Strip Lighting

One of the things I dislike about the t@b is the lighting.  All three lights are at eye level when sitting down, so there is horrible glare when you are inside at nighttime.  Also, the light in the kitchen is mounted on the side, which makes it impossible to see what you were cooking because it throws a shadow in any sort of pot with high sides.  I actually need a flashlight to reheat stew.

LED strip lighting is pretty cheap and can be wired directly into the 12v system in the trailer.  So I removed the kitchen light, replaced it with a switch, and added two sets of lighting.  The first is in the kitchen; I put a strip going across the width of the overhead cabinets and tacked on some trim using finishing nails.

Now I have light coming from directly above and I can see what I am doing.  The stainless steel backdrop also reflects it out so it can be used as general lighting as well.

I added a second strip to the top of the window valence on the left side.  This provides indirect lighting that is bright enough to work with without the harsh glare of something mounted on the wall. The valence already had a lip and it is also above your head, so there was no need to add trim up there to hide the strip.

While I was fiddling with wiring, I also added a bluetooth sound bar. I wanted something built-in like the newer trailers have, but I only found some rather expensive ones that were a brand I never heard of so I didn't bother. But as luck would have it I found an Amazon Basics sound bar that (a) had wall mounting hardware and (b) took exactly 12v as input, which meant I could wire it straight in. All I needed to do was cut off the AC adapter block and attach the wires.  Note this is the sound bar model without the subwoofer, as that model took something like 15v.

I do regret where I mounted it.  I centered it in the valence, but I think it would have looked a lot better centered over the window instead.  But I'm not willing to make more holes in exposed woodwork to change it.

The wiring itself was rather simple.  I kept the original wiring for the light (red) and added more wiring (blue) to reach the overhead cabinets and the window valence after the new switches.

I wish I could get strip lights in the right hand side window valence, but there is no existing route to exploit to get it there.  But the two strip lights I have already are more than bright enough; I only use the remaining two lights over the bed if I need to get up in the middle of the night.

The Paint Job - Part 5

So I decided to dremel the rivets off of the main bucket and replace with nuts and bolts.  That was pretty easy.  But all attempts to dremel off the rivets on the lid failed; it was obvious that there was no way to remove them without also damaging the plastic.  So I masked the metal trim on the lid with masking tapee.

The repairs to the bucket were extensive.  This represents almost an entire tube of JB Weld (done on both sides).

The frame had some foam tape installed to pad the plastic from vibrations. It was obvious that this was not going to do its job anymore to I scraped it off and replaced it with rubber washers on each hole.

Basically, the bucket was attached using this hardware:

Self-tapping screw
Metal washer
Rubber washer
Plastic bucket
Rubber washer
Trailer frame

An this is the end result...

Only time will tell if the color lasts and the repairs hold up.

Total cans of paint: 10 (might as well save some money and get a 12 pack case).  Total hours: I don't want to think about it.  Dong it one piece at a time over a month or so was the right move; attempting to do this all in one weekend would have killed me.

The Paint Job - Part 4

Good news...the top keder rail did not have butyl tape between the rail and the trim so it was a lot easier to deal with -- screw it off, paint, and screw it back on again. I don't know why that was only featured on the bottom rail, but I am grateful.  The top rail is really long and cleaning that up would have been a shore. There were a couple of places where the trim was cracked, but I patched that up with a bit of JB Weld.

There were so. Many. Screws. All that screwdriver work above my shoulders was a killer. But things are looking decent.

Now on to the tongue box, which I am dreading for reasons I will detail below. First, the propane and battery come out.

The two horizontal bars are the support for both the battery and the propane tank; remove the four screws at each end to remove it.  Or, in my case, three because there was one missing. That certainly explains why it rattled so much.  The screws themselves, large self-tapping sheet metal screws, are all pretty rusted so I will probably replace them with new ones.

Once the bracket is out, an additional six sheet metal screws need to be removed.

Everything's off.

I knew the tongue box was cracked, but I didn't realize it was this bad until I removed it.  Not only is there a chunk missing, but a 6 inch long crack extends from the break to the metal post.  It's going to be a real challenge to repair this in a way that is sustainable.

More bad news. The metal bracket is attached to the plastic via rivets.  So I have a choice -- mask the metal frame for painting, or dremel off the rivets and replace them with nuts and bolts later on.

Same story with the lid -- the metal trim is riveted on.  This, plus the damage to the plastic, is going to make this the most complicated bit on the entire trailer to paint.

It doesn't look half bad with no tongue box at all. If I decide painting is too much work, I might just leave it off permanently. This also means there would be enough room to mount the spare tire up there. Or I might replace it with a generic diamond plate box.

Speaking of paint jobs...

This is not the first time I applied paint to the trailer.  Soon after purchasing it, I painted the CoolCat grill because I found the color (a bad attempt to match the cabinetry) revolting.  Simple enough, remove the screws, scrape off the decal, clean it up, and paint.

I didn't care for the putty-colored refrigerator either, so I painted that as well.  Remove the two screws forming the hinge, and the door comes off.  Mask off the white plastic interior, and go to town. Unfortunately, I didn't mask it very well; I took great care to mask the bits in contact with the front, but didn't think to mask the inside any further.  The result -- a fine mist of black spray-paint wafted onto the interior, making it look like I have black mold growing on the inside.  Luckily, the worst of it was on the bottom and can't be seen easily. The panel to the left of the refrigerator unscrews just like the CoolCat cover, so that was easy.

Now everything in the interior is black...except for that pesky 120v outlet.  Must do something about that.

The Paint Job - Part 3

So at this point I have the entire bottom half of the trim removed.  But before painting, there is a lot of cleanup to do this time.  The keder rails are an absolute mess.

I used a putty knife to scrape off most of it, but the remaining residue needed to be taken off using a strong solvent -- in this case, xylene.  It reduced the butyl tape down to something resembling used chewing gum on a warm day, so physically scraping off as much as possible first is key.  Once cleaned up, I applied a new strip of butyl tape to the rails by cutting the tape lengthways (3/4 inch wide is too much).

Most of the butyl tape stuck to the keder rails but the trim did not go unscathed; I also scraped off what I could using a putty knife.

Since xylene would reduce plastic into a gelatinous mess, I had to resort to using citrus-based degreaser/label remover to get the last of the crud off.  It worked, but required a lot of hard rubbing.  I worked the sections between holes one at a time until it was clean enough to paint.

All told this is about 3-4 hours of work just to get the butyl tape off everything and get the trim cleaned up. I seriously reconsidered taking this project on at this point because I knew the top trim was even longer and was not looking forward to it.  But, once I got the trim back on, it started to be worth it again.  I'm about halfway done at this point.

Oh, and never leave butyl tape lying around on the ground. This is never coming off.

 

The Paint Job - Part 2

Well I now have some trim that matches my car.  Now it's time to remove some more trim for painting.

First...the front handles. Now is a good opportunity to tighten the screws on the handles, as mine were a bit loose.  Covering the holes with tape again just in case it rains.  Be sure to keep track of which sides that parts came from as they are very similar in shape.

There was a freaking ECOSYSTEM in the rear handle/tail light trim.  Luckily, the tail lights are attached to the trim by two screws and a plug allows the tail light to be detached.  The reflectors above the tail lights were attached by double sided tape and came off cleanly with a little persuasion with a flat bladed screw driver.

A warning about the wheel arches -- there are two small screws attaching them to the lower trim from underneath.  I didn't realize this, removed the visible screws in the side, and the wheel arch flopped off the wall and nearly snapped he trim off.  Take out the bottom screws first!

Now that the front and rear handles and the wheel arch is off, the lower keder rails can be removed.  There are many, many small screws to remove and you may need some tweezers to get them out of the rail once unscrewed.

The keder rails sit on top of the plastic trim with a thick layer of butyl tape in between.  The trim itself it attached to the body by only four screws, most likely just to hold it in place until the rail sandwiches it on.  The net result is the keder rails stick to the trim due to the butyl tape, but the trim is not connected very securely to the body. That makes it VERY easy to break the trim if you pry the rails off too hard.  Be very patient and work it off slowly with a putty knife.  If you encounter any unusual resistance, you probably missed a screw hiding under some dirt.  I missed a total of four.

Once you get the keder rail off, you are left with a few more screws and then the trim comes off.  You are also left with an absolute mess of butyl tape to clean off.

The Electrical System

Well it's still peeing rain out so another mod I did a long time ago.  I wanted to make some additions to the 12v electrical system, first of which was some USB ports.  When I examined the wiring, I found this:

It's not a very good picture because I took it long ago with the intent of documenting how everything fit together, but that is no less than all six negative leads going into a single, gigantic wire nut.  Half of those wires had NO slack in them, so any attempt to make changes would have resulted in the need for three baby-sized hands to piece this back together again.

The solution? A bus bar.  From Amazon, where else?

Now every negative lead has its own connection and can be connected or disconnected independently.  I used a small amount of wood glue to tack down a couple of wood blocks and then screwed the bus block into that (I didn't want to screw into the floor directly in case I broke the waterproof seal). Plenty of slots left for all the new electronics I want to add.