Carpet removal...

Ok.. So today we worked on two areas of the LD -- and yes, I'm posting this out of order as a number of other tasks have been done since I last wrote.. Regardless, I was in a typing mood and wrote this up -- unfortunately without any photos.

 

Since I'm working on a replacement bathroom sink (a prior owner removed it and made a few other mods too) using a template taken from an '87 LD that was parted last summer.. Anyway, a few weeks ago we built the carcass from 1x wood we had lying around in the garage... I then attached with poly construction adhesive, 1/8" panelling on the two outside edges that would be visible. The other two sides will be attached to interior walls so no formal 'skin' is required.

Of course before I could do any of that I needed to reattach the rear wall interior panel that I worked on last summer. See picture below for the outcome from the wall install..

If you're wondering what the hole is in the wall.. It's going to be a small fold-out pocket door of sorts to store your wallet or watch when you go to bed.. It's essentially wasted space due to the slant in that wall. I don't recall the depth at the top of the opening but I believe it's around 7" deep...

You can see the old sink plumbing in the right corner of the above photo.. Soon to be re-instated.

Below is one of many photos taken of the sink framework sitting along side the '87 LD sink being used as my template. You may notice in this photo that the protusion on the left side of the sink is missing.. By the way, all fasteners for the sticks shown in this photo is care of the Kreg fastener system -- worked like a charm!

So, the last thing today I tackled today with some help from my older son was to remove most of the carpet outside of the cab area in the front of the LD.. I must say that regardless of how many times you vacuum that carpet, the dirt just stays behind.. We found writing on the bottom of the carpet near the front area that had the original owners name (Burbridge if I recall) so we know it takes back to 1985... Anyway, we removed the carpet, foam padding (that was essentially doing nothing at this point) and vacuumed the craploads of sand and dirt present under the carpet. Ugg.. We also removed a number of large and small staples that were used to hold the carpet down.. The majority of them will be left in place as they are flush with the floor and will pose no problems with putting down the new flooring..

 

Posted with Blogsy

More mods coming soon!

I know it's been a long time since I've last written.. I'll admit that I've let the rig sit for the past 6 months with little work (if any) in that time.. I will bring you all up to date on what transpired since the last posting..

We did drive the LazyDaze up to Oregon and back for Thanksgiving '11 and I will tell you it WAS an adventure!  The trip started out OK -- we worked up until it was time to hastily pack up and leave -- late in the day no less -- the day before Thanksgiving.. I think we headed out sometime around 4-5pm -- right into heavy traffic in the greater Los Angeles area as everyone was hitting the roads.  We did make it out and into the Central Valley (going north on the I-5).. It was dark and several hours of driving I noticed the volt meter on the dash board was losing voltage.. Uh-oh!  Not good!  I think we were somewhere south of Santa Nella -- I found that if I pulled over on the side of the road and killed the head lights but left the engine running, the alternator was able to catch up and charge the battery again -- but with diminished output obviously.

The drive continued into the wee hours of the night (now Thanksgiving day).  Somewhere around 1:30AM (give or take), the voltage was getting low and I needed to check things out.. This is when I did something stupid.  We got off one of the larger off ramps in the area that had several gas stations and I stupidly shut off the engine without thinking about it.. Of course the engine battery was not strong enough to re-start it.. To make a long story shorter, we spent the next 3+ hours there trying to get ANYONE to help us jump-start the engine again.. There were plenty of people that I asked but none were interested -- all had various excuses including one guy claiming his car was a rental and that he didn't think it had a battery that could charge our rig!??!?

We even tried calling AAA and they couldn't even get anyone out -- eventually a good Samaritan came along to get some gas with his girl friend and dog and I politely asked if he could help us out.. He did and was able to get us jumped in <5 minutes!!  I gave the nice guy $10 for his trouble and more importantly for helping us get un-stranded.  Once started, I left the engine running for about 15 minutes to get sufficient 'juice' in the batteries to head out since we still needed the head lights -- it was in the 5AM hour when we left that gas station.

The next stop was a local Wal-Mart a bit further up the road and a bit east of the '5'.  While there we were able to get some tools (I had not packed much in that regard -- won't do that again!!) including wrenches, a socket set and a few other odds-n-ends including a NEW battery and a 120V charger just-in-case. 

I changed out the battery in their parking lot -- mind you this was during their Black Friday preview hours -- very FEW people in the store -- probably <10!!  Once the battery was changed we headed out for some breakfast at the local McD's and then went back to the 5.. Unfortunately we didn't get far before it became apparent that the charging system was not doing that -- not charging!  So, we hooked up the 120V AC house/garage charger into one of the Ld's outlets over the kitchen table and fired up the genset!   That worked great during the day when no lights were needed but once it came dark again it was iffy at best.  We did end up getting to Oregon without further incident but did have to stop a few times in Northern CA to let the genset run to charge the battery fully -- no wonder we got such poor milage!!

One of the first things we did in Oregon was to find a local shop that could not only change out the Alternator but also the fan clutch -- which had started to fail on the way up -- causing it to go into fits of high-speed spinning for a few minutes at a time before behaving again.. We finally found a shop in Lincoln City, OR -- a ~30 minute trek north of my mothers house in Newport..  We took the LD to the Car Care Specialists shop where they were able to change out both the alternator & fan clutch for a reasonable cost.. Many shops were closed or couldn't do the work til the following week since it was Black Friday and a holiday.

So, eventually it was time to head home. We headed south on US101 on the coast and we didn't get far.. Ok.. We didn't even make it out of the driveway at my mothers house before the alternator was back to it's old tricks again -- not charging!!  We were out of time so we did what we had done before and fired up the genset + battery charger and headed out and down the coast.. As we headed south, we started getting pummeled with lots of rain -- for several hours.. Somewhere near Florence, something changed and the alternator decided to start charging the battery so I was able to shutoff the genset and leave things alone.. This remained until we got home safe & sound the next day.. The rest of the drive was uneventful.


So, fast forward to this month (May).. We're going to be heading up to the Bishop, CA area for Memorial day.. I knew I needed to apply some major TLC to the LD before heading out on that much shorter trip.  The laundry list of things that needed to be fixed/upgraded are as follows :

1. Engine charging issue (to be covered in a separate post)
2. Change out the two roof vents with new Fantastic Fans (to be covered in a separate post)
3. Swap out the existing Parallax/Magnetek 6345 power converter (single stage -- known for boiling batteries) installed by the factory in '85 with a brand new Progressive Dynamics 4655 slide in upgrade module + new fuse board.  This is already done -- no pics unfortunately.  It took me a bit over an hour to perform.. I ordered mine from Best Converters after talking with Randy via email.. Very knowledgeable guy!
4. Change out the 4 fan belts with new ones -- done.. Adjusting the power steering pump belt is a pain in the rear -- I had to enlist my son to help me tighten the bolt while I held it tight in place.. The rest of the belts were easy.. 
5. I still need  to change the engine oil & check the trans fluid before leaving.. 
6. Oh yeah.. The fridge.. We had it rebuilt.. I'll make a new post for that one too..

Anyway, I'll be posting the missing threads in the days to come with photos et-al.. After all, it wouldn't be a good blog without some pics right??

Soaked bunk area -- leaking water from recent rains...

Ok.. To fix this will be a future series I'm sure.. I noticed this morning a fairly frequent dripping coming from a few holes in the bottom of the bunk area on the drivers side. After talking with Ramon, he suggested pulling up some of the panelling up in the bunk area to see what was underneath -- that sounded good since we're supposed to be heading to Oregon tomorrow.. I think some of the water was coming in from a scrunched end-cap on the passenger side (fiberglass in this case) -- in doing some caulking I found a missing screw on the drivers-front end-cap over the bunk area -- now sealed up with caulking -- until I can properly fix it. We also re-sealed some of the end-caps on the front bunk area (my sister-in-law and I) and will do the same on the vertical end-caps on the rear of the rig tomorrow AM. By the way.. the rear window is now installed and sealed up..

In the picture below, notice the decayed wood on the passenger side front edge

In this last photo notice the puddle of water -- this is on the drivers side. We mopped up about a cup or perhaps a little more of dirty water.. We've been stuffing paper towels up there which eventually get saturated with water and we toss and put more down.. So far we've done this about 6 times.. The water is apparently still weeping out of the soaked wood.. At least it shouldn't slosh around when we drive.. When we get home after Thanksgiving, I can open it up and do the appropriate repairs.

More work on the side & rear windows...

Ok.. More rehab today -- the entire day.. I focused on getting the right rear window taken care of -- the first pic shows the state of things after I removed the spare tire mounting hardware (4 bolts protruding through the LD and into the inside) along with the plywood that was underneath the bolts...

The pics below shows the first sheet panel in place after drawing up a template using cardboard... No nails yet...

The next pics show the panels glued up and nailed.. I used PL poly construction adhesive..

Below are pics with the gel stain applied... along with a pic of the stain we used..

Here are the final pics for the evening -- we got the window installed with the help of my daughter who put in the first few screws as I held the window in place outside.. Unfortunately I ran out of caulk to complete the task -- mental note -- this window takes an ENTIRE tube of 3M 5200 caulk just to install it -- I still need more to go back and cover up the rubber as it's showing in a few places and to make the seal look neater -- a task for tomorrow.. Luckily this stuff doesn't cure for 7 days -- plenty of time to monkey with it..

More rear window rehab and wall prep...

Below are some of the latest images in the rear rehab saga.. I rebuilt the right corner using kiln dried 2x3's that were run through my ShopSmith table saw to size down to the proper size used as studs in the walls. A single 2x3 can make two full-length studs to pair down to the desired sizes. Works great if you've got a table saw!
One thing to note is the odd angle of the back wall to the rear shelf. There's a small piece of wood in a triangle shape holding that rear window lower sill plate at the right angle -- ours was not in good shape but enough was still in tact to allow a new one to be fabbed up -- unfortunately I didn't take any pics of it.. That rear shelf is an 8" wide piece of 3/4" plywood I had as left-over from a bookshelf project a few months back -- in maple -- our new plywood will also be in maple so it matches itself (but not the old LD plywood). More to follow..

Below are a few photos showing the new insulation installed in each of the wall cavities.. The insulation used is R-Max -- a combination of a 1" thick sheet followed by a 1/2" sheet which appears to be perfect to fill the thin wall cavities.

Below is a minor mod I chose to implement in the rear wall corner above the couch/bed. It'll be a flush mount cubby that should protrude into the empty wall area about 5.5" -- if you add in the stud thickness you can add an inch since the studs are 1"x1.5". I used our Fein Multimaster tool to cut the plywood out of the opening -- easy peasy! That is a must tool for this type of work -- excellent tool for trimming the crap off of dry-rotted studs so you can sister in good wood with the old.

Below you can see how deep the cavity is at the bottom of the opening. The opening is 9" tall if you're wondering.

So -- this is what I did yesterday.. I know it looks like a mess and I'll admit that it was a bit of a mess to get it to this point.. Yes, I will be replacing all of the panelling with something -- more than likely both walls will be re-done by the time I'm done (hopefully this coming weekend). As you can see in the wall, there's a piece that's bare aluminum on the inside (left) and the rest has a thin piece of plywood between the wall studs and the aluminum -- not sure why.

It took me an hour to remove the rear window -- 99% of it because of 1 screw that was stuck in place and wouldn't budge.. I had to drill it out and cut the head off. Once that was done I could see the condition of the wood hiding beneath.. Luckily the sides and top plates are in very good condition -- however the bottom plate is completely destroyed on both the left and right sides.. The middle is fine however. But I've decided I'll just replace the entire bottom sill and any other material needed.

So, as I mentioned earlier I was thinking about taking the entire wall apart and that's pretty much what I did.. Here you can see just how bad the corner is and you can also see the stub wall that allows space for the spare tire compartment.. Ever wonder about why there's a piece of carpet attached to the back wall? That's there to cover the bolts that secure the spare tire mount which are visible if you remove the carpet. By the way, the rear horizontal surface is made of 3/4" plywood that is SECURELY stapled to the framing beneath.

The plywood beneath the aluminum on the outside is stapled every ~2 inches to the stud plate (the furthest one back) which made it rather difficult to remove that lower window sill!

There's also a thin triangle piece of wood that runs under the window sill piece to accommodate the angle of the rear wall in relation to the window sill.

Here's what the space looks like between the vertical rear wall and the rear of the LD. You can see the cans for the tail lights below -- luckily there's not much damage that is visible down in the bottom of the false wall.

Passenger side rear window rehab.. Ugg!!

ok.. So last weekend I removed the passenger side rear window -- the large one on our model and found where the termites had been chomping along with nasty water damage in the rear corner. Below are a series of random photos showing the work area and damage found..

As some of you may know.. Our model had been retrofitted with a full-time bed in the rear -- the factory sofa/bed had been removed along with the seat belts by a prior owner. To the left is what things look like with the bed removed and out of the way -- also notice the a prior owner had removed the sink and put a box in place to hide the plumbing left-overs.

To the left is the area with the bed/seat plywood removed showing the framing attached to the walls. The corner in the center of the photo is the problem area -- lots of rot hiding beneath the nice looking plywood panelling -- as can be seen in the close-up photo below...

In the photo below you can see the corner with the plywood panelling removed -- you can see the extent of the damage -- the corner beam is completely dry-rotted out and after plucking off the worst of the bad stuff only about about 1/2 of the beam remains. The beam to the left of the corner is mostly eaten by termites.. This window is a work-in-progress-- more to come later..