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Light Overland Vehicle Tech Tech issues, tips and hints, prepping for travel
Under 3500kg vehicles, e.g. Land Cruiser, Land Rover, Subaru etc.
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  #1  
Old 20 Aug 2014
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British army comms box
Is the standard British army comms box as seen on the flat beds of Bedford MJ and DAF 4x4s strong enough to mount directly to the chassis?

It's just that they seem robust enough and it would mean that I could loose the weight of the heavy duty flat bed.....

Anyone done this, how was it mounted/secured...

Cheers, josh
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Old 21 Aug 2014
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What vehicle is it on Josh?


Im not sure about this particular box, I have seen a couple of overlanders with them mounted onto chassis, but have to make sure that your vehicles chassis twist doesn't break the box, a lot of overland trucks use a 3 point mounting system, which is more complicated and makes the box sit higher, but allows the chassis to twist.


Here's a decent website with some good info:


http://www.xor.org.uk/silkroute/equipment/choosevan.htm
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Old 21 Aug 2014
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as above, you would need some kind of mounting system. Even if the box has the flexibility to twist anything in it thats attached to the walls would break up
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Old 7 Sep 2014
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There's not a lot of structural rigidity in the comms body. It's mostly aluminium and designed to sit on the quite rigid flatbed of the truck. You could remove the flatbed headboard to reduce weight a bit, but I think if you try to mount the body direct to the chassis you won't get the rear door open unless you're parked on the flat! Building a fairly rigid subframe that's lighter than a full flatbed might be possible - large section thin walled box section? Then fix this to the chassis in such a way as to minimise torsion...
Good luck. Alternatively, take the class C licence and don't worry about weight? (This is assuming you're trying to register as a sub 7.5 tonner of course)
Simon.
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Old 7 Dec 2014
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+1 with the requirement for a sub-frame to deal with the issue of torsional stress on both the box and the chassis rails.

The sub-frame would need to be pretty substantial to support the comms box and you'd have to ensure at least the same amount of articulation as with the standard bed was designed in.

I reckon you could build a structure that was slightly lighter and lower than the original bed (both useful attributes) but whether it's worth all the effort is another question.

The standard comms box is not light and it's doubtful that the built and loaded vehicle - even with no sub-frame - would come in at under 7,500kg.
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Old 7 Dec 2014
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I fitted a ex mil box (mobile workshop not Comms) to a bedford RL many years back just using two lengths of 150mm angle , no problems , but maybe they were built a bit more robustly back then ( early 70's)
If doing it now would most likely look at a threepoint mount system .
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