Cabover rebuild

[japple]

Making some slow progress. Sleeper board has been rebuilt from 1" plywood. Wing walls have been repaired. All new wood is encapsulated in 2-3 coats of epoxy and all glue joints are epoxy(System III)

I plan to write it all up when I'm done but if you are interested here are some new links.

Orignal splice
https://www.flickr.com/photos/15879404@N02/15298264072/

New splice, biscuits, screws, and lap joint
https://flic.kr/p/pgRqa7

Outside wingwall, new wood
https://flic.kr/p/pgRnnU

Clamping wingwall
https://www.flickr.com/photos/15879404@N02/15275587286/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/15879404@N02/15112067807/
https://flic.kr/p/p2phWr

Reattaching filon, 35 clamps and 20 "weights"
https://flic.kr/p/p2pjHx
https://flic.kr/p/p2oe3D

Inside wingwall
https://flic.kr/p/p2ow7j

My flickr stream is wide open if you want to look at other pics. Some are just to remind me how things went together, others are if anyone is interested in the woodworking aspect of this.

Any questions let me know, I have learned a ton about Minnie Winnie's and would love to save others some time and some of the headaches that I've experienced.

[R2Home]

Must be nice to have a good size shop to work in. Looking good so far!

[japple]

Yes being a woodworker helped a lot, shop tools etc ...

RV is on the driveway however so I spend a bunch of time messing with the tarp. I should have built staging and tarped outside of it, too impatient.

[japple]

I finished the rebuild and put some more of the pictures here

wb1dog

[shawnr]

Originally Posted by japple

I finished the rebuild and put some more of the pictures here

wb1dog

What would you estimate your total hours were in this project?

I will be starting a near identical one soon, do you have a list of "lessons learned"?

[japple]

I think it was around 30 hours. But the time was oddly distributed it, things I thought would be easy, like taking the cabinets out, turned into 4-6 tasks to figure it out and avoid damaging anything.

My big lesson learned was RVs are build as fast as possible, using a rough carpentry like style, I tried to approach it like a cabinet maker or machinist. I expected thing to be square, strait and even. In truth even the aluminum frame of the rig was not square. And I don't think they own a drill, everything is shot together with self tapping screws, so the holes can be almost anywhere in the frame or miss it altogether.

I had also never used epoxy to this extent(encapsulation etc). So it took me a while to get the hang of. The big lesson here for me was that 15 minutes is fevar ! you have time and don't need to rush even when working on the whole sleeper board. I rushed too much early on and put too much material. I set a timer and after I had the board covered in one coat I was certain it would have been 14+ minutes, it was 7. Also when using it on vertical surfaces use more thickener than you think you need, it thins a little as it starts to cure.

​I took a lot of pictures but assumed I would have the project done in weeks, not months so videos would have been better. The little side cabinets are like a chinese puzzle.

Let me know if you have questions

[paswigi]

Looks great, had the same problem with my 04 Itasca Sundancer. Spent one winter in the barn fixing it, mine was extensive sidewall damage along with bottom and front overhang, luckily I did not have to remove the bottom board, that part was minor. It's a classy class c with all the options and holds its value better than a conventional class c. The newer ones have little class.