The Roach Motel

[roach711]

Yeah, that is a lot of glass but several others on this forum have used this door with no problems reported (fingers crossed). It is laminated glass which should be pretty durable. They make windshields out of it after all.

[Bullwhacker007]

Nice door.
My suggestion in the future is replace the glass with Lexan; a brick will bounce off of that.

[roach711]

Lexan is certainly tough stuff and if the existing glass should ever break I'll probably go that route. Maybe put in some of the bullet proof stuff the banks use. Nonetheless, this door is sold as a security storm door. I read multiple reviews where it had prevented burglars from entering houses. They broke the glass, of course, but the bad guys couldn't force the door open.

I spent the afternoon trimming out the stairway and that's taken twice as long as it took to lay the linoleum in the first place. The first step had to be raised 3 inches in order for the door to seal and I put a lot of effort into keeping water out.

Tomorrow it's off to the frame shop for some front end work. The front tires are wearing on the inside and steering is a bit sloppy so I expect some new tie rod ends are in my future. Repairing the brakes was cheaper than I had feared so I'm probably in for a big bill here. Easy come, easy go.

[roach711]

The frame shop replaced one of the tie rod ends and aligned the front end. Now it steers way better than before with no slop.

While driving to the shop I kept an eye on the storm door and so far it seems very stable with no rattling or glass movement. It is a HUGE window and will definitely be getting a curtain soon. It's a bit like driving in a fish bowl.

Memorial Day is coming up fast and I want to get the bed frame in and a passenger seat bolted down this weekend. I also want to get the bus out on the highway to see how it handles at freeway speeds before taking off for the weekend. My relatives have a neat little secluded campsite about 200 miles away and if there are any problems remaining I want to know about them before taking off for the woods.

[roach711]

Another productive weekend. The passenger seat is bolted in, the bed frame is in place, the water tank and water pump are installed and I got a start on the shower walls. The rest of the shower walls will go in once I have the electrical and plumbing routed around the shower.

Here's the passenger seat. Once I tie the seat belt into the wheelchair door frame wifey can finally have a ride. You can see the 2x4 base for the kitchen cabinet in the background. Instead of building a toe kick into the cabinet I'll build a simple plywood box 3" wider than the 2x4 base and screw it onto the base. The base will do double duty this weekend and act as a corral for our cooler. Otherwise, that sucker would be sliding all over the place while we drive.



The bed frame with water tank and water pump below. One shower wall is up and the porta potti is sitting about where it will ultimately live. We decided to go with the original floor plan and clip the bed frame and mattress to give us a wider aisle. The bed frame won't be fastened down so it can be lifted for access to the storage below. Ultimately it will be kept from sliding forward by a closet.

[ol trunt]

That's an unusual floor plan. It looks real livable. You won't even notice the bite out of the bed. I've camped for years out of various Suburbans that required a similar cut to accommodate the spare wheel. No big deal.

[roach711]

My daily driver van is in the shop so Roachie is getting daily use this week. On my way home from work I passed the freeway on ramp, thought "what the hell" and took a little 40 mile road trip. Steering is much improved from before and it ran swimmingly. Sweet spot, speed-wise is right at 65 mph. I took it up to 75 and it ran fine but just seemed a bit unhappy at that speed. I'm in no hurry so 65 is fine with me. I'll find an 18-wheeler or big RV to draft and save some gas.

Up until yesterday I had no idea how I was going to put screens in my windows and side door. One of our Skoolie members came up with a great solution for the windows and I found a curtain screen for the side door. It's called the Phifer QuikScreen and really works well. Cheap, too, at $20. Picked mine up at Home Depot.

[Stuff]

what all did you have to do to get the seat fully bolted down?

[roach711]

what all did you have to do to get the seat fully bolted down?

I lucked out bolting the passenger seat in. The battery box, stairwell and frame rail are all right in that area. Fortunately I only had to adjust my planned seat position by an inch or two inboard to have clear access to the bolts where they went through the floor. There is a steel pan below the plywood floor in that area so I didn't even have to use the big washers I saved from the demolition phase. I spent a fair amount of time under the bus measuring to be sure the bolt holes wouldn't be blocked by something impenetrable under the floor. What I should have done was drill small exploratory pilot holes in the floor BEFORE I insulated and laid down the finish floor.

When I insulated the floor I put a square of plywood under the seat area instead of insulation board so the floor wouldn't buckle when I cranked down on the seat bolts. The seat is on an RV seat swivel so it can be used as part of the dinette seating when that gets built.

One problem I ran into was the seat belts. With the seat moved out away from the wall the lap/shoulder belts weren't long enough if I bolted the retractor to the seat swivel where it would normally be attached. I finally had to bolt the retractor onto the wheelchair door frame near the ceiling in order to get enough length. The arrestor mechanism works fine in that position.

I was able to re-use one of the original equipment seat belts but had to purchase a plastic stiffener for the belt latch attached to the aisle side of the seat. The original latch-side belt was too long for the stiffener and had to be shortened and re-sewed. I'm sure that The Powers That Be would frown on THAT.

Fastening the seat down was fairly straight forward but the seat belts were a pain. Whoda thunk it?

[roach711]

Roachie's maiden voyage didn't happen on Memorial Day. The relatives had too many toys to haul up to the campsite (three 4-wheelers, a log splitter, two lawn mowers and 5 big coolers) so we loaded the overflow on our trailer. The bus doesn't have a trailer hitch so I dragged it all up north with my daily driver van. I was a bit relieved because I'm not entirely confident in the bus's reliability, but ironically it was the van that broke down. I had it in for service the week before and the geniuses at the GM stealership replaced my arcing plug wires but didn't replace the coil wire. Guess which wire was arcing like mad when I tried to start it to come home? When I confronted him the little bastard service guy at the dealer tried to tell me that coil wires don't come with some sets and offered to sell me one for $40. Yes, I expect to get bent over at the stealership but at least I want quality work for triple what the job is worth. (end of rant)

Since then, I did a coolant flush which officially finishes off my maintenance checklist (yay!) I also finished off all my window screens (thanks Ptootie), plumbed in the sink and shower drains, got the shore power hatch cut in and got most of the PEX plumbing roughed in.

Drains plumbed into the grey tank


The shower drain


The water tank is installed under the bed platform


Plumbing and electrical mostly roughed in


This week I'm going to start rubbing out the fiberglass body.

[ol trunt]

I'm sure I missed it but what is your floor covering? It looks good and looks not to need high maintence?

[roach711]

The floor is some jute-backed linoleum that was left over from a previous renovation at the building where I work. It is nice, heavy stuff but was a bear to work with, especially for a first-timer like myself.

[roach711]

I've spent the last week sanding out the fiberglass body in preparation for buffing and polishing. That is WAY too much like work!

Where the tape stripes were is nice, shiny fiberglass while the rest is oxidized and dull. I started out wet sanding with 600 grit wet/dry paper but that wasn't aggressive enough to blend the two areas so I got some 400 grit paper which did a pretty fair job even if I did have to go over it several times. Surprisingly, the 400 grit left the fiberglass with a low gloss which was way better than what it was before. I followed the 400 grit with a quick pass with 600 grit then another pass with 1000 grit (all wet sanded). I can still barely see where the stripes and lettering was and I'm hoping the rubbing compound will erase all traces of them. Stay tuned.

The roof, in particular, was a rough, dark, nasty grey which soap and a sponge wouldn't budge. The sandpaper took the grunge off quickly and left a smooth surface. I have one more side to sand out then I'll use some rubbing compound and a low-speed buffer to bring back the gloss. After THAT cones a pass with polishing compound then a good coat of wax.

I also sanded, primed and painted my rusty wheelchair door frame, patched a big chip at the back corner of the body and built an accumulator for the water system. The idea is to trap some air in the system which will be compressed when the water pump runs. The next time water is needed the trapped air will force water out giving the water pump a rest. I just used some 4" PVC pipe with a tee at the bottom. It'll be a while before I can test it out.

Here's the body patch. I used Bondoglass to patch the chip then sanded it smooth with 80 grit sandpaper. after I took this shot I put on a coat of white gellcoat and tomorrow I'll sand out the gellcoat. Hopefully I won't have to put on another layer of gellcoat.



This is the cobbled up accumulator

[ol trunt]

Your air tank should do the job. They used to use a vertical section of pipe next to the old fashioned radiators in buildings to buffer the energy of the steam going through the system. Worked then, works now. I still want your floor!

[roach711]

Your air tank should do the job. They used to use a vertical section of pipe next to the old fashioned radiators in buildings to buffer the energy of the steam going through the system. Worked then, works now. I still want your floor!

Yeah, I couldn't think of any reason why it wouldn't work. All it's missing is the diaphram separating the air and water. In time air in the chamber might combine with the water so I put in a bleeder valve at the top to make it easier to drain down the water.