Only one piece of inner skin left to install, the long ceiling piece.  I’m waiting for my antenna to come before I put it up.  I had the floor measured for Marmoleum sheeting.  I’m going with Shitake and hoping it doesn’t take too long to get into the store (Endwell Rugs).

The bumper frame now has a hole drilled in it and a fresh water connection run into the trailer.  Thanks to Marc for sharing his more powerful drill to get through the steel (I will return it soon).

I dry fit the bathroom fixtures to help fine-tune the Pex layout.  Since I can’t find a new/used shower seat, I’m going to try “Plasti-mend” on the cracks — thanks to my buddy Nick for pointing this product out to me.  First I need to sand off the fiberglass, filler, and paint from the failed repair.

In addition to getting the bathroom roughed out, I’d like to have some “room” walls and get the roadside twin bed in before I head out to Alumapalooza.  The other areas (office, kitchen, dinette) will get attn later in the summer.

You can check out my Pinterest boards related to technology for Rosie and other wish list items.

She’s not a work of art like so many are, nor a classic vintage restoration. I think of her as a recycle project and the best therapy I could buy.

I am very mixed on whether to reuse the original control panel, rebuild one, or just forget about it.  The circuit board is alot like an Arduino bread board.  I am capable of creating a new one.  I could also just replace the yellow faded plastic face cover that is falling off, but the clock and thermometer may not make it back either.  I could reinstall it as is and call it vintage seventies.

The professional fiberglass guy called me back, he won’t touch the ABS plastic repair of the shower seat, he said it won’t take.  I guess I was only guilty of ignorance, not incompetence that my repair efforts failed.  The other bad news is that I can’t find a used one anywhere online or via email.  I’ve tried VTS, RV Revive, InlandRV, Airforums classified, and of course a massive Google search.  I guess I’ll need to start going door-to-door.

I ran the speaker wires last week, so it seems I’ve decided to house the 12V car stereo in the cabinet over the frig, in the wall facing the office (note to self: upload a floor plan).  I did a little research on car stereos and of course I want all the bells and whistles.  If I were buying now which I am not, I would do something like this Pioneer or Clarion (4-5 stars, 6 channels, bluetooth, aux, remote control, etc).

Still trying to figure out the best way to do the 12V wall outlets.  I found some large wall plates that have an oversized phone jack round hole that may work to insert the smaller 12V sockets I bought.  The regular 12V wall sockets are too long for the space between the interior and exterior walls.  It’s too bad the plastic is broken on the original ones, but even then I would need more of them since I have more places than originally.  I’ll want to paint the wall plates to match the ivory/almond 110 plates.

I don’t know why I didn’t do this before – install the WordPress Mobile app.  I’m sitting in Rosie swyping this entry and uploading photos.  Maybe I’ll post more frequently with it, or maybe not.

I’m proud of the neatly organized wires running along the ceiling.

And the spaghetti monster is once again under control after putting in the middle wall near the converter in the back.

My current setup/plan.  I have a few circuits complete for 12V (1, 3) and 110V (1, 2, 3A).

From Airstream Redux

Temporary lodging for the converter until the walls of the closet are up.

12V bus bar for convenient connections to the converter wires.

In the back is the ground bar which goes to the converter and to the trailer frame and other 12V negative lines. Midline is the 500A shunt for the battery meter which sits between the battery negative  and the ground bar.  In front is the 50A pole fuse which is line between the positive battery terminal and the converter.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.  I get nauseous cutting into Rosie’s skin.  I guess it’s good to think twice (or ten times) before adding more points of water entry.  As it turned out, I actually did a nice job on the hole I made for the new Furion outlet.

I also put a Furion adapter on my 30Amp electrical cord.  Now I can charge my replacement battery.  Next post I’ll show my converter setup.

Slideshow on the tail lights getting new canisters.

I got asked today “So what’s going on with the trailer?” …

Crack in the base.

Crack all the way through.

I was a bit discouraged when I had to replace a cracked vent/fan that I put in last fall and had not even used yet.  It was ok for a while, then I had a steady drip flowing into a bucket.  After several emails, climbing on the trailer to take a picture in the rain, I was given the go ahead to send it back to be replaced.  I removed the errant vent and sent it back, waiting for it’s return with a big hole in my roof for a week during the Upstate NY flood season (plastic covers do turn the finish on aluminum brown).  The replacement vent came with a different number of holes in different locations — it kills me every time I have to drill into Rosie’s skin.  The weekend I was installing the replacement, I happened to be listening to the VAP episode where Colin and Frank were talking about cracked vents and installation suggestions.  I wish I had heard it last fall when I put in the 3 new vents.  The irony is that I put these new vents in to stop the leaking occurring with the old vents (as well as to have functional fans).  In spite of my whining about the process, the manufacturer did replace the vent, I just had to pay the shipping to send back the cracked one.

Fletch's trailer moving method.

Fletch cut the new metal tube and loaded the new spring for the ZipDee awning.  Also ended up with new end brackets and and restraining wheels.  I was able to reuse the awning material, but it still wasn’t a cheap fix.  It was worth it, the awning is like having another room with the trailer.  I will love sitting under it in the nice cool shade at Bash II.

New water intake

Water was leaking into the fresh water tank via the water intake on a regular basis before I gutted the trailer, leaving standing water in the tank to grow algae.  I’ve had the intake unhooked all winter with a pan under it for the leak.  I don’t have a key to the latch on the original water intake and I couldn’t figure out how to fix the leak.  I also could not find an original replacement for the Thetford.  I got a new one from InlandRV that is supposed to replace this model, but I had to make the hole in the skin bigger for one dimension and patch it a bit to make it work.  The original is much cooler looking, but the new one looks ok from the outside, doesn’t leak, and I have a key for it.

Other small projects have included sanding/painting/rescreening the 6th screen that was in the trailer when it went to Frank’s Trailer Works, scraping off the sealant on the the windows and putting on fresh Vulkum, putting on new rubber seal on the last of the windows (1 more to go), and preparing the step light and flood light for LED replacements.  The LED’s have arrived, will install those this weekend.  I also ordered new canisters for the tail lights from Vintage Trailer Supply – my jerry-rigged tuna can lights have started rusting and I’m worried about future leaks and now they are making replacements for these.  This and many other  projects have are a result of my mantra “I should do it while the walls are out.”  I really want to be working on the electric, maybe the tail lights work will lead to the interior wiring.