What's that over head? Roof, Roof? No...

 It's the ceiling you stupid dog...

Alright, I know - it's one of the worst dad jokes, but that's where we are today.  The ceiling is in, and I'm working on things like wiring, blocking, and poking holes in the side of the trailer (truly an essay in courage, or my lack thereof).

First-up, I added all the blocking on the sides. I made use of the leftover bits of 3/4" ACX to CNC arcs of plywood that matched the arc of the wall.  Hey, once in a while even the blind squirrel gets the nut!  

A couple of pocket holes, a couple of screws, and a little sculpting with the jigsaw, and they were in.  I had intentionally left them a little proud, and once installed, I cleaned them down to the wall line with a pattern bit.

Next up, wiring for all the lights, MaxxFan, and I'm still not sure what else.  Some sort of little command center up front, but I still don't know quite what - so I'll run a bit of flex conduit and a messenger line in it - just in case I figure it out.  With the exception of the 3-way switches for the cabin lights, I'm home running most all of the lights, and using Wago connectors anywhere I have to join two wires.  No wire nuts or crimps to fail.

I'm not particularly proud of these, nor the reason they exist...  In my jumbled planning, I neglected to consider letting in wireways during the build.  As a result, I had to find a way to get wire down to the light switches in the cabin, and surface molding was not a consideration!

So I chose to make a template and hog out a wireway and switch box.  I CNC'd the templates out of MDF (a really bad idea, BTW).  It's really easy to cut MDF, and if you touch it with a router it will make a 1/4" dip.  Since hogging the wireways took a couple of passes, I had a couple of extra opportunities to inflict non-straight lines as I went along.   I also made a second template to cut in a cover plate on the outside so no weak spot in the aluminum right next to the door.

My porch lights are corner mounted, with  a pigtail.  I used a 1 1/2" Forstner bit to cut a pocket in the wall (a little less than 3/4" deep, and then came down from the top with my trusty Kreg pocket bit (it's just about 5 1/4") to provide a dropper.

Same bit chucked up from the inside of the roof, I cut another hole into that top down hole to get the wire to feed thru.

Obviously a little out of sequence, but it looks pretty good up there.

Finally, to fill in the wireways that I hogged out, I 3D printed a set of covers that snuggle in pretty well around the bundle of wires going down the wall.  Printed in 6" sections, and trimmed as necessary.

Yet another excuse to pull out the printer and tell my wife how much I 'saved' by printing my parts!

Wireway covers deployed (well - sort of).  I'll need to move them, trim to fit, and add a little dab of glue, but you get the idea.

Next up - more wiring, wiring the electrical panel, insulating the ceiling and installing the *roof*, and then starting on the dreaded galley hatch and lower front.  

Supply chain

 Anyone who has tried to buy or order almost anything this winter has run into delivery issues, or seriously jacked up prices.  There are still some really quality sources and parts out there, but not many 'deals'.  I made a couple of foundational commitments - I wanted big doors - big enough to disappear a bike into the trailer if needed, so I put my order in to Challenger back in early December.   They came in on Tuesday, actually right on the ¨8¨ of ¨8 to 10¨ weeks.  And even though the packaging was a little sketchy, they came in undamaged and with all parts attached.  I will pull them out when it's warmer and brighter to take a picture of them.  

The other area that I did spend a lot of time overthinking was the electrical. I wanted to make sure I had the parts, and since supply chain shortages haven't really improved, I started ordering the 'big stuff' early.    I have to sit down and draw a schematic (or really - modify someone else's), but I did start ordering components.  And - the things I wanted were actually in stock!  It probably helps that I'm doing 24v instead of 12v.  Most quality 12v stuff is either backordered, or the prices are, ahem, proud...

I will be attaching ~200 watts of flexible panel to the trailer, and will add electrical connections for an additional 200W external/portable to point more directly at the sun.  Batteries are in - 100AH/24v, a 2500
watt pure sine converter, and the solar charge controller.  Yet to acquire - the distribution components, and a shore power charger.

I'll do a whole article on electrical systems, but the reason for 24v is pretty straightforward - wiring.  4ga
wire is a pain to route, a pain to crimp, and a pain to buy.  6ga isn't that much better, but everything is less money, and much easier to route, and a 24-12v converter is inexpensive to power the 12v loads (lighting, device charging, MaxxFan, etc.

The other component I was especially nervous about getting in house before I started nailing up the walls was the heater.  I can go back and add most things,

but I did NOT want to be in the position of trying to shoehorn a heater in thru a hatch in the back of the galley.  So when I started looking for Propex heaters and found that they are on very short supply at most suppliers, I jumped on the chance to get a 2211 from a marine chandler in Seattle.  Now I can mount the heater while I'm assembling the internal bulkheads, poke most of the holes in the right places, put in appropriate insulation/heat isolation for the exhaust.  

I'm still working on the walls, and will have a post later this weekend with progress there.  Hopefully fully assembled wall panels will be ready to bring home to finish and install at the end of the weekend.

Lights on, wheels up

 Well, on one side anyway...  

My focus for today was going to be getting the wheels on, and moving the trailer out from wall a little bit.  And I got a good start on it this morning, packed the bearings, assembled the new hubs, and installed the left side wheel adapter.  A couple of notes about Timbren suspensions.  
1.  Check the entire order as soon as you get it.  My suspension was OK, but the boxes with the brakes were both damaged.  One of the grease seals was damaged from banging around in the box in a baggie with the lug nuts and bearings.  

2.  The instructions recommend 50 lb/ft of torque on the backing plate.  Not sure how since most of the bolts are partially/completely obscured.  Had to fake that.

3.  The main mounting bolts and spindle plate bolts require 105 lb/ft.  This means a 1/2 torque wrench.  Not everyone has that laying around, so be aware.

4.  The instructions also say to seat the bearings with 200lb/ft of torque and back off. I'm not an expert, but my sense is that this is a really bad idea.  My best guidance on wheel bearings is that you need only enough pressure to load the bearings and take the play out.  e-trailer has a much more rational set of numbers, and you can probably find 50 YouTube videos on installing trailer bearings. 

I hung the wheel and checked for interference.  Uhh.  Red flag.There's perhaps a 3/32¨ gap between the pivot bolt head and the tire.  Looks like I goofed on the spacer dimension. Got an inch, need 1.5...  That'll add a few day's delay in moving the trailer, but I can keep working on other projects - like the lights and brake wiring - while the wider adapters are on order.  I think the extra spacing will be fine.  If it was >2¨, I would drop back and order the long spindles instead.

 

With the suspension about as done as possible, I started working on the wiring, pulling wire through the entire perimeter, and connecting lights.  I'll have another day of hooking up lights if today is any judge.  Great plan going in, execution a little flawed.  I'm glad I got the 200 count butt splices - I wound up re-doing several today.  The lights draw around around 25mA each, so I won't plan to leave the running lights on when parked.  Still, that's considerably less than the equivalent incandescent!!!

Pardon the messy garage.  It's about 50 degrees in the garage (with the heater), and snow outside.  My wife was nice enough to let me move her car out for the day, which adds a bit more room to work.  The marker lights are push-in, while the tails are screw-in.  

The big learning for the day is that there is truly a huge difference between stranded copper, and copper clad aluminum wiring.  i think the aluminum stuff is fine for the lights - it's inside, and won't move around but I'll run pure copper for the brake wiring.  

A tip if you don't work with wiring very much:

You _can_ get away with stripping wire with a utility knife, and crimping with a pair of kitchen pliers, and I've certainly done so in an emergency.  A step up is a crimping tool like sold in kits at the parts store.  They work, but it's not great. 

But if you have a lot of connections to make, and want clean strips, and clean crimps, get good tools.  I have had my strippers (Klein 11063W) for at least 20 years.  The blades are replaceable, and they make perfects strips every time.  
The crimpers are new this job.  My grip strength is not what it was years ago, so I opted for a new pair of Haisstronica insulated connector crimpers.  They work very well.  Also, having some sort of table to keep your tools handy, and that can follow you around the job is a big help.  I should add a piece of cardboard just to keep things from falling through.  (hasn't been an issue, but the next task involves a lot of screws, clamps and drill bits.  I think I'll cut up a dog food box...