Upgrading

[Shalydra]

So after a year and a half of living in my tiny 14ft cardinal trailer, events have aligned to allow me an upgrade (and with luck the ability to get rid of my storage unit).


I just took a walk through and shook hands on a new-to-me rig. The paperwork and money and all will be handled monday, what with banks being closed and all, but the PO says it's mine.


I'll be posting photos tuesday when I have a chance to take em. Assuming nothing goes catastrophically wrong between now and monday evening, of course. The new rig is a 30ft 1985 Georgie Boy Excalibor.

Rig is in decent condition for the price. Nice enough that it runs beautifully and won't rewuire too much work to be liveable (as is it's in better condition than the trailer I have been in). Has a few issues of course, so what follows is the beginning of my to-do list.


Right off the bat there are 4 small spots where the fiberglass exterior needs repaired. The person who went with me says just one small patch kit from the local hardware store will have plenty of material to do all the repairs and they're gonna teach me so i can do it myself. 


A few of the windows could benefit from a reseal.
Next urgent repair is the black water tank needs replaced. about 2 years back one of the tires blew and shattered one corner of the tank.


There are a few patches of dry rot in the walls that should be ok after treatment with a hardener. I had luck with this in key areas of my trailer but it was too pricy to do the entire rig - one of the reasons I was looking for my next rig.

The fridge stopped working about 2-3 years ago. I'm hoping it'll fix with a nice burp, but not overly concerned - there's a minifridge i've been eyeing sold at sears that would be ample for my needs and let me have space to build an extra cabinet or shelf if the existing one is a dud. (might just do that anyways and sell the pretty original fridge).

The rear twin beds have been converted to a king. I'm going to pull the mattress out to swap back to two twins in the short run. In the long run I'll pull one twin out entirely and build in a 'home office' space and a sewing table on one side. I'll build up the other twin into more storage shelves and cabinetry.

There are two soft spots in the floor. Short term plan is to lay 3/4in ply over the floor (salvaged from the king bed conversion) and lay stick on tile on top of that (bonus there's a box of stick on tiles included).

The generator needs a bit of work. Makes purdy sounds when you turn it on but it doesn't fully turn over. Given that it's just sat for the past 10 years aside from a once a year camping trip, it probably just needs a good cleaning.

The gas gauge needs to be replaced.

I plan to convert the front dinette into a daybed and add little flip-up tables mounted to the existing seatbacks for when a table space is needed.

Need to add a snacktray/tabletop to the top of the engine cover.

There are a handful of low priority wiring issues. Mostly just this or that feature intentionally disconnected to keep PO's kids from messing with it.

All that said, I'm certain there will be other issues - I haven't found yet. But if I didn't have a long list of things to tinker with, fix and improve, I'd get bored. 

[acenjason]

Sounds like a nice rig:)

[Shalydra]

NO time for photos yet.  N:(

I have it! 


PO had a work issue so had to visit dmv and do the delivery a day later than planned. No big deal, but a lot of nail biting with time passing.

On the upside, in exchange for the delay we talked him into having his kids help him remove the king sized mattress in the back. Odd request turned into a boon, a daughter in law was bemoaning the fact he sold it with "the good one" inside. PO got to deal with a huge mattress, His daughter in law is happy, and I managed to get away without needing to rehome a huge california king pillowtop mattress with no boxspring. 

Today I and my aunt worked on it from dawn to dark. We took a ton of pictures but haven't had time to download them from the camera yet.


The fiberglass gash proved to be more of a nightmare than initially thought. PO owned it for 10 years prior to me. He didn't know it was there when we found it on first inspection. It was covered in remnants of some kind of plastic and vinyl tape that had lettering spelling "Dealer Protection, Owner Remove" which I assume means at some point this rig sat in a used dealer lot with a plastic temporary patch to keep the rain out of the hole - the intention being that the new owner would fix it. That said it appears to have just been left to rot into the fiberglass. There was little left of the plastic - the main gash was fully visible if you were on the ladder. But there was a lot of the tape with the vinyl letters fused with age into the surrounding surface and masking the large cracks.  D:oH!

Took most of the day to scrape that off enough to even sand. That said I did have enough time to put the first layer of new fiberglass down, so it is sealed for the night. Planning on adding a second layer tomorrow for strength. I have before-during-and current pics. Due to the size of the patch (the piece of woven fiberglass mat I installed to cover the entire warren of damage was about 20x26inches) I am doing a hard edged patch and am going to paint it later to look like a fake access panel. Much simpler than trying to feather the edges or make it 'perfect'. Bonus point - I have a new skill! First time working with fiberglass. My advisors both claim I've done really well for a first attempt.
Tomorrow I finish the fiberglass patch. There are a few other spots of fiberglass that are damaged but they are just normal wear and don't need urgent repair like this one.

The other thing on the table for tomorrow is to scrape and peel up the old seals on the roof. We picked away at some of it today. With luck we will get the roof cleaned up enough to apply new seals. Then it's on to painting a new roof coating. Have the 5 gallon bucket ready for when we get to it. Also have a rapidly closing window of good weather, but rain is expected next week so the roof is the priority - once the rains up here start they could last through till spring.

As for the interior. the cabinet doors are falling to pieces and need replaced. They've clearly been reglued before and we are just going to pull the hardware from them. get their measurements and replace them with some wood we already have. Single panel, simple, modern cabinet doors. They won't be as stylish as the original ones but they also won't split into 4-5 pieces all over the rig either.

While I was on the roof my partner in crime (currently co-owner until I pay off the loan) worked inside, cleaning and doing prep work for the inside stuff we'll do next week.

We worked together to remove the two sheets of half inch ply that lay overtop of the two twin beds in the back room (previously supporting a cal king mattress).

There was some thin hardwood tongue in groove paneling that a PO had installed poorly (i.e. with a staple gun) in the back room which was falling off the walls. She pulled the remainder from the walls with her bare hands. there were 4 boards that required use of a screw driver to free and that was only because curtain rod hardware was attached through them. When the last screw came out they fell free.

On the downside, she found some pretty significant damage behind the paneling. One section of about 3 square feet of rear wall crumbled on contact with fresh air. We are planning to replace it with a piece of wood bearing the factory finish that will be pulled from the base of the wardrobe closet. The wardrobe closet bottom will get replaced with a pretty piece of plywood I have which looks almost like birds-eye. On a different wall, the original paneling is mostly gone, leaving a paper thin layer remaining. Current plan is to coat that with wood hardener. Wood filler the few little holes then cover it with a new paneling sheet that won't match.

A side of the wardrobe is loose because a PO installed poorly made shelves which fell and wedged in place forcing the wall to bow outward. It's fixable but requires pulling up its bottom panel to be able to re-secure the wall. This frees that panel up to be the new back corner wall, while one of the shelves - the pretty birds-eye-esque ply piece becomes the new, sturdier bottom of my wardrobe. Much sturdier since it's 1/4inch thicker than the piece the factory installed. Hm?


Some of the Carpet was already removed while other places still had carpeting. My last task today was razoring and pulling out the nasty carpet that had been the walkway between the twins. Soon as it was gone, so was the funky smell. We nicknamed it POS - Previous Owner Stench.


Found a few other minor issues we weren't aware of before purchase, but mostly simple things that just need a few new screws to firm back up.

As a side bonus, we also discovered the new rig has a nice stereo system we didn't notice before.   

I've been taking a ton of pics (enough I'm debating getting a flicker account or something similar to post and save bandwidth for the site). I've been insisting all the way through on lots of photos of everything. open a cabinet and find things the PO left behind? Take a photo, then pull it out.  :)rotflmao 


So as it stands now, the Excalibor is mine - with a co-owner while I pay back the loan. The main fiberglass damage point is half patched and will be done (aside from final sanding and painting) tomorrow. We have a good weather window and are scrambling to get all the main roof issues solved before that changes. Photos will be posted as soon as we have the time - probably when the roof is done or the rain hits, whichever comes first.  i??  Unless of course my back goes out on me first - in which case ya'll will be getting photos with lengthy descriptions. 


We are still working on designing the remodel plan for the back room so that it will become a fully utilized space for me and accommodate my ADA needs. Incidentally, people driving past react entertainingly to someone hobbling around with a cane on the roof.  :)rotflmao


More when I have the time. fell asleep twice typing this up. 

[DonD]

    

[TerryH]

Where do you find these things?

[Mytdawg]

I prefer the fighter model over the commercial job...   

[Shalydra]

Hehehe. loving those pics. on lunch break. Day two of scraping the PO's mess off the roof.

Most of the roof is a beautiful aluminum sheet. Unfortunatly anywhere there is an edge or a screw or a vent, it was surrounded by layers of caulk, different kinds of sealants, and roofing tar. :,(

On the upside we're down to just a few of the roof fixture surrounds and about 25 ft of the edging. things are looking plausable for finishing today.

On the downside the property next to where I am working has apiaries, and they're swarming. I get an off rig lunch today because we just gave the rig a soapy rinse to deter them from setting up camp in my ac unit. soon as the roof dries I'll be back up there.

[Shalydra]

Quick check-in.

One week from the day I got my new rig. Currently waiting for the morning fog and dew to burn off so I can put a second coating on the roof. The past two days have had massive progress because we got past all the gunk scraping. Side note: foaming bathroom cleanser and a wire BBQ cleaning brush work wonders for getting tar residue off of aluminum. Not so good for getting it off fiberglass though.

Day before yesterday I partially dislocated my elbow sanding and scrubbing the roof, but it got done! Yesterday we power washed the roof then applied some Alex plus caulk to all the seams and holes. Gave it an hour in hot sun to dry then swabbed the first layer of silicone onto the roof. Forgetting at the moment the name of the coating I am using but it is interesting stuff.
Really nasty if you get it on your fingers though, almost like touching slug slime only thicker.
Going to check weather soon as the world dries up. Rain is expected by tonight. Worst case scenario right now though is that it just wether's it as is. One coat of silicone sealant and the caulk should be fine short term.

On sat and sun a friend came down with a multimeter and tested the wiring. Made a few repairs where the po had disconnected things to keep his kids from messing with them. Fridge now has power but still isn't working. Hydraulic levelers have power but aren't working - there is something wrong with the pump. One 12v cigarette lighter style outlet in the back we couldn't get working but everything else is at least getting power. Didn't touch the generator yet, it needs a cleaning before anything else is done to it, the friend doing the electric testing looked at it in passing and noticed a buildup of oil around its exhaust port so I've been ordered to not touch it until it has at least been cleaned.

[pvoth1111]

The pump may not work if the E-brake is not set....

[Shalydra]

Touching base.

Put a new engine battery in. there is still a question on the status of the coach battery's ability to hold a charge. Haven't fussed with the levelers for a few days - waiting for my electrical guy to have another day to spare for me. when we were trying them we got enough power to drop one jack to about a 45deg angle then the pump would die and about 5-10 min later we could get it to retract it again. It was making some nasty noises so we're not touching it for the moment.

Got one coat on the roof when I last posted then the rains hit and my health tanked. Got the second coat on today. the stuff is called Gacocoat. Planning on a third coat because the first one was too thin - though still highly effective. The new roof is nicely hydrophobic. Water just beads up on it like a nasturtium leaf. It doesn't evap as quickly but when needed it is easy to clean and if i need to dry it just swiping a rag over top and the water just about jumps into the rag.

Sorry again for lack of photos but there's been an issue getting the owner of the camera used to transfer the pics to me so I can post them. we also 'lost' about 3 days of photos when a card reformated instead of downloaded so the bulk of the roofing aside from the before shots is gone. I'll get after shots tomarrow when I go up to paint liquid electrical tape on the wires to the tv antenna and the airhorn. The coatings are cracking and my electrical guy suggested trying the liquid electrical tape as a patch until we have time and inclination to figure out if they need to be replaced entirely.

It turns out that the day I dislocated my elbow I also dislocated my clavicle/shoulder joint. like my elbow it has been happilly relocated and I've recovered enough that the pain is down to ignorable levels, and i can flex my dominate hand enough to do things like hold tools, grip doorknobs and work a mouse and keyboard again without feeling like my arm is going to fall off. Fortunatly I got really sick to coincide with this and was able to take a few days to just recuperate.

My partner in crime has been busilly working in my absence, mostly cleaning but allso removing leftover broken parts. For example there was some wiring for a cb antenna that is no longer attached, likewise boldted to the engine house was a mount for the cb but no cb. both have been removed now (and the resultant exterior holes caulked there applicable). She has discovered the reason behind the 'wiggly' dash board is that the wood structure that is supposed to hold it on the drivers side is largely missing and as a result of one point of attachment being gone, and the other 3 being unsecured properly by a PO, the dash had fallen forward and was actually sitting on the engine cover, atop a bed of wiring harness. (cringe) this is the top thing to fix tomarrow. it is temporarilly propped up off the wiring at present.

In positive news, the last thing I did before getting horridly sick was a DMV visit. Title is now officially in my and my aunt's names, and we have a Temporary Operating Permit good until the 15th of next month so we can take the rig to get smogged or visit a mechanic at relative leisure. That said the first (and hopefully only) appointment with the smog station is wednesday. DMV also had me update all the paperwork to specify a 1984 rig rather than a 1985 one. Flipping through some of the old paperwork shows the DMV to be correct on the year.

The more I work on this rig the more i get a distinctly female impression. No names have jumped out yet, though it took almost a month for Addam to give me his, so I can be patient on that. That said I've been getting some strange looks from friends when I refer to my 'Georgie Boy' as a girl.

Still have a ways to go before this girl is ready for me to move in but we're making pretty good progress.

Did a run through the Manuals section while flipping through the papers I have from PO's. Got a lot of downloads that are in better condition than the pages I have. Found a few that I have which aren't there. Going to digitize em on a slow day so I can print replacements (water damage and mold on the origionals). Plus it will be nice to have a few 'binders' of manuals. Have one already. A friend printed me the p30 chassis service manual which now lives in a 3 ring binder.

[JessEm]

Nowhere does it say 'Georgie Boy' can't be a girl. 



W%

[M & J]

Or at least a wannabe.