Coast Resorts Open Roads Forum: Class C Motorhomes: B+ motorhomes

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Topic: B+ motorhomes

Posted By: Snowman9000 on 10/12/12 07:02pm

Ralph,

I was going to wait till my bed conversion is done, but I'll post some progress photos now. It's a bit like seeing sausage being made at this point.

My goals are a bit different from Cheeze's. While keeping a conventional height on the bed, I wanted the maximum cargo opening. I'm not hinging the top, because the storage under the bed is more of an outside storage space to me. My bed top will be removable but it will be more like the tops of the dinettes.

I am not a great carpenter, so I wanted something quite simple to build. Mine will be about on par with RV factory standards.

Due to my goals of maximum cargo door opening, I decided to use an angle iron to carry the bed along the outer wall. And since the cargo door protrudes beyond the wall by 1/8" or so, I decided to make a shim using paneling, to shim the wall outward in the affected area. I made a management decision to cannibalize the bump out thing that I had removed from the wall. I needed the paneling it had. So the first photo shows the shim pieces. Three pieces because the paneling was not as wide as the bed area.

[image]

This next photo shows the angle iron installed over the shimmed wall. It is well-supported by the four upright wood pieces in addition to the wall screws. It is stout enough to span the 40" door without deflecting any real amount when I put weight on it in the middle. This angle iron is some stuff I had from work.

[image]

Then I took another panel and laid it over the shim pieces and right down onto the angle iron. This is to provide a barrier between the bed and the cargo door. Both visually and as a draft barrier. The panel was again a couple inches too narrow so I left the gap on the fridge end. I will try to figure a way to scribe a piece to fit as close as possible, but the ultimate plan is to cover the whole thing with some sort of padded or quilted cover.

[image]

OK, that takes care of the rough construction on the outer wall. The cargo door has a full 12" high opening, which is pretty useful to me. Now I used another piece of the steel on the fridge wall. The reason I used it again was that it was able to be screwed into a spot where there is structural wood. Everything lower than that is just paneling or some light structure that is basically just hanging there. The wheel well doesn't support any weight. So here is that piece.

[image]

This was today's progress. The next step is to build a conventional RV type wood box for the other two sides, and also support and cover the end where the steel sticks out past the fridge. I'll be using 1/4" luan for the paneling, and possibly some scraps of 1/2" birch plywood for a trim rail around the upper edge. Most of the framing will be 1x2's. The top rail will be two 1x2's with the luan sandwiched in between. The rail will be supported by 1x2 posts every foot or so, going down to 1x2 base plates screwed through the carpet to the floor. Just about like the dinette.

The top will be 3/8" plywood, I think, and will be have some bracing underneath it. I have to experiment a little with that part when I get to it. I will post more photos as I can. This weekend is supposed to be very rainy and I don't want to haul the plywood from the big box store in my truck if it is raining, so I might not get anything done till next week.

It looks pretty rough right now but eventually it will be decent, I think.

* This post was edited 10/12/12 07:09pm by Snowman9000 *

Currently RV-less but not done yet.

Posted By: burlmart on 10/13/12 03:37am

Snow

Where are the places in these walls that one can anchor screws -- are they metal studs?

Maybe 3/4" plywood will help insure less deflection in the unsupported span direction of the wide opening.

Use the RV to go get the plywood.

2005 Trail Lite 213 B-Plus w/ 6.0 Chevy

Posted By: Snowman9000 on 10/13/12 06:22am

In the laminated foam walls, there are not many studs. Most screws just go into paneling and any that hit a stud is a bonus. That's why I have those jack legs or whatever you'd call them, to transfer the load to the floor.

I have some different pieces of plywood and will experiment a little for the bed. I'm trying to keep it light but strong enough.

Posted By: burlmart on 10/13/12 06:40am

So you just put screws most anywhere and there is something better than drywall (like in a house) to anchor them? What type of screws?

A framing option to effectively reduce the 3/8" plywood span is to place a post on the aisle side and directly across from the center of the access door opening. Run two beams diagonally from this post back to the two posts on the sides of the opening.

* This post was edited 10/13/12 06:49am by burlmart *

Posted By: Snowman9000 on 10/13/12 07:03am

In looking at what the manufacturers do, it seems they just screw stuff to the plywood paneling and call it good. With fairly standard flathead screws. Obviously there are exceptions for big fixtures and such.

Thanks for the tip on the framing. That's a good idea. Typically for bunk beds and dinettes, they get away with 3/8 plywood and little or no extra support at all. But I don't think that will be quite strong enough in this project with the 32" span. I was thinking of just building up the underside of the plywood with some cleats. Anyway, I have enough scraps to try some things and see what works. By the time I get to working on that I will be a happy guy! I want to see the box get done!
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Posted By: Snowman9000 on 10/13/12 06:58pm

Remind me... doing mods to these little motorhomes is supposed to be fun, right?

I'm driving myself nuts over this bed thing. Actually it was good that today was a rain-out, because I had time to reflect and have a couple of Aha! moments on how to build the bed skeleton. I'm going to take that steel off the fridge and use wood instead, down lower under the bed level. I can make it solid pretty easily. I did not want to have to trim out that steel. And it doesn't need to be as strong as all that because it's not really a big weight bearing "wall" of the bed.

So, now I have the skeleton all sketched out, it makes sense, shouldn't be hard to construct, and should look respectable when the outside is finished.

But it's driving me crazy. Hopefully tomorrow I can get the skeleton built.

And then the finishing it off will drive me crazy!
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Posted By: Gene in NE on 10/13/12 09:18pm

burlmart wrote:

...Where are the places in these walls that one can anchor screws -- are they metal studs?...

We made a trip to Warsaw when our unit was new. I asked Michael (our tour guide) for some blueprints of the sidewalls of our 211-S. He was only able to find one for the drivers side and the roof. I'm sharing them as they may give you some idea. It is sad not to know where to get them now that RVision was sold.

I believe the prints state that the framing is 1"x1-1/2" steel tube. I believe it was galvanized. I was always going to try finding them using my "rare earth" magnets. Those things have power like you have never seen for a small magnet.
Here is one for my drivers side -
[image]

And here is the roof of mine -
[image]

2002 Trail-Lite Model 211-S w/5.7 Chevy (click View Profile)
Gene

Posted By: Snowman9000 on 10/14/12 06:30am

That's very neat, Gene. There is a lot of structure by the slideout but on the back half there is almost none. That agrees with what I've always read about this type of wall. I'm going to save those images to my PC. Would you happen to have the passenger side or the rear wall too?

Zircon makes metal finders

Posted By: Orion_42 on 10/14/12 08:22am

Regarding finding the "studs", I found that when conditions are right, you can easily find the roof frame tubes. Due to differences in temperature, when there's dew on the roof, the frame areas tend not to be "dewed". I went up with a marker one morning and put some marks where the frames were. I haven't seen the same effect on the sides, though. I was looking for the roof tubes for mounting a cargo carrier on the roof (but ended up not doing it anyway).

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2001 Trail Lite B+ 211

Posted By: burlmart on 10/14/12 09:32am

I've more than once missed a 1-1/2" wall stud while using a good stud finder! I haven't got the guts to aim for a narrower metal one which my drill bit is also more likely to walk off of...I have too many thumbs!

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