The Ceilidh Project
Progress Reports
Deconstruction rocks!
Mostly stripped out.
You can see the new foam filling the space where
the window was to the left.
Every last piece of foam is used.
If it was at least 2"x2" I stuck it in
somewhere!
Steel frame with new foam.
Rusted frame sections were ground cleaned & painted then
painted again after the new foam was in.
Old glass and door gone.
Foam over the door hole.
I will reinforce this piece when I put in the
portholes.
The salvageable parts of the
wiring harness.
Gotta be careful because some of it is nicked and
there was 2 foot of meltage.
Surprise! Not one but TWO blown
out mufflers.
And they are 2 different sizes too! Wieeeerd!
AC Moved and roof racks stripped.
New wheel well boxes.
Built over the existing dented and holey steel
shroud.
Covered and made strong enough to stand on.
Hey! Someone cut a huge hole in
the back of my RV!
Oh wait, that was me.
This has to fit in that hole.
Nice big door with a big deadbolt.
Black iron gate hardware gives a good period
look.
A Clean Slate.
No more rusty metal or water damaged wood and she
is sealed up tight!
That's enough for one page.
NEXT!
She's Home!
It was well after dark but she's home and on the slab.
Time to start ripping into her.
Stripping out everything bad and man is there a lot of it!
Cleaning out all the way down means the dash and carpeting and cabinets and floor and well, everything has to come out.
The cabinets and such were all pretty easy, The fridge was already laying across the hallway. lol All the appliances will go to the recycling yard.
Most of the paneling was rotten and came away from the wall like paper. Parts of it however were still securely glued to the metal frame resulting in many hours of chiseling and scraping the adhesive and wood away.
It was very satisfying ripping out the pieces that did come away. There's nothing like a lot of wanton destruction to perk up your day!
Lots of refuse was generated and we took at least 5 loads out with the trailer but I got it down to a basic frame with minimal skin left intact.
First trip to the Hardware store. $103
8 sheets of 7/8" foam. I thought this was the right size. Found out when I got home it was one size to small but decided to go with it anyway. This was a HUGE mistake that we'll talk about later. Some cans of spray foam and a few starter sticks of lumber and furring strips rounded out the shopping trip.
All I'll say now is if you find yourself doing a project like this make sure you get the right thickness of insulation!
About 3' of the steel frame has to be replaced. 20' or so has to be ground down, rust treated, cleaned and repainted. Took out all the windows and old nasty fiberglass insulation and covered the walls entirely in foam. I got some of the "Green" foam and sprayed a "glue" layer. Put in the Styrofoam and sprayed foam around all the edges and gaps. This puppy is sealed up tight!
I want to put the under layer for the ceiling in first so I need to run a few wires and do any major vent work now.
The roof will be a useable deck & party space so needs to be clean and strong. All the old luggage racks and vents will have to give way to windlasses and racks of belaying pins.
I stripped almost everything off the roof, cleaned and ground the screw holes and injected them full of 100% silicone. I swept and mopped it clean. Got out my chisel out and hammered away all the years of sealant and got a fresh reseal on those areas that won't be replaced later.
The main mast is going where the AC is. Therefore the AC must move back to the next vent hole. That means putting in some reinforcing framework and resealing the unit in the new hole.
I slapped the vent that was there on the old AC hole for now just to keep the rain out.
When I first parked her I climbed underneath and discovered not one but 2 blown out mufflers. hmmm, makes me wonder if maybe the timing is out a bit. Anyway, ordered 2 new ones from Summitracing.com
Cleaned some wires out from the old harness and cut channels in the foam. Ran the new wires through so they will be behind the new wall.
Bought a new battery. She cranks up great now and is running a little better the more I run her. I think she sat for awhile and had some bad old gas to boot.
About this time my mufflers arrived.
In New Jersey.
I'm in San Diego.
Well a phone call to the help desk later and they figured out that their automated system transposed the shipping and billing addresses. They did pay to have it shipped to me here though so Kudos to Summit for having good customer service.
So I climb under with my nice new reciprocating saw and my goggles and get to cutting off the old mufflers. A little mote of hot rusty metal bounces under my safety glasses and lands in my eye. Three days later I was in the hospital and the Dr. had a drill in my eye grinding out the rust. That was a $1500 setback.
Anyway, back to work.
The metal shrouds that covered the wheels were old and dented to hell and falling apart. I hammered and bent them back into place as much as possible then boxed them in with furring strips and foam insulation. Luan skin on the sides and 1/2" Plywood on the top. Super strong, super sealed and looking super good!
The "Living room" section of the floor had been replaced recently so I redid the other 60% of the floor with new wood to match it.
The plan is to haul my il Bello Scooter inside so I need a BIG door and a gangplank. It doesn't really fit to have the door in the side of the ship. For many reasons this just didn't work so I moved the door to the back.
Putting the door in straight up and down to match the new stern.
So we basically have a clean slate box with a big door in the back.
Well insulated and rewired and ready to skin.
You may have noticed there were no pictures of the attic section.
This entire section will be cut off and replaced so there isn't much sense in messing with it at this point.
In the next installment we will put it the portholes!
Ciao! =)