Rupe

I've set a target at 2200, thats the same as an XLWB crew cab tipper with factory fitted steel tipper. The tool box weighs slightly less than a crew cab weighs over a standard cab, then there is a lot of weight saving in the aluminium tip bed and by removing the dropsides and making my own much lighter tail gate (5kgs!!) I hope to have saved enough to then add the chip box and stay under 2200. But, I not calculated too much, I'm just gettign it built out of neccessity and we'll see what it comes too. My old one weighed more lime 2500 because it had a very heavy chip box and an additional fuel container box on the chassis that could carry four 20L jerry cans but weighed loads! The chip box is not going to be the full width of the tipper. It will be like on my old truck where there is a slot at the side for rakes etc and the side can drop down to make a work bench ( hence vice visible in last photos above). This means you can't fit as much in and so you don't overload by as much.

My old truck was goign to the scrap yard but I didn't fancy driving it there so I had not figured that part out yet! The scrap man who come through the inductrial estate where I'm based offered my 60quid and will take it off my hands. He says he wants some parts and will then send whats left to the scrapyard. What am I to do with the registration document? I don't want my plates turnign up on another vehicle and definatly don't want my old truck on the road!! Should I just put his name and address in the box as if he's the new owner? Do I need ID off him, cos I doubt I'll get it! I've got the old type V5 document for this vehicle. Most of my previose cars have just been stolen or traded in which is much simpler!

I found a brand new one recently, some one called "bt" may have left it behind!!

But they should be marked with a cone if there is a trip hazzard. I use the inon with removable signs on a seperate tri pod, they have no legs sticking out beyond the actual sign and so far I've only driven over one myself and not had any driven over by road users. We used to have the tripod ones with the sign already on them but they all got bent then had to be chuckes even though the sign part was ok.

I doubt there is any problem with havign an additional sign with company name/logo/number on it as long as its as well as all the other signs. They can't stop you putting a trade sign up or an information board so I see no reason why it cant be like a road sign. In fact when we did more council street tree contracts they supplied us with an information board with council phone number for queries etc. it was mostly meant for pedestrians though I think cos the text was quite small.

So far so good!! One half of the mudgaurds has been removed because it clashed with the wheels. I've got new plastic ones to go. The chassis has been cut down to size and even though the bed is still long it doesn't look to rediculous! Just needs some finishing off and the tow hitch needs to go on and then wire up the tipper controls.

The old tow bar assembly needed the remnants of the old chassis removing before fittign to the cut end of the new chassis.

They had to cut four of the old brackets off the old truck chassis. These will be used to fix the tipper down in each corner usign the existing corner brackets on the tipper frame, then they will ignore the rest of the brackets on the tipper and make new ones that fit on the remaining brackets on the new truck and just weld them onto the tipper.

More pics

So, things are coming on well, I had miscalcualted and measured the wrong bit so in the end there is a lot more of the overhang being removed than I had thought which is a good thing. There is about 8 inches to come off the rear because the tipper chassis is shorter than actual tipper bed which is what I was measurign!! Good thing I'm leavign this bit to proffessionals! Some pics. The finger line in the dirt is roughly where the chassis is being cut off, super acurate engineerign at its best.

This page looks good

Yeah, the tow hitch will still be at the back end of the truck, the tipper wont ovehang the chassis cos the chassis is extended anyway and that creates the overhang. It will be fine.

Did you see this pic of a mates old truck, much bigger overhang on this one than mine will have and it worked ok.

We are keeping the overhang so we can shelter under it on wet days!! I think theres a coupel of inches coming off the back of the chassis but not much. Hope it will be ok!

Rain!! Supposed to be hedge trimming but hate it on a good day so in the rain its worse. Plus I want to hang around as my tipper is being put on the new truck today.

Straight bars and thumbshifters!! I remember the days! We used to cut an inch and a half off each end of the bars for commuting in london traffic in '87 pre tree work.

Well that would annoy me!! We'll probly have to leave it locked or take all the gear round the back and leave it open, but that kind of defeats the object of having dry tool storage. Never had problems before though when using my car for tool carrying but I'm lucky in that most of my customers have electronic gates and front drives at least a quarter mile long! I also do council work though and that evens the balance!

Yes, sadder than arbtalk!! http://www.ldv-sherpa.co.uk but it seems to be offline. I went on there to find out about wheelbase lengths, they were failry useless, I found it out for myself in the end. there are some good pics of conversion that folk have done, mostly car transporters and stealth campers. Its a nerd fest for sure.

I'll put the old one on ebay once the tipper is off. I can photo it then and that's better than havign to tell everyone that the tipper is not included. I was also going to advertise it on the ldv owners forum but it seems to be off line!

Yeah not sure what to do about that yet. I'm thinking of leaving it unlocked, there won't be any valuables in there overnight anyway so no point in getting it wrecked for nothing, they might as well look inside and steal a shovel if they want to. The industrial estate its on is locked at night and has security and cameras and there is also plenty of other vans to break into, so far I've had no trouble there (three years) but I have been lucky I think.

Yes lesson learned I think. At least the steel box will weight the same in a few years time so I know where i am with it.

So far all I've done is put a new wooden base on the tool box and bolted it onto the new LDV chassis. The tipper gets put on next week. So far so good!!!

So the components are all there for the new truck.

Pretty rough!! But it went well. I'm sad to see it go, its been nearly 6 years! Aanyway I removed the chip box and it was way heavier than I had imagined. It got put on bit by bit and I never knew what it weighed. I unbolted everything but couldn't lift it off, I just tipped it out the back. It was made of plywood over steel frame and the wood must have absorbed a lot of water it was very heavy. The rear bed is now a inch or more higher than it was! The tipper is coming off next week and then I may break it for parts of just send it the scrapyard!

After careful calculations of weights and measurements I've finally started to build the new truck. The Tax ran out on the old one yesterday and it aint ever going to pass another MOT which runs out in a few weeks. The aim of the project is simple enough, build a better truck but use my old aluminium tip bed and add some tool storage. I bought the tool box a while ago and that is what started the project. Next I needed an extra LWB LDV in reasonable condition and cheap! Last week I picked up one from Essex with a 12foot dropside rear body on it, it was like driving a train! Heres a pic of the old truck on its last day at work!