According to the CDC, I still have two more days of self-isolation because of my positive Covid test. Even though I feel good today, I am still going to work on some less strenuous items and not put in as many hours as I might. Which is also good, because it is the hottest day of the year (so far). High temperatures today are forecast at 97 degrees along with a fair amount of humidity. Even though I started working before 8:00, it was already 77 degrees.
The first item I accomplished was to secure two of the wall panels inside the van. One was around the window on the driver’s side and the other was in the back on the passenger’s side. Neither of these panels had wires routed behind them and neither had any electrical connections. Here are pictures of these two hanging on the walls. I think that I will put some molding around the window frame and the wall panel at some point in the future.
The wall panel below the window is where Artie and I wired up an electrical outlet a couple of weeks ago (you can see the outlet in the picture above). I took that wall panel out and cut out the location of that outlet, so that it is ready to mount when the time comes. Also, there was a 12V USB outlet that will go above the 120V AC outlet and I drilled the hole for it while I was at it. I also crimped some connectors on the wires to the USB outlet and left them in the wall ready to be connected when the wall panel is secured. Here are the pictures of the finished product, and also a picture with the USB outlet fit in.
Those tasks didn’t take very long, and what was left on my task list was longer tasks. I decided that the best thing to do on the hottest day of the year was to work on installing the gas heater in my van. I had done some preliminary work on where to put the heater in the van a couple of months ago, but now I have the subfloor installed and its time to drill some holes in it for the heater. I wanted these holes put in the subfloor before I put in the linoleum, because it would be easier to mark up the hole locations on the wood than the linoleum.
I started out by assembling the heater to better calculate how big the holes in the floor of the van need to be. Here is what it looked like. There are four connections that pass through the floor of the van. The silver hose is the air inlet, the black hose is the exhaust, the small white hose is the fuel line, and the small black wire is the power for the fuel pump that sits under the van.
After measuring everything, I disassembled it to use that steel mounting plate to draw the holes on the floor of the van. But, before I could draw the lines on the floor of the van, I had to go under the van to measure areas where these hoses and wires could pass through without interfering with steel beams or other objects under the van. I found an area of the van where there was a good spot to put the heater and transfered those dimensions onto the subfloor with a pencil. I was able to use the features of the van (mostly the wheel well) to be sure that I transfered the dimensions correctly. Once I drew that rectangle on the subfloor, then I needed to make sure that the heater wouldn’t interfere with the lower bunk bed, because the heater was going under this bed. So, I pulled out the lower bunk frame and set it into location. The lower support extrusion shaved a little off of the rectangle that I had previously drawn, but there was still sufficient room. I brought the heater out and played around with where the best spot was for it under the lower bunk. I had to consider where the inlet (cold) air and outlet (hot) air were going to be ducted from/to. Then I took the metal plate from the heater and used it to mark the locations of the holes for the heater.
The only thing that I couldn’t consider in my calculations was where the aluminum joists were under the subfloor. I hadn’t thought to mark their location on the subfloor when I put them in. Based on my memory of where I had located the joists, I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t run into one when I drilled these holes. But, I wasn’t sure. There really was only one way to find out, and that was to drill the holes. I started with the one closest to the driver’s seat, because if that hole showed up in the wrong spot under the van, I could still adjust and make it work. I was shooting to put the holes for the heater as close as possible to a beam in the bottom of the van. I pulled out a 2 1/4″ hole saw and drilled through the subfloor. Once I pulled out that circle of subfloor, all I saw below it was green polystyrene insulation, so I knew that I didn’t have a joist there. I drilled through the insulation easily and put a small hole in the sheet metal floor of the van.
I went under the van to measure from that small hole, if the other holes would work. And, everything came out perfectly. So, I proceded to drill out the second hole. I was trying to minimize the size of the opening I made in the subfloor for the heater, so I went with a 1 1/2″ hole saw for this second hole. No aluminum joist under the subfloor here either. Yahtzee!! I then used the jigsaw to cut out the rest of the subfloor wood between the two holes. I used a hand drywall saw to cut the polystyrene insulation. I test fit the hole with the heater and it fit perfectly. It didn’t look great, but its going to work fine.
The holes in the subfloor have to be big because of the hose clamps that connect everything to the bottom of the heater and because of the bolts to secure the metal plate to the bottom of the heater. Since there is two inches between the top the subfloor and the metal floor of the van, I was able to only cut holes in the metal the size of the two hoses and a third hole for the fuel line/power cord combo (which I’ll wrap in a sleeve). Having smaller holes will make it more effective to use sealant under the van to prevent water and dirt from entering from under the van.
I deburred these three holes and put one coat of paint on the exposed metal. I’ll put another coat of paint on these holes later in the afternoon.
I won’t be able to complete the install of the heater until after the linoleum is installed in the van, which I hope is Monday or Tuesday (I need a second pair of hands for this task). I did plan out the routing of the fuel line under the van and installed a couple of M6 rivnuts to hold the fuel pump and fuel filter. I also planned out how the inlet and exhaust pipes will be routed under the van. I think the final installation will go quickly now that I’ve done all this work.
By this time, it was after 1:00, and was getting very hot. I didn’t want to get involved in another big task, so I called it a day here and I’ll take it easy the rest of the day.