A little electrical work today.

Well, I came across a couple power inverters and figured that I'd install one in the Cub. No real need for one but, what the hay? I've got one and nothing else to do with it so, in it goes.

We have four 110 outlets and one 110 lamp. Three 12 volt lamps that light things up as well as the 110 does.  A couple storage compartment 12 volters plus, two 12 volt power port outlets, so you can see we are cover for all of our needs. The TV and DVD player are both 110 and battery powered so no need there either. Plus, we have a small generator that takes up the slack when we have no shore power. But again, I have it so in it goes!!!

Now, I am a professional auto electrician and this is an easy install for me.. Well, guess what? For some stupid reason I did not do what I have taught all of my students for so many years... That being, "Look at every connection before making the final connection."

Well, I got this thing all in and it was as clean an installation as I could do. BUT... when I started to connect it all I reversed the polarity and, well, shall we say, made a mess of the innards of the one inverter that I wanted in the trailer. Anyway, it was fortunate that the damage was minor. It had blown 2 fuses and no other damage had occurred. So, take it apart and unsolder the old fuses, apologize to them for shortening their lives and install two new ones. This thing also has and external fuse at the battery connection but did not blow before the ones inside. It is well protected!!!

After reinstalling the inverter we tried a 110 volt fan and the TV. It worked perfectly. If you have one, why not install it? If you have as extensive an electrical system as we do it is not needed but sure is nice knowing it is there if, and when, you might just have a use for it.
 
Once it was in everything worked well and I can power up to 400 watts continuous if needed. Nothing great but 400 watts should suffice.

 Below are some photos of it installed as well as a few other electrical items on interest.





Here you see the inverter just inside the closet that doubles as the electrical center. The inverter is to the right. That item on the left is the charger for the Optima batteries. They take a special type of charger and this one was reasonably priced and does a wonderful job. To the left of the charger is the 12 volt fuse panel. 

Here are the batteries in their boxes. Being fiber mat batteries they do not gas so are safe inside the trailer. If you have the regular liquid batteries this is NOT the place to be installing them. The previous owner had put their batteries here too and they were liquid batteries. Not a good idea but they were lucky and never had any troubles.

Here's a little something that I installed last year. It is a stereo, CD and MP3 player. It has been installed right inside the door and can be reached from outside if we want to change whatever it is we are listening to. I also installed it in an end panel that can be removed so as to restore the trailer to original if ever wanted. We will put on a CD with over 200 songs on it, recorded in MP3 format, and listen to one CD all week-end long. Another passion of ours is old time radio shows. We can listen to old radio shows like "The Shadow", "Fibber McGee and Molly", "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar" and "Gunsmoke" to name but a few. These shows generally last about half an hour and are so much more fun that watch TV. The CD's generally hold over 100 shows. We can even connect extension speakers if we want to take the sound outside.No power amps or boom boxes here. just some nice clean entertainment when wanted.

 Time to Beat the heat!!

You may recall my reference to the addition of A/C to the trailer. Well, here are the photos of that process. Let me warn you that it's not a conventional installation. I did not want to cut holes in our vintage trailer. I also did not want to loose storage space. Carrying that heave A/C unit around was not too inviting either. So, we decided to make this install truly  "portable". 

Here is the part that stays with the trailer all of the time. There are 2 ducts that run into the trailer to a couple of outlets. The wiring is used to turn the unit on and off from within the trailer. Have you ever found yourself comfy and cozy and then something that needs to be attended to? Lying in bed at 2 in the morning is one of those times. Who wants, or needs to get up, go outside and turn of an air conditioner?? Not me!! That is why I tapped into the power switch for the A/C unit and placed an inside switch in series with the factory original switch.  These wires run to that switch on the front of the unit.

A third duct has been added and THAT made a big difference. We had a day in the high 90's and the inside temp was 73 degrees!!

Here is how they connect to the unit. I can also place the 2 wires coming out of the unit together and return its operation to normal. The wires run inside the duct work up to a convenient location next to the vent outlet.

At present 2 ducts distribute the air to the interior but a third will be added as there is room for 3. 

See that light? That is one of those 12 volt lamps in the storage area that was referred to in an earlier post. It will need to be repositioned  for the duct to run through the area under the lamp.

Here is the hole saw used to make that hole where the lamp was. Makes it clean and very easy. 

                                    
                Now the second duct is installed under the seat.

As you can see here, the unit sits right under the rear of the trailer with both ducts running up into the trailer. When not using the A/C the duct work is disconnected and stored up under the seat. 

 With the duct work attached and the A/C running the door is lowered and the inside stays comfortable.  It generally sits on a rubber mat with a slight tilt towards the back for drainage. We plug the unit into an exterior outlet at the power station at the camp site. It isn't even connected to the trailer in any way for its power needs.

And, here is the switch to turn things off and on when the need arises. Can't beat this for simplicity.  The one question that everyone asks really has no bearing on the units operation. They ask about ventilation. Since the unit it out in the air the condenser can exchange heat without any trouble. It is sort of like it would be if sitting on a window ledge. The only difference is we duct the air into the trailer instead of blowing it directly in. When a lot of heat needs to be exhausted from the trailer we crack the top vent as hot air rises. Then we close down the vent to achieve the desired temperature.

After the previous work we were ready to take to the road. Yep, finally made our first trip. A local camp ground, Prado Dam Recreation Park. Here are a few photos of Margie and me on that trip.....

And back home safe in the driveway. It was wonderful getting it out and about. Fortunately, we were there with loads of friends and we all had a great trip. Can't wait for the next one!!!! Oh yes, that is a 1963 Chevrolet Belair sedan with an inline 6 under the hood.  The Cub is a 1963 too.. Nice match.

While we had the sides and rear skins off we decided to completely remove and replace the exterior light s wiring. Everything was new and soldered instead of butt connections being made. Sealed with heat
shrink to assure that they never have any weather problems. All lights have their own ground wire running directly to the ground connection at the tow vehicle connection. They are also grounded through their cases to the skin, which in turn is also grounded.

The upper wiring is what came out. A real rats nest. The wiring below was installed. So much cleaner. All this has been completed and the siding has been reinstalled.


Wiring on the interior was either cleaned up or replaced. Below are some photos of what we ended up doing.

That item on the extreme right is the battery charger. We will have 2 Optima Fiber Mat batteries inside. Fiber mat batteries don't gas so we will be in good shape with these. This is a special charger designed for the special needs of these 2 batteries.


A few lamps we installed. All are 12 volts except the one by the entrance. All are just as bright as the 110 volt lamps. We also added a 12 volt lamp under the seat in the storage area on both sides. A radio was installed that has MP3 capabilities so that we can insert a CD and listen all week end long. We love old time radio shows and this radio will also play them.



12 volt lamp.

 12 volt lamp.

 110 Lamp AC plug outlet below to left.

 12 volt lamp. A 110 outlet will be installed on the side of that cupboard.

 Both the 12 volt and 110 lamps that have a shade would get this treatment. Another of Margie's crafty ideas.

Okay, so camping should be to get away from it all, including television. But we still decided to go with one. Below are photos of that install.

Here is what we did to beef things up to hold the weight of the TV.

This bracket is attached to the wood in the picture above. You can see the nut imbedded in the wood in that upper shot. This bracket is capable of being swiveled out the door for viewing outside the trailer if needed.  The coax connection is below the TV mount.

You can see the wiring hidden within the walls of the trailer.

Here is the TV installed. The wiring has since been cleaned up and a small DVD player added to a removable shelf to be slid into that cavity just above the TV.  The rest of the coax cable was routed around to the other side of the trailer. The service side I guess you would call it. A covered input is mounted right next to the 110 volt cord cavity. It's all clean and inconspicuous. We do take a few DVD's with us but rarely use it. I do watch ball games at home as I can plug the house cable into the trailer.

 Here is a little look around the inside. Since these blogs have been a long time between we, sort of, lost our place. But these photos should share what we have done by this point in the blog. Margie made curtains and did all the interior painting. So, she gets credit for what you see here.

No cushions  as of yet. These things are expensive!! Have you priced a 4"x 24" x 72" piece of foam lately?  We purchased a flat screen TV for the Cub along with the mount for it were much less that the 3 pieces of cushion  foam we need.

Below: The vent mounted in the ceiling. Never leaked!!! What luck for us. It has been wired for a future installation of a Fantastic fan, if we find a need to do so.

We had a spot in the upper left rear near the upper bunk window that had water damage on the ceiling. It was no real problem as the leak had long ago been repaired. But, it still bothered us. So...out it all came. That one section of ceiling was removed and what was found in found in the photos below. 

The back side of the damaged area.

The wood under the ceiling was like new.

This is the actual spot where the damage occurred. All that black is just on the surface. A little sanding and the wood was, again, like new.

This is the wood around the vent opening. Dry and always has been. What luck!!  Wish it all had been like this.

The roof/ceiling had a small sag at the middle. What we did was add a strip of "L" bracket and attached it to the wood bow running across the  ceiling. We did this in two locations and it seems to have worked well enough. The ceiling joists were installed on their sides to keep the space as small as possible. This allowed the wood (1 X 2's) to develop a noticeable dip in the center. Not any more.

The original 2 middle joists were not attached at the ends.  This was by design. We wanted something a bit more stout so we made "L" brackets from the left over joist strengthening "L" brackets. A couple holes let us place them at the intersection of the middle joists to the side frame rails. 

The finished joist repairs above and the totally finished job below. I had Margie go back and repaint the ceiling as she had already done before.  No more ugly looking ceiling wood to bother us. Glad we decided to do this instead of living with it.

If you look at the very center of this photo you can see the wood as it looked up there inside on the ceiling. This would drive anyone mad. We were pleasantly surprised that the Cub did not need a lot of work.

Now while we had this opened we decided that some day down the road we may want to add a Fantastic Fan that runs on 12volts and ran some wire the the vent opening just in case. So, since we have added an A/C unit (to be shown in a later blog) we don't need one at the moment. ya never know, better to be ready for it than not. And since electrical work is what I do for a living this was an "easy do".

 We gave up on trying to salvage the old stove and picked up an original Magic Chef stove from another Santa Fe. This was virtually perfect and had never, if ever, used. No more colourful pink in the turquoise and white mix.  Here I am just finishing her up.

Installed and ready for use. Actually, Margie has already made a few meals on it just to see how well it works. It works ALMOST as good as the one in the kitchen in the house.

Looks pretty good in there.