Bearings, Primer, and Paint - Part One

Plans deviated slightly for Sunday, but in a good way.  My father in-law surprised us with a visit to re-do the wheel bearings for us. The camper had a set of Bearing Buddy's on the axle, but given the general shape of the camper, I didn't have much hope that the wheel bearings would be in good order. To our surprise and joy, the bearings, races and seals looked great! We replaced the seals just-in-case and exchanged the old axle grease with new fully synthetic grease. Not wanting to get in my father in-law's way, I was only able to snap a few photos mid-project:

 Meanwhile, my wife worked on sanding, priming, and painting the cabinets and doors. We used KILZ primer (2-3 coats) then Valspar Latex paint. All cabinets will be white.

 

I spent the day helping and building the wall cabinet for the kitchen area. I didn't complete it until later and we were all quite baked (by the hot Sun) by then and too tired to snap a photo. I'll share photos in the next post.

The Work Continues

Today was spent working on the wiring, mounting the tail lights, topping the bed frame, and doing a few other various things to the camper.

Bed framing and electrical. I have a total of six circuits in the camper:

I have also been working more on the kitchen base cabinet this week and finally have it ready for paint. Here it is, sitting in the camper with its new countertop resting on top. Still need to cut the sink hole and finish the top with varnish.

And this was the end of today's progress.

Tomorrow's plans are to paint the furniture, build a wall cabinet over the kitchen cabinet, and hopefully more.

"I've been framed!" - the camper

Much progress has been made since our last post on finishing the interior paneling in the camper.

The interior is now painted.  The ceiling is white and the walls are a slight gray color. It's only slightly noticeable, though not at all in this photo.

After paint, I worked on building the bed structure and some electrical work.

This photo was just before beginning framing the bed. The two areas in the rear were intentionally left uncovered so we would have access to the tail light wiring.

Some bed framing and the electrical panel being wired in a little.

Bed framing completed. There will be two storage areas under the bed: one in the rear, accessible by the outside rear door, and one in the front/interior of the camper, accessible either by doors in the front, or a hinging bed on gas shock lifts. 

I also built the above-bed storage cabinet and mounted it to the wall/ceiling.  It will have two doors and be painted white.

After the bed, I  started building the kitchen base cabinet. The microwave will sit in its own cubby, and the rest of the cabinet will be various storage areas. The sink will be mounted on the left side of the counter with counter space to the right of the sink.

 The progress thus far.  More to come!

No More!

Tonight marked a great milestone with the camper... The interior wall paneling is done!!!  I was able to finish up the last pieces today after work. After dinner, my wife eagerly went out to paint the ceiling with its first (of three, we think) coat of paint. She is in charge of the interior designs and colors and has picked some nice ones if I may say so. :-)

Framing added for the future flat panel TV wall mounts.

The last panel is done!

Ceiling with its first coat of paint. The photo doesn't do it justice, it looks great. :-)

To end the post, here's a quick photo snapped at the fabric store of the patterns chosen for the interior.

The top green will be coupled with a white fabric for the curtains. The gray fabric is for the bottoms of the seat cushions (your butt goes on) and the patterned fabric is for the backs of the seat cushions (your back goes on).

Experimentation and Mockery with Controlling the Climate

Me oh my, such a serious and ominous title! :-)

Only one day was free for the ole Frolic this weekend and it was spent performing an experiment and doing some mock-up work (hence the title). 

I worked on the fridge and A/C area, trying to come up with the best way of putting a window A/C in our camper without 1. Putting it in a window and 2. Cutting any holes in our camper. Here is what I came up with.

This is where I plan to put the fridge and A/C. The fridge will be on the bottom and the A/C will sit on the shelf/table above. Originally, the fridge was up higher and an old propane furnace was below it (the square hole in the camper was where the exhaust went outside). We decided the fridge would work better lower down for a better center of gravity and ease of access for small children. 

The back of the shelf is cut out to allow for the hot air from the A/C to vent out the already-in-place vent. Remember, no cutting holes in the camper. :-)

After some thought, this is the duct I came up with and made for the A/C. It's sort of "S" shaped, taking the hot air in the top and pointing it outside below.

Here is the exterior view of the duct, very crudely "sealed" with aluminum tape. The hot air is blown down and out from the top.

It was as this time, I let the A/C run for a while to test how well it cooled the camper. The camper was in full sun and it was well into the 80s. After a while, I went in to check the camper, it was not very cool inside.

I wondered if this was due to poor air direction (the old A/C we had pushes cold air out of the top), so I devised a truly redneck way of routing the air a little lower.

As amazing as it looked, and as thrilled as my wife was, it still didn't cool the camper as I expected. I stopped working on it for the day. I have a few ideas to try out next time... Stay tuned for more A/C updates.

In addition to the A/C, I also worked some more on the interior paneling. Below are a few photos. 

See you next time.

No Surprise

No surprise... Today after work I did a little more paneling in the camper. I finished the trim around the entry door, kitchen area wheel well, and the upper half of the front wall of the camper.

Tonight's main accomplishment.

This crude sketch shows where we plan to install crown moulding (gray line) and window casement moldings (white line) in the future.

In addition to the trim mouldings, we plan to paint the paneling a light color, close to white.

After-Work Work

I've had time the last two nights after work to do a little work on the camper.

Monday night: I mounted the side roof trim/awning track.

This is the trim piece when it was taken off the camper. It is caked with a mixture of tar, caulk, and Koop-seal.

This is the trim piece after a lot of wire brush work with the grinder.

Here is the piece freshly installed. It's one piece and runs the length of the camper.

Tuesday night (tonight): I worked on some paneling inside.

I was able to put up two more panels inside the camper. Here are a few photos.

It's Panel, not Flannel!

Today was the day we have long been waiting for... We began putting up the interior paneling!

We started with the ceiling. It only took four pieces and went pretty quick considering. We wasted no time installing our ceiling light fixtures either.  We are thinking we will do a clear finish on the ceiling to keep the wood look and to coordinate with the wood floor. 

We then moved to the back area of the camper. This panel is one piece. I used my air stapler to attach the panels to the studs. 

We contained working our way around the back wall. 

And stopped for the night after this piece. This pretty much does the "bedroom"! :-)

We plan to paint the walls a light color. 

I'm Floored!

This post's credit goes to my wife. She did all of the work herself, in one day!

We have rached the point in our project that we could but the flooring and install it. Yay!! We chose a peel-and-stick floor system that mimicked maple hardwood flooring. Here are the photos. 

Rolling on the floor primer. This is a VITAL step and well worth your time to do it.

One down, too many to go. 

Wow-wee! That looks great! This is the rear of the camper. We really like the color contrasts and also that this is a non-textured tile. It'll make cleaning much easier!

And it's done! :-)  it's so nice to get to see the campers finishing layers go down, we're getting close!

And now it's gone. Covered with construction paper and masked to the floor. This will keep it nice and new while we finish the rest of the interior. 

It's Electric! Boogey Woogey Woogey

Over the last few weeks, I've been working on the campers electrical bits. Contrary to many campers, we decided to not have any 12v items in the camper, and wire it for 120v only. We can always use a generator or solar panels with an inverter if we have to, but we most always go to campgrounds with at least electrical hookups. 

This was where the propane water heater (long since replaced with an electric one) vent/access hatch was. I decided to add another outdoor outlet to this area and patch over it with some of the excess aluminum from the roof.

Inside view. You'll notice three holes in the wall stud. The two small ones are screw holes to mount the electrical box, and the large one is to allow the box to sit flush to the stud. The metal box I used had machine screws and tabs that protruded from the sides.

Box attached and wired up.

Outside view of the new (GFCI) outlet. The white screws may be replaced with pan head stainless screws in the future. I also intentionally left screws and rivets off the lower right corner as this is very close to where the awning pole bracket mounts and I didn't want to mess myself up. After the awning pole bracket is installed, I'll come back to finish this area as needed.

This is the fridge area. The blue box in this photo will be mounted to supply power to the fridge and an A/C. The other wires are just passing by on their way to the front of the camper.

New running lights installed. It pained me to drill holes in my new roof! They are quite bright compared to the otherwise tired camper body. 

Rear running lights.

Dual outlets at the front of the camper. These should be handy to have around the table. 

This outlet will be for the wall mounted tv we plan to install. The wire run is not finalized in this photo. Here you can also see we have been fitting insulation in the camper. 

Kitchen area outlet. The box on the left contains two light switches, one for the exterior light (a half size  on/off switch with a single outlet) and one for the kitchen ceiling light (a dimmer switch). 

The dining area light switch (dimmer switch) and the location of the original front exterior outlet (GFCI).