I was busy with appointments in the morning, so I didn’t get to work on the van until almost 2:00. I still managed to put in five good hours on it, though. Now that I had the M6 bolts, I was focused on installing all the horizontal furring strips that I had created over the last few days. For each board, I used a countersink drill bit to countersink each of the holes in the board so that the bolt would sit flush with the face of the board when it was installed. Then, I used the bolts to mount the furring strip board in to the rivnuts in it’s assigned place in the van. Most of the furring strips went in cleanly, but a few did not and it had to rework a hole or two to get them to fit correctly. It took less than two hours to get all of the horizontal furring strips installed. I sure was glad to get them up and not have to walk/trip over them on the floor of the van anymore. Here are a few picture of what they looked like on the walls.
Then I turned my attention to the window frame behind the driver’s seat. I drilled some holes in the sheetmetal for rivnuts for the furring strip that will go above the window frame. As I waited for the paint in those holes to dry, I used a bunch of scrap wood to install several vertical furring strips. Here’s what the passenger side looked like. I still have to put in a couple more verticle furring strips, but I got most of them in.
On the driver’s side, I also put in most of the short verticle furring strips. But, most of my focus was on the furring strips around the window frame. Elizabeth helped me for a few minutes to hold the window frame in the window and on the lower furring strip while I measured the dimensions for the furring strip above the window frame. My first cut was a little large, so I had to make a second cut to trim the furring strip down a little. But, I was happy with the result. I also cut the vertical furring strip on the left side of the window frame, but I had to drill a hole for a rivnut and did not get it installed as I waited for the paint to dry. Here is what the driver’s side wall looked like at the end of the day.
In the picture on the left above, you can see how the window frame sticks out from the furring strips. This was by design, as I had no way to know in advance how wide to make it. Once I get the verticle furring strip on the wall, I willl mark and cut down the window frame to size.
Overall, it was an exciting day to see so much progress and so much getting attached to the walls. I hope to get the window frame completed tomorrow.
Looking great