Making a Mess

With the brake project on hold until I get that new brake hose, I just couldn't hold back any longer and started work on the interior.

In the pictures from the previous post you saw carpeting. That was the first layer. Under that was another layer. And yet even under that was the original carpet. The first two layers weren't glued or stapled or anything so they came up very quickly. The original layer is mostly glued down but not much anymore. The real problem is that most of the interior was built on top of the carpet. So I have to cut it around all the edges. Probably would be a lot easier if I was using a utility knife with a better blade. At the end of the day I had much of the carpet up. The floor underneath looks very nice for its age. Unfortunately it looks like I might have to leave the carpet that's INSIDE the cabinets and on the wheel wells. Just not enough room to tug and pull and cut, but I might give it a try if I get a better knife blade. I hate carpet in RVs, especially 37 year old stinky carpet.

The couch situation gave me a great solution today as well. I discovered I could just unbolt the actual sofa/bed part from the frame on the bottom. This leaves me with a nice, simple base to build a bed on top of. My plan right now is to install a ledge along the outer wall and part of the kitchen wall and then just lay a piece of plywood down, secure it to part of the old couch frame and the new outer ledges, and viola! Twin mattress bed installed. Will be a very quick and easy transformation.

With the couch out I had full access to the water tank. A few of the fittings to the water pump are leaking. Won't be hard to fix.

Also under the couch was the old water heater. There was only one line coming out of it, and that was a busted PVC line. The more I looked at it the more I realized the inlet line was completely gone too. I had been debating whether to leave the water heater in or not and that kind of sealed it for me. I yanked it out. I was left with a large hole in the side of the motorhome and no longer any way to secure the old door to the hole. Probably a good two hours ensued as I tried to dismantle the water heater enough to take off the front piece of metal to screw back into the hole. The thing was built well, that's for sure. It's safe to say my plan of trying to sell it cheap on craigslist went awry as it has now been CUT into several pieces. There was a lot of calcium (or something) built up in it and many of the fittings were completely clogged anyway. It would have never worked properly.

I'm not too worried about having a water heater at this point, but ideally I will get a tankless water heater in the future. They're not cheap though.

The next thing I need to figure out is if I want to paint the walls, or leave them the way they are.

It sure is a mess inside, but this picture shows how the bed will look when I build the platform. In this picture it's just laying on top of the old couch frame. You can also see some of the carpet ripped up at this point.