Monday, September 28, 2009

I've got gas.

A truer statement has never been made. I always have gas, but now my Airstream has gas. I plumbed the new copper lines from front to back tonight for the Liquid Propane. I saved all the old fittings, but used all new lines. I could not find new fittings that had the same configurations, so I reused the old ones. Not to mention, new propane fittings are extremely expensive. The old shutoff valves are about $30+ each. I chose to scrap them and use new ball valves. I have a 5/8 line that runs from the two 40lb tanks in front to just behind the door. At this point, it splits off to 3/8" lines that go to the appliances. I will need gas for the furnace, fridge, water heater and stove. I needed to purchase a new flaring tool to make all the connections. The larger lines have a single flare, and all the smaller lines I used a double flare to make up the connections. I also polished up the panel next to the water heater so I could install the new Marinco Stainless Steel power inlet.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Shitters full!`

I had one goal since last year. It was to have the Airstream done by our annual camping trip to Huston Woods for the Halloween camping weekend. Well, the summer filled up fast, and the fall filled up even faster. I am now coaching 2 soccer teams for each of my kids. With 2 teams and multiple practices for each, I have not had time to even take a dump. So to get the Airstream to Huston Woods, the boss told me we could take it if it had a working toilet. I finished the toilet installation and now we can go camping. It was not as easy as screwing down the toilet to the floor. I had to have a floor for the bathroom installed first. I purchased a floating vinyl floor from Home Depot. It is a speckled brown color. It is actually marketed as a garage floor vinyl. It was easy to install. All I had to do was to cut out the holes for the dump valves and the toilet. The other thing I needed to do was to install the water pump and some plumbing to get water to the toilet. Everything worked and we finally went on our first of many camping trips with the Airstream.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Time to paint the tub.

I pulled the bathroom out of the camper so long ago that I forgot what it even looks like. After much research, I decided to use a 2 part urethane primer and a top coat. It is the same stuff that is used on car bumpers. I chose a gloss white color to match the porcelain toilet. The toughest part of this paint job was removing the stupid brown flower stick on things that give you traction in the tub . Since the tub is ABS, I could not use lacquer thinner to remove the stickers and adhesive. I ended up sanding the things down to the plastic to get rid of the stickers. The primer and paint went down pretty smooth. I ended up getting a small run in the paint in the sink, but I it not very noticeable and I think I am just going to leave it. All of the pieces look brand new and clean. I cant wait to see them installed. I still need to paint the endcap the same color.