Day 2: Fire and Ice....well, okay, no ice, but FIRE !

  

"FUCKING BOLTS!"

   Alright....so day two wasn't quite as productive as we/I had hoped, but there were a few notable developments.

   First off, Dad texted me the other day to say that he had removed the two front seats and made an interesting discovery. They were mounted on locking swivel platforms which would potentially allow for the seats to rotate 180 degrees and face back into the common area. Can you say "driver/passenger seats AND recliner-style seating for the living space ?". After a few minor adjustments, they will be capable of doing just that.

We would've had to remove the front seats anyway to repair the floor in the cabin of the RV. The floor mat is OBVIOUSLY original 1978 equipment, and served no purpose other than to cover several rusty areas from view. Figuring out in the process that the seats could rotate was a pleasant development.

   This is great, as it has eliminated the need for any additional seating, aside from the convertible sleeper sofa that we're thinking about rebuilding over the water system. The space where the hot/cold water tanks and pump are located can serve only that purpose, so a bench seat of some kind really seems to be the best choice. Once the sub-floor is completely removed/replaced, and all the water-related equipment is back in place, I'll start designing a box frame of some kind to go around and over that stuff. The hardest part will be re-upholstering that frame, but I've got a couple of ideas. If anyone out there has had experience building their own furniture and/or making cushions, shoot me an email and let me know where we can start.

   So the next advance that my Dad made between El Team-o Destructo sessions was starting to remove the damaged cabinet surrounding the refrigerator.  After encountering a set of live wires (always fun), and carefully removing the thermostat (if it works, and doesn't need to be replaced, why trash it, right ?), here's what he was left with:

That goddamned red carpet is EVERYWHERE...anyways, you can see the shelf under the refrigerator just sitting there at a funny angle underneath the foil-insulated space. It's not really screwed into anything anymore on this side, so we can only assume that it is still firmly attached on the opposite side.

    That thing needs to be COMPLETELY redone, and that became more apparent after he pulled one side off and found that the platform the refrigerator was sitting on had broken away on two sides, and the refrigerator is currently just....kinda chillin'...not really on anything specific...it seems stable for the time being, so we put that on ice for another afternoon.

    See what I did there? Two bad jokes about the fridge being "cold"...in ONE PARAGRAPH.

   ....anyways, he also found that someone had done another piss-poor job with installation. Take a look at the picture:

Close-up of ugly carpet, poorly done wiring/gas lines, and the ground beneath.

   Yup, that's daylight you see just beneath the feed lines for the fridge and heater from the propane system. Rather than drill through the floorpan and install them properly, one of the previous owners just cut a 12"x 4" rectangle out of the steel, leaving YET ANOTHER space for water to splash up into the floor and walls of the RV. Add that to the list of "Shit That Absolutely NEEDS To Be Repaired". There is good, solid steel all around where they cut out, so some plate steel, rivets, Bondo, and rubberized undercoating should do the trick, after the replacement plate is drilled out properly for the lines.

   We managed to get some more of the plywood sub-floor removed today, but not a ton. We're back to about even with where the kitchen counter starts, but until my cousin can take a look at the electrical gadgetry located near the water system, we'll have to leave that section alone, and the kitchen counters and heater/fridge tower will have to be removed before we can get any further. Sawing through the section we did remove prompted an unplanned trip to Harbour Freight Tools to get a replacement blade for the oscillating multi-tool ("It slices, it dices"....you get the gist. If you don't own one, get on that shit), Saw-zall blades (fucking CRAP quality blades at that place....buy Lenox blades for anything that involves cutting...sorry about the "f" word, but it was frustrating to get home and burn through two blades and get nowhere cutting a bolt), and return a battery of questionable quality.
   Harbour Freight...where you get what you pay for, and sometimes a whole lot less.
   Thirty minutes later, we were back at work on the final task of the day, removing the swivel mounts for the front two seats. The kitchen counter and fridge were too time-intensive for today, so we decided the swivel mounts were the next best thing. The bolts proved to be rather rusted in place, but a combination of WD-40, elbow grease, and a good solid nuking with the propane torch loosened them right up. One did eventually need to be cut, but I'll take sawing one out of eight any day of the week. After removing the plates and the thirty-five year-old floor mat, we were left with this:

 ...okay so the floor mat wasn't COMPLETELY out yet, but I assure you, it's in a contractor bag as I type. Overall, the floor is in decent shape with only some surface rust to be addressed. Dad wants to take the wire brush to it, but I just remembered that I have some Naval Jelly that might do the trick with no effort aside from brushing it on. We'll probably get some loose stuff off with the wire brush and then leave the jelly on for a while to loosen the rest. After that, it's going to be prime, paint, and a new mat before the seat mounts get put back in.
  
   I think I'll be cleaning up the seat mounts in the next few days, so I'll take progress pictures of those and post the process as I go...maybe even try to get fancy and put some video up here.
  
   Until next time...

  
   ...and remember, on Turtle Island, it's always 11:17.