XenaCommanders Place

XC had accumulated a lot of overtime from lots of travel recently so I took a week off in lieu to catch up on some work on the truck... 

I dropped in to Serada on the way south and got a few things to make some progress with the plumbing.   After much debate and investigation..  Listening to many opinions I decided to go with a standard Shurflo pump with an accumulator tank.   If this turns out to be inadequate I will replace it..  At least now I can make some progress.

I wanted to put the pump and accumulator in a place that has easy access.   The air tank cupboard seemed to be the ideal place...  Close to both tanks and it is also where I fill the tanks.    All I needed to do is to fabricate a shelf.

WIth my welding skills getting better I managed to find a suitable place.

Brackets in place..   Now some  ply shelves...

Needed to drill a hole through the chassis cross member between the pump and the accumulator but once in it wasn't too difficult to fix everything in place.

Easy access to the pump and accumulator makes this an ideal spot for this and I can easily replace pump if I have any problems.  

Now I am going to fit the sensors onto the tanks.   These are great SeeLevel sensors that don't need to go into the tank..  It sounds the level through the tank.   I was going to fit two sensors for the tall tanks but at $144 each it seemed a bit expensive and I could make do with one by placing it on the bottom of the fresh tanks to tell me when they were empty and on top of the black and grey tanks to tell me when they were full... 

But first I wanted to test that they worked..   So I mocked up an installation around a half full bucket... and connected it to a battery.

Ah hah...!!   success...!  I am not an expert at lekky stuff but I worked out what wire goes where and hey presto some appropriate readings...

That done I can now fit the sensors to the side of the tanks..   To tell the truth this job would have been a lot easier if I had done it before I put the tanks in but they may have got knocked around in the process so decided to do them after the tanks were in.

The Black and Grey tanks were easy as they had the perfect place on the recessed part above the outlets.   They are required to be 40mm away from steel so I had to squeeze the right fresh tank sensor between the grey and fresh tank.

TK caught me under the truck fixing the sensor on...   I am getting good at scrambling under the truck..

Now of course the printed circuit boards seemed a bit vulnerable and being under the truck were subject to road spray and all sorts of wet and dirt..   So I thought to protect them with rubber..  A quick trip to the local Firestone man I acquired an inner tube and cut strips of rubber and glued them over the sensors.

Masking tape to hold the rubber down until the glue dries..

All done..  now when the time is right all I need to do is run wires to the panel display...  That won't be for a while yet.

Next job I ran some piping from the tanks to the pump and fit the whale foot pump...

I ran the pipes to a tee join then into the pump...   that way the pump can draw from both tanks..   I am going to fit shut off taps so I can draw from one tank or the other..  These will be accessable from the cupboard as well.  I thought this should work well..  Feedback appreciated.

Next thing that happened is that AutoGlas Steiger turned up from Rotorua to replace the cracked windscreen in the truck...  The insurance company were panicking as they thought they would have to have one shipped from Japan at cost of $15,000  but I put them on to Steiger as the other half screen had a sticker with their name on it.  Lumley didn't know about them so were pleased to have access to a decent supplier.   The guys were great.

Removing the old screen...

That didn't take long....

In with the new...  It was a tight fit and took a long time to ease into the right place..  a nice firm fit...

Once in place he sealed up the join between the screens with good old Sikka...

All back together again...  Truck parked in front of garage.   A great week was had in Turangi.  Some time spent with friends...   a great game of rugby on Saturday night...  Lots of progress on the truck..  Many plans made and modified.    Soon I will be buying the toilet and vacuum generator and plumbing that in...  Then after I have attacked the last of the rust inside I will lay the new floor.

Great fun..   Stay tuned for more progress soon...

Cheers

XC