Showing posts with label van life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label van life. Show all posts

Thursday, January 04, 2018

Vanlife begins - a new toy, a Toyota Hiace LWB van to camp in

Very excited with my purchase of a rather beaten up 2000 Toyota Hiace LWB van with some basic camper van facilities built in.

The back is rather filled with a full size double bed mattress but underneath there is lots of storage space.

It came with a 100W solar panel on the roof and two batteries making up 200Ahr. There is pretty nice LED light bars and oddly little twinkly lights that I'll probably remove.

Already I've made a few improvements to the electrical system by upgrading the charge controller to one with a digital readout of battery voltage and larger capacity. Before:


After:


I plan to run more 12V equipment, obviously ham radio gear, so I've added a distribution board:



The van drives well (I drove it back from Wollongong to Sydney this morning) and the most amazing discovery is that the radio has shortwave!



Surely it was meant for someone like me. Table for outdoor cooking and battery box.


The mattress rather fills the space:


Lots of storage underneath. Here's the drinking water (with pump) and gas.


Battery box has been done pretty well although I fear dropping a spanner in there.


Looking pretty comfortable now.