Doin' the Full Monte

[Jim & Susan]

Lee, I'll give you a buzz tonight.

Jim

[Jim & Susan]

I wanted to update the A/C stuff, but can't decide how much detail to give. I'll just recount a few things and y'all speak up if you need something else.

First, I found a way to properly clean the evaporator coils (or, rather, Dad found a way). Once we had everything apart, inside and out, Dad found a small brass brush that was tossed in the back of the toolbox. Shaped like and about twice the size of a toothbrush. We removed all of that nasty smelling insulation from inside the plenum, soaked everything down with water and then were able to brush most of the gook off the coil.

We're about to have a pretty good thunderstorm, so I'll add more later in case we lose power.

Jim

[Jim & Susan]

We used the little kiddie pool on the floor inside to catch all of the water run off. Once we had brushed off as much of the gook as possible, we soaked the coil down well with Krud Kleaner, Waited a few minutes, flushed with water from the garden hose and repeated that a couple of times. This coil came very clean. The reason that this coil gets so nasty is that the filters used on this thing don’t seem to work very well.

A couple of pics. You can see the squirrel cage fan and the evaporator coil that it blows over, just in front of the fan. The other side of the coil (the part that faces the inside of the camper) is what gets so nasty. Unfortunately, I can’t get a good picture of the inside of the coil.

[Jim & Susan]

The Condenser Coil on the back side of the unit also needed cleaning. Used pretty much the same method to clean it.

We didn’t bother putting the insulation back in the plenum. It looked to me like it was just sitting there getting nasty and it was only about ½” thick, so it couldn’t be all that effective as insulation. We also sealed the plenum with the aluminum tape to keep the cool air in and keep from pulling dusty, hot air in from the outside.

I have other photos if anybody needs them.

Jim

[Lothlorian]

Jim:

How were the nuts & bolts for your shroud? I have only glanced at mine and they look like they are rusted through. Did yours come loose when you went to take the shroud off? My air is working but I bet it is as nasty as yours. I need to get up and take a look.

Brian

[Jim & Susan]

Dang, I had a response typed up and Internet Explorer crapped out on me.

There are only a handful of sheet metal screws that hold the shroud to the ac unit. They were rusted, but came out pretty easy. We replaced them with stainless. If you have the original Armstrong unit, you have to take the aluminum band off the shroud first, then the screws. You may have to take the fan guard off the compressor fan as well, just depends on the type of guard they put on yours.

Jim

[Jim & Susan]

We finally got to the point of painting the interior walls, or at least experimenting with painting. Here’s what we figured out.

I had read in another thread about using a Sherwin-Williams product designed for use in the plastics industry. You can see the link in post 545. The product is known as Polane 700T and you have to buy it from their Chemical Coatings division (not from your local SW store). It’s really good stuff and is probably the best product overall to use on our ‘70’s era plastics. In order to apply the material correctly, you have to clean, clean, clean, then apply a coat of Bonding Primer for Plastics, then spray the Polane. There are several draw-backs for the non-pro with this stuff. First, it’s hard to get and expensive. There is only one place in the state to purchase it around here. It would take several trips to the store to arrange everything (one trip with a sample of the vinyl and plastics that were to be painted so they can experiment with different application methods, another to pick up the product several days later). The paint costs $65 to $90 per gallon, depending upon the color you want. You have to prep the walls with the primer, about $50 per gallon. I could live with all of that, but the kicker was that only way apply the Polane was with a spray gun. I’m all for trying something new, but this procedure is beginning to look like the Kobayashi Maru test. SO, back to the drawing boards.

After another extended discussion with Sherwin-Williams, we hit on this combination. Sherwin-Williams sells another “non-industrial” grade of the bonding primer mentioned above. It’s in the first picture below. This costs about $45 per gallon (definitely NOT cheap) but is made to bond to plastics and vinyl. Once applied, you can simply paint over it with a good quality house paint. I picked about a half dozen small test areas around the Airstream yesterday and applied a coat of the primer. Let that sit overnight, then applied a coat of S-W Duration (Semi-Gloss) in the light blue color you see in the pics. The directions say to wait a week, then test the primer for adhesion. Does anybody know exactly how to do that? I need to call the S-W help line again.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with the results, so far. What do you think of the light blue we picked out? We wanted to try and lighten up the interior and get away from the dark wood look. I’ll post a few more pic’s as we go along.

Jim

[Wabbiteer]

... test the primer for adhesion. Does anybody know exactly how ...

I think a variety of self-adhesive tapes applied, smooched on and allowed to sit a while then yanked off quickly like a scared kid's band-aide would qualify...

[Jim & Susan]

I called Sherwin-Williams back to get some guidelines on the adhesion test. Wabbiteer had it pretty much right.

What they said to do was to scratch the area like you see in the photos. I used a rivet, believe it or not, to scratch that test area. It’s about 1 inch or so square. Then take a piece of plain old masking tape, stick on there, let it sit a bit and rip it off. What you are looking for is the little squares of primer in between the scratch marks. If they stay on the wall, you’re in good shape.

A few more details. The primer has to sit for about a week to fully “cure” before you can test for adhesion. It can be painted after only a few hours, but I let it sit over night before putting up the test strips of the blue paint over the primer. S-W recommended using masking tape because it has about the right “stickiness”. The blue painters tape isn’t sticky enough, and something like duct tape is much too sticky. Try to pick several places around the camper to test (cool side & hot side of camper, vertical surface & horizontal surface, plastic and vinyl, etc)

The bottom line is that looks like it’s going to work out fine. With a little luck, we’ll have a coat of paint on most of the interior this weekend.

Jim

[fastrob]

Back when I had time and money I rebuilt a 30's duckboat, cedar over oak frame.
Did the fiberglass and epoxy and it sure looked sweet.
The paint was an epoxy with multiple coats, sanding, etc at about $60-70 per gallon.
It peeled off.
A guy, a friend, laughed really hard and told me to get the cheapest latex I could find.
The boat has been outside for years, broken and tattered from use and abuse, paint is still on.

[fastrob]

The point of my earlier post was not written.
Do you plan on testing latex too or some other inexpensive alternative?
I admire your work and follow closely the developments.

[Jim & Susan]

Robert, I have read in several threads several different methods of painting the vinyl walls. Some people have simply cleaned the walls and applied latex house paint--with mixed resluts. Some have reported that paint begain to peel off after a time. When I spoke with Sherwin-Williams, they agreed that the vinyl is essentially a type of plastic and needed a bonding primer formulated for plastic/vinyl before the top coat of paint goes on. The primer they sold me is well suited to that purpose and will accept latex housepaint (among other things) as a top coat.

Also, I painted a few small patches of S-W latex and another brand that I can't remember right now over the primer in several of the test patches. The S-W is blue in the pictures, the other brand is a gloss white. Both of these brands passed the adhesion test well after a week of drying.

Does that help?

Jim

[Lothlorian]

Jim:

Your interior should come out fine. I just went to Sherwinn Williams with some interior aluminum i had from installing a fantastic fan. They made recommendations and we went with them.

Brian

[Jim & Susan]

The bonding primer is up on about 75% of the walls and other items. The end caps still need to be completed, the door and some of the small plastic parts. It’s kind of hard to work with, actually. It leaves a rough feel to the walls once it dries. And man, does it smell BAD when wet. BE SURE to use plenty of ventilation if you’re going to try this stuff. The Sherwin-Williams tech people were right, it’ll stick to anything. Including the pan you pour it into to roll it on the walls. It’s nearly impossible to scrape the dried on bits out of the pan when you’re cleaning up. The rough feel goes away once you get a top coat of paint on the wall. I’m pretty happy with the way it looks. A couple of pictures in a minute.