Wee-Go

[bbrider]

Stain looks nice!

Thanks!


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[bbrider]

Well I took the weekend off and did some motorcycle riding since it was such a nice weekend. I did do a light sanding of my last poly coat so I could get started on my next coat of poly today.

Well amazon delivered all my stuff I ordered for the DC wiring early this morning. So I decided to knock out the wiring, the fuse block, the usb/DC plug unit, and the conduit going to my tongue box where my battery will be. That took a lot longer than I thought so the poly will have to wait till tomorrow. I did get my aluminum skin ordered as well. That will be in on Friday and I am hoping to get that on next week.

I still have to get my aluminum angle for all my corners. I found that Granger sells the angle for almost half price of Home Depot and Lowes. I plan on going by tomorrow to see if I have to order it or if the have it in stock.


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[bbrider]

I can see how building a tt can become an addiction. I found myself with nothing interesting to watch on tv last night and my mind on my tt build anyway so I went back out to it just to look at it and think. Well one thing lead to another and pretty soon I was half way into putting my last coat of poly on....LOL. My boss came out at 9:00 PM and asked me if I was crazy! She said I need to take a break! LOL I told her I would be in shortly....... right after I finished the poly, which I did.

So this morning I did a little touch up in a couple of places and installed my sliding drawer and storage door. Now it is time to go buy some more parts. I am not abscessed, I am not abscessed, I am not abscessed, ok, I am abscessed, but it is fun to watch it come together. I believe it will be ready by the end of the month for our first camping trip.

We hooked it up to the Jeep Sunday and did a little test tow and it seems to pull great. I got a lot of banging in the hitch on some of the really rough Louisiana roads though. My answer that was to add a filler weld on my draw bar to take up the slack in the hitch. I haven't pulled it since I added the weld so I don't know if that fixed it yet. I believe it will plus the added tongue weight of the box and battery once it is installed will help some I am sure.

Off to the store.



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[KCStudly]

Interior looks great!

One man's obsession is another man's labor of love.

[bbrider]

Thanks! I was a rough carpenter and never did finish work. I don't like painting or staining. I know where all the flaws are in the finish work. I usually make them worse if I try to fix them...LOL. Best left alone.

[bbrider]

Today is a rain day and I am still waiting on my skin to come in. I am done on the inside other than curtains and bedding. I want to get the skin done and the door and windows installed before I do the before I worry about the curtains. So with nothing to do today I decided to crunch some numbers on my build. Wow! I knew building my on trailer from the ground up including wheels and tires and heavier steel for the trailer was going to add to the cost. I also knew all those times when I said it is only a few dollars more to upgrade this or that was going to drive my build cost up as well. I was expecting it to come in around $3600. I am at $3388 now. I still haven't paid for the skin or the aluminum trim and I still have the AC to do. My skin is going to be less than $300 and the AC is expected to be less than $200 so as of now I am looking at a total for my build around $3900.

LOL I started with the idea of using my HF trailer I already owned and morphed into a complete offroad capable trailer. Now I was planning on building my own door and the boss overruled me and said buy a door and that was another $330 I didn't expect to spend so I guess I am not that far off my original projected cost. Either way I am happy I went the route I did. I can say I built it from the ground up. My design, my labor, and my time. I am now two months into my build including two weeks I was out of state on vacation trips. I leave again next week on my last big trip of the year (5 days) and will be ready to skin it when I get back. If all goes well I should be ready for first camp run by the last weekend of October. Not including having the AC done. I am going to have to wait till next spring to pick up an AC unit now.

I was told early on to expect it to run $3500 minimum for a ground up build and I have to say that is correct in most cases. Could it have been done cheaper, I am sure it could have. I have always gone overboard in any of my projects. I have always learned ways I could have done it better or cheaper. A friend of mine calls it "Going to school" on your first build. Having said all that, I can still truthfully say I am happy with my the way my Wee-Go has come out so far. I will be even happier when I get to use it. I told my wife to pick out some nice curtains and bedspread for it because we will have plenty of people wanting to look in it when we start using it.

I want to thank all the fellow members here that posted their builds and tips. I would hate to know how much I would have spent or how long it would have taken to build this had I not had this group to help with getting parts and the build. My hat is off to you all.

Bill

PS I will post up some more pictures of the finished camper when I get it done.

[bbrider]

Well enough traveling for awhile. Time to get back on the Wee-Go. We spent last week in Arkansas and Missouri riding and camping on the Hog and had a great time, but every time we passed a BLM camping turn that had a gravel road leading down to who knows what I caught myself thinking about getting the Wee-Go done so we could come back up with it and the jeep. Guess I am a little fixated.

Well I ordered my window ac unit and it is supposed to be delivered today by UPS. I spent yesterday building a mockup of the shelf area that I am mounting it in. My plan is to build my mounts and cut the hole in the end wall for the ac to slide in and out of. Make the aluminum trim pieces for the hatch hole and the door. Get the sliding shelf brackets I plan to mount the ac unit on mounted to the supports. That will be much easier on a work bench to build and fit in my mockup. Then I will be able to take the ac with the supports and just slide them on to the shelf in my camper as a complete unit after I get the hatch done on the trailer. I can then put a couple of screws through the bottom of the shelf up into the support pieces to secure it in place. This way if I ever want to take the ac out for any reason all I will have to do is take out a couple of screws and lift the whole unit out along with the mount.

Patience was never one of my virtues so while waiting on UPS I went ahead and cut a smaller size whole out where the hatch is going to be. This allowed me to measure and mark out where the shelf, cabinet wall, and the roof trim is located on the outside of my trailer. Now when I get ready to cut the actual hatch opening I will have reference lines to help get it all centered and straight. I will have to cut a new hatch door out of some of my scrap and stain it to match the inside of my camper, but I have plenty and cutting the viewing hole was the only way I could make certain I layed everything out right. I will take and post more pictures as I do the different steps. Here are the pictures of my mockup, the viewing hole and layout on the back of my camper. Oh and I decided to try my hand and gas welding my aluminum trim pieces for the hatch. Here is a picture of my second attempt at that as well. My plan is to use 3/4" angle cut on 45* to line the hatch outside and cut. Then make another one to fit inside that one from the inside and offset the inside one 1/8" to the inside to allow room for weather stripping for the door to butt into. Both of those to be held in place with flat head screws into the edge of my wood and counter sunk flush. I have not decided what I will seal the inside piece to the outside piece with yet. Maybe just some rv caulk. It would be great if I could weld the two together since they would both be put in from the out side. What to do what to do.....

ac cabinet mockup

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Layout for ac area on outside of camper

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[KCStudly]

Wow. I didn't think you could gas weld AL, but that looks pretty damn good!

[bbrider]

Wow. I didn't think you could gas weld AL, but that looks pretty damn good!

It is really tricky. The aluminum melts at 700* and the rod melts at 650* and since aluminum doesn't change colors like steel it is hard to get right. I have a small acetylene torch with a regulator that doesn't use an oxygen bottle. It gets really hot really fast. I heat then touch the rod, heat, touch the rod, etc, etc. When it melts the rod without the heat you just need to touch the flame for a second to keep the heat. Some of mine looks great! Some don't look so great...

Today I opened my ac unit and marked where I could screw my drawer slides on. Got those mounted.

Slides and trim on ac

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Then I built the carriage assembly.

Carriage

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Then I cut the hole in my mockup to test fit. Ok so now or never, I transferred the marks to the wee-go and got out the saw. Put the ac and carriage unit on the shelf temporarily to test fit. Had to add a clamp at the front to keep it from tilting when the ac slid out, but it worked really good. Then I started cutting my 3/4" aluminum angle to make my outside trim for the hole. Gas welded it together and started cutting the angle pieces to go inside of the trim piece to act as a door stop for the door. After fitting those I spot welded those in place to the outside trim ring. Not easy! got too much heat near the corner once and it came loose so I had to go back and fix that. That corner doesn't look as good now. Lesson learned. Stay away from the corners! Tomorrow I will get some liquid weld to seal the lap joint between the inside and outside pieces of the angle to make it water tight. I haven't drilled the holes to mount the trim ring yet as I am waiting to skin the outside first. That will happen next week I hope.

I still need to make a latch to lock the ac in the opened and closed positions. My plan is to add a pin latch to the trim on the ac and drill a hole in the wood support runners for the pin to drop into in both positions.

AC slid out with trim ring

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[bbrider]

A couple more pictures. I still need to stain and poly the carriage assembly and drill my holes on the under side of the shelf for the mounting screws that will lock it in place. I am thinking about making a drip pan to sit under the ac as a safety catch for any water that might spill out of the ac when in tow mode. This ac doesn't have a drain hole so it will retain some water in it's bottom. I might later on add a outlet in the ac area for it too. Right now I have to plug on the next shelf down to run it. I am beginning to believe there is no end to the things you can do to these...LOL. Money and time is the only stopping point. It is getting really close. If I can get it skinned next week all I will need to do is finish my corner trim on the outside and put my diamond plate trim around the bottom. Install the door and windows, the fantastic fan, and reinstall my finders. Oh and finish the wiring to my battery box. I can see the end! I am pleased to be where I am with it after almost 2 1/2 months.

[ELM]

It's looking great and I like the way your doing your A/C. What kind of aluminum rod did you use.

[bbrider]

It's looking great and I like the way your doing your A/C. What kind of aluminum rod did you use.

Thanks! I bought the rods from Harbor Freight. I only used 1 rod out of the 5-06 that came in the pack. HD sells them too. They are in the welding section. I watched some videos on YouTube and that started it. Knowing what I know now, I would have welded the two angle pieces together first. Then cut every thing to length and welded the corners last. Then it would have been water tight. I an going to have to mix some epoxy to seal the joint between the two pieces of angle now. That may be one of things I try to upgrade later on. Here is an up close pic of what I made. the only welds that hold the two together is on the under/outside edge and are only spot welds since I couldn't get to close to the corners I had already welded without them coming loose.

[ELM]

It's looking great and I like the way your doing your A/C. What kind of aluminum rod did you use.

Thanks! I bought the rods from Harbor Freight. I only used 1 rod out of the 5-06 that came in the pack. HD sells them too. They are in the welding section. I watched some videos on YouTube and that started it. Knowing what I know now, I would have welded the two angle pieces together first. Then cut every thing to length and welded the corners last. Then it would have been water tight. I an going to have to mix some epoxy to seal the joint between the two pieces of angle now. That may be one of things I try to upgrade later on. Here is an up close pic of what I made. the only welds that hold the two together is on the under/outside edge and are only spot welds since I couldn't get to close to the corners I had already welded without them coming loose.

Thanks I'll have to pick some up at Harbor Freight next time I'm there and mess around with it.

[bbrider]

The devil is in the details! That is no joke. I thought I was done with my AC hatch and door other than stain, skin, hinge, lockset, and weather stripping. No big deal. Well got it hinged and lockset in no problems other than one hinge screw broke off. Then I realized there was not enough clearance for the door to lay down on the ac unit. It was hitting the unit at the hinged end before it was all the way down! Not good. Rain would have been funneled back towards the opening instead away from the opening.

Well I always said to walk away and take a break when there is a problem, heck sleep on it even. Came out this morning, looked at it and said "cut the hole at the top 1/4" higher and move the whole hatch assembly up. No harm no foul. Fixed it easy. The trim is still plenty wide enough to cover the bottom.

Also wanted a way to latch the ac unit in place when traveling so I made some latches out of gate latches. The only problem was if they fell behind the carriage when the ac was pushed out it was a pain to get the up again to close it back up. Not enough room for my hand to reach back there. To fix that I made a bungee cord with eyelets on each end that would go over the top of the ac unit. Now I put that on the latches and when I get ready to shove out the ac I just pull the bungee over the top of the ac to hold the latches up out of the way.

Thursday is looking like skin day. Found I was missing the screws for my window trim ring so I had to get those coming. That should have me ready to install the windows and door by middle of next week. I will be working on the corner trim and bottom trim in the mean time. Mattress is coming in tomorrow. Curtains are done. I may be ready to go camping in a couple of more weeks! Ayyy Eeee! That's Cajun for Oh Boy! LOL.

Anyway here are the pictures.

[ELM]

That looks great. Getting it skinned will totally change the look of it.