Hey Everyone,
We have been doing up an old Cub Drifter 6 for about 10 months now. Please
check out the pictures. My fiancée and I are getting married Jan 2013 and after that we are doing a 12 month lap around Aus. This is the camper we will be taking; we have both been working on it to get it to where it is. We would love to know what you think of it. Maybe you live somewhere out there in wonderful Australia and would love to see it in your backyard for the weekend on our travels.
http://s1252.photobucket.com/albums/hh564/justahobby1/
This is kind of long so we don’t expect everyone to read it; it is the ins and outs of the build up!
The plan was to buy it put new canvas in it then use it, ha if only! So we got it
home, had it in the shed for a few hours before we started drilling and banging. Pulled the 3 way fridge out to make room for my Weaco 80L. Then we noticed some small cracks in the gel coat and some mould/mildew coming from where the roof poles bolt to the roof. So we took some picks and emailed them to the local fibreglass bloke. He pointed out the bow in the roof. So after a meeting with him and many emails we started standing, we would sand to my hands were nearly bleeding, every spare hour in the day we was out sanding, we got a wire brush on a drill to take the first half of the gel coat of but once we saw the raw fibreglass we stopped as it left deep scratches. So we did most of it by hand as no machine would fit, we used about 40M 180 grit sandpaper. Then we got to do the fun part of fiberglassing the piece of 70mm PVC pipe cut into 2/3rds onto the camper. we made a timber frame up to sit on the floor with the two end uprights just touching the roof when it was down, the middle upright was 5cm longer therefore making the roof bow up 5cm. Should of done more as when we took it out after the fibreglass set it dropped to about even maybe plus 1cm. we then sanded the whole roof and coated it with White Dulux solar guard gloss as that’s what the fibreglass guy recommended. We painted the outside with Rust Guard primer and Beige and the frame Blue. Underneath is coasted in thick black tar paint.
We bought new wheels on eBay as it had 10” wheels on it. We thought 14” would fit but we was wrong, the touched the guards. The guards were bent up weird though they folded the wrong way not allowing maximum width. The only way to replace the guards was to remove the floor. We thought about this over night and the next morning began ripping the floor out. We discovered 3 broken welds, so we welded them up and then got some new guards bent up out of 1.6mm gal plate. Then we placed a new 12mm ply floor into it. We painted the underside of the ply in that tar paint. The top is painted beige/cream colour. We then got vinyl for the floor and cut up some new cupboard.
Now that there was room for the wheels we bought a new 45mm square axle and electric brake hubs and new 6 leaf eye to eye springs the wheels still only just fit with a spring over axle setup. However look at the body clearance; it has as much body clearance as my mate’s off-road camper trailer. This meant the old stabiliser legs did not fit, they weren’t much good either so we replaced them with new quick release drop down legs which can hold up to 1tonne each.
We then made the 2 jerry holders which also house the lights and made the spare wheel holder.
We then tool it to the canvas
shop and it got new canvas put all the way through, we had Velcro put in all the way around the top, so easy to hand curtains and we had clear plastic pockets with LED strips in them, they are easily velcroed , we have one each end and one at the bed.
Once
home from the canvas place we made the kitchen. We wanted it to be lightweight so we went for a timber frame and white mesh baskets from bunnings. Haven’t remade the top of the kitchen yet as we don’t know what we want yet. Need to take it out and use it to see what is needed.
We also got the drifter signs made up, which really set it off.
All we need is a tool box for the front!
Hope you have all enjoyed it.
Cheers Sean