Shoveling out the manlift

After taking out the center ceiling panel I noticed the A/C is caving in the roof. Read the thread at airforums.com I'll need to fix this before I can start putting the trailer back together..
I am going to need to remove the A/C unit and put some bracing in the ceiling and then reinstall the A/C. I have a manlift so I thought I would put it to work instead of using scaffolding but first I had to dig it out of 4' of snow. The manlift sits next to the driveway and it just got buried from snow blowing the driveway, took me about 4 hours to to dig it out, took another few hours to get it out of the rut it had created from sitting there in the fall rainy season, it weighs 12000 pounds.
While it was out I shoveled the roof on the house, broke off some dandy ice sickles and salted the ice dams, the house is a 150 year old two story house. Because of the design it is impossible to insulate were the walls meet the roof, I have had a few years where the ice sickles are long enough to reach when standing on the ground. They were not that long this time but because we have had such cold weather with no warm days the Ice dam had crept out over the edge of the roof 14" in one area over the driveway.

Why do I have a manlift you ask. I needed a new roof and in its 150 years it has never had the shingles tore off, there were 7 layers of asphalt shingles and one layer of cedar shake. The cheapest estimate I got for a new roof was $12,000.00 and that did not include any insulating or repairs that would surely need to be done. I paid $5000.00 for the manlift and $3800.00 for the materials and my Dad, brothers and a few friends had the old roof off and a new one on in three days. They did a lot of repairing and replacing of the deck fascia and sofit. I kept the lift and did painting, fixed window, made and installed storm windows and the kids and I drop stuff from it just to watch things smash.

When it get just above freezing I'll start work on the A/C.

The roof caving in and the lift

Everything is dying

Well it's been a week I suppose I should fill everyone in on what going on.
Last week after I tore out the bath I was going to take the black tank out and repair the dump valves but it has been to cold, 10-20 degree.
I spent an entire day just pealing silicone caulk off the bath counter top and walls in the bath and I probably have another two days yet to go on the shower pan, seat, cabinet and all the trim. My fingernails have been worn down to nothing, silicone is great stuff but not for something that moves and every thing in a trailer moves.

I also spent the good part of a day experimenting with refinishing the ABS plastic counter top without painting it, the two things I found that work are cleaning it with Acetone, this takes most of the yellow off after a couple of wipes but leaves the surface rough and it leaves the surface tacky, it took about two days for Acetone to evaporate and for the counter to return to its original state. It still had some yellow streaks that need to be sanded out so I finally decided I an going to sand and polish it all. I started out with 320 grit wet paper and added a little dish soap to the water followed that with 800 and 1500 and that looks pretty good has an egg shell color to it now, haven't figured out what to polish it with yet. At this point I only have a 6" X 18" area done so far.

I sanded down the laminate on the bedroom side of the bath walls in preparation for new laminate and also did the bath door and laminated it, then all hell broke loose. My just out of warranty truck died, two days and $8.07 later its fixed, a vacuum hose was leaking.
My computer died then another one died, bought a new motor for my old snow blower three years ago and that just blew a piston rod, couldn't find a new motor to fit so I went and bought a new snow blower. The evaporator drain on the furnace cracked, still haven't fixed that.

Today I went back to work on the camper, a few weeks ago I purchased two solid core doors to make benches to work on when I re-laminate all the interior panels I was going to put wax paper down so the contact cement wouldn't get on the wood but that turned out to be a pain when I did the bath door so I went down to the Haworth discount store and bought two piece's of laminate $1.00 each and laminated the doors I am using as work benches.
I also tore out the self in the front camper, the little narrow cabinet that was next to the front gaucho and the center ceiling panel. I took out the ceiling panel so I can run wires for CO2 detector, Propane detector and switches for the fridge and water heater.
After I get the black tank and shower pan out I think I will be done with the interior destruction.

Before and after, bath door:


A little bit of sanding on the bath counter top:

More bath destruction

Today I tore out more of the bath so I can check to see if the rear end is sagging, all that's left in the bath is the shower pan and black tank, it appears I do not have a sagging problem. Yippee.
I was planning on taking out the shower and black tank also but my daughter is home from school again with one of her migraines and she didn't wake up untill 11:00 a.m. so I let her skip the rest of the day.
She wanted to help but there was not much she could help me with on the shower or black tank besides most of the work thats needs to be done to get these out is outside work so I changed gears and we got a good start scrubing the walls.






As long as I have this much of the bath tore apart I am going to take the belly pan off in the rear to get to the dump valves and rebuild them and check to make sure every thing is OK under the bath before I start putting it back together.

Standing on my own feet

Last week I thought I would replace the Chinese races in the new drums with the Timken ones I purchased, The inner one is the same but the outer one takes a larger O.D. bearing than was in the old Kesley Hayes drum.
I put in a call to Axis axle and told them of my predicament and they sent me out 4 new outer bearings and also sent 4 new seals for free.
I packed all the bearings and when I when to install the inner bearing I found that Rock Auto had sent one of the wrong size. I gave them a call and they had the new bearing on my door step at 10:00 am the next morning.
I had three of the drums installed last week and today I put the last one on and got the wheels mounted, I didn't measure the before height but I bet I gained 2 more inches of height with the rebuilt axles. I can see the top of the tire through the wheel well now.

Total cost so far $547.00 and I still need to get the wheels\drums balanced and alignment checked. The local Airstream dealer does neither, I'll have to find a truck stop and get the wheels balanced and I will probably end up at the Airstream factory for the alignment check.
If I had to do it over again I would buy new axles from Axis axle $600.00 for the pair and everything would have been included.

I only get about 3/4" of travel with the new torsion springs, I hope this is because there new and it's 15 degrees out, I have read on airforums there should be up to 2" of travel.

Jan 12 2009:
"Duh, maybe I don't get the travel because I have gutted the trailer sense taking the axles off."

I also noticed after getting the wheels on that the rear axle is about 2" longer than the front axle, on the street side the rear wheel sticks out farther than the front wheel 1-1/8" and on the curb side 3/4". The axle is not a replacement either as the serial numbers on the axles are only 3 numbers apart. It is also not because of tow in/out casper chamber, what ever it's called.

Here are some before and after pictures:

Bath Destruction

Not much for this report.
I started taking the bathroom apart Friday so I can check if the rear is sagging or not. All I accomplished was get some trim removed and I got the bath sink off.

Destruction

I have gotten a lot done, don't have many pictures though.
I spent the last week tearing out the rest of the interior, buying parts and cleaning. I have all the interior tore out to the bath, I may take the sink out to repair a crack but have not decided if I will or not. I also noticed the sink and grey tank are about 3/4" lower than when new, I can see where the trim above the sink and the grey tank used to be riveted to the wall, the PO has screwed them to the wall now. Its sucks but I am going to have to take the belly pan off in the rear and investigate whats going on, I was going to take all the belly pan off in the spring and do any repairs that might need to be done but I suppose I should do this before I put things back together. It is cold and snowing and I don't look forward to this.

I tore two of the overheads completely apart and cleaned them, I have one back together and one partially back together I need to find some more Tinnerman clips that hold the wood panels to the aluminum extrusions. If you know what the manufactures part number is I would appreciate hearing form you.

I also started cleaning the interior walls with TSP and Magic Erasers, holy crap there's a lot of grim in a 34 year old trailer. When I went to Lowes to purchase some TSP they also had on the self TSP phosphate free, how the hell can Trisodium phosphate be phosphate free?

The interior all torn out:


Galley overhead cleaned and waiting to be reinstalled:


Showing how much the bath counter and grey tank have sunk:

How I installed my new furnace NT24SP

The shell the old furnace was in, is part of the plenum, they are one piece and I use the term shell and plenum interchangeably throughout my little article here.

I have no idea if the furnace in my trailer worked or not, I needed a water heater and called Palomino parts: 800-297-5830 they gave me a quote of $185.00 for water heater and so I asked about a Suburban NT24SP furnace, the quote was $285.00 if they could get one. Suburban has recently stopped production on these smaller units but they were able to find me one, $285.00 to replace a 34 year old furnace which sounded reasonable.

It was my understanding from what I have read on airforums and from looking at the NT24SP installation manual that this should have been a drop in replacement, it is not.

This would have been much easier had I cut the old furnace shell off the plenum and used angle iron to raise the new furnace to the correct height, but I did it the hard way.

Here's what I did:

First I tore out the kitchen cabinets to gain access to the furnace. I am redoing the cabinets anyway so better to get that all out of the way.

Tearing out the kitchen cabinets:



Here is the old plenum ready for modifications:


The new furnace sat too low and too far towards the rear to match the old exterior intake/exhaust vent holes so I took the plenum out to modify it. First I had to bend one of the ribs out of the way. It would have worked to fold it inwards but I folded it towards the outside of the shell. I also had to cut the corner bracket off.

Rib bent out of the way and corner bracket removed:


I had measured earlier about where the new furnace should sit in the old shell so I proceeded to cut holes in the old furnace shell to match the venting and wiring on the new furnace also added one small hole on each side just above the plenum so I could shim the furnace up to the correct height when I did a test fitting in the trailer. Used a 4" grinder with cut off wheels.

Holes cut, this is the finished product but it does show all the holes I cut in it.


The old furnace cover, covered the front of the furnace and the plenum so I cut the old cover down to a size to cover the front of the plenum and riveted it on. I also cut a hole in it for the down draft vent.

See above photo (black piece in front):

Next I took this back in the trailer for a test fit and to shim the new furnace in the old shell to get the correct height. I had to move the the plenum about a 1/2" towards the front of the trailer to get the intake and exhaust vent to line up with the original holes in the exterior skin. The new exterior vent uses a large intake tube so I needed to enlarge the hole on the exterior skin.

Scribed line where I eventually cut hole larger:


Now that I have the correct height for the new furnace I brought it all back into the shop and cut up some hat-girt (stamped steel with the profile of a top hat) that I got from the scrap yard for $3.00 into the correct shapes I need to hold the new furnace up to the correct height. I pop riveted these to the old furnace shell using the measurements I had just gotten from the test fit.

New angle in old shell:




Brought everything back out to the trailer and made sure everything lined up with the exterior vent, then brought it back into the shop to install the down draft vent. The vent adapter I bought with the furnace was too short so I cut 3 strips 1 inch wide from the the knock-out piece I had taken out to convert the furnace to a down draft and spot welded these to the adapter to make it taller. Pop rivets would work but I have never used the spot welder that I have had for 15 years.

Vent modification:




Installed 4 round vent covers to cover the side vent holes that would not be used and covered them with foil tape. Put the furnace back in the old shell and mounted the vent adapter in.

Vent covers and vent adapter:


I should have made the angle go all the way to the front of furnace so I'd have a place to screw the furnace down, but I didn't, so I bought two 3/8-16 coupler nuts. The idea was to grind these down and use them as stand offs and drive a sheet metal screw through the furnace and coupler into the plenum, but this would not work as the gas line coming in was in the way. Instead I bolted the couplers to the plenum and found some short screws in my brothers Harley parts bin (I'm sure I'll catch hell for that) to screw the furnace to the couplers.

Stand offs and vent adapter


I needed a way to hold down the back of the furnace when it is installed for good but you can't get at the back then so I cut a few more small angles from the scrap I bought and pop riveted them at the rear of the shell, had to trim a little off the furnace to make snug fit.

Rear hold down:




All done and ready for installation:







Here I have the shell installed back in the trailer:


I slid the furnace in, screwed in the vent adapter, attached the two front screws to the stand offs, attached the wiring, gas lines, checked for leaks.
Cut some small ribbons of butyl and went around the inside perimeter of exhaust vent, heated it up with a heat gun because its cold out there and screwed the vent in.
Set the thermostat and fired it up. Boy did that thing stink for awhile.

Furnace installed and running:





Exhaust vent: