135 replies to this topic

[Avg.Joe]

The exterior lights being white was making me crazy so they got painted matte black.

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[Avg.Joe]

After the sun dried the frost on the roof, I mounted the solar panels. Did you know that Alpha 1021 sealant can be applied down to 5°f? I didn't, but I was thankful to learn that today.

With the panels mounted and the new 95lb struts installed, I tried lowering and raising the roof by myself. Aside from really needing some bungee tethers on the liner, it went super smooth! Man I was jazzed!! I had noticed that in the raised position the roof is off to one side a little bit. I could not figure out how to re-center it and figured it probably won't hurt anything...part of the home built character, I guess.

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[Vic Harder]

Getting there!

[Avg.Joe]

Thanks Vic. It feels like it's slowed down but realistically there's not that much left to do.

I'm spending today rewatching John McK 47's YouTube videos on diesel parking heaters. He did a great series explaining every aspect of them from design to install and use. I'll be ordering the heater when I get a list together of all the things he points out to look for.

[WillTheThri11]

... I had noticed that in the raised position the roof is off to one side a little bit. I could not figure out how to re-center it and figured it probably won't hurt anything...part of the home built character, I guess.

 

With this design, the roof is raised by two opposite sides.  The sides that do not have mechanical supports (conduit lifters in this case) act as a kind of soft shear wall that needs to be taut and only gets that way by the pressure provided by your conduit lifters.

 

If the lifter bars are not making the canvas taut the roof will lean over like a parallelogram until the canvas becomes taut and that shear feature is then activated.  If this is the case, I think I'd want to fix this.  I wouldn't want it shifting in the wind

 

If there is pressure and the canvas is taut it may simply be that the canvas was not attached to the roof and camper wall uniformly.

 

Oh and more obviously, but less likely due to the find craftsmanship of this built.  The lifters could be different lengths or mounted to the wall at different heights.

[Avg.Joe]

That's a great explanation Will and thanks for the kind words.

It's a combination of factors I think. The conduit lifters are not exactly the same. That's a product of my apprentice level skills. The roof and side walls did not match perfectly before parts were connected. What I mean is the top rim of the hard side walls was not perfectly straight (slight bow in the center of the wall). I centered the roof as best as I could. The lifters were attached where they landed on the attachment points. I did measure the bottom anchors so they are at the same height. Then the canvas was hung as evenly as we could fit it but the top edge did have some unevenness to it. Based on all that, it's not hard to see where it could be off some.

The front is really close. The back is where it shows the most. When I discovered the unevenness, I removed the props inside and tried to shift the roof but it wouldn't budge. That's probably due to the liner being tight.

At the end of the day it comes down to me accepting that it won't be as perfect as I would like. I have limits in engineering and building, and materials like wood are going to move. What matters to me is that it keeps us dry and warm, holds all of our stuff, and withstands cross country road trips on paved and unpaved roads.

[Avg.Joe]

I ordered the diesel heater. A friend has had good luck with the happybuy brand so that's what I got.

https://www.amazon.c...i?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Avg.Joe]

The diesel heater arrived. I'm working on the plumbing at the moment. I'm attempting to pack a lot in a small space. Water, heat, and electric need to fit in the front corner opposite the kitchen. I'll post pics of progress.

Yesterday, I finished the roof latch installation and got the screw cover trim run all around the roof. It was sunny so I took care of some touch up painting also.

[Vic Harder]

The diesel heater arrived. I'm working on the plumbing at the moment. I'm attempting to pack a lot in a small space. Water, heat, and electric need to fit in the front corner opposite the kitchen. I'll post pics of progress

Packing lots into small spaces is one of the areas that I think "home" builds can really improve on vs the factory builds.  I see and hear folks talking about "wasted space" in their campers.... that's space where rarely touched devices - pumps, controllers and other stuff can go.  I did this on my first build, and in my second build (the PUMA) I made darn sure I could actually get at those places I tucked stuff into.  That was a lesson learned.... 

[Avg.Joe]

There is going to be quite a bit of stuff packed into a relatively small space. That probably would mean replacing a water pump in the future will require disassembling some other things. This is a risk I'll have to take to still retain as much storage space as possible.

Vic, your cabinet work on the Puma looks amazing. Mine will be nowhere near the level of yours. My goal is neat and usable. Pretty is a little beyond my capability.

Edited by Avg.Joe, 11 November 2020 - 05:28 PM.