A Bank Holiday of Converting :) (Day 2)

Well, after a lovely evening out standing at the touchline cheering on the Vixens (Bristol Ladies FC), after spending the day working on Nina, I ached a little bit, in fact a lot, my legs and feet were killing me ! So today, Sunday, was a lie in day, in fact it was around 12 before I got out of bed, apart from getting up to feed the dogs, then answering the door to the Police :S.

Apparently a car had been stolen last night, and dumped near our house in the early hours of the morning. The Police noticed we had cctv up, and were enquiring whether it had been recording, sadly I had to tell them no, but from now on, it will be.

After a hearty Brunch of toast with scrambled eggs and tinned tomatoes on top, a real campers meal :P, Jen went off to walk a dog and search Aldi for their latest offerings, a Cree head torch, I have to say, when she brought it back, it seemed very good, and works from 3 AAA batteries, so easy to run. I did use it a bit later on, but will come to that in a bit.

Still aching, and a little bit in my comfort zone, -


I surveyed the work that needed to be done today. I remember thinking to myself, right quickly finish the roof panel off, put it back up, then start overhauling the overhead cupboards.

Hmmm.

I started with setting the tables back up, and getting the roof panel back out of Nina. First job was to cut out the holes that needed doing, ready for the skylight and the roof fan. This was a fairly straight forward job using a utility knife, making nice neat holes.

The next job was to utilise all those pieces of electrical tape I had stuck on, and find all the holes through the carpet, and screw some screws in ready, so that when we were struggling, holding the roof panel back up, all. I had to do was line up the screws with the holes and zap the up.









This went fairly well, though it was time consuming, but once I got in the rhythm, the screws were eventually in place, and then it was time to fit the Maplin LED down lights.






Using a piece of plastic packaging, I marked it, and then marked the points on the roof panel where the lights were going to be fixed.

Using my stepper drill bit (amazing piece of kit), I drilled holes at the appropriate points, big enough to allow the connectors on the lights to pass through. Once that was done, I then went about fixing each downlight to its spot in turn, then finished them off by popping on there brushed steel metal rings, making them look like they are just stuck on with no wiring.









I had actually lost the small bag of tiny screws that came with the lights, so had to find something in the shed, which turned out to be a touch too big, resulting in me using a pair of pliers to gently encourage the metal trim rings to widen enough to fit over the overlarge screw heads. Not perfect, but nobody is going to notice, especially when they are on, they are very bright and you aren't going to be worrying about slight gaps in the trim when being blinded ;).

This, was the end of the roof panel preparation, the next job was to remove the lower part of the skylight, including the blind assembly, mark out where the holes were in the overlapping wall to enable me to line the roof panel screws up with, then drag the roof panel back in. When I say drag, obviously I mean gingerly carry the 3 meter long piece of wobbly fibreglass without letting it bend to much, resulting in it cracking and breaking, while also avoiding all the new sharp screws that were sticking out all down each side, whilst bunching up the cables for each of the four lights so I didnt trip over them. Went without a hitch :).

With the roof panel back in, I connected up the lights to the junction box, that comes with them, and shouted for Jen to come and help support the panel as we lifted it back up to the roof.



With Jens help, we got the roof panel up in place, and I quickly drove a few screws in to hold it there.



It was at this point we realised that although the panel was screwed in either side at the front of the van, nothing was really lining up at the back of the van, which was odd. It didn't seem possible, unless the roof panel had somehow gone out of shape or warped.

After putting a couple more screws in towards the back, Jen went back to her Dallas Omnibus and I tried to get the roof panel back fitting properly.

After a bit of pushing and pulling, I has most of the screws in, except for the drivers side where a row of 6 or so screws just didnt seem to want to go back in to place.

While they were still loose, I realised I needed to quickly wire in and fit the 12v socket next to the skylight, this would supply power to a Fiamma Turbo Vent fan when fitted in the aperature over the kitchen.



With this done, I have no more wiring to do in the roof :) Back to the wonky screws and trying to get them back in to place.



The yellow handle / bar you can see to the left, isnt fixed in, so I used it to push the roof right up whilst I located the remaining screws in to their homes. Finally it was all back up, and not coming back down ! My seam either side looks very neat, and I am very pleased with the result.

While Jen was walking around in the back of Nina earlier, she noticed the roof seemed lower, she was quite right, where I have removed the original ceiling lights, which were big units, part of their job was to hold the centre of the roof up via their fixings, obviously not being there anymore, the panel was sagging slightly. A few screws down the centre of the roof later, and the 'sagging' was no more.

It took me a lot longer to refit the roof panel than I had anticipated, and time was cracking on, that late start was showing itself to be a less than wise decision, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that there would be no overhauling of overhead cupboards today. So I busied myself with redressing the roof with the lower half of the skylight and the fan cover.

Even this took longer as the screws that clamp the roof in between the two halves of the skylight weren't easy to locate in to the upper holes, amd as light was fading, I actually got to use my Aldi head torch sooner than I thought I would. It worked great and finally I had the lower half and the roller blind section back up and making sure that the seal on top of the roof under the skylight stayed just that, sealed.






As I had made the decision to tackle the overhead cupboards tomorrow, I couldnt resist wiring the new overhead lights in to the battery to see what they looked like.

Awesome is the word, along with my window lights, its really starting to look cosy in here :).
I will leave you with the pretty light pictures, and will probably be back again tomorrow with another installment :).

Location:Gloucester

A Bank Holiday of Converting :) (Day 1)

So, with a bank holiday three day weekend here, I had the rare chance to spend most of it working on Nina, and work I have, so far, still Bank Holiday Monday to go :).

Saturday, yesterday, was preparation to start with, I had to double check all my roof wiring, mentally go through where each wire was going to end up, what it was going to power, and make sure it was all in the right place.

So that is where I started. I ran a new wire from front to back, especially for the Earth on the leisure battery, making all my switches easier to wire in. Tidied all the cabling runs and fixed them to the ceiling via the metal strengthening bars. The wiring for the side lights, tv, and coax, I fed down the sides, drilled holes in the wall roughly where the cupboards will be either side, and fed the wires through so they will essentially drop in to the cupboards when they are there.

I realised I wanted another 12v socket up by the roof light to power a Fiamma Turbo Vent when needed over the kitchen area. So fed a new wire that finished by that, it will be a permanently on socket, so no need to run to the front switches.

I then fed all the front to back wires out the side of the roof at the front and down into the front blower area rather than draped across the front.













As you can see, much neater and much more ordered, and very 'prepared' :).

With that done, I had a quick tidy up, took all the stuff out except essentials, swept up, and basically readied everything for the roof panel to go back in.






With all that done, the next job was the roof panel itself. Since I took it down, its been sat under our car port getting dirtier and dirtier, so the first job was to get it laid out on a couple of camping tables, and wash it off.



Whilst still finding time for a cheesy selfie ......



Once cleaned, I sprayed the area around the roof fan hole with contact adhesive, and also sprayed the two plastic sections that filled in the old light hole and made it round.









Using a decent adhesive the plastic stuck together perfectly. There was nothing else to do now, except go for it, and cut some carpet to size ready to roll on and glue.



Clipping it to one side so the carpet didnt move, I sprayed, and sprayed, and sprayed ! After the fiasco of the first carpeting, I was taking no chances that this carpet was going to start fallimg down !



It stuck much better than that time, and molded perfectly to everything underneath. I was working to the clock now, I wanted to get the second piece done before our trip to Bristol to watch the Bristol Ladies take on the Everton Ladies in football. (I am happy to say Bristol won a very fast paced game 5-2 !).

So that is what I did...









Spraying extra glue near the seam with the first piece.

Once that piece was good and stuck, I flipped the panel over, then using electrical tape, stuck a piece adjacent to each screw fixing hole on either side.



Then, again, spraying copious amounts of adehesive, worked on folding the excess carpet over and sticking it to the underside, leaving a nice neat finish to fix back up to the inside.






I actually used the contact adhesive from B&M for this bit, after the sticks like nails foam tape, I was curious as to whether this was just as bad. I am happy to say it was not, and did a good job of sticking it down, while the natural tendency of the carpet was to bounce back straight ! No trickery in the above two photos, it definitely stuck :).

With all this done, it was time to go wash, and get ready for our match, so very carefully, I picked up the panel and put it in the back of Nina, away from the dirt and pet hair of the car port.

Location:Gloucester

Wiring Gets Underway !

If you managed to sit through the whole video, above, well done ! :). Extra points to you !

Yes, Sunday, which was a few days ago now, its Thursday today, I got on with the wiring running along the roof, in preparation of carpeting and re-fitting the roof panel.

As you have watched the video and pretty much seen what happened Sunday, I will post a few pictures below, and leave it at that, but its just starting to get exciting now :). Come back soon !

Location:Gloucester