Sankey Widetrack Camper Conversion

Carrying on, we went over to Tinley Tech, who are fairly close to us, to see what they had in the way of LPG tanks to go under the floor.

We came away with a 35 litre tank, mounting frame, multivalve, piping and a level gauge kit.

Cooking etc needs a vapour outlet tank, what we bought is a liquid outlet tank, so we'll need to modify the pick-up tube and make a cap for it so it takes gas from the top of the cylinder and not liquid from the bottom.

The frame mounted up OK but we're not entirely convinced by it, it's only 2mm steel, although our mounting bar is 1/4" thick 1-1/2" angle and 50mm box with 3mm walls.

It looks OK, the gauge/multivalve is going to foul the frame to get it round to 30 Degrees below the horizontal, so a bit of thought there. The mounting frame normally goes t'other way up with the tank sitting on top.

We'll have another look at it today, it may be we'll rethink the frame and fit circular brackets instead.













Peter

Today we are getting the body brackets welded on, then we can drill and bolt the aluminium extrusions onto them, giving us the floor and body support outriggers:









Philip got some undercoat over the bare metal, followed by a single coat of green, that will be finished off once all the body fixings are done.

The new brackets are 5mm steel and where possible they are welded over the frame joints to act as stiffeners.

Peter

just asking out of curiosity and my own ignorance, do you weld the supports on because it is easier than bolting them through the chassis or is it better to have them welded?

You could bolt them, but following our experience building the larger 6-wheel turntable trailer, it is better to weld them:



The box section walls are 3mm or 10gauge, they will take a nutsert to enable a bolt to be put through, but localised stresses pull the metal out of shape and it works loose.

Plus, we can use the brackets as stiffeners in four places, saves a tiny bit of weight!

It also keeps the floor level down by having the outriggers rather than a continuous extrusion right across the floor as a truck body would have.

Peter

excellent, thx for the info

A bit breezy again today, but Philip carried on with the Sankey, took off the rusted metal sleeving for the lighting and put a new junction box on with black PVC sleeving.





Later we got the complete trailer up on its side so the welds could be finished off and some undercoat put on. A fairly stiff breeze necessitated a temporary cover, so the old canvas tilt was pressed into action:





After that Philip got the undersides primed up.



The LPG filler was also fixed to the front drawbar:



Peter

Looking good

There's a wheel change coming up, you can just catch a glimpse of one of them in the pictures.

Keeping the same tyres, different offset.

Spare wheel carrier being thunk about now.

Peter

Your doing some really nice work there, id love to be able to get hold of a nice sankey trailer so i could do myself one... but people want silly money for rusty/fooked trailers!

You have to look at £350 or so to get anything half decent.

Philip's was a kitchen trailer, we sold most of the cooking gear to get some money back, I think we paid £350 from a dealer up near Ferrybridge.

Budget for a pair of tyres minimum, some parts come up on ebay.

There are Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3. M3 has hydraulic brakes, Mk2 has the jockey wheel on a huge bracket on the towbar.

Ours is around 1993 production going by the dates on the shock absorbers.

Peter

great project interested in seeing where this goes..

Varsity said:

great project interested in seeing where this goes..

Click to expand...

The next stage after the chassis is finished will be to start the body. That will come together fairly quickly as we are using standard extrusions and 14mm GRP/Ply sandwich board, same as our big 6-wheel trailer:







That was all done over two days, the sides needed four of us to lift it into position, but it's a very quick method to build a strong body.

Peter

where are you getting the 14mm GRP/Ply sandwich board ? and cost if you don't mind

Aalco.

http://www.aalco.co.uk/literature/files/aalco-road-transport.pdf

We deal with Nottingham depot and get free deliveries, they have a service centre at Glasgow.

Here's a copy of my post to the Self Build Forum:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GRP/Ply/GRP Sandwich, 17mm thick, 6096mm (20ft) X 2438mm (8ft) £415.00 plus VAT = £598.00 193kg weight

GRP/Ply/GRP Sandwich, 17mm thick, 5486mm (18ft) X 2438mm (8ft) £380.00 plus VAT = £456.00 174kg weight

GRP/Polyester/GRP Honeycomb Sandwich, 14mm thick, 6096mm X 2438mm £619.00 plus VAT = £742.80 weight 99.7kg

GRP/Polyester/GRP Honeycomb Sandwich, 14mm thick, 2440mm X 2438mm £252.00 plus VAT = £302.40 weight 39.9kg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The honeycomb is much lighter but also much more expensive. We bought three sheets of 21mm honeycomb at half price when we built the trailer, we have bought 14mm honeycomb for the Mercedes conversion, 17mm GRP/Ply for the main floor.

Peter

thanks for that. looking good!

looks very smart

That's going to make a fine caravan! It makes my little Esterel look a little inadequate!

wattfield said:

That's going to make a fine caravan! It makes my little Esterel look a little inadequate!

Click to expand...

The big trailer has done 5 trips to Europe now, and apart from the occasional modification or repair, doesn't get much done to it.

The Sankey conversion has to be on the ferry next May 12th to take Philip, while we should have the Mercedes and the big trailer, HGV medical permitting after my heart valve operation.

(Mercedes is 5990kg GVW, trailer is 3500kg, total is more than I can drive on Grandfather Rights C1+E, which is 8250kg max. If I renew my HGV Class2 licence, my C1+E gets uprated to 12000kg GCW)

Peter

My van's about 650 kg, and I can tow it with my Kia. 1900kg all in!

Edit: Two & a half tons, if you include the wife's luggage!

The show engine goes 1300kg by itself:



Peter