Sun and water

Today my better half installed the 2 solar panels on Myrtle's roof, which give us 190 watts of free, clean power from the sun. The Carmanah 95 watt solar panels are hooked up to the Magna-sine sinewave inverter and the bank of two 6-volt US Battery brand batteries and it all works! We used a Go Power solar regulator and Magnum Energy remote control. The Magna-sine inverter can also be used as a shore charger to run the 'house' electricity and charge the batteries, if we are hooked up to shore power. All of the interior light bulbs are LED by Philips, which provides great lighting and saves electricity. You can see a roof patch by the panels which covers the old furnace chimney hole. The new furnace that will be installed will vent from the side.

The new kitchen tap we purchased at Home Depot was also installed. The tap has a nice retro feel. The previous tap was quite damaged, perhaps from water freezing in the lines. The bathroom tap is the next to be replaced.

Vintage Campers section on Bargain Hoot blog

The Bargain Hoot Blog tagline is "spend wisely, give cheerfully" and has a nice section on vintage camper design. Check it out: Vintage Campers: restore an old camper

Electrical Completion

This weekend we spent a lot of hours waxing the entire 27 feet of myrtle. We also installed the newly painted homemade access doors; one covers the back storage area and the other the solar power batteries. On the other side we painted the other two existing access panels that cover the fridge panel and the storage area for propane tanks.

We previously rewired the entire interior and now we have completed the electrical including breaker box, vent for inverter, inverter installation, and battery installation. Good news all lights and plug ins work! The only thing left is to install and connect the two solar panels. We also dry fitted in the new water tank, underneath the bed area in the back, and are planning out the associated plumbing.

We had a slight scare when Myrtle suddenly refused to fire up when we started her. However, we discovered that her neutral button was not fully pushed in on the push button transmission. After that she purred like a kitten. The brake fluid was filled up and we took Myrtle for a successful test drive.

She's alive!

After a long winter of sitting Myrtle started right up today. Her brakes seem to still need a bit of tuning, but that's next week's project! Once this is complete then we will taking her in to have her windshields installed.

Today more work was done on the solar power system, specifically the batteries and inverter connections. The two solar panels still need to be installed. The most visibly apparent accomplishment is the entirely homemade access door that was fashioned by cutting down an old motorhome door found at a garage sale. A vent was added afterwards, that came from the eavestrough section of the hardware store. It still needs to be painted "RV White" which is a standard spray can paint color from Tremclad. Later on, when we can find a matching automotive paint for her turquoise color, we will paint the lower portion to match. On the other side we painted to other access panels in the same RV White.