It's in the hole!!!!! Sorry about my cheesy Caddyshack reference, but the refrigerator is installed and bolted down.
Here is the trim pieces that I painted the other night before closing up the shop.
Close up of the fitment to make it look like it came from the factory that way. Not shown here is the black touch up paint I added to the screw heads so they are not visible.
I blocked off the vent holes then ran some tape around the perimeter of the exterior vent cover and sprayed expanding foam insulation into the "mold". Again, bare with me, this is not my area of expertise.
While it was curing I stapled some garage door weatherstripping around all four sides of the exterior vent opening. My plan is when the cover is placed into the opening the gasket will seal up that small gap that may or may not be present to keep the outside temperatures, outside.
Here is a shot of the vent cover installed and the gasket material sealing off the perimeter. The wind was blowing quite hard outside yesterday while I was doing this modification and once I plugged the hole the wind was gone. I couldn't have planned it any better as the wind was blowing directly onto the street side of the coach where my vent is located. I feel confident that the area is sealed nicely. One thing I may do is find a cosmetically pleasing solution to add a fastener to each side of the vent cover from the exterior. Due to the foam insulation and the weatherstripping there is a slight bow in the exterior vent cover from the pressure of the foam against the gasket. A fastener on each of the two sides to pull it in tight would solve this and I really shouldn't have to get into the back side as often as I did with the absorption refrigerator to perform routine maintenance.
The delivery guys were great. Wish I could say the same thing for Home Depot. Anyway they showed up and were shocked when they asked where it needed to go and I pointed to the coach. One guy walked over to the door and said "it won't fit". I replied "politely" (I have been working on that due to my wife pointing it out)
that I have measured multiple times and although it will be tight, it WILL fit, at least by my measurements and calculations.
I asked if they minded while I removed the doors and freezer drawer and then if they could help me lift it into the coach. The driver said he would gladly remove the doors and he did. He stripped it down in no time, we then brought it right in the door. I told them I had it from there but he insisted on assembling the unit. We had just placed it inside the coach where the pilot/co-pilot chairs usually go until my son got home. I tipped each one of them and they were very grateful and said a tip was not necessary. OH BUT IT WAS!! I don't know if my son and I alone could have done that.
Here it is just inside the door of the coach, assembled and ready to go into its new home.
My son and I placed it in the cabinet and it slid right in. However, next up on the agenda was devising a way of bolting it down to the new cabinet floor so it stayed in its new home. My wife come home from work and I was lying on the floor staring at it. She asked if I was alright and was a bit concerned when I told her I was thinking.
I fabricated some mounting brackets that would mount to the floor and come out the front of the cabinet just to the side of the rollers so they would not interfere with the rollers going into the cabinet.
Here they are bolted to the floor and ready for the refrigerator to be installed for the last time. I was fortunate and took good notes and measurements as we only had to install the fridge once for mockup and then the final time.
One other detail I did just before installing the last time was to relocate my electrical outlets. I noticed they were right up against the back of the refrigerator when we installed it on the mockup run. I secured them to the floor of the cabinet and the one fed from the inverter was in the middle and easiest to access from the outside. The other is there if needed but I don't see a reason to need it. These will be flat and low enough to not interfere with anything on the back of the fridge.
It's in the hole for the second and last time. I then bent up some .188" thick metal stock to bolt the refrigerator directly to the floor via the mounting brackets. I removed the leveling feet from the refrigerator and used those locations to install these brackets bent @ 90-degrees and then bolted to the bottom floor mounted bracket.
The rear required a bit more thinking. I have seen some pictures on the internet where people just ran lag screws down into the floor but I wanted something that was going to spread the load out a bit more than merely a head of a screw plus there is a 1.5" gap under the refrigerator and my fear was the screw could potentially just pull through the floor of the fridge base.
I opted to place a 1.5" aluminum block under the rear of the refrigerator to give the base something with a little larger footprint and more square inches to disperse the weight over. I then made two "hold-down" brackets that I intentially made approx. .062" short. This will pull down onto those aluminum blocks and preload with some tension. The brackets are also 2" wide to spread that over more surface area.
Here are the two rear mounting brackets bent up, drilled and welded sitting on the bench ready for installation. They are merely leaning against my combination square for the picture.
Here are the two rear mounts firmly attached to the floor of the cabinet.
And here the fridge is basically installed and completed.
It was getting late last night so I plugged it in to make sure it worked.
I also made sure I had plugged it into the correct recepticle for the inverter (like I said, it was getting late) and then killed the power to the coach to ensure it stayed on un-interrupted. Lastly after turning the power back on to the coach, I found out the circuit breaker for the fridge and labeled it as such so I will use that to turn the fridge off/on rather than remove the outside vent cover to unplug the unit.
Tonight I need to measure, and make the left side trim piece and paint it semi-gloss black to match the right side and top pieces. I aslo need to cut down the drawer fronts and cover the opening at the bottom with the wood panels/trim to make it look like it came from Monaco that way and put the bottom trim panel on the refrigerator. Lastly I will need to come up with a latch assembly for the doors and to fabricate a holding system for the interior of the refrigerator to keep things in place while traveling. Mainly so all of the contents don't spill out when the door is opened after traveling.
Mike.
Linear Mode
