Saturday, March 9, 2019

Land Rover cookstove storage option

Hey, I know, I know, I've been doing the cooker and the kegger so have loads of options for cooking, which is what I want. Sometimes you just don't want your food covered in soot...

A few years back I bought a used Coleman 2 burner stove and refurbished it. It burns white gas and fits my door table nicely. I needed a place to store it in my 109 whilst traveling. Well, I finally hit upon a place and way to make it happen.

My 109 does not have the rear roof side windows so there is no need to worry about blocking them and if you read about my camp shower you can see that I used that space on the LH side for it. Now I am using the RH side for the stove mount.

First I checked it to see if it would indeed fit by holding it up there and then mentally designing a mount. I went through this elaborate design and spent a couple of hours cutting and bending some steel to make a sleeve to slide the stove in and out. I got about halfway thru being done and realized I could do it easier.......

You can see I went through a LOT to get this far with the sleeve, only to abandon the notion.



I used some 3.5" x 3/16" flat stock I had left from my roof rack. At first I tried bending a 90° in it with heat and a hammer but that proved fruitless and I wrecked 6" of the plate. I resorted to cutting and welding a 90 on the other end. On the upright section I welded a 1" x 1/8" that I put a 90° bend on to fit the mounting hole I had made for the ill conceived sleeve project. That mounting hole was put in the stiffening strut under the window with a 1/4 -20 riv-nut.


     I marked and drilled 2 holes in the bottom plate for the mount into the bottom of the roofside, the photo for that was really blurry so I deleted it. I did end up with these 1/4" holes.



I guess I should say that in the above photo you can see the solid rivets, well they were one of the reasons I gave up on the sleeve idea as they took a lot of shimming to make a solid support for the original sleeve idea. The new idea just uses the central portion of the bottom. there was a a hitch though.........the bottom section is not at a 90° with the back, you can see the lean in this photo;



It causes a gap between the top of the upright and the stove:


I kept moving the hole for the side mount until I got close enough for government work.



During this time I also was working out how I was going to secure the stove and the fact that while the stove fit good there is a lot of space at the back on the window side. Half an inch to be exact and that caused the stove to flop around. I was going to put a piece of 1/2" ply behind it but I don't have any scraps.

I managed to kill 2 birds with one stone though, I've been wondering how to store my knee cushion and while thicker it fits GREAT!



I added a loop on the window side of the upright to run a bungee cord thru to hold the stove.



After many put-ins and take-outs this is finally what I wound up with;



The side bracket is held on with a 1/4 -20 bolt and the bottom plate is 1/4 -20 flat head phillips machine bolts so the bottom plate has recessed holes.

I just hooked the bungee on the inside gutter by the door and ran it thru the side loop and on the door side I put in a 1/4 -20 eyebolt and hooked it to that. It is all nice and solid!



The bungee keeps the handle from rattling around;


I was concerned with the door closing and hitting the eyebolt but thankfully there is room.


You can see that the stove does not take up much of the opening and is easily accessible for when cooking time rolls around!


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