Huge Teardrop Wrap-up

The two weeks since the last post became a blur of activity. We decided to take the teardrop camping for the Labor Day weekend. We'd wrap up all remaining road-worthiness details and let the rubber hit the road. Typical work proceeded in the two weeks between, up until the final days and hours before embarking on the trip on Saturday the 1st for Raystown Lake in Pennsylvania.

The mythical Teardrop spotted at Raystown Lake

It was ultimately successful. The week prior to the trip, I began working on the taillight and side marker lighting. I had parts arriving from etrailer.com and still a general sense of calm at this point.

 Wiring tail lights mounted in the hatch door

Both tail lights wired up, but not tidy yet

The wiring for this teardrop build vs. a typical utility trailer is unique for the taillights. The three wires must run through the galley door and some portion of them continues on through the conduit in the left side of the galley sliding cabinet. I'll produce a wiring diagram in time.

I'd also discovered that the wire colors on these taillights (driver's side, passenger side) I used was backwards. The white ground wire was fine, but the green and black were flipped. Thanks much to etrailer.com customer service answering my question about that so quickly!

That's important, since I zapped more money towards them that week for another set of side marker lights. And then did that again for yet another set, but this time with red lenses for the rear lights. You need orange up front, red on the rear markers.

With the wiring mostly in place, what else could there be? Oh, so much more! Only when faced with a deadline do all the little details ferret their way out! Here's a list I produced with only one week to spare:

Teardrop to do 8/27/18

• Bend door trim into place 
• Check for weather gaps 
• Install wheels? TBD
• Final bolt check 
• Tongue height check 
• Fix blinkers 
• Install rear markers and finish front ones 
• Tie up and tape wiring 
• Weatherstrip tongue box 
• Tongue box latch 
• fabricate bumper 
• weatherstrip bottom of hatch 
• install hatch side brackets

All of this, and whatever other prep was jammed in between, continued up until 1:30 AM Saturday of departure. Plenty of time to spare!

 The bumper in place, no trim yet

Hatch lower latch in place

A big chunk of time was finishing the wiring, with plenty of splicing, cutting and twisting. Another black hole of time was the bumper. For something that's just made out of a hunk of 2x4, my application required a lot of trimming and cutting such that it fit the weird angle of my metal frame at the back.

I had to nail down some weatherstrip issues and gaps here-and-there, and thankfully none of it was tested through the weekend. What looked like three days of scattered thunderstorms turned into three days of blazing heat and sun - and all because I took the time to work out the weatherstrip. You can thank me later!

We jammed the rest of the packing together early Saturday morning and we were off to the lake for what turned out to be a great weekend. I'll drop a few more photos below, but have a full set in my other blog. There are still plenty of things to tweak and add to the teardrop, so this is hardly the end. Like a lot of things, the teardrop is never "finished", I just had to hit a deadline for road-readiness.

-cheers

Finishing the Side Doors

It's really come together the last two weeks. Both side doors are fully installed and complete with door locks, handles, weatherstrip and windows.

Left door handle in lock installed 

Right side door completely installed 

Left door complete with window open

The doors didn't fit exactly the same in their frames. I had to use different weatherstrip on some areas of each. The right side door was particularly finicky, as I'd said in my previous post. I had to remove the screws from the curved weatherstrip section, drill the holes out a bit more and sink new screws a bit deeper so that the heads were more flush. Just that little bit did it.

Inside molding weatherstrip is 3/16" thick 

Left door jam weatherstrip is also 3/16" thick 

Right door jam required 3/16" automotive style weatherstrip

I've also done some more shopping. I picked up a pair of LED side marker lights from etrailer.com. A trip to Home Depot set me up with spools of 14ga wire in black, white and green for wiring of the tail and marker lights. I'm also feeling like I'll pull the trigger on these wheel/tire combos as well. Here's a photo below.

I've entered that period of time where I'm asking myself what else do I really need to do to get this thing roadworthy? The tasks are dwindling! I'm beginning to think I should plan a fall trip and get a deadline down.

Fitting the Doors

The teardrop has one door attached, at last. I had a few minutes to mount the 2nd door's hinges and line the whole deal up with the body.

I used 1/8" tile spacers on the door sill and set the door in place, drilled a few pilot holes in the wall and screwed it all together with 3/4" stainless steel screws. I think they were #10 size, which fit the hinges pretty well. The screws that are packaged with the hinges are 1", which obviously would pierce the inside wall.

The right side door doesn't fit as-is. There must be some hangup somewhere. That's just how these things go sometimes. Hopefully there isn't significant trimming to get there! I'll then add the windows and door handles - you could practically live in it! I guess that's the idea.

-cheers

It All Hinges on This

The teardrop build is creeping along with a few more steps. A new taillight with license plate lighting arrived and I've been obtaining the door hinge hardware.

There they are, installed on the hatch door. There is a groove around the mounting surface for a bead of silicone caulk, which you can see squeezing its way out. Once dry, I'll peel that away, as usual.

I won't hold the title of this post in suspense any longer. I picked up 6 nickel-plated hinges and a bunch of 3/4" stainless steel screws for mounting. I have a set installed on one door so far.

Easy goes it, now that I'm back to work. A good chunk of my time is spent dealing with kayaks, rain, wiring my house for ethernet and other various things this week. You can't be on vacation all the time... or can you?

-cheers

Aluminum Door Trimming

I began the arduous task of fitting the aluminum door trim a few days ago. The process is a little time-consuming and a bit difficult, but here we have it.

I used lengths of 3/4" angle aluminum, which should be available at Home Depot or Lowes. One side of the piece should rest against the perimeter of the door, while the other continues outward from the outer surface of the door. A photo would help.

As you can see in the photo above, the angle aluminum is situated in a manner that creates a flange on the outer surface of the door, we're looking at the inside surface on the old door serving as a mold.

I used a propane torch to heat and bend the aluminum for the rounded section. I first attached one end of the aluminum to my "mold", which was the old doors, with a single screw through a pre-drilled hole. I then began to gradually heat sections of the material, gently pushing in the direction of the bend. I did this little-by-little. It'll bend when it's heated enough, you don't need to torque it very hard. In reality, that makes it worse.

Wear a thick pair of gloves, and take your time. They came out pretty decent, the second piece is better than the first, which lends credence to the phrase practice makes perf... improved. There are adjustments to make afterwards to get things a bit straighter, or to conform to the door edges better.

When installing either the bendy part or the bottom section, I first applied silicone caulk to the edge of the doors and squished the aluminum on top. I pre-drilled holes in the sections and used 3/4" screws to secure the sections.

That was about it for the evening last night. The silicone needs to dry before I start sliming everything with it. Installation... soon to come!

-g

Teardrop Trim, Wiring and More

I was on vacation last week, so there's been plenty of teardrop activities to discuss. This was a staycation with the direct purpose of accelerating the teardrop build. The tongue box is almost finally complete, it became a project just on its own.

It's now fully installed, with four mounting points on the metal frame rails. I had spent a bit of time looking for pre-fabricated boxes on the internet and couldn't find anything that met my specifications. I wanted a perfect spot to place the deep cycle battery, jacks, wheel chocks among other things.

This above is the interior of the tongue box, and a shot of the battery box in its mounted location. I've mounted it a bit off-center to allow for a small propane tank.

Above, the battery is in place with the battery box lid in place. I have a 20 amp main breaker in place above that for full system shutdown. I moved onto the cabin wiring again while I had the electrical tools in my tool belt. I wired in the 12-volt receptacle to the electrical raceway door, shown below, running wiring to the fuse box, ground bar and main bus bar.

In all its chrome glory, you see it below. It also works, which is always pretty fantastic.

To the left of the outlet in the photo above lives another receptacle slot that's designated for a household 110v receptacle tied to an inverter. I'm pushing that down the road a bit, I can only order so many parts at a time.

That brings me to the fenders that just came in from etrailer.com. Keeping with the accent motif, I'd ordered a pair of aluminum fenders in diamond plate.

Above is one fender on the workbench along with two side doors with a fresh coat of polyurethane on the inside surface. I sanded and cleaned up those surfaces earlier this week. The inside surfaces received two coats of poly, ultimately.

I had the fenders shipped in with the goal of installing them last week. Mission accomplished, as you can see below.

I had to pop the wheels off to install the fenders. I drilled five holes in the sides and mounted them directly to the walls of the teardrop with 3/4" screws. Note that I will be replacing the white wheels with alloy wheels and radial tires, which should fit the overall look better.

The next area to be tackled was the hatch weatherstrip, which is a trial and error endeavor. I settled on a solution for the hatch-to-side-wall interface that utilizes two different thicknesses of weatherstrip.

The space between the hatch door and the walls varies anywhere from 1/16" to 7/16", so I pulled some 5/16" and 7/16" foam weatherstrip off the rack from Home Depot. In the photo above, there are thicker sections upper and lower, with the skinny stuff in the middle. It works pretty well, even if it's not super attractive.

Back to the doors and trim. I'm working with 3/4" angle aluminum to fabricate outside trim for the side doors. I'm using a propane torch to heath the material and gradually bend it along the outer curved section of the side doors.

In the above photo, you see one of the old doors serving as a mold for the aluminum bending. I used the old doors so that there wouldn't be any heat damage to the paint while softening the aluminum. I did the bending while the door was vertically oriented in the workbench in order to provide downward pressure more easily. Heat, bend a small section, screw it down and repeat. While doing this, I drilled 1/8" holes in the aluminum butting against the door edges.

I'm currently working on the second door trim. Both will require some final trimming once they are mounted on the new doors. This may require some heat, but just a little. I think. Touch and go.

I'm on to the week after vacation, so time will be shorter. But I'm getting close to finishing, like you finish any project. You just hit a deadline, which is still nebulous, so I'm just steadfastly chipping along. Here's a photo to leave this post with me and the shop cat, Tommy.

-cheers

Hurricane Hinge, Fire and Diamond Plate

Sorry for the incendiary title. I'm really nailing some things down these days, as I follow directly from that last blog post a few days ago. The lock set has arrived, I bought all the diamond plate that Home Depot had and another coat of Fire Red poly paint went on the sides.

Hurricane Hinge holding the hatch

First, however, I'll get to the topic of the hatch door to body hinge. Known as the Hurricane Hinge, it's a bit of a must have for teardrop construction. It's available on Amazon, from the same company that produces the door handles I'd also purchased. The key to the hinge is that it rolls over into itself, preventing water from flowing down into the hinge apparatus. Above, it's been permanently screwed to the roof, along with silicone sealant below.

Diamond plate and Fire Red paint are snappy together

Above, we have the custom tongue box with aluminum diamond plate sheeting on the sides. I used .025" thickness, since it's not providing structural rigidity. I applied Gorilla Glue construction glue between the box walls and the sheets and then riveted it on in several places. The lid is soon to come, after moving to other areas.

Onto the galley, where the hatch door now permanently hovers over, as I've said earlier. An interesting thing happened once the door was fully installed. The sliding doors in the galley were jammed. It looks like the 2x2" crossbar just underneath the hinge and above the sliders became less bowed. I had to pop the top face of the galley and trim the edges of the doors slightly. Fortunately, I designed the top face and slider assembly to be removable.

Hatch door locking mechanism

I also adjusted the drawer faces for better fit while I was in the neighborhood. They weren't quite straight with one-another. This was an appropriate time to install the hatch door handle and striker. This was a bit delicate. Install the handle and latch plate first, and then the goal is to determine where you want the hatch door to rest in "closed" position, and get that spot marked for the striker.

Hatch door handle all shiny and chrome

Looking at the above photo, I need to install a bumper, trim and weatherstrip around the hatch door. Another major task arriving soon is fitting the side doors and installing their windows, handles, locks and trim/weatherstrip. Still plenty to keep me busy!

-cheers

Full Coat and Some Accessories

Let's keep the paint rollers rolling! The Teardrop now has a full coat of the Fire Red polyurethane paint, including doors, hatch door and the body.

The sides require another coat (or two), but this is essentially cresting the wave of completion. I've completed the fan install and will begin installing the hatch shortly since the roof/front surface has received 2+ coats of paint.

Installed fan, silicone sealant around the bezel for waterproofing 

Interior fan trim piece, trimmed to size to snuggle up to the ceiling

Alright, what else? The new door handles and locks for the side and hatch doors came in yesterday. I'd ordered a full set via Amazon earlier this week. I'm also visualizing the utility/tongue box finishing. It's gotta be diamond plate. I'm looking at aesthetics here, so I don't need heavy duty sheets. This product from Home Depot looks pretty good.

A rainy weekend is upon us, so I'll get some more progress in for sure.

-cheers

Tongue box and body paint

That sounds a little dirty. Such is life when teardrop building. My last update was more than a month, let's catch up. I began building the custom tongue box for the front end. I also finally began painting the exterior.

 Tongue box main frame, 3/4" plywood

Bottom of utility tongue box 

Side panels installed, 1/4" plywood for weight 

Utility box mocked up on frame

Black Rustoleum in matte for the utility box

And then begins the paint. I went with red polyurethane paint to loosely match my Tacoma. The specific make is Interlux Brightside marine paint in Fire Red, available here and elsewhere. Check the photos below for the first coat.

Topside, Tara observes the first finish 

The hatch door gets the roller 

Front of the teardrop, hatch and one door first coat

This paint went on nicely with a roller. It should provide great resistance to environmental elements, but it's not cheap. My source had it for $36.95 for a quart. I just ordered a second quart, as I've nearly finished the first quart on the front and top skin and the hatch and door you see above. I think I'll do fine with two coats, after sanding with 320 grit on the first coat.

The next round of activity will be just that, along with installing the roof vent/fan, painting the sides of the body and so on.

Teardrop Wiring: Raceway, Lights and Fan plus some Other Goodies

Spring 2018 started to show itself a bit a week or two ago. I decided to get into some wiring and also made my final decision on building a tongue box rather than buying one. The motivation was that I could customize the size to fit my needs. It'll be large enough to house the deep cycle battery and a full size propane tank. I'm not sure yet if I'll run a full size propane tank regularly, but perhaps for longer trips. 

Above, I'm cutting chunks of 3/4" plywood for the tongue box. The temperature was finally in the 50s again finally. Immediately the next day we had about 4 inches of show. Such is the new Spring here in Pennsylvania.

I've now mounted key elements of the wiring blocks in the raceway. Below, from left to right: busbar, ground-bar and fuse block.

The photo below is just a higher elevation view of the wiring raceway to provide a different angle. I have to break now to establish a milestone. Up to this point, the cabin lights and fan have been sitting quietly in place with the their wiring running through the ceiling and dangling into the raceway. I've finally terminated all that onto the fuse and ground blocks. The wiring from the tongue to the raceway is now also in place and connected.

With drums rolling, I set the battery on the tongue, popped in my fuses and flicked the switch on the main fuse...

We have power!

Ok, it's a minor accomplishment, but a good sanity check to ensure I didn't drive a screw through a wire somewhere up there. Below, I have two photos of all four cabin lights in all their glory.

I have the battery resting below with temporary connections, waiting until I have the tongue box built up. In the lower left of the photo you see the 20 amp fuse on the positive terminal side.

Below, I have a more focused view of the electrical raceway. On the left is the main busbar with the positive feed from the battery. The busbar breaks off at the top into the fan and two light feeds into the fuse block on the right. The middle block is the main ground. I'll post explicit wiring diagrams in a later post. I mean really explicit, NSFW (not safe for wiring more likely).

I've also tested the fan wiring, which you can see temporarily wired up in a few of the previous photos Final wiring for the fan will occur after painting and trim work. It was certainly a milestone to see the internal wiring operational.

I'll move on to the tongue box this week with a really nice battery mounting situation in mind, along with storage.

-g