EarthRoamer XV-JP "Northwest Edition"

[PaulJensen]

I like the nice smooth radius on the edges of the drawer fronts and sides; did you round them over with a router or shape them with the 40 grit?

For me, it's just as fast to use the 40 grit on the orbital once you consider the router set-up time, adjustment, put away...Plus it looks less machine made...I hope what I'm doing looks hand made...

 

[PaulJensen]

Eighteen...

Eighteen…

(above) Getting another early start… When the work is this fun, it’s hard to stay away…

(above) Starting easy, scrub sand the epoxied drawer from yesterday…

(above) Now, time to work on getting the electrical system closer to back up and running…

(above) Today’s field of play…

(above) The inverter has the gauge and outlet removed from the unit and they will be relocated to the plywood cabinet… The push-on connectors in the middle of the picture are the 120 volt power leads to the newly extended outlets… I solder 99.9% of all my electrical work… It takes just a bit longer than crimping connections but is without question the better way to make shorter wires longer, or to join two (or more) wires together… I like doing things better…

(above) The inverter is mounted to a piece of plywood… The fit of the plywood to the cabinet with the inverter mounted is tight…

I put the factory yellow face plate on the inverter and it would not swing into the cabinet with it on… Missed by 5/32”… No way, that way…

Take it back to the bench… Remove all fourteen miniature screws that hold the cover plate on, remove and set aside the yellow plastic thing, go back to the Jeep, hold the plywood / inverter close and figure out what’s needed to have it fit… Typical for this kind of work… Frustrating…???… No… You just accept it to be this way and you do what it takes to make it work, whatever…

To have it work, the leads for the gauge and the ‘power out’ need to go out the top of the case…

Bring out the step drill, get a plastic sleeve, get the wires through and test fit, again… Works…

(above) Back to the bench, tape and heat shrink the wires together, then get the cover plate and all fourteen of the fruit fly size screws back into the inverter… Fun, with fingers the size of hot dogs… Just for laughs, try it sometime…

(above) This side of the ‘power lead’ will go into a small screw clamp connector (that I don’t have yet)… I have three sets of wires that will connect together and want a simple way to remove the connection, so the inverter panel can be removed semi-easily if it ever needs to come out… I solder the straight ends of the wires, so the screws in the connectors get a better ‘bite’ into soldered wires… You will not find an un-soldered wire-end in my work…

(above) To get the 120 volt ground back to the inverter case (as it was when the outlet was case mounted) I stripped the insulation off the middle of the green wire, twisted it hard, formed a loop around needle nose pliers and soldered the loop… That’s what you see screwed to the inverter case, the ground wire leading from the outlet mounted to the plywood then going up to the other outlets up high… If you look close you’ll see that this is in the middle of a wire, not just an end loop…

(above) The new wiring harness has multiple soldered connections with shrink tubing insulators, then taped together with friction tape…

The space within the battery / inverter compartment is Tight with a capital T… Loose wires going all over the place are bad, so these minimal wiring connections is something that will be much appreciated later by me putting it back together and to whoever might have to work on it in the future…

(above) Another look at the wiring… Notice the ground lead from the case to the outlet, to the other outlets… What I was talking about above… There is enough loop in the wire for the outlet to still come off the case, but not too much to junk-up the interior…

Again, this is what custom looks like…

(above) I want to put a 12 volt outlet on the back plywood panel as well, but the mounting nut for the outlet is too long given that I’m using 1/2” plywood, so the extra mounting nut is cut away with shears… Once that was done the connection went together easily…

(above) Then it was back to the Jeep to connect the loose ends…

(above) Then the inverter panel was put in place… This is looking down into the compartment…

(above) See what I was saying about tight…???…

(above) Stepping back, you see the new outlets… 120 volt AC and 12 volt DC off the back… Nice to have for when you really want easy power access to the outside… Not part of the original scope of work, but I saw the need and just did it…

The T-nuts are for mounting, without worry, the inverter… Wood screws might loosen and having that thing loose would be bad… Avoid the bad I always say…

For your information, that electrical work took about six hours…

(above) Back inside Jeepster… This just looks wrong… The frayness of it all… So I sanded the fiberglass, wiped it wet, spread some Poly-U adhesive then…

(above) … put this 1/8” plywood and Teak curb in place…

(above) Then it was fiberglassed / epoxied it in place…

Now the back cabin floor is isolated from the front… Forget about water or other stuff rolling forward to fall under the seats… now the rear cabin is like a big shower pan…

It also will be a natural curb for the teak floor (which will be removable) to bump up to… Hit the brakes hard and it won’t shift forward…

I also fiberglassed the floor to cabinet base-line… Now it is waterproof and further makes the new work tie seamlessly to the existing cabin / floor…

(above) At the end of a long day, a long week, I slowly closed up Jeep Earth Roam Deluxe, and thought about all that happened this week, and smiled a tied smile…

Time for a beer…

More later…

 

[Repo503]

Love how you cleaned up those wires. Owning a commercial electrical company my biggest pet peeve is opening a panel box and finding a rats nest. Sure everything works now, but if something goes wrong good luck tracking it down. Very nice work.

 

[JRhetts]

Eighteen…
(above) At the end of a long day, a long week, I slowly closed up Jeep Earth Roam Deluxe, and thought about all that happened this week, and smiled a tied smile…
Time for a beer…

Paul, I want to join the chorus of praise for your deign, your work, and your value system. What a terrific job and a wonderful opportunity to watch it come together [I know the vehicle well in its 'before' form.]

As Mike can tell you, I completely redid the interior [and more than a bit of the exterior] on our FusoFM; I wish I had had your input on both the design and the build. I am certain it would have improved what we achieved.

Best, John

 

[PaulJensen]

Nineteen...

Nineteen…

(above) Guess what we got over the weekend…???…

I better double check that the space heater is plugged in…Check…

Time to get stuff on the ‘To Get’ list…

(above) After an hour or so of mix and matching at Lowes, I have the the components to run the LPG gas from the propane locker to the driver side cabinet where it will supply the stove and heater…I also picked out a few things electrical…

(above) For connecting and allowing easy disconnect of the 120 volt wiring, I’ll use this block…There will be two additional sets of wires tying into the block, thus the jumpers…All soldered as you might expect…

You can also see the T-nuts for screwing the outlet to the wood panel…Wood screws aren’t good enough…

(above) Next it was time to get run the gas line…

I did a lot of research yesterday about what to use for this propane gas line inside the cabin…

Rubber tubing although much easier to install, has greater potential to leak than solid copper…Rubber tubing is meant to be used in well ventilated areas, like outside, connected to a barbeque… Although (some say) that copper is not recommended for natural gas (due to sulfur in the NG) all the sources I researched say it is excellent for LPG…

I used 3/8” soft copper tubing so there will be a continuous pipe run from just outside the propane locker, along the inside of the curb-side cabinet, through the battery compartment, under the floor, into the driver side cabinet, then up to where it will tee for distribution to the stove and heater…

This was seriously hard work…A lot of twists and turns with the pipe in tight areas…And though it’s called soft copper, it was reluctant to go where I wanted it too…The pulling and pushing was in 1/2” hard fought increments…My primary concern while muscling it into place was to not kink the tubing…

The soft copper pipe is initially flexible, but over time gets more rigid…Just what I want...

(above) To feed the tubing up along the cabinet, I needed to open up this panel to gain a way to pull the tubing…

(above) Where the tubing goes through the battery compartment I made sure (x2) that the copper pipe would be absolutely isolated from any contact with the electrical components…First I positioned the tubing in the neutral zone, then covered the copper with that cheesy plastic flex stuff…Later I’ll put foam pipe insulation over the gas pipe everywhere I have access…You just have to do this right…

I also put an 1/8” plywood panel on the sidewall to isolate the tubing and to lock it in place…Additionally it is positioned to further prevent the top battery from a shift backwards…The bottom battery has a plywood stop screwed to the floor…Both batteries are nylon strapped as well…

Through the whole installation of the gas pipe, I was putting the inverter panel in and out, checking and re-checking that the copper tubing and the electrical components have zero chance of movement…

(above) Looking down into the under-floor compartment…

Later I’ll put spray foam insulation at all potential chafing points…

(above) At the propane locker…

The copper connections are all soldered…

The threaded connections are Rector Sealed…

The solenoid will be connected to a propane leak sensor / kill switch…

(above) The whole tubing thing is softly tucked under the plywood rim…Again, I’ll insulate the pipe and strap the whole thing to the body…Safety with gas lines is everything…

(above) Next, I wanted to see if all the electrical work I did worked…Or at least see if I could raise the roof…

With some apprehension (hey, I’m human), I reconnected the vehicle battery… Next, while holding my breath, I turned the switch that turns on the house batteries aand, Nothing … I love the sound of quiet…!!!… Smoke free is nice too…

I started the Jeep (it’s been weeks since it was last run), then turned on the compressor switch to pressurize the air tank that puts air into the pistons that raise the roof…As you can see, it worked… Whew…

But… There is a leak in an air hose fitting, so the roof start to lower after about five minutes…Should be easy to fix…I’ll get new fittings…To keep the roof up until I replace those fittings, I cut two pieces of wood that fit next to the pistons…Good enough for now…

(above) With the roof lifted, I was able to get back into the cab-over…

The first thing I did was swear bad words over and over and over…It was still leaking…!!!…I got the water out, dried it with a towel and worked on getting the light ballasts off the floor…There were tall screws coming out of the lights and I bolted the ballasts to those…I also tied up the wiring …

(above) Better…

(not shown) The last thing I did was put a 3’ wide piece of brown paper on the cab-over floor to see where the leak in coming from…I’ll know tomorrow because it is snowing again tonight and I have a heater inside and it will warm the roof enough to melt and drip…

More later…

 

[kjp1969]

I'm sure that you know this, but the industry standard procedure for testing propane and NG line is to attach a pressure gauge, pressurize the line, shut all valves and then look for leakdown via the gauge. I think UBC or UPC requires it to hold pressure without moving for a minimum of 15 minutes. With that in mind (and while its all accessible) a permanently mounted gauge or at least a fitting mounted after the solenoid and accessible from the top hatch would assist in testing and future troubleshooting.

 

[pods8]

Nineteen…
I did a lot of research yesterday about what to use for this propane gas line inside the cabin…

Rubber tubing although much easier to install, has greater potential to leak than solid copper…Rubber tubing is meant to be used in well ventilated areas, like outside, connected to a barbeque… Although (some say) that copper is not recommended for natural gas (due to sulfur in the NG) all the sources I researched say it is excellent for LPG…

I've seen some chatter about using corrugated stainless steel tubing over soft copper but lots of folks use soft copper (and I probably will on my build as well). Main concern would be work hardening and rubbing issues so the better you can support/affix it in place and protect any rub areas the more worry free it will be. However CSST might have been easier to route in this application (bending without kink concerns).

 

[PaulJensen]

... a permanently mounted gauge or at least a fitting mounted after the solenoid and accessible from the top hatch would assist in testing and future troubleshooting.

I have a place on the drivers side to put a fitting in...I'm thinking a tee with a threaded cap...

Thanks for the tip...

 

[Pest]

We used copper tubing in our build. I hate the stuff, just a real pain to work with in my opinion. If I ever do another build I'm definitely using something else.

 

[Ford Prefect]

Yeah, I think that must be the hardest stuff you could possibly try to bend multiple times in multiple directions. Copper is such a pain in the butt. Once you get it in there it is great, but wow what a pain. I feel for you Paul, good luck! I hope for no leaks first try!

Brian

 

[PaulJensen]

Twenty...

(above) It continues…

(above) Yesterday at the end of the day, I rolled out some paper with the expectation of it identifying where the latest leak is coming from…Looks like this one is originating on the wall on the drivers side…

(above) I’m thinking it’s from the wrap-around awning mounting bracket…???…

(above) Driver side fabric overhang…

(above) Up front…The leak is not coming from up here…

(above) Rear corner…It’s not getting in here either…The new gasket is working fine…

(above) The curb side is fine…

(above) Lifting up the curb side front flap…Dry, but hardly sealed…
I’ll get to the leak later…
Next it’s back to the inside…

(above) Spray foam insulation was shot in to keep the wires and pipe from shifting or moving…I put clear packing tape over the hole to keep the foam from expanding up too muck…I’d rather have it spread down and inward…

(above) It was then time to start on the slide-out bed…First I made a pattern of the base length, then I hot-glued on vertical and roof line pieces…
The bed support design will use the cab-over roof as an element in the resistive up loading once the bed is extended and loaded…The roof is sturdy and a great way to help distribute the overall bed load…

(above) I pulled out the mock up to help me remember how the design works…Not so complicated…

(above) The pull-out and drawer guide base is built…1/2” ply for the sides, 1/4” ply for the bottom and back…

(above) I scribed and trimmed the top edge a few times to get the fit just right…

(above) Next was the lamination of the scored foam panel with carbon fiber cloth…An all plywood pull-out would be pretty heavy so the foam / CF panels are built to reduce the weight that will be moved in two directions when the bed is unfolded and set-up to sleep…

(above) I slowly roll out the cloth along a ‘score line’, then tape it along that line…

(above) After that the other edges are carefully aligned then taped…

(above) I need two panels…Notice the nails tacked through the foam to the work table…That is to keep the panel from being anything other than flat…The back plastic is great to work over because cured epoxy does not stick to it…

(above) I measure and mixed the epoxy then used the foam roller to spread the epoxy, always rolling out in one direction…Back and forth leads to wrinkles…After the epoxy is saturated, the squeege (made from a cut vertical window blind) the carbon cloth is pushed down onto the foam…Just using a roller will not get the foam down hard and flat to the foam…

(above) Two panels laminated up front and the bed base is coated with epoxy in the back…Everything is designed to be leaked upon…I hope not, but build for it…
More bed work tomorrow if the power is still on…The weather forecast is calling for record snow overnight…I hope they are wrong…

 

[pods8]

Any reason you're using a piece of window blind as a squeegee rather than the basic ones used for auto body work?

With all the fiberglass/foamcore work I'm been doing I've found a 4" squeegee to be my favorite (I can get good/even pressure on it) and when working on flat horizontal surfaces I don't bother with a roller. Just skim a coat of epoxy down (most of the time but not always, situation dictates), lay on the pre-fit fabric and straighten it. Poor the epoxy on and spread it around with the squeegee and let it soak into the fabric. Then start in the center and drag outwards to work out all the air and excess epoxy. But I'm letting the fabric overhang a bit and just trim it flush when partially cured. The roller can come in handy for overhead and vertical stuff though. My $.02

 

[PaulJensen]

Any reason you're using a piece of window blind as a squeegee rather than the basic ones used for auto body work?

Because I like them...

I've used hard rubber surfboard squeegees, slick plastic 'bondo speader" squeegees, handmade cork squeegees (Portugal), and thin plywood squegees...

What I like about the recycled blind squeegees is that you can cut them to any size from 1" to 2'+ with scissors...Custom sized for what the job requires...I also like the flex they have...They also have a slight rounded ridge on the edge that pulls real nice... Depending on which side you flex the window blind squeegee you can control the flex as the material requires...One side of the blind has convex ridges, the other side concave...and finally, one set of recycled blinds supplies me with squeegees for a year or two, and I do a lot of glassing...

The bondo spreader type is too rigid and has too fine of an edge, in my opinion...


The roller works well for keeping the resin saturation fairly even when using a scored core...Pour and squeegeeing can lead to uneven saturation...

If I'm working with fiberglass, I'll often do as you do...Wet-out the material then apply the glass...

On this project I'm making a 30" panel with 30" CF, thus the taping in place to maintain straight even edges...Precision matters on this one...

 

[pods8]

With all the flex it's still doing a good job of pulling out the excess resin/air? I liked the rigid spreader on flat stuff, but hey whatever works!

 

[Overland Hadley]

...Pour and squeegeeing can lead to uneven saturation...

I also found this to be the case, and I still find it odd.