Finally, I got to go back to Trixie! Today's goals were to get the wiring in place (mostly 12v), replace rotted ceiling vent framing and get the back window in. The first challenge was getting a photo of the old ceiling vent framing with the old plywood ceiling removed. It is a gorgeous day and sun kept making my picture turn out all black. But I think you can see the "before" here. The dark patches on either side of the opening are just shadows. Then there is the lovely paper thin fiberglas insulation. That will be going away.
The cross beam framing wasn't absolutely perfect. Some of it is a little squishy, so rather than making each new framing piece 14", I made the first one long enough so that I could make certain to screw it into strong wood; thus the somewhat unorthodox setup. Two birds with one stone on this piece. Got the new framing in place and pulled through the new 12v wires that will be needed to run the new ceiling vent fan.
Then I worked on getting the upper framing in place for the back window. The frustration with this job was determining the correct order in which to do the work to get the back sealed up again. I need to match up all of the old holes for screwing the window back into place. I got the upper framing in and just super clamped it where I thought it should go. Then I started reattaching the outer skin so that the top of the back skin could be put back into place.
The skin was very tight, with the starboard side not wanting to fully wrap around as it had before (easy to see that it had before, because of where the aluminum bends). Much to my elbow's chagrin, there was a lot of rubber mallet pounding involved. I tried my best to use my left hand. That was hoot. I think that I may have actually landed on my target once twice, though. Pffff!!!
As I got each small section as tight as I could get it, I shot a staple into it and kept working my way down. Oh! I didn't mention that first I took off another 6-7 feet of J-rail so that I could put new butyl tape between aluminum layers 1 and 2. When I get that far, I'll put another layer of butyl between layer 2 and the J-rail. Not yet, though. More important things left on the list.
So I repeated this on the port side and measured between the lower window screw holes and the top.
Not good.
3/4 inch off.
Swell.
From inside the camper, I could see that the skin was NOT lying completely flat against the framing, which was surprising, as the sound that the mallet made when I was pounding from the outside, it sounded like it was completely flat against the wood. Alas, no.
I liken the process to trying to get a full-sized fitted sheet to fit onto a queen-sized bed. As soon as you try to get that second corner on, the first corner pops off. So! I decided to try to anchor the back by using a screw to connect the back panel to the top framing piece for the window. Then I went back to the starboard side to take out every staple that I'd just put in. Oh boy was my elbow pleased. The process for this is very gingerly inserting an ice pick under the staple and tapping it with the mallet until the staple starts to give. Then I can work it out with a nail remover.
Then I started the rubber mallet work over again to pound that puppy as far down and squish that butyl tape as much as I could. Working at about one three-inch section at a time, I actually put a screw in place to "pull in" the aluminum to the wood. That worked pretty well. Next a staple next to the screw, remove the screw, move down the next few inches.
Well! For those of you who don't believe that God really does work in mysterious ways, my mallet head popped off!! Of course, I just got down off the ladder and smacked the sucker against the sidewalk. This would work for a few minutes, then off it would fly again. THEN, the blade of my icepick (the sophisticated tool that I use to get under the staples to remove them) broke off. OK!!!!! OK!!!! I'm stopping.
So here is where we ended the day. I got the starboard side to within about 1/8" of where it needs to be. You can actually see the screw holes on the port side, so I have to repeat the "remove staples, pull aluminum down harder, hammer down the aluminum/butyl to be right up against the wood and restaple" tomorrow to hopefully get everything where it needs to be. What you see here is the window held in place by clamps. Oh well. I gave it a good try. Tomorrow is another day and Trixie will be there waiting for me.
'night Campers!
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