Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I'm not a knowledgeable person on these windows, so I just winged it on the teardrop. But I did replace my front topper window on my truck. Direct replacement, ordered by a dealer. $100 bucks by the way! Anyway, it appeared as long as you were within a 1/8" compression, or squeeze, that was the most the ring could absorb. Any more the holes would pull and deform the ring. I made the ring for my teardrop window from poplar for the spacer, and 1/4" ply for the ring. Capped it with 5/16" cedar. Panted the spacer black.

This is what I am installing, lots of good information at this site.http://www.rvwindow.com/RV_Products_List.aspx?CategoryID=255

My mistake was not making the spacer inside diameter large enough to allow the screen to fit. I had to whittle a slot all the way around where the screen would be. Looks crappy now!

its very interesting AND informative to read on this forum and on a couple o others I get onto once in a while. We all have it seems an inherent desire and ability to take on challenges, often with no small amount of self questioning our abilities, should I do it this way, or that, what will happen? will the bloody thing work or will I have to go back and repair and start over. Then we say to self, self STOP kicking your self in the ole cohonnes(sp)?, get on with the start, and little by little thru the process we gain a huge amount of self confidence, when things begin to take shape the way they should and leading to a great finish line. I always tell a new hire, we older types may seem like we know it all, and some of it we do,and ocassionally we hit a roadblock, and go back to my grandpere and his best ever advice, always break a prob into its separate parts. do the hardest part first and the rest will fall into place.
A number of years ago I, after a long amount of questioning self's abilities I loaded my new TREK bike onto an Air France '47 and headed off to France to start my great adventure, spend several months riding my bike around and thru Europe. The hardest part fell by the side of the first hiways in France, EVERYTHING else for the next few months was literally downhill. There were no great probs.
To all you first timers handling a new tool, taking on a new unknown project, go slow,and I know we guys all of us absolutley hate to read directions.Try something on a piece of scrap material,always wear safety glasses. And when finished stand back and say to self, heyy that looks great, and when the S.O. comes out with a coffee, beer or as mine does with a glass of wine, we all can stand a bit taller
End of rant and off to the neighborhood fireworks show for the NEW YEAR

You got it! We learn as we go! I say, "just do it"! Better than doing nothing! You'll love it no matter what. And take your time to.

I'm trying to keep my window install simple as I have no welding skills. Is it possible to install a window between the ribs without having to weld in upper and lower supports, or use wood supports of some sort? My walls are 16"OC so i'm thinking something like a 14"x21" vertical window.

Newt182 wrote:I'm trying to keep my window install simple as I have no welding skills. Is it possible to install a window between the ribs without having to weld in upper and lower supports, or use wood supports of some sort? My walls are 16"OC so i'm thinking something like a 14"x21" vertical window.

Take a look at this post to see how CoventryKid (Doug) installed his windows similar to your question:

http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=1149505#p1149505

Newt182 wrote:I'm trying to keep my window install simple as I have no welding skills. Is it possible to install a window between the ribs without having to weld in upper and lower supports, or use wood supports of some sort? My walls are 16"OC so i'm thinking something like a 14"x21" vertical window.

i didn't weld the 'studs' when i installed my windows, i used pop rivets. less risk of starting a fire in your ctc or accidentally striking an arc on the trailer skin and blowing a hole in it, and it's much easier to drill out a rivet than to cut out a weld. my $.02

Hi Guys

I'm looking to do a cargo door for a window AC. So it's very much like putting in a window..Except the cargo door usually doesn't come with a trim ring (will at least mines didn't..should it have). So I have to cut a stud as it longer than 16" on center.

So couple of questions.

Do I still need to frame around the cutout before putting in the cargo door..Would securely anchoring the inside wall to the studs, including cut stud not provide enough rigidity. Or do I need to make a frame.

My next question is once I have cut the skin to the size I need, it looks like people have then cut the vertical stud 1" lower than the skin (see this posting, 1st page, post 6 with the pics specifically 2nd pic). The second pic shows a horizontal member both on the top and the bottom. Once this member is in place it matches nicely with the skin cutout. So the vertical member had to be cut lower than the skin to allow the horizontal piece to rest on it to be the same level as the skin..How do you cut the vertical stud 1" lower without damaging the outer skin..Hope that makes sense. I don't weld but thought I could use T braces screwed into the vertical and horizontal braces to hold the new horizontal brace in place. Then the wood over top of that brace..Would that work or am I out in left field

Cheers
AL

I was kinda spooked cutting my first stud too. I did a whole blurb on the following page. Hope it makes some sense.
http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=6 ... 5#p1175793

If the flange and gasket on the exterior of the window lands on a row of rivets holding exterior skin to metal studs, do people typically remove those rivets, relying on the window to secure the skin?
Or??

Cutting into the roof or the metal sidewalls seems to be the mountain we all must climb.Never cut a hole in the roof!!!! Its a guy thing protect the cave.I dillydallied for a week or ten days till one morning I said heck this thing isn't a 47, its not going to crash and burn, put a ladder up, laid the markings, got angle grinder, safety glasses and in 30 minutes it was finished, I was so bouyed that I cut the hole in the side door and had that one installed in an hour,nothing boosted a guys ego so much as standing back and looking at a finished job, and sayin,I did a first rate job on that unless its anS.O. coming out and saying,Ohhhh that looks great.

Finished my third window a week ago or so. Came out better than the last two but you can't tell, nonetheless I was a little anxious punching that big of a hole in the wall

What I did was setup a table nearby outside, laid the window out, took accurate measurements, transferred to the metal exterior, verified. Verified again, then cut with tin snips after a few drillings. Using left or right-cut snips made the radiuses easy. The ring was larger than the window by a small margin, but I needed a spacer anyway so I used a router to clean out the inner wall until it fit, then transfer the shape of the ring to a piece of wood to make a spacer. Cut the spacer with the jigsaw, sanded, mounted, all was well.


I did do one window with a jigsaw, I used the stiffest blade I could find that was longer than normal, maybe 3", if its too short forget about it. Cut from metal side, you can always patch the wood if the blade walks too far . If its not far enough slap a smaller blade on or cut the blade down so your only cutting the wood, cut from wood-side.

Ok, so I"m working on my cargo trailer conversion, which has factory installed windows.

Anyways, its been raining for weeks, with no sign of leaking at all, and I go into my trailer several times a week to work on it.

Then tonight I was in my trailer and ran across a tiny puddle of water on the floor. After pulling the walls back off where it was coming from and the insulation out, I was able to trace the water to the place in the picture. It seems to be coming in at the back bottom corner of the window somehow. I'm not sure what the triangle aluminum piece is, but I'm wondering if there is a screw that goes from the outside of the window into that piece or where else this water could be coming from. I don't see any clear signs of the caulking around the outside of the window, and the window was closed.

Thoughts? I checked that it wasn't above the window, say at the ceiling.

Leaks can be tough to track down. Chances are good the actual leak is not where you observed it coming from. The water can and will migrate in crazy ways.
However, since there was a hole cut in that area it would be the obvious place to look. So I guess I would start with the seal around the outside. If it looks to be correct, no gaps between the seal and trailer skin. Then make sure the weep hole or drainage holes are at the bottom and are clear. If the window is held in place by the inside trim ring only, it may have been able to take on water while the inside wall was off for insulation. When you re-assembled it and pulled it tight the water was dispatched and pooled at the corner and then the floor. Maybe. ... So it may be tough to re- create the exact conditions to make it leak and be able to see it. If you can let it dry out, reassemble and then leak test with hose sprayer and check you may not have a leak again. Or, you may need some more Dick Tracey work...
Good Luck

McDave