Foamie Plans EVOLVE into Truck Cap TTT - BUILD JOURNAL

[pjo129]

Great looking start. Really jealous of your truck cap. Wish I had been able to get one like that.

BobHenry is the one that drug me into this whole thing. (jk Bob, wouldn't want it any other way)

BTW, John, where are you located?

[JDHIV]

Great looking start. Really jealous of your truck cap. Wish I had been able to get one like that.

BobHenry is the one that drug me into this whole thing. (jk Bob, wouldn't want it any other way)

BTW, John, where are you located?

Thanks! Another day was spent where I got a late start...it was raining a bit and was predicted to be unpredictable...then too much time looking for stuff and getting either too much or not enough help at Home depot......and I got home around 5pm and....My immediately following post will tell of today's events and plans.

Yep, my buddy who has a truck and has been looking for a cap was all, "Damn, you got an awesome deal....If I had seen it when it was posted [2-3 weeks ago), I would so have bought it"....SO, I'M PRETTY HAPPY with it for $130....it is going to need a little TLC because it is old....there is a placard on it from a dealership that went out of business and their phone number has the old phone# area code. I mean old because most of Long Island (NY) is two counties (Suffolk, and Nassau)....and the suffolk (more eastern part of LI) area code changed from 516 in the year 2000...........now we are 631...so, since that placard has a suffolk address with old area code...cap has to be at LEAST 13 years old!

BobHenry has good knowledge and skills....I wouldn't have a problem if he were "dragging" me more into this stuff.

So, from above, you can see I'm on Long Island...about 1.5 hours East of NYC (by train) on the South Shore. You are in Indiana? I see "IN" in your profile somewhere.

When I get this thing campable and I have time...vacation ends in a week or so..........I want to look into going to one of these tearjerker things...I just don't know how far I'll be able to drive/tow to get to one?

Cheers! And I'll be following your build as well...Hope your daughter's asthma is OK now!

_John

[JDHIV]

As of today:

I have my 2x3 kiln-dried X-members cut to length and a few coats of "magic mix" / "the mix" on them and my plywood floor cut to go around my wheels. This will not end up as any kind of torsion floor...possibly due to my large wheels and their placement.

I will be drilling out the 2x3's up on end and through the trailer and then placing the plywood floor on them and a few wood screws (and glue!!) will let me flip it over and backwards drill out the holes (that the bolts will go through) in the plywood as well...so, kind of late to do any torsion floor at this point...but the width of my trailer along with the width of my truck-cap forces me to go up and over the fenders/wheel-wells as my old-popup frame trailer has big wheels and they pop up.....

....raising the height of the overall camper was not an option...which is what I'd have to do if had to make a fully rectangular floor above my wheels/tires.

l will likely do something like Pchast said in making 3 little torsion-walls and affixing them to the floor (somehow?)....more likely as some version of typical stud wall construction and relying on the plywood skinning of them to add structure.

I'll just have to fend off some friends and relatives who want to really go for the safe and over-engineered"tank" style of build probably for lack of any airplane build knowledge on their part.....I'm afraid to really KISS as once it is built...I don't want to see how it wants to rattle apart apart prematurely and/or start developing leaks due to marginal instability.

I hope it doesn't rain tonight...I'm not sure if I now (at 10:23) pm have the energy & patience to go out and brave the mosquitos in the dark to move things under some semblance of cover....maybe...we'll see.

I'm going to have to go get more mineral spirits for the "mix" and some of the metal on the bottom of my trailer at the back is weaker than I'd like...so I'll have to get some fender washers to shore it up.

I also still have to drill all the holes in the tube steel "runners" in the old popup trailer...........it did a little number on the plastic thing that you grab in order to adjust the drill bit holding portion of the drill...melted plastic and now it pops off...Grrrr. Oh well, C'est la vie!

and when I run bolts down through the middle of the floor....I can't safely countersink into 1/2" plywood without promoting delamination right???

So, when I don't countersink them....one option a guy at home depot (in the lumber dept) suggested was flanking the row of middle bolts with a furring strip and then using some typical linoleum foam underlayment to hide the ridge that'll be formed by the bolt heads and stop them from pushing up through the floor....We'll see

ALSO.....can you glue (T2) onto wood treated with "the mix" ?????

Thanks!

_John

ps: I took no pics today...but tomorrow with more progress...I should be able to actually show something.

[JDHIV]

I forgot to say:
---tonight I have to JB weld some little metal strips to the side flanges of the fenders to widen their footprint so they actually sit on the two longer trailer metal X-members that flank the wheels.

I will also spray the inside of the wheel wells with truck liner spray tomorrow.........and after I flip the floor to drill the bolt holes through the plywood floor as well...I'll also be T2 gluing in pieces of foam for floor insulation.............then at SOME point I'll spray the whole flipped floor and wooden Xmembers with truck bed liner................THEN I'll get to actually bolt the combo plywood floor and wooden "joists" X-members onto the trailer.

Only then can the construction of my 22" high walls (that support the truck cap) begin.

C'iao!

_John

[KCStudly]

Seek out elevator bolts.

[JDHIV]

Seek out elevator bolts.

Thanks!

Too bad they don't seem (unless my research was incomplete) to make them longer than 3" long....but I CAN see a use for them in the future...and maybe even for some extra (currently-unintended) bolting on this project!

_John

[JDHIV]

I should be asleep right now...but an update of "yesterday" (8/23):

I drilled all of the wooden X-members and they are that much closer to becoming my floor joists and will be bolted to the trailer along the both sides front-to-back. I have only bolted one Xmember down so far (the one between the wheel wells....but not being able to drill the wood AND the trailer at the same time means that I likely don't have parallel "tunnels" through both wood and metal since my old popup trailer had no holes drilled in it (I guess that is a benefit of the HF trailers). A longer titanium drill bit would've worked for that...but then I may not have been able to use the cutting grease if it was going to muck up the wood in some way?

....so it will be hard to get the bolts to line up and go all the way through...as it was today...so the threads were a little buggered when I had to reposition and hammer it a bit, thus slowing the process of getting the nut threaded on since I have 8" bolts and there is a long distance to thread with a wrench...I could probably gotten away with 6" especially now that I'm not going to bolt through the plywood....glue and screws will hold the plywood down.

My father came over and lent an extra brain to a few places where I was going to get stuck...I almost installed the fenders about an inch too low (i.e., lower than how they were installed when it was still a pop-up) and clearance with the tires would've been an issue...NOW, raising them up POSSIBLY TOO HIGH?..will be easier because I can screw them into the subfloor between the 2x3 and the plywood !! So, it was still good that I JB-welded some drilled metal "tabs" on the fenders to widen them

I will now be putting the foam in after the 2x3 joists are bolted in but before the plywood goes down. First, I will cut the foam a tiny bit wider than the space between X-members for a snug fit and I'll use whatever special foam-to-wood adhesive to glue their sides to interface with the 2x3's and then all along the top to interface the plywood. I will also put T2 or 3 down between the 2x3's and the plywood..and then screw the plywood down.

Protecting the foam (and wood) underneath: Sometime later on I'll glue (and/or screw) something in to protect the bottom of the foam that will look down onto the road....OR I'll jack up one side of the trailer later and spray it. Another option is to spray bottom face of the foam inserts with truck bed liner and then just go back later and spray the small amount of exposed wood with the same.

Since my fenders stick up above the plane of the plywood....I have to build my walls (truck-cap-supports) with a displacement of the base-plate. So, while the top plate will be one continuous board..the base plate will be cut and one little section the same dimension of the fender will be raised up. But I'm not too worried as I'll use a skin of plywood that is glue/screwed into both the floor-2x3's as well as the entire wall surface...once I do an inner skin...I'll have a kind of torsion-box set up.

I'll follow bobhenry's barn build in terms of fairly wide spacing of the 2x3 studs (20-24" on center) and may run some diagonal bracing inside the walls...but I think the plywood skin is going to do that for me?

Then it is just a matter of cutting some decent 5-7 ply plywood out to make a rear "wall"/skin that will be cut out to be a kind of wide blocky "U" shape to connect to the rear of the side walls and the floor...but it will be very short in most of the middle (side-to-side) as I need to be able to walk through my door without a huge lip to step over...and my cap's rear hinged wall (with the door in it) goes all the way down.

Before I inner-skin the walls with thinner ply...I'll put ~1" foam in there and run a length of 120 AC wire through one side as electrical chase to be figured-out and wired later...........any 12volt stuff (lights and vent fan and such) will be run later...OR I can initially not glue the inner skin...but just screw it in so I can run that stuff later...or just use corner molding to run it along the floor and hide it? We'll see...I have much else to do before that! Any suggestions on this?

Likely running off to HD to buy a compound miter saw to ensure quick and accurate cuts to begin the wall maybe tomorrow or the next day...a tool I may not use too often but will find occasional and satisfying use for in the future as well!

Also on the to-buy list: lumber for the walls to be sealed with "the mix"...unless being inside the walls and covered with plywood means I don't have to???

I'm tired and yet too awake to pass out fully...so, as such I may've forgotten something(s). Tomorrow (or is it technically today) is another "day"

...and there wasn't anything to take of yet....soon though!

_John

[KCStudly]

We have a saying here, "no pics, didn't happen".

[JDHIV]

We have a saying here, "no pics, didn't happen".

KC, LOL....but even when a picture is = 1000 words..... words without pics are still worth at least fractional amounts of the value of a picture and if this were not true...there would be no books (or kindles/iPads/etc).

I was BUSY today!!! I didn't take many pics because many of my steps were repetitive and time consuming and I was distracted as I'm not THAT handy and doing this kind of work therefore takes a lot of my concentration.

Thanks very much to my Dad for coming over with my Mom last night and staying the night after a rough business trip the ended in 8 extra hours of delayed/cancelled flights and other nonsense.......he lent his mind, experience, soundingboard-ness...and most importantly, TIME!!

For one, he helped me with simple carpentry geometry and a few other things that escape me now. After another trip to HomeDepot I was working on the camper project until 11:30pm (having started maybe as late as 1-2pm)

PICS (few and far between..but still exist):

===From last night (or the night before?) I had done some sanding of the parts of the fenders I was going to JB-weld a little metal to
so, after I did that I used some painter's tape to hold them in place.

===Closer-up...not sure what the usual purpose is for these little metal thingamuhbobbs.


=== more of the same:


==="painting" multiple coats of "the mix" (Min-spirits + Polyurethane) to seal most of the floor (two 4x8 sheets of 1" B/C plywood with notched out corners to accommodate the fenders. I had them on old planters and large plastic tubs as sawhorses.


===I also did some coating on the leftover bits of the two 4x8 Ply sheets that will go together and make the little extra floor up front since my cap is over 8' long (still didn't make it to the stage of being cut and ready for gluing/screwing down to the floor joists (X-members)...and in the background you can see the X-members on my wheel barrel (barrow?) as they were being coated in "the mix" as well:


===Fenders from the old popup now sprayed with a coat or two of truck bed liner spray:


===alt.view of same:


===Many hours (MANY) have passed (you can see the light I HAD to bring out to see what I was doing!).... and I have finished drilling out the rest of the X-members close to the outside edges along the sides of the trailer which included 3 more pairs of drilling out the metal on the steel tubing main metal of the trailer (getting the bolts to line up was mostly a pain and get them down and all the way through!..some stripped/buggered threads).



I had to add "nailers" of cut 1x (one-by) strips (ripped from 1x6's) exactly 1.5" down from the top surface of the wooden X-member as a shelf for the foam to not drop lower than once cut and inserted into the inter-Xmember spaces...To do it I measured out the distance down from the top edge of the 2x3's...clamped the 1x strips in place and screwed into the side(s) of the 2x3's. Each fender is screwed down into the now-bolted 2x3 Xmembers (one issue with one of them had to be re-JBwelded) and will be under the plywood.

==Just a closeup of both the foam inserted and how I had to countersink the tops of the bolts and the washer that accompanied it (I did that with whatever type of drill bit is flat with a point in the middle). I had two 4x8 sheets of foam insulation (1.5" thick) and used most of them (with one mistake cut) to fill up the spaces. I used a plywood blade on the jigsaw to make my cuts. also I did a test spray of truck-bed spray on the foam earlier in the day on both sides of the foam (the foil-backed side and the blue "Dow" side)...and it stuck well to both sides...so I cut the foam a little wide to make a snug fit and faced the truckliner sprayed side down....I'll see how well it fares against the road...and I'll crawl under there at some point to do some canned expanding foam sealing and maybe screw a lightweight material up under it to protect it.

I pressed the foam down into the spaces between 2x3's and it was too late to do any gluing and then quickly-followed screwing down of the plywood..........it was around 11pm and I had to get all the cutting and other power tool noise done so tomorrow morning (a Sunday) I wouldn't disturb the neighbors too early when I actually get to the gluing and screwing.



My dad is coming back tomorrow relatively early so we can build the walls that'll support the truck cap. We went to a local lumberyard I've driven by many times but never paid attention to. I got two 2x3x10's for the top rails...and some 2x3x8's for the not fully continuous base plates. The most important thing was getting a number of "studs" cut by the lumberyard so they are all perfectly cut and consistent. I also will be getting a circular saw tomorrow to buzz of a little too much width in the 2x3's and the plywood before we do the walls..This ensures the outer skin (to be 3x8" plywood) will have a surface to attach to.

After that...the cap gets bolted to the rest of it and I'm mostly there in getting it campable........a little wiring and a vent fan to install and maybe a couple of storage boxes that create a couch/bed and storage !

Darn I'm tired now!

More to do!

_John

[JDHIV]

Update with some pics.

Last night I dry-fit the foam into the spaces between the Xmembers....This morning I used special foam-board glue to put them back down.This was quickly followed by squeezing T3 onto the X-member (wood) and using a small paint roller to put most of a gallon of T2 onto the foam.......then the plywood was screwed down. This is in 3 sections: 2 sideways pieces of 4x8's with ~2feet cut from the 8' dimension....these extra pieces are too big and currently stick out and will be trimmed later (it was too important to get it them screwed down before the glue cured.



My dad and I used a new circular saw to buzz off the excess sides that I mistakenly thought it OK to make originally...you can see a more closeup here:






The lumber we got yesterday from a lumber yard was crap and we ended up getting wood from home depot (a little heavier, but had no twists and bends)...Here my dad is taking another of a LOT of measurements (and RE-measurements), we were seeing if the wall would work and used clamps to hold the bottom to the top rail and get the studs squared up. Then while clamped, we drilled pilot holes and then screwed the studs to the base-plate. Since these side walls have to be interrupted by the fenders, there are/were done in two pieces, and then later one continuous top rail is glued-n-screwed down...this being done after the separate base-plate N studs was glued and screwed down...trying to pick up as many joists as possible while screwing.

In this picture...we were just loosely placing a board on top of the separate wall sections to see if/how they'd fit.




As you can tell, the top plate board has not been cut yet as it overhangs the front by too much



In this one the first wall (passenger side; the one on the right) is completely affixed...later we learned that by the rear it leans outward and makes the back width measurement off by a fraction of an inch (see, fractions are bad! LOL ) The Driver's side wall is just standing there, only the bottom plate and studs are currently joined.






This is after I permanently installed the Driver's side wall and noticed there is an upward bow in both walls over the wheels.........I think I forgot that we needed to shorten those studs by 1/16"-1/8" as there is some metal fender material under them pushing them up....and even though the lumber yard cut the studs for me...they are sometimes off the desired 19" length by a 1/16" or so.......maybe you can see the bowing?

I considered cutting out the studs and putting shorter ones in as an alternative to having to use gasket material to absorb this difference in height...but too much glue and not being able to access some screws anymore put the kibosh on removal....I will either just see how far off the height really is tomorrow when it is bright enough and maybe the sticky foam gasket that usually goes between truck caps and truck beds will work....but I AM going to try to use a dremel or other rotary tool to excavate the very tops of each of the 4 affected studs...and then just tighten down the screws that go down into the studs through the top plate board and bring it down....not sure if it will work...but I will be using the truck bed/cap foam gasket material and maybe it can be doubled up and all this becomes moot??



Here you can see the arching/bowing upwards in the middle of the passenger side wall..not sure if it is slightly enhanced looking due to typical wide-angle lens effect from the camera?



Now that I look at the next pic (of the driver's side with more of a bowing)..I recall the wood warping a little when I used a large clamp to tighten down on the top plate down to the 2nd stud from the right as it was a little short and I needed the wood to be together before I screwed them together...there is tension in the wood and up and down forces being unequal can play all kinds of havoc with being plumb and square and planar and.....well, good.

I'll look into truck cap gaskets and maybe this is all moot???


ON TAP FOR TOMORROW MORNING: See if I can rectify the arching/bowing with reasonable effort..........and then build the front wall and screw that all together.......then I'll seal some of the wood and maybe smear T3 glue in and around all creases/corners. Then I don't have to do much to get the cap ONTO the walls and bolt it down....THEN this will be structurally done!

Beyond that, I will glue/screw a 3/8" plywood outer skin onto the walls and not much else has to be done immediately except making a small framing of wood for a back "wall" that meets up with the essentially full back wall hanging from the cap.

TTYL

_John

[JDHIV]

UPDATE:
***First: Thanks to my dad for giving up much of his weekend to help me...I forgot (and/or never learned
a lot of the basic carpentry and such!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went out around 9am and looked to fix the upward bowing of the top rail. I did so by backing out the screws that held the top rail to the studs..and then crudely using a woodsaw to erode away some of the height of the offendingly-too-tall studs causing the bow. I clamped down on them to check the height and any remaining bowing....when it looked good (-enough)..I used longer screws and tightened them back down. I was worried that the surface of the top rails wouldn't be level enough to properly interface with the truck cap... Thank goodness it now is!!!!

This shows an assumed straight board sitting on top of the top-rail to show that it is flat now that I fixed the bowing:


Here is a wider shot of the same thing:


Next I began building the front wall. I did it up on my deck and was REALLY careful to make sure it was all square..unlike the side walls where we never squared up the studs where they met the top rail....this seems so obvious now...wish it were yesterday! :




Here I have the front wall built and clamped in place ready for gluin' N screwin'


In the above pic, the yellow tape measure is right by a blue snap-line that represents where I will cut off the excess plywood that sticks out too far in front of the walls and where the cap will be mounted....it can also be seen below:

Same wall from a different vantage point and now finally screwed in. I clamped and screwed the front edges of the side walls to the side-ends of the front wall (did that make sense with all the overlapping 'synonyms'?? LOL)...and then I used shorter screws to go down through the base plate into the plywood. This helped true up the front walls.





My hand is showing that line again that I need to cut along to get rid of the excess wood in front of the camper/cap...I'll have more open depth down into the open trailer "skeleton" to put a lockable storage box and/or some other stuff and not sure where I'll put the 20lb propane tank (if I do at all). I also brushed out the sawdust and other foot traffic debris before I covered it and put it away.



One other thing (not pic'd) is how I used something similar to truck-bed spray that is undercarriage spray with rubberized paint to coat the exposed sides of the foam that insulates under the floor. I then picked it up and walked it back to the corner of my yard next to my shed to cover it up....thank goodness that it is still relatively light....not much more weight is added from here on in aside from some outer plywood skin..and even lighter inner skin, a little polyurethane and maybe some inner wood structure to make storage boxes / bed platforms....AND the cap........so if I can "tow" this as is for now....my car should hopefully not have too much of a problem when it is complete...even with gear?



..............NEXT STEPS.....use "the mix / magic mix" to seal all of the wood. Use these huge plastic washers and screw up through the foam into the underside of the plywood (I saw a couple of edges of foam drooping away from the plywood)...maybe do a little spray foam around the wheel wells...get some 3/8" plywood for the outer skin and seal and paint it and screw it on..............NOT TO MENTION getting the cap on and bolted down and sealed. Oh, and putting some foam insulation in the walls you see built in the pics above.

_John

[JDHIV]

TODAY'S UPDATE:

I used "the mix"/ "magic mix" to seal the walls (i.e., all the 2x3's that aren't the subfloor) as well as the part of the floor plywood that I didn't seal the top of yet.

I also scraped all the old foam gasket off of the underside of the truck/camper cap. I also tightened up a number of the short screws inside the camper cap that hold the paneling in place and confirmed that the cap IS insulated!!

BUT...I also confirmed that there are a couple of places that leak by running hose water over the top as I used some soap to scrub around anywhere that I may use silicone to seal.

One place leaking is in the front sliding rectangular window. I spent some time taking a LOT of screws out (stripping a few heads) just to remove the paneling-frame around the inside of the window to see what was inside the walls and see if/where I might be able to seal and maybe where that leak comes from. After playing with the window sliders and pulling out some of the rubber seals I switched the top & bottom seal as the bottom one was kinked or folded in and not sitting against the glass very well and MAY be letting the water in and channeling it. I'm not sure if this will help or not as I won't water test it again until tomorrow. I will silicone any non-moving parts and give it a few hours before I leak test it again.

Another leak area is the left/driver's rear corner which is likely due to the exposed holes left by screws that went all the way through for what was likely a cap-mounted set of racks. A former owner was a beach camper so it was likely they had some utilitarian thing on it...but now with exposed holes, water can easily find its way in......I siliconed the 4 obvious holes near that leak and will see if that helps/solves it. We'll see!...and what I hope I don't SEE is any more leaking...but I'll deal with it as it happens!

NO PICS of today's stuff....nothing that visual...sorry!

I got some camper foam gasket material in a roll from HD which is about 1-1/4" wide and 30' long and 3/16" thick. I'll double it up the foam for the uneveness that is still in the wood as well as the cap...and put that on the inside perimeter...and some rope-caulk on the outside. I'll apply both on the wood and then put the cap on top of it...then drill holes from under the wooden toprail and bolt it down in about 4 places per side and not sure what to do in the front wall as there is nothing to drill up into.

more to come....but I'm mostly there in terms of getting it functional and basically campable!

EVEN IF I HAVE TO CAMP OUT IN MY BACKYARD....I WILL CAMP IN THIS SOON!!
_John

[working on it]

One place leaking is in the front sliding rectangular window. I spent some time taking a LOT of screws out (stripping a few heads) just to remove the paneling-frame around the inside of the window to see what was inside the walls and see if/where I might be able to seal and maybe where that leak comes from. After playing with the window sliders and pulling out some of the rubber seals I switched the top & bottom seal as the bottom one was kinked or folded in and not sitting against the glass very well and MAY be letting the water in and channeling it. I'm not sure if this will help or not as I won't water test it again until tomorrow. I will silicone any non-moving parts and give it a few hours before I leak test it again.

Another leak area is the left/driver's rear corner which is likely due to the exposed holes left by screws that went all the way through for what was likely a cap-mounted set of racks. A former owner was a beach camper so it was likely they had some utilitarian thing on it...but now with exposed holes, water can easily find its way in......I siliconed the 4 obvious holes near that leak and will see if that helps/solves it. We'll see!...and what I hope I don't SEE is any more leaking...but I'll deal with it as it happens!
_John

Are you using regular household sealant type silicone to seal around the leaking window gaskets? I've had better luck sealing around automotive windows/gaskets with small leaks with "flowable" silicone.

flowable silicone sealant

01a.jpg (92.67 KiB) Viewed 2616 times

It's thin enough to fill in cracked or torn spaces in old gaskets...I've used it many times on my old cars, that had tiny water leaks not worth pulling the windshield or other window and totally replacing the gasket. In the case of my Chevelle, the leak at the upper left hand side was more than tiny, but I didn't have the time to do the replacement, so I used this product (or maybe another brand?, I forget). It never leaked again ...that was in '95. It works for me.

[JDHIV]

Are you using regular household sealant type silicone to seal around the leaking window gaskets? I've had better luck sealing around automotive windows/gaskets with small leaks with "flowable" silicone.

01a.jpg

It's thin enough to fill in cracked or torn spaces in old gaskets...I've used it many times on my old cars, that had tiny water leaks not worth pulling the windshield or other window and totally replacing the gasket. In the case of my Chevelle, the leak at the upper left hand side was more than tiny, but I didn't have the time to do the replacement, so I used this product (or maybe another brand?, I forget). It never leaked again ...that was in '95. It works for me.

Hi StillWorkin, I'm not sure if it is household or not...here it is: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Loctite-Poly ... h38QT_pxvY

I actually just came in from putting this stuff all along the many seams and into some of the open drill holes.....one of my concerns is the glass on the front window needs to slide...and so can't be permanently affixed to any seal.

I'm online chatting with a customer service rep from A.R.E and they don't even have my serial number on file anymore (it is that old) and the facility that built mine is no longer in operation....BUT they did say I could take it to a local dealer and they would at least have the rubber seals and gaskets that can just be pulled out and popped back into their grooves (via friction).

But, I WILL check out the stuff you just told me about.....ONE Q: once you apply this stuff...can you still move anything it is affixed to????

Thanks!

_John

[bobhenry]

The front window of a truck cap is generally protected somewhat by the truck cab. You might want to think about a protective cover for it in transit. It would also make a nice sun shade and rain protection so the window could remain open at any time.