Dang Beer!

Whoops, I temporarily moved the trailer down to the end of the dead end street in front of my house... kinda hard to explain that without a picture or map... just think there is a gravel road that if you walk directly accross the street from my house it goes back about 1000 feet and feed a couple of houses accross the street. Anyways, not thinking about really securing the trailer as all I was doing was moving it 1000 feet or so, I forgot I had left a couple of beers, 1/3-1/2 full on the counter.. well anyone who's seen the Long Long Trailer will know things don't stay put unless they are secured properly. Well glass on formica is not secured properly and I had a lot of smelly, old beer to clean up tonight.

After I send the foam (luckily didn't get beer on them) home with my Dad tomorrow, I'm going to give her a good cleaning including steam mopping the floor. And get back to taping the trim off so I can finish painting and move forward in this thing.

Back to having a time limit getting this thing put back together, paint and all. Meister has a Travel Trailer for sale on CL that they inherited... brand new 21 foot Gazelle. We have to go camping before they sell it at least once. Good thing I have his wife, Nikki trying to convince my wife, Leslie to go. Didn't take much, Leslie's warming up to camping idea a bit more.

12.25 yards of vinyl was ordered yesterday...

My foam should have covers here in the next few weeks. My dad is covering my foam in a nice deep textured brown vinyl. Looks a lot like leather, and it will go very nicely with the red appliances, curtains, flooring and wall color.

Both the Sofa and Dinette Benches will be done to look the same. top stiched, boxed ends, I can't wait to see the end result!

Need anything recovered?? Call Tim Blumenstein, Perfection Interiors, 253-833-4386. He's been doing this for 41 years now, and recently recovered my friend andy's interior in his 71 LoLiner too.

Trailer brakes will be functioning soon!

Well it's kinda state law here in Washingotn, if your trailer has brakes, you are required to have them hooked up and working. Not that I really NEED them, The tiguan does a really good job of stopping both the car and the trailer, even fully loaded, but I don't want to explain to a 5-year-old's Mom why I didn't have them functioning after he runs in front of me. :( sorry for the downer...

I got a really good deal on Ebay, $21, and it has dual thumb rollers to adjust soft and hard stops, and a manual override. It's a AccuTrac SX by Accupower products.

This and a break away switch will go in very soon. Stay tuned for that.

new tires, and a now we are self contained!

So I picked up a couple really good deals on the Seattle Craigslist, 1st was a pair of almost brand new tires, 1433 load rating each at 35psi, so I should be more than good there. I went with a 205/70/14 instead of the 195/75/14 that is on there, because my spare is also a 205/70/14. Now all three match again! Had to settle for blackwalls, fir for $15 for the pair, I'm not complaining.

then, just after I missed camping worlsd being open one night, when I was going to buy a Porta Potty, I decided to check the good old craigslist again... I know what you are thinking, but in this case, it's brand new for only $30!!! The exact same one at Camping World would have run me $79.99 + Tax (they have free shipping right now too).

So, now I'm fully self contained, all three systems work, fresh water, toilet. Good to go!

(I did however find out my water pump although works, went bad. it will not hold it's prime and doesn't have enough umph to get the water to actually come out of the faucet. I will be replacing that one with a hand pump faucet also from Camping World. The same thing at Vintage Trailer supply? $10 more with no apperant benefit. I guess you win some and lose some with VTS.

Finally fixed my dead battery... well, 1 of 2 at least.

I had bought a Optima Red Top a little over two years ago for the Passat I had (totaled 3/24/07) the battery was pulled from the wrecked car, only after being completely drained.

Well, not having a charger at the time just put it on the shelf in my garage and forgot about it, for two years now. Basically the electrolytes in the water attach themself to the plates, and they choke the battery from being able to re-charge properly... 3 of my 6 cells were sulphated, that is why I couldn't get more than about 5.5v charge to stick (2.2v/cell), it would just drain overnight. You have to "shock it" back to life to turn that sulfate collections to Electrolytes, and allow the plates to except the charge.

So I followed these steps:

1. Connect a known good battery (12.6 - 12.8v) to the dead battery in parallel (+ to +, - to -) with jumper cables.
2. Connect the charger to the Battery to start charging it.
3. Check every hour or so until the dead battery is at least 10.5v (min for an auto charger to recognize it as a good battery)
4. Continue to charge the prevously dead battery until the Charger shuts off (or it gets too hot, it can get warm, but not hot).
5. Wait 24 hours for the surface charge to dissapate (mine ended up at 14.23v)
6. Properly maintain the battery with a solar charger, or maintainer charger.

Well it seemed to work with the Red Top (due to spiral cores of their plates and the very low internal resistance), I'll give this a try with the deep cycle (Marine/RV) that came with the trailer too, maybe I can get some life out of the old girl after all.

New Generator

I sold my generator I had, used it once for a backup power source, and I was thinking of bringing it along when we were out in the sticks for portable power. 6.5 hp, 4 gallons, 4000 watts... way too much. It was like having a Hummer for a commuter car... just a bit excessive. So I bought a Honda instead... well not really a honda, commuter car metaphore.


I got it at Costco, ($219) it's a great little generator, 1850 watt, 1.3 gallon tank, will run 4 hours at 1/2 load... plenty enough to run the essentials camping in the sticks (lights, 12v charger, fridge... you get the idea.) For as much as I will probably not use it, it will work just fine and I will get my money out of it 10 fold. If you compare this to a Honda EU2000i at $1000, I'd say I got a pretty good deal. The Honda is 59db, this one is at 64db, but noise is noise I guess.

So I swapped out this one (100 pounds, no wheels):





for this one (60 pounds with wheels and enclosed):










Product Details:

Introducing the 2009 2.4 Horse Power 4 Stroke Air-Cooled 1850 Watt Powermight Portable Generator! Strong, Reliable, Economical and Practical, this is the most modern quietest enclosed generator on the market today making it ideal for all outdoor recreational activities. Weighing in at only 60lbs this ultra quiet portable generator combines power and portability. The PowerMight 1850 is equipped with an extending arm with handle for easy rolling, which makes it very convenient to bring anywhere you go!

Features & Specifications

Engine: 2.4 Horse Power, Air-Cooled, 4-Stroke OHV Gasoline Powered
Displacement: 79.0 cc
Fuel Tank: 1.3 Gallon / 4.9 Liter
Rated Voltage: 120 VAC
Rated Frequency: 60 Hz
Rated AC Output: 1200 Watt
Peak AC Output: 1850 Watt
Rated DC Output: 12 V
Rated DC Current: 8.3 A
Noise Level: 64 DB measured from 20’ away
Weight: 60lbs
Dimensions: 18.5” x 15” x 19”
1 Year Warranty

Left To Do List, Right?

So this is what I have left in the near future on the Trailer:

• Paint the Interior. The walls Tawny, the ceiling flat white, The cupboards bunk and closet glossy white. Still need to put a 2nd coat on the red items.
• Finish the Cushions. I am orderin gthe brown vinyl thru my dad and having it all stitched up. Can't wait!
• Tint the windows, all of them. Clean up the frames a bit while the glass is out, paint silver or powdercoat maybe? This may need to wait for a couple warm, dry days.
• Polish and Re-install the trim around the windows.
• Trim the rest of the counter, wall-cupboard seams, and floor.
• Polish the interior trim a bit more... it could use it.
• Polish the backsplash and sidesplash
• Install the curtain rods over and under the windows
• Sew the curtains and install, might actually do this one myself, just for fun!
• Weld the rear bumper and straiten it. Might cut it off first and shorten it a bit.
• Install metal casters underneath in case the tail bottoms out on a driveway again (why I'm welding the bumper)
• Sand and paint the bumper, step and tongue.
• Sometime this summer, repaint the exterior.
• Sand paint and install all the new badges (thanks Rex)

should I say it? It would be done? :)

Heater exchanged

So I got this heater a while ago at Costco, and it was fine while I was working on the trailer, didn't really think much of it, until we tried to sleep with it. VERY noisy when you are trying to sleep and it clicks on and off with a fan. So I took it back to Costco (they are great about returns!) and found myself a new heater on clearance at Home Depot. Thank god for spring clearance, I found a great flat panel radiant heater normal price, $71.99. On the shelf for $44.95. Talked him down on the final unit to $19.00!! :)

So I built some more stuff...

When I cut the Upper cupboard doors I only measured the ones above the kichenette... assuming all 4 would be the same. Well it really doesn't matter becasue I used the entire 96" length of the plywood, and got 4 24" doors... well the ones over the sofa were supposed to be 26", so I wasn't about to buy new sheets of plywood, no way. Plus when removing the walls a bit of the cupboard face got torn up a bit.

I cut a few 1x3's to make the cupboard hole a bit smaller, then refaced the cabinet with more luan plywood. Done and done! Just need ssome filler sanding and a few coats of paint to be good as new, and now the doors fit right.

Built a shelf and divider for the closet to house the microwave and keep it put. It's now on the right side of the closet up top in it's own little cubby. The cord ran down the back and plugged into the outlet on the lower shelf.

2/28 - 3/1 Our Maiden Voyage!

What a great camping trip! We had a blast, even my lovely wife, who is not the most outdoorsy type, her idea of a vacation is a hotel room and room service... so Coffee and breakfast in bed was in order! :)



We stayed at Fort Worden State Park in beautiful Port Townsend, WA. We didn't pick that by chance, it was the weekend of the annual Achtuning Port Townsend Vw and All European Car Cruise. Just us and 400 or so of my close friends.

We went out the night before, on Saturday to enjoy the parts of Pt. Townsend that we normally miss as we are always so rushed on the cruises... Driver's Meeting, The Drive, Parking, Lunch, regroup for the Photo, Regrouping fr the drive home, Exiting, Drive Home and Done... wait, what town did we visit again? Yea, so we went a different route this year, and now I can't wait to go camping again!




CLICK PHOTO TO SEE ENTIRE SET ON FLICKR.