The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

[KCStudly]

After work I did some research on weather tight connectors for the hatch wiring. I settled on the 8 pin version of the Amphenol AT Series available from Digi Key.
An 8 pin connector gives me a couple of pins for upgrades, maybe back up lights later.

Then I disassembled the draw latches to chase the threads of both the square nut and the catch hook stud. The catch hook stud passes thru the padlock loop which is captured by the bail and a square nut. Both of the nuts and the studs were very poorly cut with lots of machining debris in the threads. It is likely that the OEM intends these threads to be snug so that once the adjustment is made that catch does not tend to flop around (an admirable design goal), however, the state of the “seizium and gaulium” alloys of SS that were present in the assembly was way out of acceptable limits for my taste. Here is a pic of me chasing the threads with tap and die.

The over toggle bail is visible in the latch assembly at lower left; the padlock tab and nut carrier is shown at lower right; the nut is on the tap; and the catch stud is in the die (which is in the die handle wrench). A few drops of cutting oil were involved.

Shop air to blow off the chips and excess oil; reassembly with a light application of food grade anti-seize. The assembly spins nice and easy now. If I find that it is a PITA in operation because it spins too easy, I will degrease the threads and apply post assembly thread locker once the adjustment is optimized.

Out to Mecca. BTW, things are heating up on the Rover project and, while it is a fun project, I’m glad that I am not involved in the rest of it. The double roll bar and chassis mounts for same are tacked up, the bed rail and bulkhead mods for the jump seat and shortened cap are in progress and the rock rails are going on. I’ll get some pics tomorrow and if there is any interest I will post them up.

Cleared off the street side fender blocking glue up weights and found some gooey GG squeeze out that had not cured. I am thinking that the crust cured over before the excess blob had a chance to cure; probably used too much glue.


Here it is from the door jamb side after trimming the excess glue, hand planing and a bunch of block sanding.


And from the back.


Here I have aligned the street side wall to the underside of the street side of the floor; transferred the location of the wire channel to the floor; drilled thru the bottom of the wall sill for the under floor porch foot light; and laid out for the angled hole for the wire to pass thru the floor and end up inside of the chassis frame rail.

The angled hole is necessary because the hole through the bottom of the wall ends on top of the floor above the chassis frame rail. The wall is only 1-11/16 thk while the frame tube is 2 inches wide. In order for the hole to get from under the wall to a point inside of the frame, it needs to be angled.

Then I made a gauge block to help align the drill bit while making the angled hole.

I first drilled short pilot holes perpendicular to either surface to start the holes, then drilled thru both sides at an the angle described by the gauge, letting the holes find themselves in the foam core. The passage landed right where I laid it out, but later (in the shower where I do some of my best thinking) I realized that I had used the distance of the hole from the inside of the wall and translated that from the outside of the floor, instead of calculating the corresponding distance relative to the outside of the floor. Doh. Not a big deal. All I need to do is drill another hole straight down (up) thru the top of the floor bisecting the angle hole I just drilled, then if I want, I can plug the portion of the hole that runs out with a dowel. Not necessary, but might help later when trying to fish wires. I will adjust for this and make a new (correct) angle gauge for the other side.

Then I spent a few minutes considering the placement of the rear marker lights vs. the draw latch positions. The draw latches will go on the side edge of the floor, under the wall, pulling the hatch bottom spar into the bottom rear face of the floor to form the seal. The running/marker light will be mounted to the wall bottom sill, just above the joint with the floor, but I have some concerns about knuckle knocker clearance while operating the latches in close proximity to the lights, and if the padlock on the latch might bounce around and tend to smash the light. Maybe I should put the light directly over the latch as close to the rear as I can, but I am want to put the light a little further forward because of these concerns. Need to recheck the reg’s, but I guess it is an interpretation on ‘as far to rear as practical’ (or similar verbiage). Also, if I am doing the linear actuators for the hatch, I need to consider my idea for the actuator switch position and security.

Another issue that has been on my radar is that the marker lights are designed to ground to the chassis thru one of the mounting screws; they only came with one pigtail that has a ‘bullet’ style of push pin connector. The ground receptacle on the light will accept the same style pin, but instead has a ground bar built into the trim bezel that connects to one of the screw holes in the bezel. That’s a problem because the locations where I intend to mount the lights are non-conductive. This may even be a problem for the pos (+) lead because there is not a lot of room for the straight pins and leads under the bezel. I may need to get more of the bullet pins to make my own ground leads (the receptacles are there), but to use them I may have to either pocket out a recess under the fixture, or trim a part of the back of the bezels to eliminate the existing grounding scheme. Another option might be using a flat ring terminal under the “grounded” mounting screw hole location, but I don’t have much confidence that this would complete a reliable ground path, what with applying sealant to the mounting screws and the narrow metal grommet cast into the bezel. I’ll see if I can get viewable pics tomorrow.

[91kuhndog]

WOW KC, thanks for the positive feedback on my build, I jumped over here to spend some time reading your's. You, Sir have to be one of the most patient people I have ever seen build a project. What an amazing build you have going together there. Keep up the good work my friend!

[KCStudly]

Kuhndog, thanks for the glowing compliment. I sincerely appreciate it, even if it does prove that I am completely crazy!

On to the build. Wash, rinse, repeat. Corrected the layout error for the under floor porch light wire passage on the curb side, made a new drill guide block, and drilled the curb side hole.


Routed out the curb side fender block recess.

The block is sitting on the wall above the recess.

Detail pic of the dry fit at each end (the block is only pressed in about half way so that I can get it back out again.



Glued that sucker in.


Then I turned my attention to the bulkhead wall and laid out the blocks that would mount the screw jack linear actuators, should I choose to use those for the hatch. I made another router template from a piece of the underlayment that I cut from the corner of the window recess jig; shortened some drywall screws using vice grips and the Bader so that the screws would not pierce thru the interior skin side of the bulkhead; carefully pilot drilled the alignment holes for the jig so as not to accidently punch through the finished side of the wall; screwed the template to the bulkhead wall frame; and routed out the pocket.


The jig actually came out a little big in one direction (note the bigger overlap on the right in the pic… actually the lower rail). I didn’t route all the way up to this edge of the jig. Rather I just got close about 1/2 inch away. Because I had only glued the face of the foam with contact adhesive, and not the perimeter edges, it was an easy thing to trim and chisel the rest of the foam exactly to the frame.

There was one rather large piece of foam that chipped out while routing and it gave me a moment of pause with regard to the effectiveness of the contact adhesive, but I suspect that it was just a local issue.

This chunk chipped out as one piece.

I dressed the bottoms of the recesses a bit with the chisel and a small chunk of 100 grit on a dinky hard block, just to dress the oddities of the router job and adhesive back flush a bit (the depth that I had set the router to found the bond line between the foam and inner wall skin, essentially splitting the adhesive layer). Then I fit and glued in the two (2) red oak blocks.


The curb side fender block had been glued under the weights for a couple of hours, and the GG visible around the edges of the freezer paper was mostly set, although still a bit tacky, but the bottle said set in 2 hrs., so I went ahead and moved the weights to the bulkhead glue up. Here is the fender blocking after gluing and removing the freezer paper. I’ll clean this up tomorrow.


If I where to build a duplicate of TPCE (… ain’t gonna happen) there are some things that I could do different now that I know what I didn’t know at the beginning.

First, routing out all of these recesses and gluing in all of these blocks takes a hell of a lot of time. Sounds easy up front, but takes a lot of measuring, fixturing, doing, and time. It may save a few pounds in the end, and I feel like I am breaking new ground on a unique build method, but I wouldn’t do it this way again.

Second, had I known where the fender blocks needed to be, and had planned for the wing tables and hatch actuator struts from the beginning, I could have built these blocks in from the beginning and used biscuit joints to tie them in for a little more strength. After the fact the plate joiner does not fit into the 1x4 recess. I suppose I could get a slot cutter bit for the router, but I don’t have one, and on the bulkhead blocks there wouldn’t be any way to set them in.

Thank you Kuhndog and everyone else for your interest in my progress. It seems that all of this block recessing and gluing is a bit boring (there's that machinist's humor again), but it really will be better if i get all of it settled before moving on. Foam doesn't take screws well at all.

Thanks for hanging in there with me as we approach 23k views in this marathon build.

[GPW]

KC , you know , the second one is ALWAYS soooooo much easier than the first ... every time !!! So what will you be building next ?

[KCStudly]

KC , you know , the second one is ALWAYS soooooo much easier than the first ... every time !!! So what will you be building next ?

A campfire!

[Ned B]

KC, detailed photos of your progress will help when you get to the 'where is that wire chase again?' moment. No matter how careful you are, you'll have at least One of those.

continuing to follow along and

[KCStudly]

Thanks Ned. Yeah the pictures are a good record, as are the notes and additions that I am making on the shop drawings.

Thanks for the thumbs up.

Today I faired the curbside fender block (steak knife, large block plane, used the Surform plane some this time, the medium block plane, and sanding block).

Took the weights off of the actuator blocks in the bulkhead and immediately realized that I had installed them one bay lower than I should have. Doh! Oh well, I’ll call it a happy accident and claim that they will add support, like a column, down thru the under cabinet support divider stiles below.


This is the raw glue up of the left side red oak block (I keep forgetting that the Ho-de-po on the way to Mecca doesn’t carry maple like the one near work, so used oak instead).


And the right side.


Even though they were in the wrong spots they still needed to be cleaned up and faired (actually, the whole panel needs a good fairing).


Left Side.


Right side.


And now I get to do it again, one bay up.


A much bigger chunk of foam broke out this time. This suggests to me that either I did not weigh down the bulkhead evenly when gluing, or I did not fair the foam to the frame faces well enough, allowing the weights to bridge over the foam. Karl and I have already discussed strategies for vacuum pressing the inner wall skins to the walls when we glue those, or maybe use a different glue.


Drags are on early today due to live coverage from Houston, so I quit early after only a couple of hours; plus Karl and Chris are celebrating her B-day today. Yvette and I will join them next week to celebrate again.

Before leaving, Karl and I were spit balling ways to uncouple the hatch actuators should there be a failure. We were trying to think of ways to disguise or eliminate an access hatch that would allow me to reach thru the bulkhead and pull the lower pivot pins when suddenly I had a moment of clarity, a “clearing of the trees in the forest” if you will. The solution is even easier than adding hatches; attach the lower mounting brackets for the actuators to the bulkhead with fasteners that screw into tapped holes in the bracket bases from the cabin side of the wall. Upon electrical failure, unbolt the actuator brackets by removing the fasteners from inside of the cabin side cabinets; the actuator brackets fall away from the bulkhead and the hatch is free to be lifted manually. If I choose appropriate wire connectors and anchor the electrical leads appropriately, the power leads should just pull apart when I lift the hatch manually. Maybe not the ideal situation, but then again it is just a hail Mary fail safe mode, so as long as it works and I can get the hatch open manually, I can recover from pretty much any electrical condition.

Thanks for watching and please feel free to comment. I’ll take constructive criticism along with the generous compliments ( …. I might not abide, but I will certainly listen ).

[KCStudly]

Tonight I made a drawing of the hatch actuator lower mounting bracket.

Then I went by the big orange box (the one by work) and got another stick of 1x4 maple.

Out to Mecca where I finished routing out the other pocket in the correct location for the actuator bracket block. Then I fit and glued both blocks in. (Picture the image of weights on top of freezer paper… it should be indelibly burned into your retinas by now. )

Then I futzed with the marker lights, the draw latches, and contemplated wire routing to the rear side marker lights (I’d rather not use the wire mold in the galley).

I need to get the hatch wire connector plug and the actuator rocker switch (that I picked out earlier) on order so that I can work out the switch location and mounting, and confirm that I can make my idea for the switch security cover work with the draw latch.

A little progress is still progress.

[KCStudly]

I think the Maple was harder to plane than the oak, which surprised me. Probably time to hone the blade on the midsize plane.

Anyway, I faired the Maple blocks in the bulkhead and it took some doing. Maybe the fact that it was 79 deg F in the loft when I arrived had something to do with it. Switched out one of my extension cords (the radio) for the attic fan until it shut off on thermostat. Plugged it back in before leaving and will make that a habit, now that the days are getting warmer. If you insist on seeing more pictures of weighted blocks, rough glued blocks, and the pictures that I forgot to take of the faired blocks, check my album.

Then I spent some time noodling over the rear marker light wire routing. At first I thought that I would just route a recessed channel into the inner face of the wall sill and punch thru at the rear to the light, but I have been struggling with the concern that the padlock on the hatch draw latch might bounce around and whack the light, perhaps breaking it. Also, if the light is too close to the latch the light could be a knuckle buster. Still don’t have the rocker switch in hand, so that is still an unknown. When I sat there staring at it long enough I realized that I cannot put the wire channel in the wall sill because that is where the drawer slides for the cooler will go (at least on one side) and I didn’t have the specs with me to know where the screws will go.

I wasn’t so much worried about the screws holding the walls to the floor interfering with the wire way, because I have decided that I will be using deck screws up thru the bottom of the floor into the wall sill (rather than the Kregg screws mentioned earlier). I think I will stagger this about the centerline of the wall sill.

So, with all of that, I decided to raise the wire chase up just above the extra block for the slides in the galley portion of the walls. I set a straight edge (actually, the bottom of the jig that I had used to route out the wing table and fender blocks). Then I set the starting point just ahead of the bulkhead and in align with the inside cabin Wiremold wire chase. I used the curved scrap of ply from the window radius to trace an arced path from the middle of the wall sill, over the location at the bottom of the bulkhead where a Kregg screw will go (holding the bottom of the bulkhead to the side wall). If you look closely at this next pic you can see where I just plunged the router in at the start point, free handed the arc to my layout, then followed the straight edge along the top of the guide block to a marked stopping point near the rear of the wall.


This gives me the option of mounting the rear side marker lights slightly higher and out of the way of the hatch draw latch (with another small block that will need to be added to the lower rear corner of the wall outside surface), as well as a way to accommodate the hatch actuator rocker switch wiring.

Next I laid out where the bulkhead will be in relation to the arc in this new wire chase.


This will give me an idea of how I can transition from the rear marker light wire chase up into the bulkhead wall for the lights in the hatch and the hatch actuator wires.

It may be confusing now (frankly, I don’t have it all sorted out yet), but I think it will become clear as I build along.

[KCStudly]

I ordered a bunch of electrical components from Del City; water proof rocker switch for hatch actuators, weather proof connectors for hatch wiring and actuators, and some other nick knacks.

Went to Mecca, went through all of my left over wiring stuff from the car trailer, and pretty much just sat there looking at the wiring situation trying to make decisions on routing. I keep feeling like I am missing pieces of info from all of the different "layers of the onion", but it is slowly starting to take form. I need to spend a bunch more time working on the wiring diagrams so that I can decide how many wires of what size need to be routed where. Then I will be better able to decide what size channels are needed and how I am going to divide that burden from side to side in the camper.

The rocker switch is going to be tough to decide on. I had hoped to place it near the hatch draw latch with the hopes of securing it with one of the draw latches, but that is looking less and less practical. The switch is pretty deep and may even require a raised trim plate or recess "bubble" on the inside of the galley wall, and I think I might want to mount it higher up on the wall for ease of use.

I also just ordered the cooler draw slides; KV 8800B-28" 200# Full Extension Drawer Slide. The ones from Rockler were on back order until August, so I found some similarly spec’d Knape & Vogt units from Cornerstone Hardware.

Progress is progress.

[Wobbly Wheels]

Looking at the chases you've routed: have you given any thought to using boat cable for your wiring ?

Tinned AWG conductors in a common sheath makes life easy when your pos and neg buses are in the same place (like on your 5206 panel). It also keeps the exposed runs tidy and is easy to label them with a Sharpie.

[KCStudly]

I had thought about multi-conductor cable and would love to use the tinned marine grade stranded wire, but I am fearful that the multi-conductor won't be as convenient, nor fit in as small a space as the individual single conductor wires. Not much is a home run to the panel either, with switches mounted remotely, the porch foot lights, and the red light, I have circuits branching out and looping back all over the place.

The budget continues to balloon, so standard copper automotive grade wire will likely get the nod.

That looks like nice stuff, tho.

[GPW]

You may want to solder and heat shrink all your connections too ....

[Fyddler]

I plan on soldering, especially everything sealed in the roof. My dad used to work on a tug boat and was always cursing about crimp connectors and wire nuts on the boat always giving bad connections after a few years. I spend a lot of time on the coast, and not going to take the chance!

[KCStudly]

Wire nuts on a boat are against USCG reg's, IIRC.