Merry Christmas

Gmcmi 2021 chippawa falls, wi

Photos:

Flooring

Early in my blog you will see i installed carpet.   It did not take long for that to stay dirty as usually it rains and we walk on carpet.  Also oil/grease.   Ect….  

So time to go for something non-carpet.  We choosed vinyl plank. 

Took out the dinette and couch base. 

I bought the mid grade stuff because on sale and color we wanted and in stock. 

Seems there are 3 grades each increasing in price as well as thickness.    I would not want anything thinner then what installed.   

Took 5 boxes and i have left over.   Coverage varies per box slightly on some choices of flooring.    

The question was how to make a “floating” floor in the gmc.   I am not sure the sq ft.  Really needs much movement, but what i decided to do was to install 2 floors. 

1 is just under the couch, and i screwed the couch to floor like it was and that section does not reallt float now. 

The rest of the flooring was installed with the reccomended 1/4 gap on edges.  I installed some sound stuff they sold along with the flooring, and just installed the floor.  It concealed the issues with the plywood. 

The dinette I set and marked the lag mounts on the floor and drilled 1” hole through the flooring on those.   And then stacked washers and lag bolted the dinette back down.  So the floor can “float” if needed. 

Bought a piece of aluminum angle for the door kick and brad nailed the 1/4 round in along the cabinets. 

I did remove the rear “bump” up in the floor and also cleared some old mouse nests in the process.  

Turned out really nice and upset I did not go this route years ago and dealt with carpet. 

Still have carpet up front.   

Zip dee awning

See people ask about keeping door from rubbing awning. 

A simple angle grinder disk changing tool works very well for me. 

Just enough for door to clear and also allows water to run off in small rains.   

Sf-30 furnace

I have always had ok luck with the sol aire.   I made sure i had 2-3 fresh co detectors and had the burner out years ago and made sure things were clean.   But it has a bad reputation and is old.   It also is a little finiky and needs to be reset too many times.  

I finally picked up a sf-30 furnace in almost new condition from

Someone making their camper into a cabin and needed a different furnace for that. 

I installed it at an angle last fall in order to match up the wall vents.   I drilled a new  hole in coach for the verticle exterior vents as compared to horizontal on the sol aire. 

Witch couch base removed and the lower cabinet floor, there is enough

Room to work.   The solair comes out and the sf-30 goes in easy on my 75 model.  

The sol-aire is a closed system.   It ducts in cold air.   The sf model does not have ducted return air.  But my palm beach has louvered cabinet doors, so I had enoug air flow.  

I then learned of silicone flex hose  during my install.   So this spring(2021).  I remounted the furnace flat to floor and used the flex duct for the intake and exhaust.  It is rated to 600 degrees and from an ir gun the exhaust is 300-400. 

Pretty nice shape for used.   

The sol aire.  Big and heavy.  The back duct is return air.  It is now a heat duct. 

Back side as seen from inside cabinet.  You have a little plenum that splits to two heat ducts.  Way back you have another return air duct.  I just left that one hanging for extra return air on the suburban. 

Removed.  You have to take the front plenum off.  Remove outside vent covers. And a few screws

To floor. 

I had to really have it at angle.  The heat now goes down into a

Modified plenum.   

You can take the guts out of the suburban so you can work with just the cage

To get it to fit. 

Couch interfears with the vents. I could not find adapter to work, but the gmc vent hose fits just inside the suburban collar so just taped

It on with foil tape.  

The suburban is

Meant to remove guts for service out the front of the cage.   With gmc cabinet and this is just a little wide.  Furnace will have to be

Completely removed to do any work on it. 

I was not happy, so here is me doing the remount this spring:

Mounting plenum

I cut and made a flange out of angle alumimum.   The.n cut cage and had

To patch old hole. 

Sits nice.  Just need

To deal with vents. 

I was fortunate to be the 2nd guy this spring installing one of these.  So he picked up some silicone hose for me. 

The exhaust hose was 1 3/4ID i think.   Fit perfectly on outside of furnace exhaust pipe tight.  But inside of the exterior trim vent after I cut that down.  So I taped it up to make sure it sealed and can’t get loose...  it was forced so not coming loose.  

The intake hose is a little larger. 

My paint need help...   

Right side is suburban vent. 

Left is old sol aire vent. 

I cut a piece of aluminum the size of the original vent and made a backer plate.  So that just a cover now for the old hole. 

The heat vents no longer in the way of the couch frame.     I never hooked up the 2” hose that goes to old sol air aux blower behind the stove.  I had that blower disconnected a long time ago. 

The gas line is a 36” long 3/8 supply line from home depot that Hooked up easy to existing fitting in cabinet.  

Red sky 10 miles east of salem, or

Mill city oregon 33 miles east of salem, or:

Buildings are burning in mill city. 

Door pin removal

I was told by bob burkitt how to remove my door pins to install a birch door.  He said that is the method Alex Birch taught him. 

Drill a hole in bottom of pin and use an air chisel.  

I have done a few this way now and so far have had 100% success.  

My door I had originally hit with hammers.   Had a friend bring a door pin remover tool. (Kept going cock-eyed)

The air chisel method popped the pin up instantly.