snail powered

The plywood will spread the stress out across a much wider area which will reduce the compression of the original layers the flooring was made from. The object is not to point load the pull of the bolts on smaller areas of what is not a substantially stiff layers of flooring materials with a concentrated pull in a smaller section. Sure angle iron is strong and a good backer but in this situation with an easily compressed foam layer it is not actually an optimal choice. Here you want a wider distribution of the pull to resist the compression.

Did you ever resolve the issue where there was a widening gap between the cab and the coach that was letting road dust in?

You can't ignore form and function which was the case of the artist's choice of vehicles. Cute, fun and funky is fine but the space has to function or its useless. That look now has a new name in the design magazines..."the new bohemiam style". Or as I call it hippie revival, the more things change the more they stay the same. I guess even though I am an artist and of the hippie generation I always preferred the natural materials style of decoration. I much prefer parking in a naturally beautiful location with all the curtains wide open without a lot of wild decorative interior distraction taking away from the view. I don't like the interiors they put into the vintage motorhomes or many of the modern ones either. Paint and refacing or exchanging materials is a big help. Not much room for art on the walls in an 18' Sunrader but I will squeeze in some display space as part of the remodel.

I would approach mounting the captains chairs in the same way that was originally used to reinforce the mounting of my dinette table leg. Go underneath the vehicle and install a large square of marine quality plywood against the bottom of the floor. Be sure to coat the plywood with a good quality sealant on all sides and especially on the cut edges. Cut edges need to have the end grained sealed to prevent delamination of the layers. Then install through bolts to hold the base plates of the captains chairs all the way through all of those flooring materials as well as the reinforcing plywood plate you just installed. Be sure to put some marine sealant into the bolt holes on that lower bottom plate to prevent water penetration coming up from wet roads. Not the permanent type of sealant but the always flexible type as you may someday need to remove the chairs. If you are going to be installing seat belts you will need to have reinforcing under the vehicle for those bolts as well unless they are going into a steel framing member which of course would be the preferred mounting method. I am sure it will all come out to your liking. Keeping a 3 way propane fridge generally makes more sense for an RV lifestyle than putting in a bar fridge. I did not keep my propane fridge in my remodel and will eventually be putting in a 2 way fridge 110v and 12v. As I am anticipating solar power with a larger house battery set I do want a very efficient 12v fridge for off grid use while traveling. As I will likely often be plugged into 110v I also want that option available. So I will be purchasing an auto switching model. They are not inexpensive so I have not yet made the purchase as I won't be traveling until next fall or summer but I have left space in the new cabinetry for the installation of one and will do the wiring runs for it as part of the remodel. That space will also fit a small dorm room sized 110v fridge if need be and it might be an interim solution if needed but I would not be able to keep it running with my current size of house battery setup so it would only be good when plugged into 110 electrical. Budgets do drive most of our remodeling choices but with advance planning we can allow for future upgrades even if we don't start out with our optimal choice of appliances.

A custom paint job will be more memorable but a monochromatic paint job won't disguise the fact that a commercial motorhome is a motorhome.

My friend Don is covenrting a cargo trailer that has a back door that folds down into a ramp. He is putting a wood stove into it, using a composting toilet. Sink with container for waste water under it. Skylight vent and AC on top. Putting in bunk and workbench. He is also reworking the back ramp to have screened tent room that will deploy on top of it and support legs under the ramp. It will be his toyhauler for his dual sport motorcycle and his recumbent tricycle. I don't think he is planning on putting any windows in it although it is possible to add some if you really want to. There are parts for this kind of conversion to be found on craigslist in the RV section. Plus there are RV salvage yards in various places around the country. You can put in a propane heater, cook top, fridge and portable propane heated shower or inside shower with grey water tank. Since you like to camp on BLM lands for longer periods of time you will want to meet their criteria for self contained if you do any kind of conversion work. They have inspectors you have to go see to get a certificate of approval. Its a good stealthy way to go that gets around issues of being parked on property where RVs and camping trailers are not allowed or regarded as suspicious. Plus it makes a good workspace with lots of available workbench/desk surfaces for the kind of scientific testing you mentioned where you need to store and organize samples or prepare them for shipping. It keeps you looking professional when you pull into a work site. You have now built up a good enough skill set to do a cargo trailer conversion without needing a lot of extra help.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-OEM-Windshield-for-85-89-Toyota-4Runner-84-88-Pickup-/141758019141?hash=item21016fb645&vxp=mtr

Its a scam, that same photo is being posted in a number of places on the internet. You can save everyone a lot of time if you will take a very simple step on the "too good to be true" Toyhome ads before you post them in the various forums for toyhomes. Make a copy of the photo in the ad. Then drop that photo into a google image search. That will turn up identical instances of that photo which allows you to see the various places it is being listed for sale.

Or you could take a different approach and block their ability to climb up into the vehicle. It is a non chemical approach. Put tall sheet metal rings around the tires. You can buy rolls of wide metal flashing from places such as Home Depot and form it into rings making sure the way you join the seam is not something that will be easy to climb. A few small sheet metal screws should work OK. You might need to get creative with the shape of your metal barrier to get it as tall as possible inside of the wheel well area, meaning a true circle is probably not going to be the optimal shape to get maximum height of metal. Mice can't climb slick metal and hopefully they won't be able to jump that high. Link to image of sheet metal rings around a tire, its an airplane in this photo but you will get the idea from it http://eaaforums.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=1198&d=1322837977 If you leave a hose or cord connected to the RV put a funnel shaped object on the cord near the top that they can't climb past when crawling up the cord or hose. Funnels are not difficult to make from the flashing. Don't park next to bushes or any object they could jump across to the RV hood, tires or bumpers from. Don't park in an area of grass that is not kept mowed short. You should be parked on pavement or a graveled pad. Or if you can't do that stake a tarp or landscape barrier cloth on the ground to prevent vegetation growth under or near the RV while in storage. Just remember when camping not to park in tall grass if you can avoid doing so. Be sure you have stuffed stainless steel wool into any gaps on plumbing lines or the gasoline filler tube line going into the RV. A squirt of expanding foam will help hold it in place and also keep out drafts and exhaust fumes. Be sure at this time of the year to daily pickup and remove any fallen fruits in your yard. Those fruits attract mice and rats. Don't park near a vegetable garden. Food sources attract them and at this time of year there is plenty of it around. In the fall the problem is going to be worse because they are looking for a winter home to nest in. So now is the time if you are putting our RV away for winter to take these simple protective measures. Some cats live to hunt, others don't. But cat urine and poop will attract mice and rats if the rodent is infected with toxoplasma gondii. It is a common parasite that has a life cycle that is competed in rodents and cats. So don't have a cat litter box in a garage if you park your RV or car in the garage.

The words "ya baby" are just something the forum kicks out as a weird kind of status designation for how often a person has posted. Its not member's screen name. I have no idea who creates this type of name game award stuff in various forums but you see it all over the internet. As in this case most often they are pretty dumb sounding.

That is usually a mechanical linkage problem that just needs a bit of adjustment and possibly lubrication to get it freed up and working smoothly again. You might even be able to see them for yourself if you bend down and look underneath. You might have to remove the cover off the climate control area to see where the linkage rods attach at that end. Fortunately this repair is not very hard to troubleshoot if you have an owner's repair manual such as Chilton's which will very likely have illustrations of which control goes to which linkage location and tell you exactly how to make adjustments to them. If you don't have a copy of one of those manuals your local public library will subscribe to services that allow you to pull them up online for free and then you can print out the relevant pages. Nowadays the larger library systems often allow you to log into those library functions while at home on the internet using your library card and personal password. You can buy replacement parts on Ebay and at junk yards but you most likely won't need to buy a part to fix the issue as it should be resolved with adjusting and lubricating the linkages for that specific lever.

I tried finding a garage shop to work on my Nissan through a couple of forums. But since no one in the forums lived near me there never was an answer to my question. I finally just asked some of the regular customers and the owner of locally owned coffee shop hangouts in the neighborhood and found out about two good shops that were reasonably priced, sensible in their approach to problems, had been in business a long time and did excellent work. So asking in forums is a long shot for getting a result but asking in person in the local area might work out for you. The RV coach stuff such as plumbing, electrical converter and propane system and appliances can be dealt with by RV repair shops. But for much of that type of work this forum will have lots DIY information in the archives plus some regular members hanging around most days for a quick response.

Very nice blog, thanks for posting the link. Sorry for all your troubles, hope the issues are all sorted out now and the rest of the journey is fun and more fun.

There seems to be quite a few wifi transmitters around that you plug a backup camera into. I have a couple of android tablets I could use for the display. One is a Nexus 7 but it is not connected to a cellular system. The other is one I have from Verizon that is connected to our cellular account. An advantage of this setup is the wifi antenna gets installed within the vehicle and is hardwired to the outside camera. I would not want it mounted at bumper height as I might want to carry bikes or a cargo rack with boxes on it that could block the view from the lens.

You should talk to your insurance company before buying to make sure they will be willing to insure the vehicle you want to purchase for the price you have to pay for it. No matter what someone asks for it or what you are willing to pay there is always that factor that must be met unless you don't plan on purchasing replacement value insurance.

Went and checked on my motorhome for leaks after the recent heavy rain storms. I was not working on it last week and same will be true of this coming week. Had cataract surgery on my right eye last Weds and my left eye will be done tomorrow, Weds. If I am lucky I will be back to work on the interior in another week or so.

Screws and wiring are not just an issue on that model of Sunrader. I found screws that were creating issues for the wiring on my 1980 Sunrader. The screws that mount the license plate light were chaffing the wires that came from that light. Also screw that mounted the passenger side tail light was threaded into the Romex that ran up the back corner of the coach to provide power for an air conditioner. Fortunately I had no air conditioner and that wire had never been connected at the converter box. But luckily when I carefully slit open the outside covering of the Romex the screw had gone into the space between the pairs of wires instead of cutting into them. So I was able to simply wrap around the Romex with silicone sealing tape instead of having to replace a section of the wire. I added a clamp to hold it further into the corner and keep it out of the way of the tail light mounting screw.

Rodents are always suspect...lowdown no good dirty rats

I think the source of the leak was created exactly where you found the rot.

post a photo of the lock. If its like the one on my 1980 Sunrader I can tell you how to adjust it. But another thing that can happen which effects the door lock is if the hinges are coming loose. That will allow the door to move. So first easy trouble shooting step, check the hinge installation.

Shibs it's a reference to the old used car salesman line.... This car was owned by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sunday. In my mother's case you could actually change it to only used to drive to the grocery store and the beauty shop to get her hair washed and set on a Thursday. Nowadays though it is her maid who does the driving on Thursdays as my mother is 93.

you think there are bumper stickers that say... "I spent my vacation at Walmart" or even "I spent my honeymoon at Walmart" or "I slept at Walmart"? The tire store should be selling T-shirts for this.

Portable is an interesting solution but it does sound as if you really need that 200 watt setup.

definitely a sprinter based, wide body with passenger and driver seats that swivel around and recline. Needs a slide out or two as well. Might as well trade up...if I had the funds to do so. Where is my winning lottery ticket????