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Wednesday 24 September 2014

How the Belgian built our camper, Blac

Since H doesn't write these blog posts,  and I wasn't around when he built Blac, I'm going to mostly let the following photos do the telling of this story.
There are few points to mention though:
H bought the old 1989 Mercedes G wagen from Germany,  the chassis was strong but the engine needed replacing.  He bought another engine,  an '82 model, from France.
He cut the top and back off the cabin and built the camper directly onto the chassis.
The large panels of the unit are recycled highway signs.  He glued the panels together with Sicaflex and fibreglass.
Inside he built the cupboards from lightweight poplar wood, with sliding doors so that they wouldn't come open while driving.
In a space of 2 metres by 5 metres we have a double bed, a dining area (with storage under the bench seats), a kitchen (with 2 burner stove*, sink, bar fridge,  and multiple cupboards), and a flushing toilet and shower (separate).
*H built the unit to completely run on diesel: for cooking and heating. But, one day the big fellow stood on the diesel cooker (to look out the top window at the roof) and broke the diesel cooker.  It was an expensive unit, but I was pleased it broke as the diesel cooker was horribly slow to use, and now we cook using premium unleaded fuel in an old Coleman stove.
Also,  I think it's worth mentioning,  we have a water filtration system installed.  This makes life easy for us,  we can fill up the tanks from any tap, anywhere, or even a stream, and this lightweight small system removes bacteria and heavy metals so that we can drink the water. The filters cartridge needs to be replaced annually, and we get new ones in Belgian or Australia when we visit. The company H got the system from, and the replacement cartridges from is: itdoesthejob.com
These photos aren't great, H only took them with a phone. 

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