The main project today is to work on the ceiling of the van. Artie didn’t have to work today and he volunteered to help me out today, and I’m going to need the second set of hands for this task. Artie was going to help me out at 8:30 in the morning, so I started working on the van at 7:00 to be ready for him. I needed to clear out the van so that we could work on the ceiling. That meant that everything had to be out of the van, and there wasn’t much space in the garage due to the ceiling boards. So, I focused on completing the Thunderbolt Lock on the passenger door. That way, the door panel would be re-installed on the door and be out of the way for the ceiling work.
I used a couple of rivets to secure the plate in the B pillar for the deadbolt to shoot into. Then I completed the remaining electrical connections. there were six wires yet to be connected. I got one of them backwards the first time and had to switch the wires to get it correct. Then I re-installed the driver’s door, which included attaching the vapor barrier and the door panel. Overall, it turned out good. Here is a picture of the passenger door and you can see the deadbolt lock halfway down the door.
I’m glad to have that task completed. Now I only have to complete the driver’s door to complete the install of the deadbolt locks in the van. But, it may be a few days before I get to it.
By this time, Artie was able to help me. We started working together to better secure the Ford wiring harness in the wall and rear of the van. This involved putting in additional zip ties and ensuring that the Ford wiring harness would not rub on any boards. We had to drill a few holes in the furring strips to add all the zip ties we needed, but we got it done.
Then we worked to install the black denim fabric into the ceiling. We cut the fabric to length, then tucked it under the unistrut and used a manual staple gun to attach the fabric to the furring strips in the ceiling and at the top of the walls. The staples were not going in well to the Baltic Birch plywood, because it was much too dense, but they went in well enough to hold the fabric. We hit most of the staples with the hammer to either get them to go in the rest of the way, or smash them down so they weren’t sticking up. The other problem was that we had to undo the bolts in the ceiling unistrut to pull the fabric through. Once the fabric was up, we cut a hole in it to screw the bolt back it. The screwing in of the bolt the second time was hard because we really couldn’t see where the rivnut was on the other side. It helped to begin to screw the bolt in by hand so that we could feel when it started to thread. Here is a picture of the first piece of fabric we put up in the front of the van. We tucked fabric in the front corners above those styrofoam blobs, which was a much cleaner look than cutting the fabric.
We put up a second piece of fabric before breaking for lunch. Then we came back and installed the third and final section of fabric. We had to cut the fabric for the air conditioner and MaxAir fan. We also had to cut holes for the wires that will be used to connect to the LED lights in the ceiling and the fan that will be in the ceiling. Here is what it looked like at the end.
The next step was to install some of the wall panels that run along the top of the walls. This will help to secure the fabric and also serve as a starting point for the ceiling boards. We put up four wall panels all together. One of the wall panels had a reading lamp in it, which we wired up as well. You can see that in the third picture below. So now I have nine of 16 wall panels installed.
That last picture also shows the first ceiling board up. Artie and I got the first ceiling board up and it looked good. The second board, that goes right next to the one that is installed, has a weird cut on the end to go around the styrofoam blob. Artie made a template for that cut out and I mis cut it two times. I am usually very good with spacial things like this, but I made the same mistake twice and cut out the wrong side of the board. So, since I was clearly tired, I decide to call it a day. I’ll pick it up again tomorrow when I’m rested.
Still made some good progress today and will continue installing ceiling boards tomorrow.