[Vintage RV Adventures]

We are John & Samantha from the UK. We bought an American 5.7 litre V8 Ford RV in July 2021. Our plan is to spend the rest of 2021 and early next year rebuilding the RV to a nice condition vehicle once more. But now though the RV is in a pretty poor state, having been off the road for many years. Please do follow us on our journey to renovate the RV, we look forward to you coming along.

Today in our YouTube vlog, we show you the transformation of the over cab bedroom, from what was recently an area full of rotten wood, to what it is today, a lovely large space to sleep. This is to be the second bedroom area in the motorhome.

 

[jiwawa]

It's coming on John! Looking good!

 

[Vintage RV Adventures]

It's coming on John! Looking good!

Thank you very much Jean :smile2:

 

[Pudsey_Bear]

Try to keep any weight low down RVs tend to roll a bit more than UK type vans.

 

[Vintage RV Adventures]

Try to keep any weight low down RVs tend to roll a bit more than UK type vans.

The gross vehicle weight is 5.6 tonnes, so I do expect this will come in under that weight when complete. We are putting in weight, but we took out a LOT of weight, such as the 4kw generator of about 100kgs and aircon unit of about 80kgs and three gas boilers.

 

[Pudsey_Bear]

3 gas boilers, seems a bit OTT.

 

[Vintage RV Adventures]

In today's YouTube vlog we show you progress made from the last week, which includes; the design and build of our king sized bed frame, a nice storage compartment in the toilet room, and some CLS / plywood based wall panelling completed.

 

[jiwawa]

Very interesting - it's fairly coming on.

The bed is very unusual where it is - I wouldn't fancy having to traipse across the bedding to get to the rest of the van. Or alternatively, have to go out and in again. But you obviously have your reasons.

Are the windows double glazed?

 

[Vintage RV Adventures]

Very interesting - it's fairly coming on.

The bed is very unusual where it is - I wouldn't fancy having to traipse across the bedding to get to the rest of the van. Or alternatively, have to go out and in again. But you obviously have your reasons.

Are the windows double glazed?

Our plan is not to walk between the cab and the living accommodation, but instead to use the side door when we stop somewhere. Other than when we are on the move, the cab seating will not be used. The main reason for the bed being built there is the large window, which is the largest window in the RV. If we do some wild camping, and pull up next to some lovely scenery such as next to a beach or river, we want to be able to walk up of a morning with a cuppa and just look directly out of that large window, which sits low.

No, the windows are not double glazed. How that will work out is something we are going to have to test and find out. I remember all those years ago I had a 1960s Bailey caravan without double glazing and that could get rather cold, especially noticeable when you want to get out of bed of a morning lol. But, being a small caravan is also suffered with internal condensation. We are hoping with the RV being so large that condensation does not form to the same sort of degree. Again, we will have to wait and see.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Pudsey_Bear]

Sadly you will get condensation on any cold surface, vapour barriers are seriously important or the wood will rot as before, all screws and nails will provide a cold bridge too, if you can stop breathing and cooking you'll be fine though, I did read on one of the self build forums when I was doing my build that if you put a film on the windows this alters the thermal properties and will help a lot, similar to the stuff kids put on their cars, just the lightest tint possible, the cab is the very worst part for condensation, a thick heavy thermal curtain is your best bet and a Karcher window vacuum.

 

[raynipper]

The early 70s Winnebagos used to have heavy slatted carpet interwoven drop down 'blinds' that were very good at keeping the cold out of single pane windows.
Maybe thats why yours had three furnaces John.

Our 1988 Winnebago Itasca had vast windows that lost heat at night but cooked us in the day. After fitting 'Solar Film' on them all it made it far more comfortable.

Ray.

 

[Vintage RV Adventures]

Sadly you will get condensation on any cold surface, vapour barriers are seriously important or the wood will rot as before, all screws and nails will provide a cold bridge too, if you can stop breathing and cooking you'll be fine though, I did read on one of the self build forums when I was doing my build that if you put a film on the windows this alters the thermal properties and will help a lot, similar to the stuff kids put on their cars, just the lightest tint possible, the cab is the very worst part for condensation, a thick heavy thermal curtain is your best bet and a Karcher window vacuum.

Interesting that, yes we were thinking of putting some window film up, but our thinking was limited to the forward facing over cab bedroom window, but the reason for that is there is some slight aged ingress along the lower edge of the lamination. It might be an idea for us to think about film on all of the windows. The cab - Our plan is to use a thick blackout curtain between the cab and the bed, so hopefully that will help. We have a rechargeable Karcher window vac that we use at home to clean the windows, it looks like this may now be repurposed lol.

 

[Vintage RV Adventures]

The early 70s Winnebagos used to have heavy slatted carpet interwoven drop down 'blinds' that were very good at keeping the cold out of single pane windows.
Maybe thats why yours had three furnaces John.

Our 1988 Winnebago Itasca had vast windows that lost heat at night but cooked us in the day. After fitting 'Solar Film' on them all it made it far more comfortable.

Ray.

Thanks Ray. You could well be right about why the RV had so many LPG furnaces. The wife is planning to make her own drop down window curtains, in fact she has already bought the material she is going to use, which seems to be quite thick. A couple of vanlifers have done a similar thing, and she is copying their ideas to a degree. I am pretty certain the RV will not be warm in the off-peak months, based on my past experiences of owning a 1960s single glazed caravan, and so some sort of heat loss reducing film is likely to help our cause. We are not planning to live in the RV, so the very cold winter months isn't something for us to worry about, but while I can easily sleep in colder rooms, I do hate waking up to the cold lol.

 

[Pudsey_Bear]

She probably thought it was a good idea.

 

[raynipper]

Putting the film on large windows is initially a challenge. I ended up scrapping the first sheet and then reading the instructions fully.
Cut the film an inch larger and then use the slightly soapy solution to position the film accurately before squeezy ing all the moisture out downwards.
When fully dry cut the surplus off with a scalpel and then seal the edge with clear nail varnish.

It was still good 8 years later when we sold the RV to an idiot in Cornwall with several destructive kids. Dread to think what happened to it.

Ray.

 

[Vintage RV Adventures]

Putting the film on large windows is initially a challenge. I ended up scrapping the first sheet and then reading the instructions fully.
Cut the film an inch larger and then use the slightly soapy solution to position the film accurately before squeezy ing all the moisture out downwards.
When fully dry cut the surplus off with a scalpel and then seal the edge with clear nail varnish.

It was still good 8 years later when we sold the RV to an idiot in Cornwall with several destructive kids. Dread to think what happened to it.

Ray.

Thanks for the tip Ray. We I applied some plastic film (containing our YouTube channel logo) on the side of the RV it was not easy at all, but I didn't use soapy water, which was probably a mistake.

You certainly have has some great old working American RVs from the photographs I have seen from you recently, in your shoes I would certainly wish I still had one of those today, but life and time does move on :smile2:

 

[raynipper]

Yes John, 11 in all and then one Euro Hobby. But now if I can't do it properly I won't bother.

Ray.

 

[Pudsey_Bear]

Defeatist.

 

[raynipper]

No compromises.

Ray.

 

[Vintage RV Adventures]

Our latest vlog. We have begun to install screwless Schneider electrical fittings into the motorhome project. Some windows that were not previously sealed have also been resealed.

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