Australian Retro Rambler

[edgeau]

It's Christmas again!
I admit I may have gone a little over the top but this is going to be fun. In the end the house will have Uninterruptible Power Supply for the fridge/freezer and the Teardrop will have DC/DC charging added to MPPT with Bluetooth and remote touch screen monitoring / control.

The charger controller in the teardrop with it's nice display will come into the house setup.

This would have been nice to have before the Christmas day tornado tore up my suburb but the camping fridges running off the teardrop got us through the few days without power. Other places locally lost it for over a week.

Our place was fine by the way. There is a swathe of snapped off trees through the bush behind us that just stops 10m from our fence. Even the floating pool toy was still in the pool meters from where trees were being uprooted and snapped off like twigs. We must have had an angel perched on the roof!

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[edgeau]

This was the proof of concept with a 1000w inverter I picked up on Facebook marketplace and one of two high current batteries I took out of Mum's new mobility scooter when I upgraded it to lithium. These are 25kg monsters for only 55ah but built for sustained high current draw. So they will easily handle the 3000w inverter when I set them up in parallel. The 1000w handled the freezer and would cope with both the fridge and freezer concurrently starting but then I saw the 3000W with an automatic transfer switch built in and it was on sale for about the price of a new 1000w. Too good to pass up. Now there is headroom for other devices.

I'll on sell the 1000w inverter I guess.

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[edgeau]

Out again for the Australia Day Long weekend. I have found my old Army hootchie I'd exactly right to make a lean to on one of the side awnings for my son to set up a swag under. I had to replace one of these awnings a few months ago and I am glad I had the foresight to harvest the long poles from it. I slide the hootchie loops over it and put it just inside the awning so there is no gap.

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[edgeau]

New trailer time!
We are carrying so much extra gear now I was worried I'd go overweight if pulled up by the scalies (transport department officers with portable scales) Where I live the legal limit for an unbaked trailer is 750kg. Mine is rated to 1000 by the manufacturer but that doesn't matter. I looked at adding brakes and it turned out to do that I'd need to rip everything out from the leaf springs down and replace. $1600 for parts then I'd need to get an engineer certificate for a new compliance plate at another $400 or so.
Easier to buy a whole new trailer. I found this beauty second hand for $1500. It was built to transport golf carts.



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[edgeau]

The rails you see here had to come off but the angle grinder made short work of that.

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[edgeau]

The result!

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[edgeau]

Now to sell the original trailer and see what my net changeover works out at

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[edgeau]

Maintenance Love.
Life got busy and I didn't give the old Teardrop the recoats of varnish it deserved and I paid the price. In several areas the top layer of ply opened up and let some moisture in then delaminated. But I have saved the situation! I got rid of all the unsound bits and filled in with a filler meant for boats that has taken a new coat ov varnish really well. You cant see any of the filled bits on the right!

 

[edgeau]

 

[edgeau]

 

[MickinOz]

Good to see the actual brand. I was just starting to see the outer veneers starting to crack where the paint hadn't kept the water out, so I covered mine with a paint on acrylic water proofing membrane, with paint over the top. The paints used have 15 and 20 year warrantees, so I'm hoping to never have to touch it again.
Is the teardrop still a removable setup?

 

[edgeau]

Good to see the actual brand. I was just starting to see the outer veneers starting to crack where the paint hadn't kept the water out, so I covered mine with a paint on acrylic water proofing membrane, with paint over the top. The paints used have 15 and 20 year warrantees, so I'm hoping to never have to touch it again.
Is the teardrop still a removable setup?

Yes it is still removable but I have a new ute now so not the need to remove it to use the trailer regularly any more

 

[edgeau]

Yes it is still removable but I have a new ute now so not the need to remove it to use the trailer regularly any more

On the maintenance theme this weekend's job was replacing wheel bearings and adjusting brakes. It is nice to be able to push the drop around again without having to enlist help from my Son!

 

[edgeau]

And a new hitch with better articulation. A bit of mild off road work is now a possibly