Pressure Washing, Window Felts, and Banana Wraps

I finally got around to pressure washing the exterior yesterday.

The two above pictures really give you an idea of how dirty it was.

I installed the window felts and cleaned the windows also. I was really surprised at how easy it was to replace the window felts.

Here is the window channel without the felts in it.

The old felts were so rotted they fell apart and about the only thing left was the bead.

It was just a matter of removing the four screws that hold the top felt in and removing the window. then I cut the new felt to size and popped it into the track.

The windows are now weather-tite.

Here is a before and after of one of the windows.

It's amazing how well the windows cleaned up, aside from a small scratch here and there and a little bit of bubbling at the edges in the laminate they look brand new.



I also worked on the last of the banana wraps. First I took measurements and cut the aluminum to size, then I bent the bottom 5/8" over for the lip. To do this I made a homemade brake out of some plywood strips, a 2x4, and some hand clamps.

I then bent the piece by hand to give it it's curve.

I then made a smaller one for the part under the door.

Here is the section before installing the wraps.

Here is the section with the two pieces in place.

I still have to get the curved piece back into place then rivet everything together.

Air Conditioner opening

Today I worked on the opening for the air conditioner. I used the center vent opening. This worked out well because the center vent cover wasn't original, it was galvanized metal, rusted, and broken.

I drilled out all the rivits holding the vent frame in.

The opening is 14x16 but the air conditioner boot is made for a 14x14 opening so I needed to close it in by 2". I cleaned up the opening and cut two strips of aluminum. Then I riveted the strips down, one on the front, one on the back. I used Dicor under the strips to seal them. Then I put Dicor liberally on every rivet and seam.

I test fitted the air conditioner on the opening and it fits perfect.

Metal Work

I spent the day doing miscellaneous work on the camper. There are a lot of small things left to do before I can put the flooring in and the walls up.

The first thing I worked on was the U channel near the rear of the camper under the roll down windows. They were completely disintegrated from corrosion.

I was able to make some U channel out of the aluminum countertop. It had already been hacked up so I wasn't going to be re-using it anyways.

With that done I was able work on the banana wraps in the same area on the outside of the camper. These were completely corroded too.

I cut the new piece from the countertop as well and installed it.

Next I installed the thresholds in both doorways.

The last thing I had time to do was one of the roll down windows.

You can see how gunked up the mechanism is. I pressure washed everything, dried it, and greased all the gears and the sliders.

Here is the window ready to be reinstalled.

Here is the window installed.

The window crank works much better now.

I didn't get a chance to work on what I really wanted to work on today.

The flooring is Engineered  wood, it's called Natural Cherry. I will get it installed sometime this week.