Ripping Her Apart!

Wow, I don't know what else to say.  I am looking forward to following the progress as you put her back together.

Hi All -

We have the aluminum down for the floor and the first layer of wood! The side frames are up but not yet extended to fit the new frame. All the pics are on our blog. You have no idea how excited I am to finally see the start of construction. Woo-Hoo! Of course, it's getting cold here in Eastern WA and the weather I think is coming. We have to get Winnie together FAST! We lost a whole month this summer that we are missing now. If it gets too cold, the filon won't bond and we are screwed. We would have to find a heated shop large enough for us to put Winnie in to install the filon and let it cure. Or we would have to leave w/o the filon on and head south to someplace warmer. Ugh - really don't want to do that. Cross your fingers we get an a streak of warm weather where the temps stay above 50!

Here is a link to the latest blog post with the pictures.
https://randallgypsycaravan.wordpress.com/2017/10/08/aluminum-is-down-this-means-we-have-a-floor/

Thanks All!

hmmm...

Wondering about your decision to bend the sheet up. You now basically have a pan. Any leaks in the plumbing will stay in the pan.

Stephen S. said:

hmmm...

Wondering about your decision to bend the sheet up. You now basically have a pan. Any leaks in the plumbing will stay in the pan.

Click to expand...

Daniel has the plumbing running under the floor in ducts. All traps he says will be under the floor with just the pipes needed to get to faucets going through the floor. We are using the current standard blue & red Pex water pipes with copper fittings. While being optimistic - the only place we could have a leak above this floor is under the sinks which if quickly caught is manageable. One in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. The shower will drain through the floor. If one of those pipes develops a leak, well, we're screwed and will have to pull the duct to repair.

Wow! I'm impressed! I admire your resourcefulness and tenacity.

Kev

Hi All -

We put the floor in today. We officially have a subfloor! Tomorrow will be spent extending the aluminum frame with bolts to fit our new length, and building the walls. We found a place to construct the walls indoors (which is absolutely necessary right now with the cold weather) and then we will install them onto the rig. We hope to get both sides constructed tomorrow and then they will cure for 24 before we install them. We don't have a door (anyone selling a rounded top door?) so are leaving the back open for now so we can more easily get things in and out. We have a new roofline so that will be a whole different thing. Should be pretty cool though. More on that when we know how it's going to work.

Here is a link to the blog with pictures of us constructing the floor. http://wp.me/p1JNUa-J3

Thanks all!

Hi All -

Updates. We had a windstorm up here in Eastern WA - gusts up to 55mph. The tarp-garage that we were using as cover almost blew away. We managed to save the tarp and the poles but no more cover. With the weather changing, we can no longer work outside. We found a wonderful kind person who is letting us continue construction in her pole building. It means we are having to construct the walls away from the rig in their completion. I have a wonderful crew of new friends who are going to help us lift the walls onto the rig so we can install. We had to cut-off the lip of the aluminum that we were going to build into the walls. There was just no way to do that anymore. You can see our new roofline. Still well under 12' which is good. It means that we will have a neat cathedral ceiling in the living room which is cool and will give us the spacious feeling we are looking for.

We have started wall construction. We have done as much reinforcing of the aluminum as we can given time and money. More than was there before, not nearly as much as we were wanting. We are installing the first layer of Styrofoam insulation inside the frame. On-top of that will go another layer of insulation, then the luan and then the filon. We will cut out the windows after we get the walls installed on the rig.

There are more pictures on our blog but I did resize some to post here. Working against the weather! We just need to get the box of our home and we can drive south to warmer weather to continue work on the interior.

Wow. What an incredible amount of work. Hats off to you for taking on such a unusual task. One would think it would have been cheaper to just buy a different unit. I hope the motor has low miles. You wouldnt want to get it all together then have engine problems. Good luck on the rest of your build, and keep the pics coming. Wow again.

Really amazing. I applaud your fortitude, vision and work ethic.

Hi All -

We have the two long walls done! We got them both done in a week. The second wall is curing right now and still needs to be trimmed but its built and will be installed onto our new floor and frame tomorrow. YAY! Now we have two days to get the back wall and ceiling in place in some form before snow hits. Wish us luck and about 4 more hands to help! LOL! Anyone in Eastern WA want to come visit?

Here is a link to the video of us unrolling the filon onto the glue. We didn't use contact cement this time like we did in 2011. It's too cold. There was no way for us to heat the pole building enough to meet the temperature requirements for the contact cement. So we are using the next best recommended thing we could find that did NOT have a low temp requirement. It's a tough as nails product - I am completely flaking on the name of. I could point out the canister in about 2 seconds but I'm whipped right now. Pics are on the blogsite and here is a link to the video of us unrolling the filon on the second wall.

https://wp.me/p1JNUa-L5

Enjoy!

Hi All -

Updates:

• We got the walls finished and installed.
• We put in aluminum rods across the top of the rig to reinforce the ceiling and make the rig more stable.
• We got the curve of the cab-over done

We also got snow and super cold temps for a week. Check out our progress on our blog. I posted tons of pictures showing the progress and steps.  Here is a link to the latest post:  https://wp.me/p1JNUa-Lz

Thanks! Looking forward to seeing you on the road.

WOW. Honey get the curtains!  You are doing fantastic. 

QZ said:

WOW. Honey get the curtains!  You are doing fantastic. 

Click to expand...

LOL - Thank you. Interestingly enough, I did get curtains. We are changing the window configuration so we are not so much as a fishbowl on display. I picked up some neat sheers from World Market I am going to rip apart and combine into some nice curtains for Winnie. 

One of the biggest repairs any RV owner does with their class C is the cab-over. We redesigned ours. We flipped the curve.

If you look at the picture of the original frame of the cab-over, you will notice that we got rid of the big swoop/that big angle in the front were the big ever-leaking window used to go. Now the only curve is at the very top. That was originally the bottom - right over the cab.  Does that make sense? I am attaching a picture of the internal structure of the new cab-over as we were building the wall.

This gives us a lot more room in our cab-over. We can sit-up. We can stretch. Room!

I guess the only other thing we changed in construction method was that we stopped using the self tapping screws for working with the aluminum and are using rivets. A member on this forum made the suggestion in another post and they are working much better for us.

I will post a separate post about how we built the walls.

I noticed in a previous post you were changing the roofline to go up in front, more like a 5th wheel layout, with a rise in roof height above the bed area.

If I rework my current class C, I'd like to do that. Raise it up as much as the height of the AC unit without changing my bridge clearance. That would give anyone up in front a LOT more room to move around in.

Stephen S. said:

I noticed in a previous post you were changing the roofline to go up in front, more like a 5th wheel layout, with a rise in roof height above the bed area.

If I rework my current class C, I'd like to do that. Raise it up as much as the height of the AC unit without changing my bridge clearance. That would give anyone up in front a LOT more room to move around in.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Now we can stand in our living room and we can't touch the ceiling. It gives a wonderful feeling of spaciousness to the rig. Super excited to actually get this to a point where we are living in it again.

The most space was claimed by the removal of the 2 angles at the top and front of the cabover; it looks aerodynamic but it is actually "placebo aerodynamics"; NASA research (https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/638366main_E81-38091_full_full.jpg) shows modifications to a passenger van where "The resulting vehicle-re-fashioned with sheet metal-resembled a motor home, with rounded vertical corners on the vehicle's front and rear sections." The "boat tail" on the rear end provides the most important part of the aerodynamics, as it is similar to a "Kammback" design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammback). I plan to add a fold-down deck to the rear end, with and integrated Kammback that would become the support foot when the deck is deployed.

I also admit that I was inspired by a notable re-use of a prop on Star Trek (between the original and Next Generation), where the old transporter room floor became the new transporter room ceiling; I am also into recycling, repairing, and re-use of things (my PC was purchased from a recycled computer store, for example).

Today we installed the "xtrm ply" PVC roofing membrane; we started the adhesive application at Noon to take advantage of a high temp of 48 degrees Fahrenheit that occurred here Today. The instructions contained no mention of a minimum operating temp, other than a "do not freeze" label on the can. The VOC quotient was very low; it was no more stinky than a typical latex paint. It is now below freezing out there; hoping that the bond cure will not be affected (it was very sticky and gluing my gloves to the pole on the paint roller). 

DanielRandall said:

Today we installed the "xtrm ply" PVC roofing membrane; we started the adhesive application at Noon to take advantage of a high temp of 48 degrees Fahrenheit that occurred here Today. The instructions contained no mention of a minimum operating temp, other than a "do not freeze" label on the can. The VOC quotient was very low; it was no more stinky than a typical latex paint. It is now below freezing out there; hoping that the bond cure will not be affected (it was very sticky and gluing my gloves to the pole on the paint roller).

Click to expand...

Here are some pics of the work.