I didn’t receive the M6 bolts that I needed to mount the furring strips. They were supposed to come late yesterday, but nothing. Amazon now says that they are delayed until 5:00pm today. We’ll see….
So, I had to come up with other items to work on. I didn’t have any appointments today, so I was looking forward to a full day working on the van. I had to do something.
I started the day by doing some re-work on the deadbolt lock on the rear door. It wasn’t always working, because of some interference with the bolt and the catch. I also wanted to do a better job with the electrical connection – using better WAGO connectors. I took the panel off of the door to access the inside. It was a pretty easy fix to update the electrical connectors. The hardest part was that I had to create some more slack in the Ford wiring harness to allow the plug to go back into the connection. Then, I drilled out the rivets that were holding the deadbolt and moved the deadbold back as far as it would go (which wasn’t too much). I also noticed that the catch had bent the sheetmetal on the door a little from the hits it was taking. So, I bent it back, removed a couple of the rivets and put in some bigger screws to hold it in place better. It seems to work much better now. Here is a picture of the bent catch mechanism.
Then I spent the rest of the morning marking and drilling holes in the furing strips. Doing this will speed up the process of installing the furring strips when I receive the bolts. I had four M6 bolts that I sacrificed for this step by using a bolt cutter to cut off the heads of the bolts.
Then, I would screw the cut off bolt into the rivnut, so it would look like this.
Once I had screwed in these cutoff bolts into all the rivnuts that were holding a piece of furring strip, I would line up the furring strip into it’s position and hit it with a hammer over each of these bolts to mark on the furring strip board where the rivnuts were. Then, I would take the board down and drill out the hole for the M6 bolt using the marks as a guide. I did that over and over for about 30 boards.
Then I created the furring strip boards for the top of the driver’s side and made them so that I could route the Ford wiring harness without interference. I also had to consider that I had to route my own wires through this area.
The only thing left to do to prepare the furing strip boards is to countersink holes in the face, so the M6 bolts head will sit flush with the face of the furring strip. I’m going to wait to receive the bolts and then figure out a way.
That was my morning, and I spent about three hours on those tasks.
In the afternoon, I started working ahead and put together all the wires for van. I used my list of electrical equipment, which included the number and type of wire I was using, and “pulled” wire from the spools I had to the length needed to route that wire inside the van. As I pulled them, I also labeled them so I would know where they connected. I also grouped wires together and stuffed them into a loom to protect them from road vibrations. Here is a picture of the wires that run from the passenger side galley area to the van batteries on the driver’s side. This was the biggest grouping of wires. In the picture below, the wires are sitting on the furring strips with the holes drilled in them.
After I made most of these wire bundles, I coiled them up and set them aside for now. After the furring strips are all up, I’ll route them through the van and then begin installing the outlets and switches.
The wire bundle for the 120V and 12V outlets near the driver’s seat I was able to route through the van wall, as it would be out of the way there. It followed the same path as the wires to charge from the van batteries.
I was also able to route the MaxxAir fan wires inside the van, as they would be out of the way as well.
Overall, I put together all of the wire bundles for the van in the afternoon. The only wires that I haven’t pulled are the ones for the solar panels and for the Starlink antenna. I’ll pull those on the day that I mount the solar panels on the roof (which may be tomorrow if I don’t receive those bolts!!).
Overall, I put in another 5 1/2 hours on the van today.
Good progress.