Ripping Her Apart!

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BRex said:
I agree with Kevin's suggestion of rethinking this. From the pics you posted and the information provided, it would be best to take the entire house off and junk everything but cabinets and reusable hardware. To do anything less would be putting cash into something that has a negative value. If the walls were rebuilt and a new roof put on, (all new stuff except the aluminum framing) you might have something to show for all of your hard work and $$.

JMO and good luck

??? Have you been looking at the blog? That is exactly what we are doing. All the walls are completely off and the roof about 1/4 of the way off thus far. We hope to finish getting it to the just the frame in the next day or so. We ripped out the ugly 20+ year old cabinets a while ago and will be custom building our new ones. Nothing hanging though - we are keeping the head space clean and clear. :)

YAY! Always nice to see fellow RVers supporting our ideas and work.
 
Hi All -

Progress! We got the roof off but needed to purchase a saber saw to get it off. Now we are sanding the aluminum frame. We were surprised at how little there was to our frame. We expected something a bit more.
 

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What a project- you guys are gutsy!


My first thought, aside from structural which you are addressing, is length of overhang with regard to dragging. My previous rig was a Bounder 40Z that had a long, factory frame extension; if I remember correctly it had about 13' of overhang behind the tag. It had V shaped skids that contacted the ground more than once exiting driveways. When you're doing your welding maybe something to consider adding so you don't drag more important bits. What's your finished overhang going to be?
 
I was looking at that overhang too.  What's the wheelbase?

my "31ft" class c...actual length approx 32ft
has a wheelbase of 223 inches I believe
Thor extended the frame between the axles on the stock chassis (actually a company called Morryde contracted that work out).  From Ford the E-450 came came at either 158 inches or 176 inches.
AND they also added an extension frame behind the axle, I guess sortof like you are thinking....

I'll say this....mine is heavy.  Truthfully the rear axle is on the verge...and is easily overloaded.  Just a comment to take for what it's worth....but be careful about that weight.  Might not seem like you're adding much weight, but cabinetry, walls, flooring, etc.... add up big time, especially when multiplied by that long lever arm... even a couple hundred pounds hanging out many feet back there can be much more seen at the axle.
 
Overhang - good question. Daniel (hubby) is getting online to respond as well. The quick non-specific answer is we had a heck of a tail drag with the tow hitch back there. We were constantly scraping on almost any angled driveway. Because of that we are super sensitive to speed bumps, driveways, and ramps. That is coming off so the distance from ground to floor will be higher - but longer.
 
wow, talk about a total gut.....
and doing it out in the weather too.

What an awesome chance to make some changes!
 
blw2 said:
wow, talk about a total gut.....
and doing it out in the weather too.

What an awesome chance to make some changes!

Thank you - we are excited. Hopefully we will be able to start construction next week.  :)
 
Deconstruction is finally complete. We ripped off the floor yesterday. Everything from this point forward will make her stronger, cleaner, and better! We can't wait to get on the road again in our custom 2017 RV. :)

First step - rust-be-gone!
Second - Welding

Then we will be moving forward with construction. Woo- Hoo!
 
YAY!  Current status. OK.

After calling several welders and body shops, Daniel found a shop. The owner agreed to come out to where we are doing  the work, check our project and give us his thoughts. He came out today with a tech and we went through her frame. We took some time to talk about what they saw, what we noticed living in her, and what we wanted. They think the extension that was originally put onto the chassis was too long without the addition of another axle. This would be the original factory built model. They saw some welds that had popped that we didn't notice that indicated this. So - we are adding another axle per their recommendation. It won't host another dually set of wheels, just a single tire on each side but it will support to the frame much better, we will get our additional 3' and we will get to keep our tow.

They are going to raise the aluminum frame for us by 8". This will give us the additional head space we want on the inside and give Daniel the room to create the recessed lighting he wants, space for wire channels and better ceiling insulation. Our final height without the A/C covers will be 10'11". With the standard A/C covers that are 8" high, we will still be under 12'.

We are getting rid of the swoop on front in the cab-over and doing 90 degree angles. We are also getting rid of the curve on the back. This will ensure we have more space in the cab-over and will actually be able to sit-up in bed! GASP!

They are adding reinforcement to the aluminum framing and will be framing in the gypsy drop-down bunk bed we are adding for our son.

We have been looking at the wall mount convection ovens out there that I wanted to put in. WOW are they DEEP! Building the support for something like that into the wall will be a nightmare so conventional RV stove top with oven - here we come!

Winnie goes into the shop on Monday. I promise to take tons of pictures. Can't wait to actually start construction!!! SWEET!

Everyone breath a sigh of relief. We aren't going to break our RV in half.  :)
 
Think about brakes on that tag. You going to spring it with air bags?


Re the microwave if you put a standard micro/convection in they mostly hang from the cabinet above, no fancy support required. Put one in, and the standard RV range, and you'll have two ovens! That's the setup I have and it's cool. Or, you can use the convection when you have electricity available and save your propane. Don't dismiss it yet.
 
wow, tag axle class C on an E chassis.  Now that is something else!
Looking forward to seeing the progress!
 
Sun2Retire said:
Think about brakes on that tag. You going to spring it with air bags?

We talked brakes and air bags over with the shop and don't really see a need for either. So - until further notice we aren't going to add brakes to the new axle. 

Sun2Retire said:
Re the microwave if you put a standard micro/convection in they mostly hang from the cabinet above, no fancy support required. Put one in, and the standard RV range, and you'll have two ovens! That's the setup I have and it's cool. Or, you can use the convection when you have electricity available and save your propane. Don't dismiss it yet.

We will see what we end up with. Your suggestion sounds neat. We don't have any gas running into the rig. We are an all electric beast. Only thing the propane is good for at this point is to run the generator. Once we finish our build-out we won't use that very often. It's for a 30amp system and we are converting to a 50 amp system.

Thanks for the thoughts! Keep 'em coming.  :)
 
If your only LP device is the genny
I think if I were you I would look very hard at swapping that genny for a gasoline model
That way you could get rid of the LP tank and use that space for more batteries &/or storage

OR
if budget allows, just drop the generator all together like James over at fitrv.com did.
 
blw2 said:
If your only LP device is the genny
I think if I were you I would look very hard at swapping that genny for a gasoline model
That way you could get rid of the LP tank and use that space for more batteries &/or storage

OR
if budget allows, just drop the generator all together like James over at fitrv.com did.

X2 except (this is just me) can't imagine not having the genset. No matter how much solar you have there's going to be a time you need to recharge, especially if you're running all electric. Having a gasoline powered genset gives you much more run time and you don't have to fiddle with finding propane, especially if you only need it for the genset.
 
Sun2Retire said:
X2 except (this is just me) can't imagine not having the genset. No matter how much solar you have there's going to be a time you need to recharge, especially if you're running all electric. Having a gasoline powered genset gives you much more run time and you don't have to fiddle with finding propane, especially if you only need it for the genset.

Yes, i would think the same way....but what he did was install a very large 2nd alternator on his chassis engine that will recharge his big Li battery.  I forget the number, but he has it engineered and sized to be able to run the roof AC for 90 minutes or some such thing, from the battery...which was their need.

After seeing that and thinking it through, I think that for us anyway it would be very doable.  We are not likely to go park the RV for multiple days and nights without running up the road to (go to town/hit a museum / sight see/ etc...).  The most we do is one night boon docking while enroute either to a destination or to another location to boondock.  There have been a couple of exceptions on our trip out west this summer, but we still ran the chassis engine enough during the days to get a pretty good recharge.  I'll bet with the right set-up we could maybe do even without solar augmenting it.
 
Hi All -

Sorry for the silence. Thank you for the generator suggestions. I have passed them along to Daniel who swears he is going to get online at some point and respond directly. It's not something to nag over - he either will or won't and in the meantime I share your ideas, thoughts and experience.

They got a late start on Winnie so nothing had been done last week. They found a lot more broken welds. I think Winnie's history has been a bit more traumatic than we knew. I am so very thankful that we ripped off that floor and exposed the chassis. Chances are very high that if we hadn't and built - even if we didn't add the 3', that we would have had serious problems. One of the broken welds they found explains why we were getting a bump in the floor by the back axle. A steel frame member was only attached on one side. The others had popped. LOTS of movement happening underneath.

So we will get it back better than new and WAY more solid than she was before. We won't be able to finish construction where we are now. We are running out of time and this welding bill is a bit more than we had budgeted. Looks like we will roll out with the shell again. We will ensure all exterior construction is complete and then do the internal stuff as we can. She should drive a whole lot smoother that's for sure.

Someone please remind me we need to replace the shocks.

That's all for today folks. More has been going on in the personal front as well. It's on my blog if you want to see otherwise I am pooped but wanted to post an update.  Thanks again!

Paula
 
Hi All -

We have been in limbo for a while. Winnie is still at the welders. First they were waiting for a part (the axle), then the wildfires that are burning across the Pacific Northwest has turned our air quality to soup. Our air was officially worse than Shang Hai for a while. Since the welders shop is open to the outdoors, they couldn't work so the shop shut down for a few days when it was really bad - which I totally get. We were trapped inside as well! Then apparently they all got sick so - no work being done. But we got news today that they should be working on Winnie soon and we will have to go with that.

Meanwhile we called a truck trailer repair shop and got some nice aluminum for the fire shield that goes first on the chassis. We also ordered our skin today from 'RestoreRV.com. We got a great discount since we were buying 70' and it was free shipping! Can't beat that. Even cooler, they said it would be here by Monday or Tuesday which we didn't expect. While we wait for Winnie, we will have the  floor and the skin tucked away, waiting to be used. We are going to get the rubber roof stuff instead of putting aluminum back up there. A local shop seems to have the best deal. 35' with all the goop to install it for $770.00. We will probably pick that up this weekend.

This waiting is hard and I am not very good at it. Daniel and I didn't anticipate our rebuild taking this long. It took a good week and a half to get the floor off completely revealing the damage to the chassis. Took another week and a half to find an available reputable welding shop and now they have had the rig for 3 weeks. AAHHHH! To think I thought we could have this done in a month!  LOL!  I am hopeful that once we actually GET the rig back, the construction should go quickly. We don't have to work around existing parts, we have built it before so are already familiar with how to put it together, and are very clear on what we want so ... we will see. We can't wait to hit the road! Our friends are entering sainthood as they continue to put up with us living in their basement. LOL!

Hope you are all enjoying the summer and haven't been affected by the flooding in the Southeast or the fires in the Northwest. Be safe!

Paula
 
Kevin Means said:
Thanks for the update Paula. I sure you're taking pictures of the whole process.

Kev

There's a bunch on her blog. A link is in her signature.
 
We have the rig back! Here is a video link to us picking it up from the welding shop and it shows the new axle nicely.

https://youtu.be/-GhifsPkWs8

Since we have gotten the RV back we have been doing the following:
  • Daniel has serviced the generator and in doing so discovered a squirrel's nest. No wonder it was overheating!
  • Daniel and our friend have been doing some spot welding to create new frames for the white water tank and the grey water tank. They completed the installation today.
Hopefully soon we will be able to install the new aluminum flooring and actually start construction. I will keep you posted.

Woo-Hoo!
 

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