Since the last post where I started the carpeting, Nina had to be used to pick up and store a load of pallets I was lucky enough to acquire for free. I have a few uses for them, including some decking, a bit of garden furniture, and the main reason I started looking for some, to turn in to some driftwood type cupboard doors for Nina.
I have now found a home (kind of) for the pallets for now, and after moving a ride on mower in her (going to miss the 'lugging' space when Nina has the kitchen built) I took the opportunity (and emptiness) to crack on with a few jobs.
If you remember in the last post with the roof light, I mentioned that the carpeting I had done before had started peeling back down in all this heat we have been experiencing lately, and I suspect the contact adhesive I used to stick the glue up was probably out of date or something. I ordered some more adhesive a while back, and my first job was to peel the carpet right down on both sides to the tops of the window frames.
This was absolutely nescessary because where the roof curves at the top, there were air pockets appearing as the carpet was coming away from the fibreglass.
The new glue was great, it came out of the can differently to last time, the glue was thicker, and it coated really well. After coating both the fibreglass and the carpet, and waiting a few minutes, I started reapplying the carpet, and wow, what a difference, the carpet practically got sucked back on and straight away was stuck solid, one part I did get slightly off, I had to pull back off and realign, took some pulling to get back off, and it was pretty hot again today ! (I did have my small window open, the side door open, the back doors open, my new roof light open and my roof fan going full blast which may have helped a bit !).
A while back I found these tools in B&M to help the carpet contact the fibreglass better, and they worked brilliantly, the wallpaper spreader pushed the carpet in to place and the roller pushed it right in to the curves where it stayed.
I definitely recommend them if you are doing the same thing. The roller is great for going over the edges and seams too.
With the carpet all reattached.....
.....with a little help from Tiz and Barney....
.....I decided to tidy up the wiring ready for the roof panel to go back up, which was all a bit of an organised mess....
.... so taped all the new wire runs together, and pulled the wiring in to the places they need to be for the final wire and connection. I also fed the solar panel wiring to the rear where the batteries will be.
Once I was happy with that, I wanted to carpet the roof panel and put it back up, I'm so impatient to see the tunnel effect when all three surfaces are are covered, then I remembered that the side door needs doing, and the small roof piece above the side door which requires some dismantling. So thats what I started.
First to come down was the side door step light, I am going to keep this light, its very useful, and I have already replaced its bulb with a modern LED cree bulb. It is currently powered along with the rear door one when the sidelights are turned on, but I intend to rewire them to the leisure battery seperately, at least with this side door one so it can be used as an entrance light when rhe awning is in use.
This next part to dismantle is the grab handle that helps you in and out, I did intend to keep this as I use it all the time when going in and out, but now that it is off, I'm not sure. It does make it feel like there is more space around the door area without it, and I can hold on to the door frame if I need to. That said, the grab bar hints at Nina's former life as an Ambulance, and it may be that I out it back, but maybe sprayed a different colour in keeping with the rest of the interior.
Once that was done, I masked up the rubber door seal, so I didnt inadvertantly glue the side door to it, cut some carpet to size, then again, coated both the fibreglass and the new piece of carpet, and waited a few minutes for the glue to become tacky, and at its strongest. Up it went, and after a couple of tries, got it in the right position and rollered it in to the curve and indents.
Again, the join will be less noticeable once the carpet is 'brushed' together with a stiff or wire brush. Trimmed off the excess, reattached the light fitting and its all looking good :).
My next job gave me a little bit of a headache, the side door wasnt going to be the easiest job to do, and I think I put it off last time because of that. First thing I did was unscrew the grab bar at the bottom and remove it completely, giving me more access to the door, then I stripped the door down from the inside. Amazingly, the cavities in the door were stuffed with insulation, just as the walls were, when converting to an Ambulance, they did a really good job, and were thorough, thats what makes these ex Ambulances such good bases for camper vans.
By this time, I still didn't have a plan of action, and wasn't sure how to tackle everything. Did I completely cover the side door top to bottom, which wasn't going to be very easy at all unless I took the side door off completely and put it on stands. Should I just carpet the two panels and the window frame ?
It was time for advice, and after speaking to Jen and a fellow DIY campervan builder, Austin (aka Scudocamper on youTube), down in Somerset, we all thought it was best to carpet the panels and leave some white showing, though with the top panel, it would be fairly easy to just carpet right across and cover up all the white.
Thanks for the advice Jen and Austin ! Helped me stop dithering ;).
Once again I cut a piece of carpet that matched the shape of the top of the door, and glued that on.
Next, I rolled out some carpet, and placed the big lower panel face down on it, drew a line around it with a marker pen, and using scissors cut it out to exact,y the same shape as the panel, glued it to the panel, then found all the screw holes around the edge, pushed through the carpet through the holes, making way for a new set of shiny screws to be started, so I didnt have to worry about finding the right holes when I was actually fitting the panel back on.
This helped enourmously, and I will do the same with the roof panel when the time comes.
Sadly, the light had faded, it was around 9.30pm, and as I had removed all the internal lights in Nina to make way for the new LED Christmas Vacation type lights to be fitted with the newly covered roof panel, I couldn't finish off the window frame covering, I actually had to screw that lower panel on using the 'torch' app on my iPhone ! :O.
So I will finish that off tomorrow, and hopefully do the roof panel too, which will mean some wiring of the new lighting before the roof panel is screwed in to place. You can probably see from the photos that the bulkhead pretty much needs to be stripped and the carpet reglued on to that too, though to be fair, I wasn't happy with it when I did it, the carpet wasn't sitting properly, and I suspected the glue wasn't much cop then, but that can be done after the roof lining is put back up, so will leave that for another day. Then I can put the rubber window trim around the window aperature to finish it off nicely.
So this is how I left it tonight, I really didnt want to come in, I wanted to stay out and finish the side door at least, but it wasn't meant to be.
Once the carpeting is finished, the next job is the floor, which I still havent a clue what to do with it yet, those metal channels have to be removed, the either filled, or a new floor put on top before I can fit the wood effect lino. Once THAT is done, well, its all about wiring, and fitting the furniture in the home straight ! Woo Hoo ! :).
Hopefully be a bit more to show you tomorrow ( which will be today by the time you read this if you see it straight away :P).
Location:Gloucester
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