A '63 Overlander Followed us Home

[HiHoAgRV]

The plan is to keep the Bowen cover so I removed the sheet metal from the old tank and fit the new surburban into it.

[HiHoAgRV]

The WH was bolted in at an angle so the cover fit the slant on the side of the trailer. Then I modified the old cover to clear the new intake and exhaust

[HiHoAgRV]

Once all of the old parts were cleaned up, I stuffed it back into the hole, attached the water lines, turned on the pump and 'squirt'...I had pinched a line during the replacement.

All in, it was a nice weekend project.

[goransons]

Looks great! We did that too on our 63 safari and love that I can flip a switch and have hot water!

[Overlander & Sea]

Good job saving the original outside water heater cover! Looks great!!
54 years has to be close to record for a working Bowen original round water heater.

[Becky B.]

Nice job, Vernon. I did the same to my Bambi II & I still think it's one of my favorite "morphs". Nothing like flipping a switch for hot water!

[Steve Bryant]

Vernon, it looks great! You are one the most creative people I know about when it comes to blending the old with the new. Your ability to shrink the hole and keep the same exterior appearance is brilliant!

[HiHoAgRV]

I made a change to my solar setup. This started off with a 400w install on our 34' and flowed over to Dolly.
After installing the panels on the 34' I started to mount the new controller and prep for lithium batteries but I changed my mind, lithiums will go on Dolly. This means the new controller also needs to get installed in her. Out comes the Bluesky and in goes the Chinesium one. It's programmable so I can specify parameters and not have to buy the expensive Bluesky monitor. I'll put the Bluesky in the 34'. :30 swap and everything is good, as can be seen by the cheap looking happy face on the LCD...

[HiHoAgRV]

After 5 years the 6V golf cart batteries are down to about 50% capacity. Not bad especially since the charger is an old univolt! Admittedly the only reason I made it to 5 years is because 90% of the time the univolt is turned off and solar is taking care of the batteries. Time for an upgrade that costs 60% of what I paid for Dolly.

[Minno]

I've known cars that double in value when you fill up at the gas pump! Yes, batteries are expensive, and the AGMs we put in even more so, but worth it!
Hopefully, you missed out on most of the fun with the latest hurricane.....

Kay

[fander]

I suppose I am a tad bit late but I could use that cap with the garden hose fitting. My trailer is a 61 Bambi. I could also use the outlet fitting as I am going to try to make a fitting for it. It would be a lot easier than working under the trailer. Thanks Glen

[HiHoAgRV]

Originally Posted by fander

I suppose I am a tad bit late but I could use that cap with the garden hose fitting. My trailer is a 61 Bambi. I could also use the outlet fitting as I am going to try to make a fitting for it. It would be a lot easier than working under the trailer. Thanks Glen

Let me look thru my pile and see what I still have. '61 Bambi is a cool trailer!

[HiHoAgRV]

All packed up and ready to go camping...but...
Waiting on UPS to show up with my Easy Start.

[HiHoAgRV]

While waiting for the UPS guy I ran some load test on shore power. The 15000BTU Mach 8 started off pulling 14.3 amps, slowly creeping up to 15.6 on high fan as things warmed up. Low fan seemed to peak at 13.8.



UPS showed up and :15 later the Easy Start was installed. I did the 5x learning startups then hooked up a Honda 2000 and it fired right up. I ran it for about 1 minute because Mrs HiHo was in the truck honking the horn to leave...


Friday night was cool enough to not need AC, in fact we needed a blanket!


Saturday it warmed up to the mid 80's so I broke out the generator and fired it up. The AC kicked in...for about 5 minutes then the Easy Start kicked off the compressor. It did restart after :05, then repeated the same shut down.



I decided to go 'cold air intake' on the Honda by removing the airfilter, then pulled the AC's distro panel to just let cold air dump down into the camper. Things ran better but I watched the genset slowly drop from 122 volts to 110.



I put the fan on Low and topped off the fuel with fresh 100% gas and it picked back up to 120V. I reinstalled the airfilter on the genset. It AC started cycling on/off normally and I ran it until about 6:00pm when we finally got some shadows on the trailer then finally called it quits because folks were filling up the campgrounds and I was 'that guy' with a screaming genset.
I did notice the genset on eco mode under full load would actually speed up when I turned off eco. To me, that means there was some headroom left.
Upon returning home I pulled the carb and did a good cleaning. I will try again this afternoon.


Solar worked well, recharging the system from 66% to 100% by mid afternoon. Full sun didn't hit until about 11:00. I peaked at 220W out of 300. The panels were hot at 151 degrees!

[HiHoAgRV]

A second try at getting a 15000 BTU Mach 8 to run on my 2000 Honda started with testing the amp draw on shore power. High fan setting started at 14.5A and quickly slipped to 13.8 before slowly climbing up to 15A over a 5 minute run. I then dropped to low fan and things settled down to around 14.3 amps. returning to high it pulled back up to 15.2 over a 10 minute run. That's my baseline.


After a 20 minute cool down I repeated the same routine on the Honda power, the results matched before EXCEPT all of the readings were around .5A higher over a :30 run. The Honda sounded much more civilized, not straining or varying the RPM. Once the camper cooled down the Honda went to idle on eco and ramped back up once the thermostat called for cooling. Happy dance!


One fatality of the weekends outing was my bumper trunk, the rough ride on a section of the Trace hammered out the rivits holding the bottom of my storage compartment. After 50,000 miles stuff is starting to wear.