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Old 11-26-2016, 04:34 PM   #441
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1974 20' Argosy 20
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We made a little bit of progress on Peanut today.

A few weeks ago while installing the new front air bags the brake hoses needed to be disconnected from the calipers in order to pop the lower ball joints. Unfortunately we ran out of time before we could bleed the brakes. So today we bled the front brakes. All that's left to do before the jack stands can be removed is to replace 4 cotter pins in the lower ball joints and tie rod ends and to install new dust boots for the tie rod ends.

I had ordered replacement boots but what I ordered and what they shipped were two totally different items So now we wait for new dust boots. I would imagine Peanut will be sitting on all four wheels again this coming weekend.

The other accomplishment was to fit the new generator floor pan. This past summer I had one fabricated and today we set the pan in place and drilled mounting holes for it.
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In the next few days I'll mark the various holes and other cutouts on the floor of the pan and then have Ernie do the hard stuff

Slowly, very slowly....Peanut is taking shape.

Brad
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Old 11-30-2016, 08:33 AM   #442
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Water leaks

Ever since Peanut made it's way to Kentucky the issue of water leaks has been a persistent problem. Over the course of the summer and fall we've done a few things to try and stop the leaks and I'm happy to say the number and volume of leaks has dropped way down. However the area around the windshield continues to confound me.

It's been mostly dry around her for longer than I can remember so I wasn't sure exactly where we stood on resolving the windshield leaks until this morning. We had a good solid rain last night and hoping for the best I checked the cockpit floors and sure enough they were wet. Here's a picture looking up at the top of the windshield from the drivers seat.
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A few weeks ago I had Ernie apply Tremco 116 in black (as recommended by Peter) to the seam between the gasket and the front cap. He applied a good solid bead of sealant and there are no obvious gaps or holes in it. No sealant has been applied to the where the gasket contacts the glass. The only thing I can think might be happening is the water is wicking from the glass up and in through the gasket and past the glass to where it slowly drips down onto the floor boards. One other thing of note, Peanut is sitting on jack stands in the front so the roof actually slopes towards the back so I'm assuming any water that might be coming in elsewhere is running towards the back.

I really really want to stop the leaks so I can install the new wood floor in the cockpit area!

Any suggestions?

Brad
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Old 12-05-2016, 06:46 AM   #443
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Brad, the leaking is very odd. Not a chance of condensation on the interior of the steel cap causing this? The cap of my 310 "stores" small amounts of water on the side channels, when I brake hard it drips.
I can think of 1 method to try to isolate it. First put some food coloring on the glass/rubber surface and see if if the colored water wicks up and drips inside. If not move up to the vulkem sealed (painted steel/rubber) bead. I seriously doubt the later will leak.
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Old 12-05-2016, 10:42 AM   #444
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Peter, it very well could be condensation from inside the steel cap. The humidity level here vs the temperature does create a ton of condensation pretty much year round.

On my old 310 there were similar issues with braking hard and having water drip down on you

Probably by the end of the weekend Peanut will be back down on all four wheels which means there should be a slight slope towards the front. At that point it will be interesting to see if the leaks seem to get larger or stay the same.

I do know there are a few loose buck rivets on the roof and some time in the near future I need to get up there and replace them with Olympic rivets.

Wouldn't the food coloring dry before it has a chance to wick up in between the rubber and the glass?
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Old 12-07-2016, 06:23 AM   #445
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Getting closer to where we can install Peanut's generator. Probably by the end of the year. Still need to peel the plastic remnants from the old insullation and install new insullation at which point the enclosure will be ready.
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When pulling the front springs to replace the air bags the rubber boots on the tie rod ends all but disintegrated due to rot. The tie rods themselves were just fine so I started searching for replacement tie rod boots. I found a place called After Market Suspension Parts that sells replacement boots made in Polyurethane which should last just about forever.
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Previously I had bought boots from the same company for my drag link. My drag link was brand new but the boots were already dry rotted

Brad
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Old 12-08-2016, 05:01 AM   #446
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Definitely 'getting there' Brad!
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Old 12-12-2016, 08:10 AM   #447
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Well, I didn't really accomplish much of anything on Peanut this weekend other than getting the front wheels put back on and removing the jack stands. The temps were in teens and 20s this past week and I just didn't feel like working outside in the cold

However now that Peanut is on all four wheels again and has brakes there's a good chance in the near future he will be driven down to the shop where I can do the welding for the front and rear bumper attachment points and the replacement step support.

Brad
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Old 12-12-2016, 02:15 PM   #448
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bkahler View Post
Well, I didn't really accomplish much of anything on Peanut this weekend other than getting the front wheels put back on and removing the jack stands. The temps were in teens and 20s this past week and I just didn't feel like working outside in the cold
All of a sudden I am not missing the US so much...we may get one day below freezing....in February
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Old 12-12-2016, 02:32 PM   #449
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A couple of years ago we had a stretch in January where the temperatures got down below zero day and night for a few weeks. I didn't even bother going down to the shop during that time!
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Old 12-17-2016, 04:33 PM   #450
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Out of the blue we had a short warming spell where the temperature got up to 60+ degrees! Ernie took advantage of it and managed to get the rest of the sealant on the windshield gasket. The gasket has now been sealed all the way around the perimeter (except bottom) and around all four sides of each windshield between the gasket and the glass. If this doesn't stop the front leak then I'll look at plan G which is loose rivets and that sort of thing.
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While the temperature was so warm he also painted the inside of the electrical compartment.
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Generator installation is being pushed out a little. I'm still looking for the best way to mount the floor pan to the side walls. Also I want to test run it one more time before installing it just to make sure it starts like it should. That still might happen before the end of the year. We'll see....

Brad
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Old 12-18-2016, 03:38 AM   #451
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Another 'milestone' passed this last week, and should be a cautionary tale to anyone taking on one of these sort of projects....

Even with Brad doing a big chunk of the labor, with many of the big parts coming from the donor, or (like the wheels and tires) being Bella's spares, and with Ernie doing the rest of the work (at far less than commercial rates), the running total for the cost of project went through $15K.

Although that spend includes most of the future spares to get Peanut back on the road (like the seats, and new AC), it does not include any projected labor cost or any of the interior work, the remaining body work, window gaskets or repainting.

Any one who thinks they can bring one of these old MH back into use (not perfect just usable) for less than $25K is living on cloud cuckoo land.....remember Peanut had extensive work by Andre (documented on the forum), and was 'supposedly' checked over by the shop in Florida before heading to Brad's place.
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Old 12-18-2016, 05:32 AM   #452
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LOL, Martin...Labor Of Love
Sweet little town you live now. I did a google earth search and even was able to "drive" the little roads. Must be exciting to navigate with Bellas steering wheel on the left side.
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Old 12-18-2016, 05:41 AM   #453
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Quote:
Originally Posted by martin300662 View Post
All of a sudden I am not missing the US so much...we may get one day below freezing....in February
Blew snow for 2 hours Friday and another 3 hours yesterday. We have had almost a foot of snow just in the last week! including a thunder snowstorm.

On the upside, it'll be a very white Xmas.

Cheers
Tony
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Old 12-18-2016, 07:08 AM   #454
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LOL, Martin...Labor Of Love
Sweet little town you live now. I did a google earth search and even was able to "drive" the little roads. Must be exciting to navigate with Bellas steering wheel on the left side.
Hopefully we are only in this town until Thursday Peter, then we close on the new house - about 20miles closer to 'civilisation' and where the roads are a lot wider.

This current 'town' is actually the quarters for the air men/women of the old RAF Manston airbase (we have an RAF museum - including numerous planes and ancillary vehicles about 400yds away) and the typical road width is 120in. I would even try and bring Bella to this house and even our little Mercedes A class is 68in wide. This means each road has 'passing places' every few hundred feet, because even the smallest of cars can't pass.



You can see one of the passing places on the left.....

If this isn't scary enough, I will add that these roads only apply the national speed limit, ie 60mph so the closing speed could be 120mph on a road where two small cars don't fit!
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Old 12-19-2016, 05:53 AM   #455
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Quote:
Originally Posted by martin300662 View Post
...
Any one who thinks they can bring one of these old MH back into use (not perfect just usable) for less than $25K is living on cloud cuckoo land.....remember Peanut had extensive work by Andre (documented on the forum), and was 'supposedly' checked over by the shop in Florida before heading to Brad's place.
Martin, you hit the nail on the side of the head. From a financial viewpoint, these rigs are notoriously a bad investment. Just alone the parts will quickly bring them to 20k plus.
I have restored 3 Classic Motorhomes and have kept detailed record of every $ spent. Its mind boggling how much money goes into little stuff, like vulkem, rivets and this and that.
I simply cannot imagine or justify to add the cost of labor to the equation and do not think there is a market for these with the labor cost added.
So that begs the question, why does one do it?
For me its a Hobby, I really enjoy along with being a member of a group of like minded people.
If someone decides to have the bulk of the work done by a third party and is so lucky to find someone that is honest, skilled and available, I suggest to consider our late forum members 87MH, Dennis Watermann's signature:
"Suck it up, spend the bucks, do it right the first time."
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Old 12-24-2016, 02:21 PM   #456
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Peanut decided for Christmas Eve he wanted to go visit my Argosy
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It stopped raining enough for me to finish the patterns for the passenger side floorboards. I'll use these pieces to cut out the actual flooring on the correct thickness of plywood. The drivers side is about the same as the passenger side except there is a section of wood cut out to fit around the steering column and pedal box area.
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If it doesn't rain tomorrow I should have the flooring cut out, after that they get coated with several coats of Spar Urethane.

Peter, I need to talk to you about the drain pipes you put in the cockpit windows on your old Argosy. Peanut needs these drain tubes real bad.

Merry Christmas everyone

Brad
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Old 12-24-2016, 03:46 PM   #457
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Great progress Brad

Merry Christmas!
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Old 12-25-2016, 11:15 AM   #458
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...

Peter, I need to talk to you about the drain pipes you put in the cockpit windows on your old Argosy. Peanut needs these drain tubes real bad.

Merry Christmas everyone

Brad
Brad,
I did send you a pm, but like to share with everyone my "high tech", fail proof solution to this very common problem
This was in a 1979 28' Excella.
Please keep in mind that I tried just about everything to find the elusive leak before I resorted to this solution.
After observing the location of the drip coming out of or close to the very front of the window channel, I permanently installed a small funnel under the channel with a drain tube leading out of the vehicle. I may also have drilled a hole to assure any water would drain out of the channel into the funnel. A solution driven by desperation, but it proved to be effective.
Years later, when I disassembled the front side panels of my 1987 345, I saw that Airstream had factory welded a drain tube to the center location of that channel.
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Old 12-27-2016, 01:36 AM   #459
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Old 12-27-2016, 09:40 AM   #460
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Spent some time the last few days working on Peanuts cockpit wood floor replacement. For the most part it felt like I was working on a giant jig saw puzzle. Curves, angles, corners, etc. and various other types of cuts just to fit each peace. The drivers side was the hardest because of the original wood floor less than 1/2 of it remained intact upon removal. What made it even harder is the drivers side is not really a mirror image of the passenger side, close but not quite the same. I'll bet it took 30+ trial fits on the drivers side to get it to fit properly and almost as many for the passenger side.
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I now have a coat of Spar Urethane on one side and will probably put at least two coats on each piece.
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I will probably replace the aluminum skin that Airstream placed under the wood floors to keep them out of the elements. Only problem was Airstream didn't cut the aluminum skins to fit properly so the wood floors didn't really have a chance of staying dry when driving in the rain.
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I'm thinking of making paper tracings of the floors before installing them, who knows maybe I can make a fortune selling the patterns to other Argosy owners!
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