Wildcat Lodge

[Wildcat]

more light cover pics. And pictures of repairing the crotch rot in the back door. We cut out the bad spot and fabbed up a piece, welded and then began to bondo.

[Wildcat]

it started raining - so we re-installed the door to keep things dry. We have sanding and probably two more coats of bondo left until she's done (the back door that is)

[jkindt]

With all the welding and smoothing and body work you are doing, I am a bit surprised you didnt weld in the light covers at the top and smooth them in as well. Great job on the back door, can't wait to see what it looks like when its done.

[Jarlaxle]

Who's the crazy old guy messing with your plumbing in the first pic?

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by jkindt

With all the welding and smoothing and body work you are doing, I am a bit surprised you didnt weld in the light covers at the top and smooth them in as well. Great job on the back door, can't wait to see what it looks like when its done.

Thanks - we thought we wanted to weld/smooth at first, but then after the cabinets covered every access panel up on the inside, we decided to leave some form of access on the outside. Plus we kinda like the look.

Who's the crazy old guy messing with your plumbing in the first pic?

The old crazy guy is our good buddy Doug who has been to some level of degree involved in all of our projects going back 30 years when we renovated a home built in 1898. He oozes common sense so we love it when he stops by.

Not very picture worthy, but today we are hanging curtain rods and other interior accessory items which have been specified by the female members of the family.

[JakeC]

Do you know if your tanks were abs or polypropylene? If so, you're in luck and your fix should work. If they were made with polyethylene, you are eventually going to have problems. I actually used to weld and fabricate plastic tanks of all sorts. Polyethylene is extremely difficult, almost impossible, to get anything to adhere to. Welding it is the only option for a permanent seal. You are correct, the welder you had was junk. A proper plastic welder has a tube to feed the plastic rod through (it's pretty much impossible to get a solid plastic weld without a filler rod), and then a tube below that with a HOT air blast to evenly melt both the rod and the material you are welding. For welding a tank like that, I would have also used pure nitrogen for my air supply. I am really hoping your tanks are not polyethylene!!

[jkindt]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

Thanks - we thought we wanted to weld/smooth at first, but then after the cabinets covered every access panel up on the inside, we decided to leave some form of access on the outside. Plus we kinda like the look.

...and that makes perfect sense. I have been fighting with previously installed cabinets and stuff while trying to get access to the windows to cover them up properly. Basically had to remove everything just to get the window out from behind the refridgerator. My new interior will take more of this into account.

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by JakeC

Do you know if your tanks were abs or polypropylene? If so, you're in luck and your fix should work. If they were made with polyethylene, you are eventually going to have problems. I actually used to weld and fabricate plastic tanks of all sorts. Polyethylene is extremely difficult, almost impossible, to get anything to adhere to. Welding it is the only option for a permanent seal. You are correct, the welder you had was junk. A proper plastic welder has a tube to feed the plastic rod through (it's pretty much impossible to get a solid plastic weld without a filler rod), and then a tube below that with a HOT air blast to evenly melt both the rod and the material you are welding. For welding a tank like that, I would have also used pure nitrogen for my air supply. I am really hoping your tanks are not polyethylene!!

Thanks JakeC for the information - I will look into the type of plastic. I hope we are ok, but if not, then unfortunately we'll have to replace. So far it is holding okay. I will keep you posted.


We have mostly finished the rear door. Here are some pics.

[Wildcat]

We also fabbed up a new cover for all the wiring going from the cabinet to the chase in the ceiling. With all the romex, we had to more than double the size of the original chase.

[Wildcat]

We finished out the upper cabinet and the back door. You can see we were able to re-install the fans and the sun shade which should help going down the road.

[Wildcat]

Another design change encompassed the stereo. I pulled an older all in one theater system from my basement and it came with satellite speakers which should work nice, but the sub woofer was quite large. We modified the front cabinet to handle the speaker. Who knows how it will sound, but we couldn't think of anything else.

[Wildcat]

Here's one I forgot to post. We installed a dead bolt on the side door. The door was too thin to install the keyhole on the outside, but this allows us to at least secure it from the inside. The biggest benefit from this site is learning from others which is where this idea came from (but I forgot where I saw it first). We will try to key the back door which is a bit thicker.

[Wildcat]

Smitty - we've been up and down that ladder about a gazillion times, so we though we should memorialize it


We started the exterior this weekend with a good wash of the bus. We borrowed a 3500 psi washer with sand injector. We used the get the rough stuff off the rub rails which are a pain to sand. The rest of the bus simply got high pressure water and will get the wrath of a couple of random orbital sanders over the next couple of days. Action shots as follows:

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted by Smitty

Why did you hang a picture of a ladder on the rear door??

Looks great!

Smitty

I just spit water on my cat. Wiseass.

[Wildcat]

We're officially a RV now. The Deputy Fire Marshall came by and inspected the bus for $60. We then took his report, original plate and the title to the county clerk and for a $35 fee they issued a new recreational vehicle title and plate. Here's a picture of the inspection report checklist for those interested (albeit a bit fuzzy).

[BUSBOZO]

I know what you mean regarding the I-phone distorting the pictures. I thought it was just mine sometimes.

[Wildcat]

We've been doing a bunch of sanding. Where we have gotten down to bare metal we are putting a bit of primer back on before we shoot the whole bus for the first time. Here are some progress pics.

[Wildcat]

We also spent a little time on the inside by hooking up the satellite speakers under the overhead cabinet and an indoor HD TV antenna. Going down the road the antenna sits in the overhead cabinet and when stopped it will rest on the steering wheel. With the closest tv tower currently being 45 miles away, we still are able to pick up about 10 HD channels. The rear speakers we mounted on the overhead cabinets in the kitchen. By the way the bass speaker in the cabinet with cloth doors works surprisingly well.

[Wildcat]

Smitty - we are looking into external antennas, but haven't made up our minds. The current one is a temporary fix.

Here are some more action shots of filling, sanding, and priming. We tinted the primer (applied with a roller) which approximates the final color. When we get it all done we will re-evaluate to see if we still like it. We were thinking of a chocloate color band on the bottom for a two tone look.

[Wildcat]

one more action shot