Tag Archives: Air Conditioner

The ceiling and Air-con down the front part 2

03/11/2018 Bernie Cross

Is it a nightmare or a dream.

Yes it is a dream, just a lot of work to get there. With the air-con fitted into place now I can finish off all the small bits still to go. So back out with the tape to mark out the next pice to be cut.

Now I’ll have to move the air-con pipes.

I have also covered the top of the driver side window above the pull down shad with insulation behind it, because the heat that comes off the window when the sun’s on that side make’s like not that nice.

The door side will look unfinished till the new door go’s in.

Now to cut more ply to fit into place across the front to finish off the bottom of the air-con housing. Making every measurement count as I don’t wont to stuff a pice of ply up.

The things you do by your self

Now all I have to do is get it into place, glue & screw it by myself as Charmaine’s at work.

Now to tidy up the little bit’s to finish it off across the bottom of the air-con.

Lot’s of small bit’s the fit into place.

Somewhere to put the GPS, Two way and reversing camera screen.

Should have lot’s of room for everything.

This will be covered later on and have a panel to fit the GPS, two-way and the reversing camera screen as well as anything that I think of later.

The hole is for access for running power and the air-con drain’s.

The drain for the air-com was fun to put into place. It needs to have a drain on both side’s because when your driving down the road and the coach sways from side to side the water go’s every wear. We found this out driving down the coast from Townsville, They was no problems in the outback because of the low humidity.

I ended up running the drain down through the middle windscreen support bar then through the floor so it will drain out on the ground below the driver’s seat.

Looking for somewhere to run the drain pipe.

I had some fun running the pipe up the RHS tom the air-con.

Well that’s done thank goodness, even the drain works when your driving down the road.

The start of this job

Motorhome fit out

The ceiling and Air-con down the front part 1

24/10/2018 Bernie Cross

A Bigger job than it looks

The last owner had put some sheet aluminium across the top of the front windscreen then fitted the Air-con there. This might have been ok then, but now things will have to change. I was going to make this one of the last jobs to do, but now it will have to be done before I can go any further .

To start with I will have to remove some of the old overhead T.V. cabinet to make room for the air-con. I must admit I do like pulling things apart, then trying to work out how I’m suppose to make it fit back together again.

Screws and pop rivets holding things on.

the thing you have to do to move the air-con, there go’s the clock.

This job is turning out to be bigger than I thought.

Carpet ripped off and all other trim gone.

As you can see the air-con will not fit in the old T.V. hole, so I will have to make out where I have modify this section. before I go to far There is some 240v and 12v cables to run around behind where the air-con will go, I thought it might be a good time before I make it to hard for myself later on.

240v and 12v cables that I can think of for the passenger side.

The switch board will be above the drivers seat some were.

Now out with the grinder for lots of noise and dust, as it’s time to make a space for the air-con.

Now to start fixing this mess

As you can imagine nothing on the coach is square, so I can only cut and fit the ply one pice at a time. I can then work out where the next pice will go and what shape it will be. First of will be the backing board that will give me some thing to work from.

You just have to make it up as you go a long sometimes.

There are lot’s of thing to think of When you are making thing on the go.

The slot on the bottom of the side panel is for the air-con pipe’s.

Let’s see if the air-con fit’s

To start with pulling thing apart so that I don’t stuff things up. There is not much room to play with or put things apart from hopping the stuff does not break.

Well all I have to do now is some how by myself lift the air-con into place, holding the pipe work at the same time shape the pipes into their new area.

Well it fit’s, but just, now to move the air-con pipe work.

That’s all for this blog, more to come soon.

Motorhome fit out

Why Stop at The Bedroom Ceiling

17/08/2017 Bernie Cross 2 Comments

Lets just finish the ceiling prep

We started in the bedroom and that’s all we were going to do, but why stop there as it was a dirty job. So it was out with the scrapers again to remove the form underlay, only another 8 meters to go. I so much love working over my head.

This is after sanding all the contact glue off the ceiling

Now to start on the new ceiling.

Well it’s now time to start on the new bedroom ceiling as It had to be finished so I could fix the roof above. Des had the sheetmetal already, so it was time to cut it up and start fitting it up in place.

The sheet metal that will be going up for the ceiling.

This lot should do the bedroom through to the bathroom.

Now the fun beginnings of positioning them in place with Charmaine’s help and some timber I think we can do it. This will be done one sheet at a time as gluing them in place takes 24hrs, then the pop riveting and then we do it all over again with the next one.

Most of the bedroom ceiling done as well as the bit from the flat to the curve ceiling.

Now that we have done the ceiling in the bedroom, the rest will have to wait for another day and another blog.

Motorhome fit out

Still Removing The Old Coach Air Conditioning

09/07/2017 Bernie Cross

Back To The Air-Conditioning

We had already done the first part of the work on the bedroom ceiling, but to finish that job. We had to rip the rest of the old air-con off the roof. I started with getting the sola panels off first, then remove the cover plates.

Now time to remove the solar panels again.

This will be the last time the roof looks like a coach roof

This will be the last time it will look like this.

The finished look of this project we will have a roof top deck up here, but not now that is a job for an other day. Now it’s time to remove the evaporator, heat exchange radiators and blowers. Stripping out the copper pipe, heat exchange radiator pipes as well all the electrical pits.

Stripping all the sparky stuff and back grill to accessing the pipe work.

Old air condition control unit in the ceiling.

One side of the evaporator, heat radiators and blowers to be removed.

More Stuff For The Scrap Yard

I did a trip to the scrap metal yard with all the copper, brass, evaporator and the heat exchange radiators. It’s always good to get some money back, that lot gave me $145 to put back into the project. Next will be cutting out all the aluminium that we don’t need off the roof air-condition area. I all ready have some that we have removed so that we will have an other trip to the scrap yard soon.

Did I see rain?

Well it did start raining on and off for a week, lucky we could put the covers over the holes and with some buckets inside it didn’t get too wet inside. This means I went back inside to do some more work on the bedroom/bathroom ceiling, while it rained but thats an other blog.

1st blog on THE OLD COACH AIR CONDITIONING

Motorhome fit out

Removing The Old Coach Air Conditioning

05/07/2017 Bernie Cross 2 Comments

It doesn’t work so it has to go

From the start the old coach air conditioning never worked at all, the gas was gone and Des had already fitted a reverse cycle air conditioner into the coach before it ever became our project. I started to remove the old air-con in Leigh Creek S.A. in my free time.

The old compressor pump was the first thing to go.

One less thing we have to drag around. No more compressor pump.

The coach is getting lighter.

After taking out the compressor pump, which almost made me blow a pooper valve. After the compressor out it was onto the roof to remove the condensers and fan system. Now the coach is about 120kg lighter, every bit counts the lighter the better.

Condensers and the fan unit are no more.

This is where the condensers and fan came from.

Now Time To Pack Up.

It was starting to get to hot to be working on the roof at that time of the year in Leigh Creek S.A. So before I put the panels back on we used this area store the spare set of wheel for the Toyota land cruiser. The next stop was to Yulara N.T. to do some camel farm work which was great fun especially getting to race at the end of May in the camel races. Curtin Springs Cattle Station was a six day a week job so not much could be done on the bus when we were there, until Zac came up for a trip to do the outside just before we left there in November 2016.

One of the main reasons we decided to head back to Brisbane was that we realised we could not both work and get the bus built properly. The other reason was that while in Yulara we bought a gas strut storage bed that costed us $500 and by the time we got it out to us at the farm it costed another $480. This was way too expensive, so on to Brisbane it was as we found out it was the cheapest way to get the parts we would need for the fit out on the bus.

Motorhome fit out, On the road problems

Big Bus Big Adventure Air Conditioner ???

06/06/2017 Bernie Cross 2 Comments

Is The Air Conditioner Working

The condenser unit was fitted in the front bin on the drivers side and only had an out vent so if the bin door was closed, things didn’t work that well. This should have been one of the first things that I should have fixed, but as we were not on the road much I didn’t think about it at all. Now after driving from S.A. to N.T. and now into QLD, it was defiantly time to fix it.

Time For Some Modifications

To start with we had to seal the air-con unit to the outside bin door, so off to the hardware store for some sheetmetal. Ended up getting some flashing which would mean I would not have to bend any 90 angles. So out with the tin snips and pop rivet gun to make some ducting.

Made up some ducting to get the air out.

Rubber seals in place so the hot air only go’s outside.

Time For Some Intake Vents

Now all we had to do was the intake vents, I thought three would do for a start and thats all they had at the hardware. So back to the coach I went to start fitting the intake vents. First off was to mark out the holes for the vents then cut them out.

Marked and cut out ready for the new vents

New vents in place so no more over heating while driving down the road.

One Cool Motorhome.

Now that job is done It’s so much cooler inside when driving down the road. Also when we stay somewhere I don’t have to open up the air-con’s bin door again, now that all the hot air is blown outside.