Although I don’t have any amazing progress to show in pictures, it was a productive day. That’s a nice feeling after a couple frustrating days.
I finished up most of the heater work that I can do until I get the auxiliary tank fitting from Ford. The wiring is essentially all in place and the air intake hose under the van is secured. The base of the refrigerator cabinet is fully cut/drilled to accommodate the wiring. I just need to run the fuel line and secure the exhaust when I get the part and it will be done.
I also finished the refrigerator vent. The tubing is siliconed in place and the gate mechanism is secured to the floor. I cut the refrigerator base to bridge the valve because it has to run into the next cabinet. The cable appears to work well so we have a fridge vent that we can remotely open and close, whether because we want to control the temp or perhaps because we are on dusty roads.
Sara was busy cutting and finishing the next two wall pieces along the bed. She cut everything, including the angles for the wheel wells, and then drilled all the holes that will mount the pieces to the walls of the van. She stained them both and put a first coat of polyurethane on the back. We have reverted to oil-based polyurethane so it takes a while to cure. Fortunately we don’t have to put them in right away.
As part of that process we removed the front bed posts so I repeated my modification of the bed brackets. Now if we ever have to remove the bed posts again we don’t have to remove the floor brackets.
I started to build a small electrical box on the passenger side of the van where we will have a sub-panel. I already have a fairly heavy wire running across the van so I plan to feed four circuits with that wire. The panel will have fuses for the water pump, the toilet fan, one set of four LED ceiling lights, and one 12v socket. I will likely crunch the numbers again, but I should be able to power all of this with my current feeder wire. Unfortunately in this process I realized I ordered the wrong fuse box so now I have to wait on another delivery from Amazon. I understand a little more about 12v DC systems from the experience so I guess the effort was not wasted.
Finally, we finished up the toilet cabinet and vent. I think the toilet vent is the last hole we have to drill in the floor. I am using the same technique as the refrigerator vent. I drilled the hole and then put a flexible PVC coupler into the hole with a ton of silicone. That should protect the entire insulation sandwich in the floor from any water penetration. This particular coupler is also the perfect size for the vent tubing provided by the toilet manufacturer. To finish the cabinet we drilled the hole in the base where the tube will go through and we cut some holes in the edges because the water line from the tank to the sink needs to run through/under the toilet box.
We managed all of this and I only had to make one trip to Ace. I did forget a couple things so I already have a mission tomorrow, but by then we will be probably have some other projects ready to go as well!