16th day of work on the pop up!

Yesterday was a beautiful day! We were able to get a lot done. We finished the wood floors! Then I tackeled all of the seams that had ripped or where the thread had rotted out (view day one of this blog to see the state it was in when we got it, the canvas was totally covered in mold).

It looked like the previous owner tried to do some repairs but didn't do so good. It only took about five minutes of research to find out how to best do this fix!

This contraption was a God send and made it an easy chore.

This little device was about $20.00 at Joann's fabric store. It was worth every penny! I think it was originally made for sail repairs on sail boats. It was a easy tool to use and the instructions were simple and clear. I would recommend this tool for anyone doing canvas repair!

Day 15 of work on the pop-up

Even though this is only the 15th day of actual work on the pup it has been spread out over months.
This is the life of a dad of three and pastor of a new congregation! Weekends that have free time are hard to come by! I have been out of the country in south east Asia for a couple of weeks and it seems like it has rained here in Houston for the past two months solid, or at least weekends but this weekend the sun came out and I had some free time so back at it!.

We have booked two weeks worth of camp grounds in Colorado for this summer. We will actually spend a week in Palo Duro Canyon inTX for a week then head up to Colorado so I am motivated to get it done!

Today I finished grinding the rust and old muck off the frame and primed and painted it. Then caulked and sealed the trim and roof of the pup. I found a caulking tool at Lowes that is a jewel when it comes to caulking. I ended up with smooth uniform lines and seal it was amazingly quick and easy with this tool.

After that the boys wanted to jump in and help so I left caulking and sealing the body for another day and we raised it up and decided to eat lunch in the pup and then start tackling the interior! It has been well kept and pretty clean so mostly we will just be doing some updating! Time for the 80's flooring to go!

After lunch we shop vacuumed it out and because the floor is all good and not rotted I decided to not mess with removing the antiquated linoleum. Instead we decided to lay laminate wood flooring panels. Even though they were click lock and floating I lid some liquid nails down underneath so we get a good seal and boards won't move exposing space between planks so it will be moister barrier and not warp.

It came out really nice! Tomorrow after church I'll try to get the quarter round in to trim it out and it will be be a complete floor! Then we will tackel the counter tops and made stain the cabinets!

All in all it was a good day! I still need to caulk and seal the exterior body and get the AC cover back on but we should be good to go for Thursday's debut one nighter to Stephen F Austin state park here in TX!

14th day of work to overhaul the PUP

finally had time to get some more work on the pup. The front tred plate aluminum had been held at the curvature bend with strap ties run from underneath the front bumper all the way through the pup and down to the back bumper. This held the aluminum in place so the bend could take shape and not pull on the screws as I put them in. Today we finished securing it and pulled the straps off.

Then we took the trim pieces we had cleaned out real good and repainted with the white rust-oleum and applied new putty tape and re-positioned them onto the pup.

Now we just need to put the plastic strip back into the trim that seals the screws from the elements and caulk the exterior trim, lights and anything else that needs sealing.

Day 13 of the overhaul

well today my mother-in-law got in on the action! We took all the curtains and balase out and washed them on the sanitize cycle of the washer and dryer. Then she made patterns of the valences and then sewed new ones. For the curtains I couldn't find Texas A&M material that was thick enough to keep light out so we took the old curtains and she sewed them into the new material. They turned out quite nice! Ill show them again when they are back in the pup but for now here you can see the pattern on the material:

Day 12 of the complete overhaul

Today I used the grinder/buffer the smooth down the edges of the aluminum pieces I cut for the sides and then I took some constructors glue rated for metals and wood and saturated the backs. Then I attached them to the sides to finish out the remodeled front. I then used some sheet metal screws that have a washer that has neoprene on the body side that seal it once screwed in tightly. At the top I used the body top trim rails to cup over the top of the aluminum. Where the two pieces of aluminum meet I  will seal then place putty tape and trim over them to. Seal them again.

Then my son and I scraped and cleaned the trim and gave it a good 2-3 coats with rust-oleum spray. Once their dry tomorrow and fully cured we'll apply the putty tape and trim.

Day 11 of refurbishing the Palomino Filly

Today I skipped finishing the the front and wrap around aluminum sealing and trim work.  A little bit of ADD and I also need to get a piece of trim to finish it out so instead I drilled the holes in the roof for the running lights and re-wired all the running lights, 5 red across the back, one red on back of each side and one yellow on the front of each side, then three yellow across the front. Then I replaced the two break lights. I also replaced the porch light that was broke with an LED light that puts out twice as much light and uses less power. Not a big job done but good for 40minutes worth of work.

Day 10 of work on Palomino Filly

Today I tackled the front end of the pup! I found a place where I could get tred/diamond cast aluminum so I bought a 4x8 sheet of .063 and brought it home. I used a metal cutting blade for my skill saw and cut it down to size. Then using a rubber mallet and a 2x4 I pounded the angle for it to cup around the bottom so I could attach it with screws underneath.

Whoever owned it prior to me had their vehicle throw something up from their rear tires and put a half dollar size whole in the front. They had filled it but it was a pretty bad patch job. So I wanted to avoid this happening again.

After molding the bottom to go between the frame and body I decided rather than keeping the same contour and angles of body that I wanted to round it out. I don't think it makes it more aero dynamic but that sound good so we'll just say that's why I did it :-)

I attached it at the top with screws and the lug bolt holding the wheel for the bed to roll out on. I will replace the top cap trim piece and seal it tomorrow. Now this created the look I liked but it created a void open on the sides. So I filled the void with expandable foam insulation. While that was drying I cut pieces of the aluminum to wrap around the sides and cover the void.

The pieces are cut out and so as soon as the foam has dried and cured for a day I'll Apache them and seal it up! I'll post as soon as I do the work and it is finished in the next couple of days.

Day 9 of the Palomino overhaul

today I had a couple f hours to work on the pup so I put a third coat of grizzly grip on roof. Then a couple of hours later I stared tackling the frame.

The frame had obviously not been repainted or taken care of since it was built in the 90's. Here you can see:

So the first thing I did was get a polishing/ stripping wheel and use the drill to take all the rust and little paint that remains off.

You can see after 10 seconds it was stripping all the way down to the metal.so after about 30 minutes of grinding I got all the rust off. Then I shop vacuumed it and then I took a rag soaked in acetone and wiped it down. Then I took the black rust-oleum and gave it three good coats!

In between coats I took some putty tape and sealed and placed the wheel wells, vents, door and all other accessory parts that had been grizzly gripped to match the roof and got them back on the body. My sone had my phone by then playing a game so I'll post pics of that later. 

Day 8 of the overhaul!

Well today the weather was great so we got some butcher paper and covered the bottom of the pup so we could roll on the grizzly grip (truck bed liner).

As I've mentioned before we live in Texas and are Texas A&M fans so we are breaking from tradition and not painting the pup white! The body has already been painted maroon as you can see in previous posts. So we are painting the roof "battle ship grey"!

A couple of days ago I filled in all the screw holes with a wood filler putty I had poured wood hardener/ "rot" stopper because some of the screws were a little rusty a couple of days earlier. Even though the wood all seemed to be good better safe than sorry.

Today after getting the body covered we cleaned the roof with a 220 sandpaper and then washed it with soap and water and a sponge and then once dry wiped it down with acetone and a clean rag. Well I say we, my youngest started out helping me then found the caulk gun and an empty tube of liquid nails and had to go conquer some imaginary world.

You can see in the photo above the cleaned and ready roof. Then it was time to get the grizzly grip going so I mixed the accelerator in and stired it up.

This drill paint stirir is a must with grizzly grip because it is thicker than paint and you want to make sure the texture is completely stired into the paint. It then rolled on realy quick and effortlessly!

You can see the first coat still wet above! From there I let it dry for three hours. Two would have been enough as this cures faster with high humidity and in the Houston area even on a dry pretty day we were at 74% humidity. Then I apllied a second coat. I the used a brush and dabbed the grills and wheel wells and outlet inlet so they would match the roof.