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MCI 102-C3 coach to RV - General/Floorplan

One of these days I need to clean up my mountain of steel fuzz. Almost got all the PVC stub washers machined. The only good part about working in 10 degree air is your cutting oil is too thick to sling off.

For at least the next ten days, we're still bouncing around the low 40's to low 50's so the vinegar bath will keep on rolling. Not sure why it's this warm here in January, but we'll take it. Got work to do.

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Machined all eleven (think I only need ten) stainless washers to stub 2" PVC for all conduits. Decided to go with 2" at every stub and to reduce it if desired above the floor.

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Got the rest of the third sheet tacked down and the front of the fourth sheet. The fifth sheet still had some mill scale to strip off by this evening, so it's soaking until the tray thaws out in the morning.
 
DT75FLH said:
are you still going with the in floor heat? sandwich between two layer's?​
I am. Not exclusively, though. The same as any well-designed home, you never rely on a single heat source. Still thinking on the back-up source. These radiant panel heaters we have in our house are a top contender.
 
First day with a babysitter to occupy the boys for a couple hours. Took an intense amount of stress off my mind. Ended up laying down the best tig welds in a single pass since four or five years ago. Capped off the 2x5 tube ends and got one tube fitted up for tacking into place.

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Had the tarp tied down tight. 50+mph wind gusts today still sucked vinegar out. This is precisely why I could not use muriatic acid.

2x5 tube halves tacked in. It's looking good. When I was welding in that big notch in the middle of the tube, I knew it was going to warp a fair bit. Turns out that the funky transverse pitch in the floor frame back there matched up with the warp so the two "tongue" in the middle were perfectly flat with each other. Hmp.

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Fifth sheet up in da house. Dad pun.

This came up on the CAD drawing last year or so and has me at a bit of a crossroads. One floor seam lands on top of a transverse hat channels. I've been thinking about cutting all the hat channels out and replacing them with boxed tubing. Think I'll notch some spots with the plasma for now so that I can fit the panel clamps and move on to tack welding the sheets.

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Wife and I flipped the sixth floor sheet while there was a break in the high wind. Got the fifth sheet all set for welding, but the wind sped up to 50 mph gusts again. Might get out there to tack weld in a while.
 
Fifth sheet is tacked. I should be able to get to cut out the other side of floor frame where the house batteries slide out tomorrow. Gotta get that done before the sixth sheet gets laid down. From the looks of it, we'll be getting another partial week of warm weather with a light breeze.
 
Cut out the beam and panel on the others side to clear for the battery bank. Took the grinder to all the leftovers, getting rid of the dirt pockets. Got the sheet in, frame cleaned and oiled, and lined it all up for welding. Six sheets are officially tack welded.

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Got some electrical conduit washers bored out and cleaned up the rear of what's left of the temporary plywood floor to make room for the next floor sheet while the neighbor's daughter watched the boys for a couple hours.

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Finished the upper mig welding today. Started on the stainless tig at the ends of the 2x5 tube and dropped my tungsten in the dirt somewhere. Can't find my box of electrodes and my fingers aren't up to being frozen tonight.

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Did you know that TIG welding in tight corners while upside down can cause you to curse incessantly? Done and done. Down to just cleaning up the floor beams before I can slide the seventh floor sheet into place for tacking. Might be able to pull the eight sheet out of the vinegar tomorrow or Sunday. I have some fab work to do behind the rear bulkhead before the last sheet goes down.
 
Almost there. Eighth sheet is ready to pull out, but I'm going to wait until my wife is home to help tomorrow. I did the seventh sheet by myself at night while it was about 25 degrees and don't want to do that again. Vinegar icicles were forming on my nitrile gloves.

Most of the tack welding is done. I just need to put tacks on the inboard sides of the center chase beams. That will wait for tomorrow's daylight since I have to crawl in between the drive axle and subframe. There's very little room and a whole lot of stuff to get caught on.

With so little room around the drive axle, I would like to unbolt the bags and shocks to drop the axle down. Problem is that the arms for the bags rest on the lower links at full droop, therefore I cannot drop the axle without unbolting one or the other end of the lower links. I may end up doing this anyway so that there's plenty of room for burning in the sheets all the way around.

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We meet again. All the plywood is out and I burned in the steel tubing that was tacked together around the engine bay. Both my gas tank pressure gauges are at zero, so I'm finishing them off for a tank swap on Monday. Laid out of few measurements to check the eighth sheet accuracy and it works out perfectly. I'm getting excited to weld all those washers, believe it or not.

Had a dumb moment and went ahead with pulling the eighth sheet out of the tray. Phone said 45 degrees until 3am. Sure didn't feel like 45 degrees. Pulled the sheet onto the board ramps and checked my phone again. It was set to Oklahoma weather after a restart. Dammit. Got it oiled and shoved into the bus anyway. Doing so below freezing temp makes some of the vinegar freeze onto the sheet before I get if fully removed so I few spots on the seventh and eighth sheets are slightly rusted.

I already have all the parts cut for the rest of the rear floor frame to join the back wall. Might be able to at least tack them all in tomorrow with the last few pounds of gas left. Maybe even slap the last floor sheet into place.

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Working on assembling the rest of the rear floor frame and tubing that will connect the floor to the rear wall. I have a 14 gauge tube cut to span the horizontal width of the entire inside of the bus. Instead of that, I wanted to use something much stronger. Just so happens that I have a couple lengths of the 3/16" wall 2x5 left to make the same span. I may install it with the long side up for beam strength. This could also be a point to hook to for engine bay work and a new hinge point for the bed frame so that the bed to could swing towards the rear instead of in the walkway of the the bedroom.

In my drawing, I planned for a 14 gauge tube spanning between the two side supports of the floor. This should be placed somewhere that does not interfere with parts of the engine that have to pulled upwards and parts of the engine mounted to the rear accessory drive that need to be access from directly above. Right behind the blower and valve covers looks alright. Might be better to raise it up so that clearance is kept to a maximum. Kinda depends on where I place the uprights and if I go for some triangulation.

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Working on assembling the rest of the rear floor frame and tubing that will connect the floor to the rear wall. I have a 14 gauge tube cut to span the horizontal width of the entire inside of the bus. Instead of that, I wanted to use something much stronger. Just so happens that I have a couple lengths of the 3/16" wall 2x5 left to make the same span. I may install it with the long side up for beam strength. This could also be a point to hook to for engine bay work and a new hinge point for the bed frame so that the bed to could swing towards the rear instead of in the walkway of the the bedroom.

In my drawing, I planned for a 14 gauge tube spanning between the two side supports of the floor. This should be placed somewhere that does not interfere with parts of the engine that have to pulled upwards and parts of the engine mounted to the rear accessory drive that need to be access from directly above. Right behind the blower and valve covers looks alright. Might be better to raise it up so that clearance is kept to a maximum. Kinda depends on where I place the uprights and if I go for some triangulation.

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Spent the extra dough on the second gen welding mask for the X Mode. More often than not, I strike an arc and blind myself because my helmet sensor is blocked. The mask lens doesn't fit me all that well, but I sure can stick my head into the places I need to see now. Non-activated sight is way better, too. I have to lift my helmets all the time to check out my welds because the lens is too dark.
 
Bust of a day to start off with. Got an earlier start than usual to clean up some of the 1.5x3 14 gauge tubing to weld the big beam and floor frame together. Ended up finding that the rust had eaten most of the way into one wide wall. Gonna grab some fresh tubing when we get back next weekend.

Fingered out the controls on the weld mask. Nifty device. I think it looks very much like the face of the character 8 in the movie 9. Reference, if you're not familiar with it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_(2009_animated_film)

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Meant to flush out the vinegar tray on Friday. Got to it this morning while it's 50 degrees out. Pretty damn clean. Let the last of the water drain out, plugged the drain and refilled with fresh vinegar. Flipped the tenth sheet over so the other side will strip and wrapped the table back up with the tarp. Most of this week will be below freezing, so I'll open the table up again next weekend when we're back to Spring weather.

Gonna be back on house repairs for most of this week. Hopefully ordered some bus parts within the next day or two and maybe getting the eighth floor sheet tacked in. Kinda depends on weather. It's a bitch to weld stuff in the frozen wind.

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50 degrees today. Spent most of my day at doc appointments. Still comfortable through the night so I got out to reposition the rear 2x5 tube and clean up my mini machine shop area.

When I was tacking that rear tube, I measured off the rear floor frame. Then I check the distance between the tube and the underside of the stainless rail along the bottom of the outer wall. About a quarter inch discrepancy, so I adjusted it and tacked it. Found that the tube then looked a little crooked. Digital level showed that it was crooked. Fixed that tonight and it looks good.

A lot of the fabrication time on this ends up as measuring, cross measuring, double checking, wondering what of the factory metal doesn't line up, and finally finding a compromise. Some sort of OCD makes this a slow process. In the end, I'm just trying to keep the living quarters from feeling like a Chocolate Factory room.

Back when I pulled my 4" lathe chuck off to measure for a 5" chuck, I dropped one of the nuts in the nest of whiskers. And then dropped a carbide insert screw in the nest of whiskers. Lesson of the month: CLEAN YOUR SHIT UP. Surprisingly, I found both the nut and screw tonight. All is well. Tomorrow's weather is forecasted to be even nicer. Gonna try to get that last floor sheet down before Sunday's wind and snow.

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CarterKaft said,
JNHEscher said:
50 degrees today. Spent most of my day at doc appointments. Still comfortable through the night so I got out to reposition the rear 2x5 tube and clean up my mini machine shop area.

When I was tacking that rear tube, I measured off the rear floor frame. Then I check the distance between the tube and the underside of the stainless rail along the bottom of the outer wall. About a quarter inch discrepancy, so I adjusted it and tacked it. Found that the tube then looked a little crooked. Digital level showed that it was crooked. Fixed that tonight and it looks good.

A lot of the fabrication time on this ends up as measuring, cross measuring, double checking, wondering what of the factory metal doesn't line up, and finally finding a compromise. Some sort of OCD makes this a slow process. In the end, I'm just trying to keep the living quarters from feeling like a Chocolate Factory room.

Back when I pulled my 4" lathe chuck off to measure for a 5" chuck, I dropped one of the nuts in the nest of whiskers. And then dropped a carbide insert screw in the nest of whiskers. Lesson of the month: CLEAN YOUR SHIT UP. Surprisingly, I found both the nut and screw tonight. All is well. Tomorrow's weather is forecasted to be even nicer. Gonna try to get that last floor sheet down before Sunday's wind and snow.​
Sounds like you're remodeling a house where nothing is square, you kind of have to close your eyes and feel your way through LOL.

Keep going I want to see exploration pix like Java.
 
CarterKaft said:
Sounds like you're remodeling a house where nothing is square, you kind of have to close your eyes and feel your way through LOL.

Keep going I want to see exploration pix like Java.​
x2. Literally. Slightly unsquare bus and a terribly unsquare house. And the owner of the building company is being investigated for fraud. Got one hell of a picture collection of everything that was built incorrectly, too, because his friend was in charge of building the house and had apparently received his first license and had no experience other than roofing, which he did not do correctly either. Just an FYI as to why I've been busy with the house as well and why we are so done with this state.
 
Bittersweet day coming up, guys. With the rest of the floor soon to be laid down, I just might miss constantly dropping my shit into the dark, inconvenient abyss beneath the bus.

I got the uprights welded to connect the end of the floor frame and upper 2x5 tube. Spent too long fighting against the wind blowing my shielding gas away causing me to grind welds off a couple times today. Had to wait until sunset for the wind to stop.

Checked my measurements one last time for notching the eighth sheet. Must be tired because I still cut the notch two inches too shallow. The remaining panels were going to be the exact size to finish off the floor, and now they're two inches too narrow. Ses la vie. I'll grab some drops to finish it.

Started tacking the rest of the seventh sheet and front of the eighth sheet. I have to shimmy in between the chassis and drive axle again to reach the rest of what needs to be tacked. Looks like tomorrow is just snow and that the high wind doesn't become a menace until Tuesday through Wednesday.

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bigun said:
Get it sealed up then throw some heat in make it nicer to work in​
Almost there. The strong wind holds me up most of the time. Night time has been the best time for me to weld. The wind usually dies off and I don't have a glare from the sun.
 
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