Making of a 308 interior

Ouch...

I'm still here - but plagued by the tyranny of the urgent. In the past three weeks I have dug a 50 ft garden, planted 8 grape vines and one tree, boxed all the duct work in the basement, and put up fusion stone around the fireplace. (And I haven't even made it to Chile yet :eek: )
I'm just doing some lurking around here lately - so you guys keep up the good fight while I have my hands tied ok?

vines.png


fireplace.png
 
Any updates, Clark?
Hey Hussein.... I'm just finishing up the work in my basement. Wow that was more than I anticipated. I got a professional to do the drywall taping and mudding and the trim work and now I'm just finishing up the painting, electrical and flooring to have my mother move in with us. The "X" is probably still a few months out but I do have a heated garage to work on the fiberglass with. I see no dust has settled on you over the summer. I like what you have done with the body and now engine. Keep it up!! I'll get back to the interior when I'm done with the current project :p
 
Hey Hussein.... I'm just finishing up the work in my basement. Wow that was more than I anticipated. I got a professional to do the drywall taping and mudding and the trim work and now I'm just finishing up the painting, electrical and flooring to have my mother move in with us. The "X" is probably still a few months out but I do have a heated garage to work on the fiberglass with. I see no dust has settled on you over the summer. I like what you have done with the body and now engine. Keep it up!! I'll get back to the interior when I'm done with the current project :p

I hope the move goes smoothly. My Mum changed her mind about living with us, after we spent a few grand on architectural plans for an addition... We lucked out & a fixer upper came available literally up the street. She's been there a year now, close enough I can keep close tabs on her, far enough we are not on top of each other :D
 
Sounds like you have the best of both worlds there. I'll post a few pics when I'm done and get back to the x.
 
New truck and a roof top tent...

Have you ever read the children's story "If you give a mouse a cookie"? Well... I needed a new daily driver as the CRV had 310,000 km on it and it was getting tired. So I bought a truck intending to buy an AT Overland Habitat but when push came to shove it was going to cost me close to $16,000 CDN to get it up here from Arizona. The next thing I knew I had cut a hole in the cap of the truck and had my welder out. I'm about 2/3 of the way done the project now and hope to be camping with it in the coming months. After that I should be able to dig the "X" out from under the stuff in the garage. (Although with all the camping that should be happening I wonder if it has any chance of activity until the fall.) We'll see I guess. I still lurk around here every day in the shadows but the dash project is in a holding pattern for a bit.

A couple pics for proof ;)

BracesOn.jpg


truck.jpg


IMG_20190316_140542.jpg


rack.jpg


CapHole.jpg


inside.jpg
 
Looks like you've brought it all together nicely! (Wife says EEEK!)

The aluminum (white painted raised section?) is bonded to the fiberglass canopy, and then the steel square tube bolts to that?

Looking forward to more pics of your dash work whenever you get back to it.

My dash start is delayed at least a year or more, since I need to do my C30 AWD conversion, and the K24 swap first. I'm going to have to re-read your entire thread to get up to speed when I get closer to it.
 
It looks like the fiberglass is mainly along for the ride and stiffening as he has steel tubes at the corners of the bed to carry the frame’s loading down.

That is quite the magnificent solution. In combination with a slide out tray in the truck bed for the kitchen (like what contractors use for tools etc) with a screen room to surround it when out, it would be a great base for camping.

I have wanted something like this but my wife spent a couple of months living in a pop up camper at a campground and as a result her desire to ever camp again is somewhere between nil and NFW (her words).

Great build!
 
I have wanted something like this but my wife spent a couple of months living in a pop up camper at a campground and as a result her desire to ever camp again is somewhere between nil and NFW (her words).

Going OT a bit - I didn't say anything about that, however I'm with your wife. My wife & I have zero desire to ever camp (my excuse is bad childhood experience of same in cold English weather). The closest we ever got to 'camping' was platform tents at Maho Bay on St John's, back when our kids were teens.
 
My wife and I actually went camping on our honeymoon... but since then her health has not been the best. Over the past year however she has begun to get some of it back so at the age of 54 we decided we better get back at it soon or else time is going to be against us.

Karl is correct about the fiberglass cap being along for the ride Hussein. It is essentially unchanged (other than the HUGE hole in the roof of it :p) My goal was to leave the truck itself unmodified other than a few mounting points in the bed and I have met that. Remove those and the whole thing lifts up and hangs from the ceiling of the garage for storage and the truck just drives in underneath it during off-season. I extended it longer than the tent up front so I could incorporate a roof rack type of system but needed to add a fairing to keep the wind noise down and help with fuel economy. I just used some of the left over fiberglass from the cut-out. I would rather have a cap than a trailer as we plan on going kayaking all over and don't desire to be hauling something behind me. My daughter calls it "glamping" or glamorous camping as we have a portable Dometic fridge and off grid electric system to go into the bed area. I plan on replacing the vinyl cover with a fabricated hard top that will fold back and house some solar panels for long stays away from grid power. The fridge, stove, potty, and storage items will be similar to the GooseGear setup here and will just slide in and bolt to the bed anchors. Yeah - its kind of a neat project.
 
Great project Clark. Hopefully your truck has a slider rear window so you can access the back directly from the cab. Not that you would normally do that, but I've found situations where it is much more desirable (e.g. pouring rain, wet muddy ground, quick grab of something from the back by your wife while you continue to drive, etc).

Camping used to be a lot of fun for me until I suffered a major injury and permanent disability. Now I prefer a little more comfort. I have a "slide in" camper that goes on the bed of my full size truck. It is fully self contained, insulated, and set up with all of the conveniences of a full RV. I opted to go that route so I could still tow a trailer with a race car or other toys. But the camper is a pig to haul around, with wind resistance being one of the worst aspects (it sits really tall over the truck cab). To the point that towing a trailer behind with the camper on is not practical. If I ever do it all over again (not likely at this stage), I'd go with a tow behind trailer instead. Just personal preference.
 
Bringing this back up to see if there have been any updates. Also re-reading as I will have to get on with mine at some point later in the year :D
 
Hey Hussein,

Still checking in here fairly regularly but life is still holding me hostage :)
This past fall I had my mother-in-law come to live with me (along with my wife and mother). :eek: We have just found her a place of her own down the street now so we are in the process of getting her unpacked etc. I'm hoping to get back at the project when the warmer weather arrives. We will see.
 
This past fall I had my mother-in-law come to live with me (along with my wife and mother).
Sheesh, I thought I had it bad taking care of my mother while she lives with me. But two of them? I would have been gone a long time ago! :rolleyes: :D

Actually I was thinking of this thread recently as well. I saw a old movie filmed in the late 70's in Europe. The cars in the various scenes were very cool - both the ones that were part of the story and all of the ones in the background. I think I was more focused on identifying all the vehicles than the story. One was a 308 Ferrari, which was pretty new then. Just seeing it in showroom condition took me back. And shots of the interior reminded me of your project. ;)
 
Hey Hussein,

Still checking in here fairly regularly but life is still holding me hostage :)
This past fall I had my mother-in-law come to live with me (along with my wife and mother). :eek: We have just found her a place of her own down the street now so we are in the process of getting her unpacked etc. I'm hoping to get back at the project when the warmer weather arrives. We will see.

I hope all is well with you and your parents. -especially in light of all that has happened this year.

Of course, my reason for bringing this up is to see if you have had time to work on the dash this year...
 
I hope all is well with you and your parents. -especially in light of all that has happened this year.

Of course, my reason for bringing this up is to see if you have had time to work on the dash this year...
Very kind of you to mention Hussein. This year has been crazy for sure. So glad we had my mother move in with us given how the virus has been taking out so many older folks in the long term care facilities. Sadly the dash is still sitting under a mound of "stuff" from my mother-in-law in our garage. It's still on the list - but..... I'm interested to see how your take on a remodeled dash is going to look. Of course you had a detour with your off-roading experience. Glad to see that you were hard at work getting it back into shape.
 
Back
Top