent from a device which doesn't always agree with my thumbs...

"Has a small hairline crack in bottom hole. Does not affect performance."

Sounds like my ex wife lol

Some of the childish bickering that goes on with some of the posters, does deter others from visiting.

I visit when I get home at the end of the week but don't post if I don't have anything to comment on or say!

Foo