Van Certification quick fixes v1

As well as the stove issue mentioned in a previous post, I knew I might be on the borderline for certification on a few other issues. I finally got clarrification on these items during inspection. Once those are done I can send through photos of the updates and I will get my vehicle compliance sticker in the mail, and VicRoads documention via email. Then I'll finally have this thing registered as a "Motorised Caravan" as it's called in Victoria (for campers less than 4.5Tonne).

The outstanding items were latches on the cupboards, additional ventilation, and I needed to shoot down to the local public weigh bridge and get a ticket from them. Compliance is happy for a single whirly-gig in the roof, but I've ordered a cheap tiny sunroof with extractor fan as the price for both was similar. :( I desperately wanted to make some wooden latches for the cupboards but I need to wrap this up and there was a layer of customisation needed for regular bar-latches anyhow.

I grabbed a new portable 2 burner camp stove to sell with the van. It's no frills and is NOT a sales-pitch-item. It includes a grill element and non-battery peizo igniters which is pretty cool. Unfortunately it has no mount for the grill plate, and no place to mount the gas hose. Such a step backwards from our 40yr old camp stove that has both.

A bunch of brass latches should make short work of these cupboard issues.

I'm always reluctant to buy into cordless brands as the batteries will ultimately ALWAYS fail and you have to move on, but vehicle maintenance lighting has been a bug-bear of mine for a while, so I grabbed this cheap lil' LED lamp skin for my cordless batteries. It's a beast. Perfect.

I will need to do some custom work to make these brass latches work in the van as it was not designed with them in mind. You'll work it out as you browse the images.

Counter sunk screws into holes that arent appropriately counter sunk look stupid...Good job cheap products...

I ended up needing to modify every latch, and every catch to suit. The never ending burden of being a Master of Gizmology.

I needed to make riser-blocks for the latches on each of the nested sliding doors. It's very ugly...but the tank is running dry and this needs to be wrapped up. At least it's brass instead of nickel. Looks good on the timber.