Roof Rack Started

I started on the roof rack, its purpose is to hold a couple of kayaks and act as a mounting point for some LED lights.
There wont be much room up there once the  cab air conditioning unit is fitted and the aerodynamic drag reduction system is fitted.
The will be a small amount of space for non mission critical stuff.

Windscreen protection.

I started on what i call windscreen protection, essentially its two steel bars that run vertically from the bumper up the front of the truck art the sides of the windscreen, they connect to the roof rack at the top.

The point of this is that any branches that would normally hit the screen will instead contact the steel bars and be deflected up and over the cab, effectively protecting the windscreen from the branches.

i started by removing the corners of the cab and attaching some 40mm x 6mm steel directly to the chassis of the cab, this only has to support the 40mm box section upright, i used 2mm wall thickness here to keep the weight down on the cab. Bearing in mind i will be adding two massive seats and two more seats as well.

the brackets on the cab will be bolted to the uprights with m12 stainless bolts and locknuts.  there will be a n additional bar going horizontally between the two uprights at the bottom of the windscreen, this will serve to mount some LED Light bars onto.

Cab Heater Finished

Today i finished the Webasto Cab Heating system. I fitted a 2000ST  2Kw diesel powered heater, as there is no water cooling on the engine an alternative source of heat is required.

I coupled the 2000ST to a MultiControl HD, its the latest controller from Webasto and enables the heater unit to be used as a ventilator as well as all the usual timing functions. It also looks pretty cool.

the exhaust runs through a silencer and out under the passenger side of the truck.

Steering Box Universal Joint

Whilst working on the dash, I noticed that there was a slight bit of play in the steering column. On further investigation, i found it was the universal joint between the column and the steering box. unfortunately, someone in the past had welded one of the journals in, it was a bit awkward to get it out without damaging the steering box, but once out It was a simple and cheap job to replace the UJ with a new one.

Dashboard switches finnished

Today with the help of my buddy Andy Linton (thanks andy) we managed to work out the complex hazard warning switch with its multiple wires.
Once again an old type Bakelite switch similar to the ones Noah used on the Ark.

It was the last one to sort out, so now all the dash switches are working and looking good.

Heater controls next, then that's the dash finished.

Here is the offending switch:

And here is its replacement, (far right)

Update, heater controls fitted.

Rebuilding the Dashboard

There wasn't really anything wrong with the dash switches and for the most part they were all working,
However the switches we labeled with generic symbols and it was not really apparent what they really did, That and the fact that they were scattered around the dash with no semblance of order at all.
The same goes for the warning lights, i think they were shaken up in a box and thrown at the dash that had random holes in even more random places.
As well as all that the switches looked very "dated", now it's not a new truck by any means but they really looked old.

I am afraid my OCD got the better of me and they all had to go. First i moved all the warning lights to the top of the dash all in one line.
Then removed all the switches, cut out holes for the new ones and refitted it all,  i had to fit blanking grommets in some holes, but managed to loose most of them behind the new holes.

There is a digital control for the cab heater to be fitted yet.

Yes it was a lot of work but it looks a lot better now, and its more functional.

After and Before Pictures