Rebuilding “Ms. Merry”, the Amerigo– Taking the bow out of the cabover

Now, that the gang and I can safely access Ms. Merry’s cabover, it was finally time to bring in the new cab-over floor frame and resolve the issue of the major sagging problem that the original floor frame had. 

Unfortunately, there was no good way to bring the whole frame in in one piece, so it was dismantled and brought in in sections, then reassembled on to of the old frame after the polyurethane adhesive had been liberally applied to all the joining areas.

Before the new frame could be fully assembled, the center section’s new foam board had to first be installed, as an additional 2x4 was added to the floor at approximately where our hips and waist would roughly rest, as this was a point of sag in old Mr. Kit and caused an annoying bowl effect that tended to cause us to both slide toward the center as we slept in his cabover. 

 

To take the bow out of the front middle of the cabover floor, the new frame was built with a 2x4 header beam that attached directly behind the edge of the original floor frame.   Once a the new frame was all reassembled in place and the edge boards fully secured, a ratcheting clamp was then used under the edge of the original floor’s center and the stiffening 2x4 to gradually suck the old floor back up into a nice straight shape.

At this point, screws were driven through the original 2x2 header into the 2x4 header to secure it into its new shape and allow for the glue to achieve maximum adhession.  Additional screws were then driven through the new 2x2s in the upper frame into the lower frame after making sure the boards were as aligned as possible. 




As you can see, additional framing was added to the side walls to give the new bed frame extra support.   A second tapered board was cut to fill the void on the passenger side so that side wall support framing for the cabover floor went as far forward as possible. 

Once the old edge board is removed from the underside the lower window shelf/platform, a 2x6 will be cut, tapered and notched to fit on the front most edge of the floor frame to attach the last small portion of the cabover floor between the new header and the front edge of the cabover.  

After that, the two layers of foam insulation will be installed in the floor, however, the floor decking will not be able to be permanently installed until the side wall plywood and wall paneling is installed. 



For the moment, Ms. Merry’s new 3/4” Plywood cabover deck temporarily dry fitted into place to allow for me to begin removal of the last section of the old ceiling.

Once the ceiling has been opened up, I can pull the new wiring for the reading lights, cut the new insulation board to fill the whole roof in with, and then start installing the new ceiling paneling.