Yes, I’m still trying to fix leaks.  I know of several around the vents and the olympic rivets securing the air conditioner.  So I took a slide down a slippery slope…

Instead of trying to seal the vents, I decided last weekend to go ahead and replace them with fantastic fans since that was in the plans anyway.  And I would just get rid of the air conditioner and replace it with a sky light for now.  Unfortunately, the AC installer did a horrible job cutting out the hole.  I don’t think I can use a standard 14 inch sky light on this, check out the edges of the aluminum cuts.  Will do more research on options.

For some reason, I started on the air conditioner first.  I read the air forums and blogs and watched some videos on removing the air conditioner.  First off, the DIY guy had a nice mini-bulldozer bucket to work from and didn’t try doing this hanging off a ladder.  Secondly, most folks said they got it off in an afternoon.  Being a “girl”, I hate to admit when I can’t do something or do it well, but I will confess to just spending yet a third day working on getting this blasted thing off.

The shroud was already cracked so I didn’t worry about getting it off intact.  I drilled out the belt rivets, then the rivets holding the top on.  I found gobs, and I mean gobs of old hard caulk.

It took me all afternoon to get through the caulk to find the olympic rivets.  Removing those turned out to be the easy part.  A couple people said that you can just slide a scraper under edges to loosen the air conditioner.  HA!  It was grey caulk, but felt like cement.  I used the scraper, plastic knife, heat gun, mineral spirits, acetone, vice grips, screw driver, and a hammer.  Just before supper, the temperature dropped quickly, the wind picked up and dark clouds rolled in as I finally got the AC released from it’s bondage.  Tomorrow I’ll see if I can talk Craig into helping me get it off the trailer or continue to dismantle it piece by piece.

I read somewhere that C’World would only install an AC if you took off the old one yourself.  I can see why.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 25th, 2010 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Exterior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.