What Did You Do To Your Camper Today? - April 2011

I mowed around mine !!! Yeah.... it finally quit raining long enough to mow the grass !! Can you believe it?

 

Replaced the seal for the top, did some fiberglass repair(stinking ABS Roof), tore off the front cab/cubby - replaced the rotten floor and side walls, put it all back together and replaced one of the main lift cables!!!!! Hooked it up and took it back to storage area. Now its time to start planning the first trip for this year. This was the last 5 days.........not just today.

By the way, thanks for all the great info on this site.

 

Installed my led bulbs from superbright leds. I am now ready for off the grid camping......

 

Got all the old caulk off today. What a pain in the butt.

 

Understand what you're saying about the rain ! We've got a very light rain off/on right now, but today was beautiful compared to what it's been for the past month.

We took a trip to storage today and put in our new countertop...DH recently removed the original that held the sink and stove. We do all our cooking outside the pup, so the new flat surface counter will work out great. That led to more motivation, so he laid the new flooring he purchased a few weeks ago. We went with the peel and stick wood planks and it looks great ! Unfortunately, I left the camera at home...hope to post some pics soon.

 

Yessterday we started workong on the roof. my mom said it was possible to repair rather then rebuild from scratch. so we pulled off all the trim covering the seams, scraped it clean, scrubbed it cleaner, drove all over to find the nearest RV place and were very lucky that a ) the guy moved hsi shop to his back yard B) was home C) kind enough to see us, and D) had the parts we were looking for

So after that, we came home, redid the trim and now im sipping a tea before going out and replacing two boards.

Glad that its now water proof, later in the week when its warm sunny and dry again ill do the interior, and elastomericc coating on the roof.

 

Put electric brakes on the pup. Mounting the brakes/drums only took about an hour and a half. Pretty easy to do actually. Also, put a Tekonsha Prodigy P3 brake controller in the TV.

I'd say the longest part of the whole thing is the wiring. 20A breaker at the TV battery, run that line through the firewall to the controller, then a line from the controller to the 7-pin at the hitch. Then, wiring up the new drums and fishing that up to the trailer tongue. The wiring took a good bit of time, and I was a stereo/alarm installer for 10 years. I'm just not 25 years old anymore!

Oh, also hardwired my TV GPS while I was under the dash. One less ugly cig plug to deal with.

I meant to take pictures of the brake install as I did it, but 2 seconds into pulling the 1st hub off, I was covered in bearing grease and didn't want to ruin my camera.

 

Put two new six ply trailer tires on and checked the bearings towed from the shop to Lowes a lot of nice things for mods there lol.then home waiting for this ones maiden voyage hopefully in a couple of weeks just have to change destinations as our favorite campground is under water again.

 

Recaulked the roof seams and corner caps. I used the 3M 5200. Boy, that's some slow drying stuff. It says at 77 degrees, it takes 7 days to fully cure.

 

I bought wheel chocks for it at Wally World. Lovely yellow ones

 

Hello Everyone,
Well I finished this awning bag for our awning today, but I have been working on it for a couple of days as my sewing machine needle kept breaking and I needed to go get a set of new ones. The real trouble was re-threading the awning in the c-channel. (needed 3 adults to keep it horizontal and sliding through.
My sister had given us an old awning and it was way to big so I cut it down and made a bag. I still have left over enough for an awning for the back and possibly a bag for it. We still want to make a fan mod for the fridge and a pipe in the back for the outside carpet.
So much to do and so little time.

 

Looks very nice Bella. Love the color -gives your pup some pop!

 

lol, i got a set of yellow chocks from Wally world too

Oye, today i got the rotten boards out, the new boards in, the tin refastened down, the rest of the new trim put on...still have a fewthings to do to finish the roof repair.. more cosmetic things and coating it in elastomeric coating...its waterproof asis, but i want it to look pretty too.
( still and will remain aggrivated with my mother for not going with my plan for a New roof... woulda taken half the time and same cost and would look even better)

weather is supposed to be nice this coming week so im going to get onto the interior work...have to wait for the weekend to have help with the last few finiky roof details...that my excuse and im sticking to it!!!!!!!


Bella- LOVE the red awning bag!!!

 

It was finally nice and sunny out here in Oregon yesterday so if pulled the front cover off, wire wheeled the tongue and front frame, and layed down some paint. Turned out pretty good... lots more planned though.

 

This was my first project when I got my PUP. The rusty wheels were glaring in my eyes.

before:



after:

 

Busy day! I have been getting ready for my first trip of the season on Thursday. I had some leftover things to fix from last year, and some ideas and gadgets that I picked up over the summer.

First and foremost, I dewinterized and cleaned

Then, I went to work on the wiring. First, I moved my battery kill switches to right over the converter. They were a PITA to reach before, esepcially when the roof was down. Then, I replaced most of my rocker switches with illuminated toggles. They don't get bumped so easily and I can tell when they're on. That was most important for the tank warmer as I don't want to use it without shore power.



Then, I installed some new panel meters to monitor the batteries. I already have some mounted outside near the batteries, but sometimes it's not convenient to go outside and crawl under the bunk to check them. These are mounted just inside my door.



Over the winter, I picked up some LED lights to use as night lighting. These will be particularly useful when the kids go to bed. I mounted one just inside the door:



Another one over the fridge directly accross from the door and next to the dinette:



And two on the ceiling roughly over the galley and gaucho:



To make them really useful, I hooked them up to remote controls with dimmers, one for the two on the ceiling, and one for the two inside the door:



I think the dimmers will be really useful for keeping a little light available when everyone is sleeping.

 

For the first time ever I finally get to respond to this question! Yesterday, I washed down the ABS roof with a mild detergent. Let it dry and then filled a few cracks with Gorilla Glue. Learned a LOT in just that process. They weren't kidding when they said the glue expands to 3-4 times the volume, LOL!!

Once it dried I sanded it down a bit mostly to give a rough surface for the coat to adhere. I then coated the entire roof with Kool Seal. WOW! The PUP looks brand new. I'm very impressed with that product. I don't know why I waited so long to do that. I hope it helps stave off any more cracks forming.

 

This design retained more heat than I was comfortable with. Today I opened it up, hopefully, to allow more heat to flow away from PUP wall.