Thursday, May 26, 2011

You'd better sit down...

Sitting? Good. I didn't want to alarm anyone with this shocking news...
I actually did some work on the camper this week  :)

Between the never ending illness that wiped out our family a few weeks ago, and the need for spring cleanup around the yard, the camper took a back seat to all else for the better part of a month and a half.

Since the last update on April 3rd, a few things have happened that relate to the camper.
First, I sold the little Shasta 1400 I picked up. I kept the wings and a couple vent covers I needed and sold a few of the interior light fixtures. After selling that one for $160 dollars I broke even in the end but have the wings now for ours and technically didn't have to pay for them.

Lets see..  I also swapped baggage doors between the 71 and the 68 as the one that was on the 71 was just a wreck. (The door from the 68 isn't a whole lot better but at least it closes tight and the handle isn't about to fall off).

I also converted all the running lights over to LED. I removed the wiring and metal bits from each housing and drilled a 3/8 hole to mount the "pre-wired for 12 volts" 4 chip super bright LEDs in there. Everything came out good, can't wait to see how they look lit up on the trailer.

I use this site for my LED needs, they ship fast and have great customer service..
http://www.oznium.com/

Here's a picture of the LED mounting~


I had ordered 5 new amber lenses back in December as the ones on the camper where sun baked to clear. They are a perfect match to the original ones and will look right at home once I get them in place.

Here's a shot of the wings.. no longer 'Earnhardt black', they now sport a nice bright aluminum finish. Also in this picture is the Shasta magazine rack I got from a Shastaforum member.. I couldn't resist  :)



And finally, today I actually painted a little bit of the rear end. I used a high tech paint booth (large sheets of cardboard leaning up against the workbench to protect from overspray) and just did a small section to see how it would come out. I was talking to my wife on the phone while she was at work this afternoon and I mentioned I had painted a little bit of the camper... She paused and said "With what?" I answered "With spray paint". Her response was something like "Isn't that a little bit ghetto"? I assured her it looked fine.. When faced with the decision to have a body shop paint the trailer for $1000 dollars, or spray it yourself for $50 dollars, the latter wins every time with me :)  She thought maybe rolling it on would be better but I'm happy with the way the spraying is coming out.

I used Rustoleum Gloss White and it's covering nicely with no runs. Won't look 'professionally done' but it will certainly look WAY better than not painting at all~

Here's what I did~



The hardest part was removing the sticky black goop that someone used to reseal the baggage door area.. Good grief, what a pain in the neck that was. Mineral spirits did a good job of removing what I couldn't with a variety of scrapers.

Well thats it for this update.. We've made a few changes to the color schemes and next update should include some news on that~