So, I’ve once again fallen down on the job of telling the story of Ms. Merry!
We’re now in Summer number four, can you believe it? Will we actually make it to the finish line this year? I’m thinking we will, but the world has already tried to knock us down a couple times this year, first with kidney stones in April and then a blown blood vessel in my nose a couple weeks ago!
Since I got a late start this year, I ended up taking a full week off in July and marathon working on Merry during that week. My goodness, we got so much done when we were able to work twelve hours a day, every day on Merry!
When you last saw her, she looked like this on the inside:
Since then, she now looks like this!
Bathroom
You can see all we ended up keeping of Ms. Merry’s original shower, though I have the pan in the garage for reference. We’ll be fiberglass in aluminum joints along all the corners between the pan floor and walls before the finished fiberglass panels are glued into place to form the new wet bath.
The hole in the back left corner of the floor is actually where the tank vent pipe will be coming up through the bathroom, painted white, similar to how I redid the vent pipe in Mr. KIT.
Looking towards the Rear
The 2x4 near the door and the 2x2 near the edge of the bathroom are actually the starting beams for two walls, in the case of the bathroom, its part of the door front bathroom wall frame.
In case of the dinette, its part of the back wall of the dinette (I’m putting in a full floor to ceiling wall, as that area needed some extra strength as its a part of the rear jack mount).
You can see how much larger the new bathroom is versus the original by how much more of the snap-n-nap opening is blocked off, now.
We’ve also finished rebuilding the crank mechanisms on the big jalousie window and unbending the drive shafts. The windows all need a good application of white lithium grease at all the pivot points to loosen them back up, the last owners sadly, just used more force to get the windows to open instead of relubricating them and broke all of the crank mechanisms on the larger windows and twisted the drive shaft out of shape.
Looking toward the Kitchen
All of the walls are now paneled, with the exception of the front wall below the cabover, it simply doesn’t need to be paneled until its time to start building in the lower kitchen cabinet area. All of the upper cabinet frames and interior walls can be put in with the camper as it is now. Getting the walls paneled in was a major milestone in the completion of Ms. Merry, as it was the first time the entirety of the interior was starting to look like a camper again, instead of an assemblage of structural timbers.
Looking forward
Yes, that is fiberglass insulation peaking out from the underside of the cabover bed. In the end, I ended up pulling out what foam board I had put in and going with pink bat insulation as it filled the full void under the bed far better than I was getting with the foam board for a higher R Value than I was going to get stacking in the more expensive foam board.
The removed foam board was reused in the walls and ceiling after being pulled from the cabover floor.
It’s almost time to do the fridge swap between Ms. Merry and Mr. KIT. Both fridges are functional, but Mr. KIT’s fridge is in a lot better shape physically, plus it already has all of my boosted cooling modifications done on it.
Fortunately, with the door removed from Mr. KIT, and the front lip ring removed from the fridge, the door opening is just wide enough to get the fridge in and out of on Mr. KIT!
We will have to make a custom duct for the roof vent, on Ms. Merry its set inwards from the wall further than it was on Mr. KIT and the distance between the ceiling and the fridge is a lot shorter! So, we’re going to get a sheet metal bending press to make a custom duct to go from the fins on the top of the fridge up into the vent where our fans will be to help pull air up and out the vent.
I’ll be lining the compartment and wall with sheet metal to help protect the camper walls and encase the fridge in a blanket of rockwool insulation.
The front cabover wall still needs to be installed, its been postponed till I get up there with the cabover window curtain track as its one big piece and it won’t be possible to get it up into the cabover after the walls are in place without damaging it.
The propane tank compartment still needs it insulation panels installed on the sides and the insulation bat installed on the rear, as well as the gas line for the fridge routed through the gap under the fridge platform floor.
The main black pipe gas line will run from the cabinet compartment down across the top of the fresh water tank and then down the left side of the camper where it will terminate at the feed fitting for the furnace at the rear.
Current Project
I’m currently constructing the wall frames for the bathroom and the floor to ceiling cabinet and drawers on the driver’s side so I can get the lower wall framed in and install the electrical distribution panel, allowing me to finally start connecting up all the circuits in the camper.
And, now you’re up to date 
ReplyDeleteLooking good Matt!
Thank you :)!
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