Little Girl Refurb 1972

[Minno]

Originally Posted by JIMandPJ

Nice job on the tanks. Did you glue or weld the top on the tanks? or both?

Welded, and then covered with a slurry I made out of ABS scraps and MEK. The drain fittings are glued in and also covered with the slurry, both inside and out. Inside was to eliminate any rough spots around the drain opening.

Chris

[Minno]

We got both gray tanks installed this weekend!


Yesterday, we started by adding ¾” lumber to the underside of the floor where the rear tank was being installed so the tank would sit level and still be snug up against the floor. Doing this drops the rear tank a bit, but since it was going to be below the original belly pan anyway, we figured the extra ¾” wouldn’t bother us. I also welded brackets to the underside of the frame to support the rear gray tank, and cut the angle iron that will support both the front and rear tanks.



Here are the two tanks installed. The front tank is in the frame space directly over the rear axel, and is a shorter tanks that the rear one. Plus, it fits up in the space tight to the floor. I used two 1” angle irons as cross members to hold the tank in place. The front angle iron sits inside the frame, while the rear angle iron sits inside the frame on one side and will be bolted to the underside of the frame on the other side (where you can see the “c” clamp). The blocks supporting the trailer are in the way for drilling the holes to mount the angle iron to the frame right now, so that will need to wait until we have axels. The clamp will remind me that they need to be permanently mounted with bolts.



Here’s a picture looking aft. Here you can see the front gray tank is tucked up inside the frame completely, while the rear tank hangs down a bit. We put plywood under the rear tank for two reasons. One, its larger that the front tank and therefore holds more water and weight, so I thought the extra support would be beneficial. Two, to help protect the rear tanks from road hazards. Granted the belly pan should protect it, but having had to repair a tank in the middle of a camping trip once is enough to warrant the extra protection. The caps are temporary – just to keep critters out until we get the dump plumbing installed.



Here we are inside. Like the black tank, I first drilled up from underneath to make sure the drain and vent holes would be on top of the tanks, and then we drilled the holes out from above. One drain and one vent hole for each tank. That’s our supervisor, Mischief. The black circles laying on the floor are ABS rings I cut to build up the fitting so the inside of the fitting is flush with the inside of the tank. Same thing I did with the gray tank drains in post #250.



Here are the fittings glued in place. Gluing 3 spacers and 1 fitting for each hole was kinda messy. But, the fittings are installed and they are solidly in place now.

The plan is to drain the galley sink into the front gray tank, and the bathroom sink and shower into the rear gray tank. The two tanks will be tied together at the drain outlets, in effect giving us one larger gray tank. About 45 gals total gray water capacity.

Chris

[wasagachris]

As usual MC outstanding work. I love the pioneer axle. You only need some wooden spoke wheels to finish it off.
So how often does Mischief live up to his/her name?
Looking forward to seeing the little girl in person. She shouldn't take too long now as so much is done already. Have you planned for a date to finish yet?

[Minno]

Thanks for the idea, WC! Wooden wheels would be a lot cheaper, and Chris can make that his winter project.
Mischief was well-named by his previous owners - we got him from an animal shelter at 6 mo. old. He lives up to his name on a regular basis. BTW, the cat's name is Trouble....... Sure you want to visit us?

Kay

[Minno]

Kay noticed it first, and pointed it out to me. One of the brackets I welded onto the frame to support the rear gray water tank broke off. The weld gave way. Kind of dang, but as we weren’t altogether 100% happy with the way it turned out anyway, I used this as a lesson from the gravity deity that the earth’s pull is stronger than I thought…

So, part of yesterday and today was re-doing the rear gray tank. Just as well really – I had forgotten to mount the sensors on the tank, so I was going to have to drop it again anyway.

Here’s what we came up with:




It’s two 1 ½” angle irons welded together to form a “Z” (or an “S” or sideways “N” if you prefer). They are bolted to the frame, and are just the right height to support the bottom of the tank, plywood, and support angle irons and hold them snug against the floor. Overall, they are a much stronger support system than what I had welded on the first time.



Here’s a picture showing the profile of the bracket. The bolt stuck up through the bracket holds the cross support bracket in place. It’s there to keep the cross support bracket under the plywood. Everything is held snugly in place, with no room for movement.




I also attached the front support bracket on the forward gray tank to the fame. Since this support bracket is located where the axel mounts attach to the frame, I used a big flat head machine screw, lock washer, and nut to connect the bracket to the frame. The head of the screws will be covered by the axel mount eventually.

[Minno]

The rest of the weekend so far has been spent on funner stuff.


First off, we installed the fresh water tank! So, now we have all the tanks installed (fresh, black, and 2 gray). The blue tube is the tank drain.



Part of our re-doing Little Girl was to flip the fresh water tank around so the fill is on the starboard (street) side. Here’re the plumbing connections we have so far. The blue pex pipe will go to the water pump, and you can see the drain in the hole going out the bottom of the trailer. The vent was interesting. The vent fitting’s I bought for the tank were 3/8”, and the vent fitting in the fresh water fill is 5/8”. Not being able to find a 5/8” to 3/8” adapter, we used a piece of ½” pex as a go between.

The fresh water fill is not connected yet. Ran into a problem there. The tank fitting is 1 3/8” and the fill fitting is 1 ½”. I can find 1 3/8” fill hose, and 1 ½” fill hose, but I have not found an adapter to connect them together yet. If anyone has any ideas, we’d love to hear them.


With the tanks taken care of, we turned our attention to the bathroom. First item to work on was figuring out how high the tub needed to be off the floor to allow for the drain plumbing underneath it.



Here’s the drain for the tub/shower and sink from the bathroom to the rear gray tank. Yes, there is a slope on the drain pipe towards the tank. The wood cage-like structure is the base for the step tub. It will be covered with ½” plywood, and then the step tub.



This is a closer picture. You can see the p-trap for the tub inside the base, and the drain for the bathroom sink extends through the tub base to the right. The trap is partially located in a hole cut through the floor.



This treated plywood box is mounted to the underside of the floor, directly below the tub p-trap. It’ll protect the trap and keep critters out. It’s vulkumed and pocket screwed to the floor.



Finally, here’s the beginning of the vent for the black tank. From this fitting, we’ll transition to flexible black poly pipe that’s 1 ¼” dia.


All in all, a very productive weekend we think. And we’re finally to the point where we’re actually building things inside!!!! Hooray!!!

Chris

[Minno]

One of the things that was bothering me was that the vent for the black tank was going to be in the shower area if we used the original vent hole out through the roof. Then, one of those 2 am brainstorms surfaced, and this is the result.


We ran the black tank vent forward, using flexible 1 ¼” pipe we found at Menards (normally used for pond plumbing) to go around the curve, and then tied into standard ABS 1 1/2” pipe.



We continued forward, picking up the two vents from the dual gray tanks, and then connected them all to the vent installed inside the wall in the galley area. Now we only have one vent going out through the roof, and it serves all 3 tanks. We’ll patch the rear vent hole over the bathroom to eliminate it completely.



This picture shows the vent plumbing the best from both gray tanks, as well as our starting the bathroom wall.



With the vent in place, we turned to the bathroom wall. Here’s the 3 pieces of ¼” plywood that make up the bathroom side of the wall (so this is the “B” side you’re looking at, not the “A” side). The large sheet on the left is luan, and the other two pieces on either side of the door are red alder. The luan ends at the tub, and will be covered with fiberglass panels on the tub side to form the shower. The red alder pieces will be more exposed.

The "mouse hole" you see right above the floor to the left of the drain pipe is for a furnance duct. The duct cutout continues to the right a bit for two pex lines to run to the galley.

We used the old wall extrusions that held the ¼” plywood wall in place originally. We also used them to guide us in cutting the curve. Although to be honest, the piece of luan you see in these pictures with the nice curve that matches the curved wall is piece #2…



Here we added part of the framing that will make up the inside of the wall cavity. It’s ¾” basswood, so nice and light. The space inside the wall will be used to run wiring for speakers, lights, outlets, etc. as well as give some rigidity to the walls.



In this picture, I added the bedroom side piece of red alder to the right side wall. It’s not attached; just sitting there so we could get an idea of what the finished wall will look like.



Here’s the wall on the bathroom side. You can really tell the difference between the luan and red alder. The luan will be in the shower and covered with fiberglass panels. The red alder will be in the sink/toilet area and covered with a clear varnish.

Chris

[Minno]

Over the last two evenings, I finished the framing inside the wall.

[Minno]

Got three major things accomplished today. One is we attached the bathroom walls in place so we could install the tub.



We built the frame for the step tub. Basswood glued, nailed, and screwed together. Also glued and screwed to the wall framing.



Here's the tub sitting in the frame.

Then we worked on running the pex water lines.



Here's the back of the water heater. The blue line on the right comes from the pump and city water connection (not connected yet).



Connection for the toilet.



The pex lines run around the back of the trailer, and then under the tub where they tee off to feed the tub and bathroom sink, and also go forward to the galley.

It was really nice to be able to work inside the trailer all day today. I didn't need to crawl under the trailer at all...

Chris

[Minno]

Yesterday, we installed the low point drains. They are in the area that will be under the bed (between the galley and the bathroom), and they'll be accessible from the outside hatch.

[Minno]

Kay had Monday off, so I took most of it off too and installed the furnace. Well, a temporary installation as it turns out.


Started out with connecting the new regulator up to the new hoses and mounting bracket. Got the propane tanks filled as well. Ran a soft copper line from the outlet hose from the regulator back to the furnace and up through the floor.


Built a platform for the furnace to sit on so it would mate up with the existing vent holes in the side. That raises it just over 5 ¾” off the floor. No duct work for now – it just blows hot air out of the duct openings. I need to attach a temporary baffle or something to the side to keep the hot air form being sucked immediately back onto the cold air return. The installation instructions warn against having the hot air outlet within 16” of the cold air return.


On the other side are the electrical and gas connections. I learned something about installing soft copper pipe. Do not put the flare nut on the pipe and slide it back beyond where you need to make the bend. The pipe deforms just enough to make getting the nut back over the curve almost impossible. I discovered that after I had bent and flared the end of the pipe. Ended up with a kink in the gas line instead of the really good looking smooth bend I had before. Oh well - live and learn. It’s ok for now, but I’ll replace it next year when we do the final build on the galley.

Before connecting the furnace, Kay thought it seemed awfully high for putting the oven over it. We measured, and yes, it’s sitting about 4” too high to allow us to install the oven above it. That means we need to lower the furnace and re-install it next year. Most importantly, we’ll need to drill at least one new vent hole in the side of the trailer and patch over an existing hole, or maybe both of them. I have ideas brewing in my head about that, and they’ll have plenty of time over the winter and spring to fully steep… I think Kay has ideas brewing too. I wonder who's idea we'll end up using?

The furnace works really well! Puts out plenty of hot air. And of course, since we installed it, we haven't needed to use it. But it'll help extend our working days into the Fall a bit longer since we're doing mostly inside work now.

Chris

[Bauxter]

Chris, Do you have a vent tie-in somewhere on the shower drain line after the trap? If not, is there any risk of any drainage issues.
Plumbing is one of the tasks I have done, but still remains a mysterious voo-doo like art form to me.

Mike

[Minno]

Originally Posted by Bauxter

Chris, Do you have a vent tie-in somewhere on the shower drain line after the trap? If not, is there any risk of any drainage issues.
Plumbing is one of the tasks I have done, but still remains a mysterious voo-doo like art form to me.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I will have once we build the vanity and install the bathroom sink. I'm going to install under-the-cabinet air admittance valves - one for the galley sink and one for the bath.

Chris

[Minno]

Yesterday I patched the rear roof vent hole. This was where the vent for the black tank used to poke through the roof.

[Minno]

Spent some time building aluminum shelves for the small storage area we're going to have between the shower wall and the inner skin in the bathroom.



Here's one of the shelves ready to install. I thought getting the curve right was going to be a royal pain, but it actually wasn't too bad. I made a template for each shelf, and then curved the angle aluminum with a metal shrinker.



Here's the other 3 shelves ready to be riveted together.

To be continued...

[Minno]

Finished riveting the shelves together this afternoon after work.



After dinner, I riveted them to the inner skin. The tub frame is at the bottom of the pictures, and the bathroom/bedroom wall is to the left. The shelves are 12 inches deep, because any deeper, and we would not be able to easily reach in to the back of the shelves. Even though they don't look like it, they are level front to back. But not side to side yet.



We stuck the shower wall in just so we could get a feel for what it'll look like once permanently installed. Still need to fasten the shower wall in place, and then fasten the shelves to the shower wall (making sure they are level side to side). Then I have a back for the shelves that I made out of luan plywood to install.

Overall, a nice use for otherwise wasted space we think. It’ll be storage for towels, washcloths, etc.

Chris

[Minno]

We installed the wall earlier this week. It's glued and screwed to the tub support frame and the other wall. I used pop-rivets with backer plates to attach the shelves to the wall.




Here are a couple of pictures of the finished shelves.



This is the rear of the shelves, another piece of 1/4" luan playwood riveted to the shelves.

[Minno]

We went camping this weekend. Something about 80 degree weather in October that we couldn't pass up!

Saturday, while we were antiquing in Stillwater, we came across this gorgeous little addition to the future patio area of Little Girl. Needs a fresh coat of pink paint, but we think it's really cute! Doubt it’s really an antique, but we didn’t pay that much for it either.

[Minno]

Tub is installed now, and we started working on the shower stall. We're using white fiberglass panels from Menards. I wasn't sure how easy they would be to cut, but they do cut and sand as easy as plastic or plywood.

First up, the ceiling.



This is actually piece number 2, as we cut the first piece straight across the front, and then as we were looking at it, we decided we'd be better off bowing it out since we are going to bow the shower curtain raill out too. Now the shower curtain can follow the curve of the ceiling panel. We used tub and shower surround adhesive along with white plastic expanding wall anchors to hold it in place. We're also using a piece of our wall divider extrusions for ceiling supports for the wall of the shower. We have 1 more of them than we will end up needing for our wall dividers in the trailer.

Hope to get the shower walls installed this weekend.

[Minno]

A few weeks ago, I took the fridge hatch door apart and brought the outer skin to a hot rod shop to have it louvered.


Got it back last week, and today we put the door back together. Now I don't need to make a hole in the floor and belly pan for the air intake for the fridge.



We also took a few minutes today and installed two of ceiling the lights so we can see in the dark a bit better. Nothing fancy, just wire tied to a ceiling support and other wiring. While we have a portable work light on while we're working in the bathroom, once it's dark and we turn off the work light, we end up stumbling in the dark from the bathroom to the door.




Now, we have lights to guide our way, and a light switch for them right next to the door. The bracket is a scrap piece of angle aluminum that I notched to hold the light switch. It's attached to the wall low, so the extra pop rivet holes will eventually be covered by a cabinet.

Chris