Butterflies in the Stomach!

July 19 2009 by Darrin.

It’s late Sunday night and we’re totally on track.  Tomorrow, Anna and I make a test run to Douglas, and Tuesday it’s three days of camp-about for me, ending back at the ranch Thursday night.  I have a break-in fluid service scheduled at Colorado Mack in Denver, and I’ll hopefully have 500+ miles on the odometer when I get there.  The work includes a service bulletin repair (EGR cooler) and the PM labor is free, or I’d definitely be doing it myself in WY.

So what’s been happening with the project since the most recent post?  The week before last saw 90% of the interior trim completed, all the doors, drawers, props and latches installed, the LCD TV made ready with a custom mount, and some other stuff I’m likely forgetting.  This past week was set aside for the rooftop work, and that’s exactly what we finished.  If I’m not bitching about politics, I’m complaining about the weather, so I’d better be fair and say that we had a few drops here and there, but nothing to cause any problems.  It was hot though, so I found easy motivation to get the A/C installed and operational under a deep blue Wyoming sky…

The solar charging system was also on the list, and that meant fabricating an aluminum mount, pre-installing the panels (2 x 130W Kyocera mobile-rated units), hoisting them to the roof with the trusty Fiat tractor, and then screwing and gluing them into place with more Sika 252 adhesve…

The charge controller is a Trace C-40 (40 amp capacity) three-stage model with external display.  Once properly set, it keeps the 600 A-Hr absorbed-glass-mat (AGM) battery bank full without overcharging the cells.  (With AGMs, it’s extremely important to not overcharge as this will quickly ruin the expensive batteries!)  Below, you can see the batteries floating at 13.21 VDC with the panels supplying a modest 4 amps of current. (They’ll make just over 14 amps, together, short-circuit current, so the controller could handle another set with ease.)

And here I am, about to hook up the final four wires in the whole camper!  (They’re for the diesel generator’s remote start panel.)  You can also see the back of the finally completed electrical center…

Oh yeah, content that most serious work was  just about done, I began to peel the protective plastic off of the German Seitz insulated acrylic windows.  What a difference!  Clarity…

The following interior shots will help you see how it all comes together…

Once the tools were cleaned out, it was time for a little test run / scenic photo op as the clouds broke up to the west.  The bottom in the series was taken at our reservoir a couple miles away…

Wanna know how I really feel?

Look for the first official trip report next weekend, if I make it back.

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