Maggie is a 29 ft long 12 ft high Magirus 150.16 with an air-cooled engine, 4 wheel drive, 2 ranges of gears (on-road and off-road), built, in 1987, by the oldest truck company in the world. We got her when she was but a tough truck with a fibreglass shell on the back. She had a metal frame, flapping fibreglass on the outside and a wobbly door. She had no windows, floor, inside walls and made a huge racket in the wind. We made her into our home on wheels. We are not carpenters, electricians, mechanics or anything else practical like that. What we are is stubborn and well…. some would say courageous, some would say silly and naive.
Finally putting together some of our photos of fixing up Maggie. Here’s some that start from when we bought Maggie in November,2008. We think she has come a long way to become our home on wheels.
Orkney
We found her at a farm a couple of islands over from ours in Orkney. Doug went with his son to Germany to pick up the truck so he could take the family on an adventure to Nepal. His wife said no. He kept the truck for a year waiting for her to change her mind. We bought it a year later.
Bringing maggie to our home on the neighbouring island through scapa flow.
Maggie was a shell. She came with the metal framework and some fibreglass on the outside. The framework for the back benches was there. The floor is just junk pieces of wood laying on the framework. You see, the box used to be on a Bedford cab. The Bedford cab broke an axle because of carrying a heavy load on bad roads in Africa. The box was taken off the broken Bedford and put on the Iveco / Magirus Deutz cab. When the truck was shipped back to Germany the box was stripped and reshaped to fit the new cab better. To be honest I was a bit scared. It was hard to find a place to step without falling through the floor. In the gale force winds at the farm. The truck seemed to be breathing. The fibreglass flapping in and out with every wind. I wasnt sure I could ever trust her. She did not seem safe. However, Andrew was smitten by Maggie and there was no turning back.
Doug had new fenders made but hadn’t had the chance to apply them. Here we have Andrew applying the new fenders on a very cold and windy day in Orkney. No, he did not just gain a bunch of weight. That is cold Northern winds filling up his boiler suit.
TJ found a good place to do her exercises while we were working.
We are showing off our new window. Now with one window and a few other simple changes she can be licensed and insured as a motorhome.
Starting to put in insulation and the floor. Being in the middle of the winter we were quite motivated to spend good money on getting the best insulation. We chose 40mm “kingspan” insulation. We didnt realize at the time what a good choice this insulation was. It not only keeps things warm in the winter but cool in the summer. We also used it to give stability to the fibreglass. We cut the fibreglass to fit around the metal frame and glued the insulation to the fibreglass with “sticks like sh*t”. Later we would glue the insulation to some large sheets of 3.5 mm ply and screwed the ply into the metal frame with self-tapping screws. This creates what we called an “insulation sandwich” and added alot of stability to the walls.
Andrew loves his new grinder. After grinding off everything that even hinted of a rough edge he was looking for more to grind. I took this manly picture of him through the open floor.
Bjorn the Orkney welder took off TJs exercise bar to put the spare tire under the back of the truck. Sorry TJ.
Bjorn using his grinder. I think it is bigger than Andrew’s grinder. Hmmmm, No Andrew we do not need a bigger grinder!
We had no parking at our flat so we got permission to work on Maggie in a parking lot a 5 minute walk from our flat. We got permission to use electricity from the shed next to us. He didnt charge us any money but we gave him a bottle of good whisky to say thank you at the end. Whisky as a preferred currency in Orkney.
Remember the corner with the insulation up above. Oh yeah, we’ve been working. The wood is now up. We have a solid floor and Samuel has started putting in his bed which is just behind the cab and will work as a bench while driving. A note on the floor. It was put in by Samuels friend, Ross. He is 16 and has completed school to be a joiner. This floor is his first paid joiner job. He did a fantastic job. There is a solid layer of 1x3s with sheets of 18mm ply on top. I am SOOOOOO happy.
The ceiling is finished. The insulation is in. Ooooh look a window in the back. Isnt it pretty! Oh yeah we are a real motorhome we have a window. Well almost a real motorhome.
The beginnings of the girls bed. Chris Rowell found some nice strong pieces of mahogony hardwood that were perfect for the framework of the girls bunk. Notice the old mattress foam filling the gap between the cab and the cabin. We keep in working on this gap. The big problem is it must be flexible because the cab and cabin can move independently on rough roads.
Samuel working on his bed. Behind him is pieces of a kitchen unit from a van. We were going to use the whole unit in our truck but opted for just the sink with the foot pedal pump mounted into an old table top.
We decided to use the old kitchenette from our flat. I am happy. I love this kitchenette. The kids are scared. Hmmmm.
Andrew is pleased too and attaches it to the wall and framework with metal l joints.
On the Road
A photo taken of the family with Maggie. We think she is looking beautiful but we are still getting kicked out of campgrounds at this stage. They say we look like gypsys and our Maggie looks like a furniture truck. Clearly we have more work to do on the outside. We might even need more than one window.
Portugal
Portugal was great for Maggie. She got lots of tlc from Nuno’s friend and mechanic and a great welder that just came over from Africa. After spending 3 weeks in our Tipi at a campground we get her back. Look more windows. Barbara had given us 2 old bus windows that the mechanics put in. They made a ladder on the back and mounted the sandmats behind it. We had the sandmats mounted underneath before but figure they are normally visible and shown off because they are a signature of an overlander. They spray painted her and…
gave her 4 beautiful boxes. 2 on each side. They spray painted everything black underneath. We even found a spray painted bungy cord later on. They did a GREAT job. We think she is really looking like an overlander now.
Oooh look there is our third window. We are wild camping in Spain for the night.
Andrew thinks the wheels need to be red. He thought red might be too crazy until me and the kids came up with the idea of painting the wheels to look like kiwi fruit that would look like they were rolling when we drove. He decided red wheels was the tamer of the options we wanted.
Germany
The wood on the benches in the back broke. Hmmmmm, well, I never said I was a carpenter! While visiting Wolfgang in Germany he employs the services of a real German carpenter to remake the benches. Check out the corduroy shorts. He did a great job.
Did you notice we now have more bikes. They don’t fit on our bike rack anymore so we get a second bike rack to go on top. We spent good money and finding it a little wimpy for our lifestyle. If we had to do it again. Dunno. Maybe buy the arms and the tracks but custom build a frame? We can now fit 7 frames outside. But we have 9 people. 2 bikes inside. Do we just tough it till March when the teenage boys leave or build something for 2 more bikes?
TJ has found a new favourite place to hang out.
The inside is looking a bit better. At the top is CD racks put on their side with some round storage things from the IKEA kids area and a bungy cord to keep them from falling on our heads while we drive. Actually the bungy cord didnt work so well and was later replaced by some sticks. The wallpaper on the walls we bought a couple of years ago at a charity shop. We think it really is from the 70s complete with gold specs. Yes that is fake leopard fur on those cushions. So, I like colour. Now maybe Andrew is getting scared. Some things have changed – it is a work in progress.
The middle of our truck has our old kitchenette, we have repainted the doors red. You can see our coffee grinder off the side of the kitchenette. We have a kitchen sink with a footpump sunk into a broken tabletop. Btw the butterfly wings in both photos have been taken away as requested by the more masculine of our group.
This is the front of our truck. On the top you can see the girls bed. On the bottom is Sam’s bed. The climbing wall was changed by Abi to a wall of fire with more holes to see through. That grey box at the bottom of the climbing wall is our fridge – a 2 way fridge. The white box on the other side of the curtain is our toilet. We still havent a great place for our toilet. When we dont need it we store it away in one of the outside boxes. We have a toilet tent that we put the toilet in sometimes. I wish we were clever enough to figure out some sort of fold down thing on the outside of the truck. Also worth noting is that the ceiling above the girls bed is in a separate piece and once we get it popping up we will have a “safari room” and access to the roof. Aaaah always something to do.
We put up an awning that I had sewed together. The poles we bought for it have proven too wimpy and we need to take it down in strong winds.
We found a printing shop around the corner from our stellplatz in Berlin that makes Auto Foils for 35 euros for 1 metre of print. After some quick design work by Andrew we are looking more legit. It says Jonesberries.com, the intrepid journey of the Jones family.
Our outdoor kitchen set up for feeding up to 70 people. It is a little more cluttery that normal but we are feeding alot of people at a festival. The bright flower thing is a tablecloth over our dirty tire. The wrectangle grey thing in the middle is our windguard for the 2 burner gas stove behind it. The grey box beneath it is our collapsable oven that goes on a gas burner when we want to use it. The grey cabinet to the right is collapsible and stored away when we dont need it. Those round things stuck to the metal trim of the truck are from Ikea. They are for spices. They look really great but are terrible for a moving vehicle. the lids kept falling off and we would end up with spices spilled everywhere.
Our old kitchen cabinet is showing some signs of wear. Actually, it fell over on the last trip. Not enough brackets holding it to the frame I guess. Another german carpenter giving it some tlc. He doesnt have corduroy shorts, He has black suede ones and a very cool hat. I bet you have never had such a well dressed carpenter. Actually he is part of a special ancient traveling carpenter tradition in Germany. That is for another story. That is all for now.
Morocco
We waited and waited for lots of repairs to get done in Morocco. Finally, we made it. Limping in it seemed. One of our air brakes was held on my a bungie cord, our muffler was more hole than metal and our upper bike rack was sagging and coming off during bumps.
While in Paradise Valley we were recommended to go to Garage Dorf in Aourir and look for Hassan. He had a great reputation and fair prices.
We were so pleased that we got some other special things done.
Like a collapsing roof railing. and got the roof popping up for some extra space. The difference is huge!!
We also got some solar panels. You can see our rooftop red pop-up rolled up on the edge with its beautiful berber design.
After over a year of travel our old kitchen was falling apart. Actually the kitchenette even fell off the wall a couple of times. Figured out we need something more heavy duty so found some big thick wood. As our house bumps around on the road we are realizing we tend to er on the side of too thin of wood and too much cheap particle board shelves. We will try not to make that mistake again.
Here it is. Beautiful huh! Well, we like it. Most of the top bit is made from an old bed frame. The bottom part is made of new wood. Almost everything gets covered to make a big workspace when we need it. Still some more bits to go but it is most the way there. Now time to work on some other shelves that need to be redone.
I think I am happy we didn’t spend alot of money on the kitchen and shelves at the start. We really didn’t know what we needed. This kitchen is alot different than what we would have done before. We put in the quickest and cheapest kitchen we could and then asked lots of questions and made lots of observations before we renovated our new kitchen. BTW you don’t see the fridge because it is in the floor. It is a chest type fridge that is based on ambient temperature. A fellow nomad noticed that being in the floor it would keep cooler. Good idea huh.
Just finished our new back shelf. The particleboard shelves were deteriorating and looked a bit cluttery. So, from the drawing board to reality. We are starting to get a bit more confidence in our carpentry.
Recent Comments