snail powered

1980 Nissan.

Physically it would fit that space but unfortunately the air exits at the upper surface of the inside which would impeded its intended air circulation pattern and it would end up with a lot of resistance of air flow. If you look at the kickstarter program illustrations it explains their theory of how they designed the airflow direction for greater efficiency as a window unit.

For all of those who assume a roof top air conditioner is the way to go that is true for some people in some circumstances but not all people in all circumstances. For my needs a roof top AC is not a great option. I own one of the Sunraders that predates the era where they added in roof beams to keep the roof from sagging under the weight of a roof top air conditioner. I don't want to add beams to the ceiling. For someone with a pop top Toyhome a roof top AC is not a good option. I like having another (potential) option. As to hacking holes well I probably can get away without doing that. But then again I filled up 3 holes, 2 large and one small when I got rid of the propane fridge and furnace. So in the long run if I add in another small one I am still way ahead of where I started from.

You can purchase "BunkSox" for your mattress. It is a stretchy bottom sheet that adapts to mattress sizes. Then just add a regular top sheet. They are made specifically to solve the problem of unusual lengths and widths of mattresses in RVs and boats. http://www.bunksox.com/

Yep, CAD CAM is a nice skill to have. But you don't have to wait for another lifetime to acquire it. It is not all that difficult to learn. You can be up and running on doing basic design work in a program within a couple of days.

Lots of good salvage parts on it. Hatch and louver vent covers and the awning. The mirrors, windows, doors, entry step, etc. Might even be a good full floating axle on it!

Washington state parks has some good discounts for its residents who are disabled and for seniors and low income seniors. Foster care families can camp for free year around. Low income is defined as a household income of less than $35k. You either send in proof of a copy of the first page of your income tax or fill out the application with your income, birthdate, etc and get it notarized. A low income senior gets a 50% discount on camping with a few exceptions (stated in their rules list.) During the off season you can purchase a season long pass and camp for free. If you want electric it is an extra $10.00 per night. You still have to pay reservation fees. Many of the county parks in Washington State also honor the State discount passes for seniors, disabled, etc. But check that out county by county before you go camping. Check with your own state to see if you qualify for any discounted passes. Sometimes there are even parks across the country that are not federal but will still honor the federal inter-agency senior passes. I know that is true of some day use fees for Oregon State Parks.

I like steel rulers because I can cut against the edge with a knife. That also means I can secure them for easy storage on a surface by sticking or adhering a magnet to that surface. You can do the same thing inside the lid of a toolbox. The big trick is making it convenient and easy to put them away. Finding pencils...I buy them in the large sized packages at the office supply stores. Then I sharpen all of them and put them in various handy locations here and there. That way I don't have to hunt for very long to find one. I do have a "pencil cup", a 3M Command small Clear Caddy, mounted to the wall just inside the door of my Sunrader since I often need pens and pencils. But I have a backup quantity of them in a ziplock bag in my supplies drawer as well. I love the 3M clear caddies, lots of sizes, easy to hang and easy to remove.

There is a fully funded kickstarter project for a new window unit AC that would be an interesting alternative for Toyhomes. If they are on schedule for the release of the product it will happen sometime in the summer or fall of 2017. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kurt/noria-cool-redefined?ref=category What is different about this new concept for a window unit is that it not very tall, just under 6" and only about 1/3 of the depth, about 5" projects to the outside. 5,000 BTU and 4 amps. Hopefully a good candidate to run on a small generator if they get it set up for a low power start feature. I could see it fitting just under the rear window on the back wall in one of the rear dinette units. For the ones with a bench seat all the way across the back you would not have a middle back rest cushion. Since it blows the air upwards it would not freeze you as you were sleeping. It is remote controlled so you could put a short plenum on the air outlet and have the air come out through a slot in the table or even a countertop.

try the keywords "fender flares"

You could tackle one section of the coach each year instead of doing it all at once. That way it will only be unusable for a few weeks each year. Do the most difficult ones first, the overcab rebuild does rate as difficult so you are already on track Of course if you have the personality to dive in and push hard towards getting task done no matter their size then go that way if you also have the time available.

The shipping charges will make buying a 3D printer begin to look like an item that is a good long term investment

My Sunrader would really struggle to tow it. I have a 2.0 liter 4 cylinder from Nissan. Made in 1979.5 which is the first 6 months of the 720 truck production. It has enough strain on it just to tote around its own turtle shell.

Except that you can't put them into a 49 cent stamped envelope (which is now only 47 cents as the price went down recently). The post office just did a dirty rotten thing a few months back and raised the rates on first class packages and then got rid of the lower cost parcel post rates so now anything over one ounce that is not a document and is more than 1/4" thick cost me $2.80 cents in postage to ship for up to 9 ounces in weight. Which goes a ways to explain why that person is charging so much. I just had to buy some small bubble mailers and in order to get them at a reasonable price of about 25 cents each I had to buy 200 of them. So that means I have to charge my customers over $3.00 just to cover my cost for shipping on any items that stack up to more than 1/4" thick and the cost of the package to ship it in. But that does not include the cost of shipping labels or of course labor. So now does that price of $3.99 start to make some sense to you? Under the present cost from USPS to the sellers circumstances that was not particularly unreasonable shipping charges to you. It is not the seller who is at fault in this, it is the post office who just made things impossible for business people to be able to be able to offer reasonably priced shipping on small, odd shaped objects even if they don't weigh much. Last year it could have been shipped for a lot less but not now with the rate changes in place. So get used to it, this is not going to go away.

Here is a good way to go if you want to put a small wet bath into an RV remodel. This one looks like it is made to partially sit over a wheel well but that is hard to tell from the photo. http://abbotsford.craigslist.ca/rvs/5559418181.html The bath comes in two pieces lower and upper so it can fit through a door. Of course you would want to verify dimensions first. Of course it is typical in that the shower and toilet in a one piece wet bath drains into the same tank. But since you are doing a custom install you could reroute the shower to a grey water tank. It is up in Abbotsford British Columbia.

There is a fun video comparing fridge/freezers for off grid living in an RV on youtube. It is a fun channel to subscribe too as they are usually filming down around Quartzite and show people living in all kinds of vehicles, lots of vans but also things like a Prius and other small cars too. But for chest type fridge/freezer larger capacity at a reasonable cost and power consumption the Whynter brand of units seem to be the favorite unit among these full timers. They usually add extra insulation around the outside since they are in the desert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZzBdj67gb0

They should have been using the app Waze when in a city, it will reroute you for the fastest time to the destination as it is based on real time road conditions in that location. What is happening is that everyone who is logged onto has their device actively reporting back speed of movement and the passengers in the vehicle might also be reporting back things like stalled cars, wrecks, and other congestion issues. Plus the software is also pulling in active reports from the police, city, DOT etc. Waze does work out in the country side but it does visually it does not show a road map when away from metropolitan areas. However it will give you voice directions for what turns to make and tell you how far you will be traveling before the next change in the road or how far to your destination. It also announced things such as watch out pot hole ahead.

Here is the new trouble I have gotten myself into. My Sunrader has a new baby sister! I adopted her yesterday. Have not brought her home yet, had to leave her down in Oregon until I get a hitch put on my Honda Element. It is light enough to be towed by a 4 cyclinder! Not to worry I will also be keeping the Sunrader. Vintage 1971, needs a new interior but having worked with the shell of the Sunrader I will be using much of that knowledge. These Trails West Campsters never had any insulation in them so I will be gutting it and put some in. Nothing of the interior was worth keeping anyway and the price reflected that. But the shell is in good condition and the trailer is serviceable. It will be a much simpler interior to put together versus the Sunrader. Going to use aluminum framing for the cabinets again as that really keeps the weight down versus building from wood. I will redesign the layout to get in a dedicated potty room. There is a pop top over the kitchen area that gives full standing head room. It is not much different in the height than my Honda which will help reduce drag when towing. The dinette/bed can be made into 6'5" x 6'5" or left as two narrow bunks with an aisle between them and of course a table.

since when does an RV with a frame covered by Filon equate to being an "all fiberglass" RV?

the 1st chore I see is to get out a small wire brush and clean all the rust off the terminals and nuts. How are you supposed to make a good connection with that mess?

Borax Washing Soda, it will kill mold without the smell of bleach or toxicity of many mold killing products. But it won't bleach out stains. It will also help prevent mold on wood surfaces. Good for making friendly cleaning solutions to use for general cleaning around the RV and it significantly can help reduce the musty odors from mildew/mold especially when you are washing up curtains, blankets, pillows and such that have been in the RV for a while. Just follow the directions for adding it to your laundry. Bonus points, just sprinkle it on ant trails or on the entrance to an ant hill to get rid of them. Works on all kinds of ants from the little "sugar" ants to the big carpenter ants.

I use the carbide blade in my power miter saw for this kind of stuff. It makes nice clean cuts in aluminum extrusions with next to no effort I have lots of little hand saws, jeweler's saws, bimetal bandsaws, even a Harbor Freight mini cutoff saw and a large carbide blade cutoff saw made for whacking off steel. But the fast and easy was to cut this extrusion is with my power miter saw. It won't kill that blade or destroy the teeth to make a few cuts in this extrusion. Let the saw do the work, take it easy, you don't want to compress the profile edge of the extrusion when you make the cut. 6061 aluminum is a bit too hard for cutting it with a Zona Razor saw, it will ruin that blade. It is only meant for soft metals and this aluminum extrusion is at the hardest end of the scale for a soft metal. I found that out the hard way years ago when I trashed a razor saw blade trying that.

A few little spots of garden variety, everyday black mold won't do you any real harm. If it did everyone in the Pacific Northwest would have long since died as it is everywhere when you go outside, on buildings, on the trees, on the leaves, etc. Those little black spots are NOT toxic mold. That is very different stuff and pretty rare to find as well. Black mold stains can be hard to remove. But some Kilz primer over them then paint will take care of the issue.

78K on a 1980 Nissan Sunrader. A bit of blue smoke at startup.

No it is not apples and oranges and it does not cost a thousand dollars. They are not complex, it is a panel, a pump which does need a small solar electric panel and some pex tubing. Yes you will need a hole in the roof for the tubing or you might also adapt an option for somehow running the tubes down inside the vent pipes for the grey water tank then break it out of that pipe and rout it through a cabinet on over to the water heater. If you are happy with a $20.00 solution and can make it work that is terrific. Sunshower bags do work. But if you wanted insulated storage for solar heated water then there are viable commercial options. Here is the link to one company's offering. There are more, you just have to do a bit of keyword searching on the subject to find them. http://www.amazon.com/SW-38-Solar-Water-Heater-Panels/dp/B0041VM58E