Turkeys Tear (all finished and tested)

[Wild Turkey NZ]

Cheers Roo Dog. Dont you worry, im taken it real easy.

Thanks Shadow Catcher on the pump links. i had stumbled across similar pumps but not at that price. if the pump i got does not work out for me then ill probably get that magnetic drive pump. i don't really like the fact that they are not self priming. if i get a air bubble in the system and the flow reduces then i may have steam issues.
i found the most economic solution is to uses a portable shower pump. its self priming as it is submerged and i will have pumping from a bucket of water in an open system. this allows somewhere for steam to go if i have any issues. im not going to have anti freeze in it because its not as easy to find or as cheap as water.
here is the pump i got:

already hooked it up for a test run. it pumps heaps of water but i don't know the power consumption. i am going to have to make some sort of ammeter to test it out... enough about the pump i will write more about it when its finished.

i liked the idea of having a jockey wheel so i went to look at the prices while i was out getting the pump. couldn't find anything under $50. what a rip off. i figured i can make one stronger and cheaper so here goes.
i ripped the guts out of one of them scissor jacks that i bought to support the back corners. got some lengths of pipe from my mates workshop scraps.

it was a solid afternoons work but it saved me coin so im happy.

now some things i cant make my self and a gas strut would bee too hard. i bought a 50kg 470-800mm gas strut to help open the galley door and hold it open.
it a=was not easy trying to mount it after the cladding was on as i didn't know where there was structural support to screw in to. so i just used heaps of screws and some of them found solid wood. it should look fine once its painted.

the weight balance on the strut is perfect. i can open and close it with the force from my little finger.the $60 for the strut is the most worth while money ive spent on a luxury item on this project so far.

back to the scrap heap.
now im making a stainless bumper bar to run across the back of the tear. this bar is mainly for looks but also to help protect eh back edge from being crushed when off roading. first i had to cut the stainless to lenght and grind the ends ready for welding.

welding stainless is hard work. it distorts in weird ways due to the heat. i had to keep this distortion to a minimum as i had a aluminium pole telescoping within the stainless tube. here is the welded stainless tube and a pic of me honing out the tube with sand paper and a drill trying to remove the distortion so the ali will slide in and out nicely.

once its all sand blasted and fitted to the tear ill post some more pics
sweet as.

[Shadow Catcher]

I will be interested in your heating system out come. One of the problems that I ran into with our AC system was the need for a bilge blower to help airflow to keep the coils from icing. The blower however did too good a job and I needed to slow it down and the solution was an adjustable DC DC buck converter, this might be the best way to slow down your pump.

[S. Heisley]

I like the angled window on your door and love the idea of the pockets sewn into your curtains! ...Clever! Good job!

[Wild Turkey NZ]

i finished off the bumper. here are some photos so you can see how it works. its a light weight and dual purpose solution.

and i painted the jockey stand with some cold galv.


went hunting in my tear for the first time. a mate towed it up behind his hilux. it was a cold night but i was comfortable inside the tear. it got down below freezing outside but i was warm enough inside.

It was a change to see how the galley area would work and what layout naturally developed through use.

the seals stood up to the cold and the insulation worked very well. thermometer said there was a 6degee temp difference between inside and out

sorry i didn't hook the heater up so nothing to report there but i did use the fire place to do most of the cooking and it worked very well

slight mishap while off-roading. the driver accepted responsibility and a he will fabricate a new box for the front. the tear was slightly damaged but a bigger box on the front will cover the damage.not the best ending to a good trip but nothing that cant be fixed.

[AlgoDan]

Well good to hear all went well on your first outing, besides an off-road mishap they happen. I bet you felt a load lifted off you going on your first trip....

[Wild Turkey NZ]

im just doing a quick update on my heater system as illustrated in figure (.A)

Figure(a)

burner heats the water to a temperature that would be suitable for a shower. may have to put a speed controller on it if i need it to get hotter.no steam issues. when cycling the water through it is hard to get the fire box up to an efficient temperature. the wet back sucks the heat right out of the fire.may have to make a smaller wetback of find a better fuel maybe coal. will do some research on oil burners.

next time :
i will see how coal reacts as wood requires too much supervision to keep the fire stoked.
i will turn the pump off while the fire is going to see what the steam explosion will be like.
take the temperature of the water that has been heated.
find out how much current the pump draws (to find out how long the battery will last)

any other ideas???

at the moment im getting ready to get my tear certified as being self contained. this means i can park in many more public places and stay up to three days. i need to build a 24ltr fresh water tank, a 27ltr grey water tank and a sink plus do the plumbing.

[Junkboy999]

Looking great W Turkey

Here was my idea for a Coleman Lantern Heat Exchanger

The idea got shot down, but now that I got a second beater lantern with out a globe I might see how much heat I can get from it.

[Wild Turkey NZ]

I like the lantern idea junkboy. it would have been a great solution for my camper if it was mounted internally and i included a small chimney to vent the gases out. i don't think a lantern would produce enough heat to have an efficient water heat exchanger. even with my fire roaring the water still doesn't come near to boiling maybe only 40-50 degrees and when i run it on coal its even cooler- shower temperature. i think the only way to get the most out of the lantern would be if you had it inside the camper and vented the gasses out. this would also help circulate air and reduce condensation. just my 2c. if i ever build another one of these there will defiantly be a small fire place inside it even if its a charcoal burner or a gas lantern.

so i have been working toward getting the tear certified as self contained. this allows me to park and camp on the side of the road just about anywhere.
the basic requirements for a 2 person vehicle are to have:
toilet( i will use a porta potti)
sink
fresh water(min 24ltrs)
grey water (10% larger than fresh)
first aid kit and fire extinguisher
correct plumbing of tanks.
sealable rubbish bin

so to get under way i was going to start with the tanks. i first measured the space under the caravan where the tanks could fit, 400 x400 x180. i then found that the 24ltrs was 400x400x150. perfect. and %10 larger was about 400x400x170. then i had to find some scraps of stainless that could be folded to this size.

trimmed them with the plasma cutter and got under way:

once i had the folds close enough to touch i was ready to weld. with these joints i didn't require filler wire if i could get the two pieces of stainless to touch and could keep both sides molten. the pool joins and its easy to get a (fairly) neat weld. this was my first time welding like this so it was far from perfect but i wasn't bothered as long as it was water tight.

one i water checked them made some lids and fixed the holes it was time to start on the plumbing. plumbing can be as easy as you want if you are prepared to throw heaps of money at it. I wasn't. so with a handful of fittings i have acquired over the years i came up with a plan meet the requirements for cheap.

i didnt have any stainless fittings to weld on so i started by brazing a ball valve onto the corner of my grey water tank. well what a disaster. stainless is not the easiest to braze on the best of days and i only had silver solder flux, a torch that was way too powerful and i haven't done this before.....

the stainless got too hot in spots. the brass has such different thermal expansion properties that it cracked the stainless in some places and ripped itself off the stainless in others. so i had to go out and buy some stainless fittings and weld them onto the tanks. first i had to cut out all the cracks. i used it as an opportunity to include a sump to help drain the tanks.

i used an old stainless 'bay marie' and welded a drain onto it. this will be my sink.

i made some brackets to hold the tanks to the caravan. and put rubber tape on them to reduce wear caused by vibrations.

i used the same rubber tape to seal the lids of the tanks. the lids will be held on and sealed by being pressed hard against the floor of the tear.

then i needed to mount them under the tear. there wasn't much room to slide around under there.

the rest of the plumbing was fairly straight forward. the tanks needed breather lines and the grey water breather needed to be higher than the bottom of the sink. i just slid the hose over some stainless tube that i had welded onto the tanks. also the sink needed a gully trap. which can be easily done by a putting a loop in the hose:


after water checking the system a few time i was ready for the inspection....

I Passed. woohoo!
smallest caravan they have certified apparently. awesome.

then it was time to take it on the road for a test. i took the girlfriend to a farm where we go rabbit shooting about 1.5 hours drive away. it was a nice relaxing place to stay. the tanks held up and the weather was good to us. i managed to get the heater system hooked up and ran it for a few hours. it worked well to warm up the caravan. i banked the fire up with coal and it burnt for hours however the water did not get nearly as hot as with wood. i am burning shitty Kai point coal, west coast coal may burn hotter. i also tested the pump on the multimeter. it draws 2 amps so it would last only 6 hours with my battery.

[KCStudly]

Sweet progress!

I would have never thought to try to braze SS and now I know why. If you can weld it, why braze it? I realize there is a budget, and my experience and resources in food grade/pharma business may be biased, but nice recovery. The trick to fuse welding SS is super precision fit, which takes a bit of doing. I am impressed. I also like that you have optimized your shop space by placing the air compressor under the sheet metal break.
Nice recovery, and a great result. Congrats on your cert!

[Wild Turkey NZ]

Hello all.
This will most likely be the last post from me on this tread as this is review of the beta testing of turkeys tear.

warning: excessive number of pictures of snow! (never got snow where i grew up)

there had been a week of crap weather. one of the worst snow storms to it the south island in 20 years. we had a few days stuck inside in dunedin planning for our trip. unfortunately we only had a week left before my girlfriend needed to be at the other end of the country so we decided to spend as much time in the south island and just smash out the north island on the last day and not stop. with everything sorted we waited for a break in the weather so we could hit the road. we decided to leave while it was still raining hoping that the next day would be fine. we left late Monday afternoon as we drove into the hills the snow got worse and worse. after a few hours of driving we decided to call it a night. once we were off the road the snow was deep and slushy. turns out the caravan axle and tanks collect snow like a bulldozer. so we got stuck, in the wet snow, at night, in the middle of nowhere. not nice. i got to work putting the chains on and my girlfriend removed the snow from under the trailer and car. once we got unstuck i drove to a spot where i would confidently get out of in the morning.what and adventure ,going to bed with 40cm of snow on the ground.

Over night the weather turned and it rained.warm rain apparently because when we woke up to take some pictures of where we got stuck and it had all melted.

what a awesome way to start an adventure!

the next day we drove further inland and did some touristy things around Wanaka. http://www.puzzlingworld.co.nz

spent the evening at this place http://www.hottubsomarama.co.nz we recommend it to anyone passing through. cheap and really nice! they let us camp in the parking lot.Thanks! it was -8 outside, water tanks froze solid. when we woke up it was 7 degrees inside, very comfortable. no heater used.

then we drove to tekapo. the air was so cold the canals looked like they were thermal.

the famous church by the lake

spent a night at camp ground in the sticks. cooked up some chops and fired up the water heater system. which worked very well. battery died after a few hours but there was no steam issues

we also spent a night at hanmer springs, soaking in the pools.

minus 6 that night.

more snow on the inland kaikoura road. we saw way too many sheds that had been destroyed by the snow. most of these farms dont get more than 10-20cm but in places it was 1 meter thick and this was a week after it had stopped snowing.

spent a night at a motorcamp in Picton. nice to stop at a place with showers and a TV haha.

early morning ferry crossing was calm and scenic.

drove the last 8 hours in one hit. a bit of minor car trouble but nothing overly exciting.

in conclusion:
Turkeys tear vs deep snow - Fail
Turkeys tear vs -8 C - pass
Turkeys tear vs icey roads - pass
Turkeys tear vs other curious travelers - pass
Turkeys heater vs real world use- pass..ish - as a proof of concept this system worked well. the caravan was heated to 18 degrees C and it was around 0 outside. issues: 1) the pump - the portable shower pump i used was not made to hand the hot water. the first time i used it it, it was in a 40ltr bucket. i tried to keep the temperature of the water at around 30-40 degrees. because the radiator was not particularly efficient the water got hotter and hotter. so i would add more cold water into the bucket. keeping the temp down and increasing the thermal mass of my hot water. this worked well. another night i did not have a large supply of water nearby so i used a 2 ltr container for the pump to sit in, however this water got very hot so i decided to see how hot it would get. that's when i burnt out the pump. if a 12 solar water pump was used this would not be an issue however they are not self priming so a specialized container would need to be made. 2) the battery - the pump was drawing just over 2 amps. and i only had a 18ah battery. would need over 100ah to do this regularly and not damage the battery. 3) too hot - i can see this as a very real issue. easy to fix - put the fire out and switch it off.
So to those who are interested i recon the portable sower pump was good. just dont let it get too hot and instead build a large thermal mass with cooler water so u can keep using after the fire is out. 40 ltrs at 40 degrees will keep you wram for quite a while. also i need a bigger battery. 18ah is not enough.

peace

[celticquetzel]

Really nice trailer. In the end, how did you do on weight and budget? And looks like an awesome maiden voyage. Congrats!

[Wild Turkey NZ]

Ah yes good point. budget was just under $2000. and the weight... still haven't taken it to a weigh bridge but im prity sure it around the 250-300kg mark.
Turkeys tear vs original budget expectation - FAIL
Turkeys tear vs weight expectations - Pass - it tows comfortably behind a tired 1.3 8v carby samurai