Freightliner M2 Build

[RLPRACING]

Thanks Dave for the tips. Yes, I'm going to use it before we build the cabinet.

 

[RLPRACING]

1/13/14 Day 152

In earlier posts I said that the window frames were for 2" walls while we had 1.5". My son-in-law Matt has been making hickory frames to make up the difference. After they were done, we used a dada set on the table saw to cut a 1/8" deep groove to fit the panel dividers. That way I didn't have to cut the divider to fit but the frame still sits flat against the wall. Those frames were a lot of work being made out of 8 pieces and corners being made with the grain on a diagonal. The tops are square because they are not finished. Matts going to make a valance to hold the blinds.

 

[Schmidt Racing]

I have yet to buy any windows....but what happens if you have a 2 inch wall and a 1-3/4 inch window? Would you just have to get longer screws? How exact does the window and wall thickness relationship have to be? Where is the best place to purchase windows?
Thanks

 

[RLPRACING]

I have yet to buy any windows....but what happens if you have a 2 inch wall and a 1-3/4 inch window? Would you just have to get longer screws? How exact does the window and wall thickness relationship have to be? Where is the best place to purchase windows?
Thanks

Don't know where you buy new. I bought my surplus ones at Bontragers in Michigan. There, you walk around with a tape measure and try to find what you would like to have size wise. There are a lot of windows there which do not have the inner ring. I stayed away from them but they could be used if you make your own fasteners. Look at Kenns thread and see how his are held in during his build. The two small windows in our build are for thinner walls and yes, we just used longer screws. There is a slight gap which doesn't look the best if it gets too big. From what I saw there, most are for 2" walls.

 

[RLPRACING]

1/15/14 Day 154

All the 12v circuits are run through a converter then to a small fuse holder with 6 fuses. This is located inside one of the dinette seats. There are a couple circuits with in line fuses which go directly to the batteries since they are a long way from the converter.
The 110 box is in a cabinet in the bedroom with the main cable going straight down to the generator. Since the price wasn't much different, I bought a larger 12 circuit box which allows me to run almost everything on its own line/fuse so anything can be isolated if there is a problem.

 

[RLPRACING]

1/16/14 Day 155

Countertop is in place and will be used for this first trip as is. Robert will add a stainless steel skin later.
Refrigerator has been installed in the cabinet with the vents pass up through it on the backside.
Now a bunch of gas line plumbing outside in 20 degree snowy weather....fun!

 

[RLPRACING]

1/19/14 Day 158

The last minute thrash! Cold as hell but put in some long days. Got the gas lines run after going to the store 3 times to get the right parts. From the tank and regulator, the line splits with a line going to the kitchen area and a line to the front area. At each location, the line splits again. Hot water tank and stove in the kitchen, furnace and refrigerator in the front. After some testing, cussing, rewiring, all 4 appliances worked!
With a lot of help from Robert, Ryan and Matt, the upper kitchen cabinets hung, the doors hung, bathroom walls put up inside and out and a medicine cabinet hung in bathroom.

 

[RLPRACING]

1/19/14 Day 158

Lastly our homemade chrome exhaust tip TIG welded on the exhaust by Robert laying on cardboard out in the snow.

 

[RLPRACING]

1/20/14 Day 159 First Trip

Off we go. No bed room and lots of trim to do but it will do. We did get the water tank installed in the bedroom so all the plumbing works. We have the sofa or the dinette for a sleeping area.
Here was our first night stop in Mooresville N.C.. Notice no snow! Truck ran great. Through the West Virginia mountain and never had to downshift and was running 65mph at the top of even the tallest/longest. Mostly ran 65 but 70 was easy enough to do. Cruise control worked great and sure made driving easy once we got out of the big mountains. Only bad thing, 8 mpg. I was hoping for 10 and may get a little better on flat ground but it wouldn't be 10. That's the price you pay for the fun of passing people going up hill vs the old truck going 35 mph up those mountains!
Oh the other adventure is me learning this 10 speed Eaton Fuller non-synced trans. Its coming but I have to learn to be a little slower on the shifts and it all falls in there. More details after Daytona!

 

[Bob86ZZ4]

Looks great. Glad you got it on the road for the trip.

 

[Bob86ZZ4]

I couldn't find it. Is your truck brand new? What engine do you have? If it's new (or pretty low miles) I've heard the mpg improves when you get up around 100k if it's a big engine. I don't know. I might be getting slightly better mpg on mine last summer. I bought in '09 with 50k and now have 90k.

 

[RLPRACING]

from Daytona

Its a 2007 with a 350 hp Mercedes 12.8 L (781 ci I think). Its the semi motor in a box truck chassis. 284 k miles.

 

[RLPRACING]

First trip thoughts and questions

What a difference in a week and a thousand miles! We are now back to the cold snowy north and I'm not planning on working on this project till it gets at least above freezing. So some thoughts and questions.

As you can see in the Florida Avalon Park pic, this thing takes up 4 parking spaces. Definitely taking a car the next time but the question is how. In the past I have used our 24' enclosed trailer. Don't think they will let me in with that at Daytona but it works most other trips. So how do you guys take a car? The car dolly type or the bars type? Pros and cons?

On the trip I temporarily got the leveling jacks working. Worked great. Got home and had to drain all the water lines and fresh water tank. I used the jacks to lean the motorcoach to fully empty the tank. That's when I noticed the air ride on the truck trying to adjust its self to level side to side. So the question is, how do you stop that from happening? I can dump the air with the motor running but it fills back up when you shut the motor off on this Freightliner.

Cabinets.... how do you keep them closed? What kind of fixtures? Our GMC had a stiff suspension and was lower so we didn't see a problem with it. This thing sways a lot on bumpy slow speed turns into parking lots, changing roads and over uneven railroad tracks so we saw every upper and some lower cabinets open sometime during the trip. Lets face it, at 12 feet tall, the upper cabinets are going to see a lot of movement even with a one inch movement of one of the drive wheels. No problem rolling down the road.

Fuel mileage ended up to be 8.2. I ran 65 to 70 mph and found out there is a governor at 72 mph. 65 is a little over 1500 rpm. 100 mph would be no problem so I think I will keep the governor for now! Cruise control was great and was amazed it keep the speed almost dead on, even on steep downhill runs. Expensive 2700 miles but if you consider motel rooms, car gasoline and meals(we cooked our own except for a few), it really wasn't that much more $. Convenience is the number one plus. Being able to take what you want and to eat and sleep when you want is great. At our age, our bladders don't hold as long as they use to if you know what I mean!

I still suck at shifting the 10 speed Eaton trans. I get it to the next gear but it may be a little noisy. I thin I tried every trick people told me and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I have no idea why. Going to have to get a truck driver to ride with me and tell me what I am not doing. Its no problem starting off in 4th gear on the flat and 3rd on a little grade so that helps reduce the amount of shifting.

 

[hot rod]

Practice, and more practice! I've never driven that particular tranny, but my trick has always been just make the shift nice and easy with just a bit of pressure on the shifter and it will slip right in when the rpms match up between the motor and tranny, that's really about it. You can't force them, but they drop in nice when the rpms match up. After a while your hand will do it automatically and you won't notice. That and toe the clutch just enough to let it shift, don't jam it all the way down. On some trannys you need just a bit of double clutching at just the right time to get it to slip in. If you have to force it every time, something isn't right. Have the tranny serviced anyway if you don't know when it was done last, sometimes fresh fluid will work miracles.

Your local RV dealer should have a selection of latches for your cabinet doors. You gotta have them, no way around it, or all your stuff will be on the floor every trip. I like the kind that is just a button for the door side, and it has a receptacle for the cabinet side to snap into. They just snap in with a little pressure when you push the door shut, and give a little tug to open it. I even have one cabinet that faces forward and it doesn't even pop open under braking. You could also use latches designed for child safety, but I think those are a pain to use.

Flat towing is easiest, no dolly or trailer to contend with when you get there, but the braking systems and wiring and brackets you have to have in the toad to be legal can be pretty pricey. A dolly gets rid of all that and you can use it with any car, but you have to find someplace to put it. You can't back up more than a few feet with either setup, so you need to get good at planning your fuel stops etc. where you can pull right through. You'll gain a new appreciation for the pull through parking spaces at Flying J and cracker barrel.

How about a motorcycle? They make carriers that go right in the hitch or bumper. Nothing better for getting around at the track. They don't let you cruise around on a bicycle or golf cart there, but the motorcycle is a regular motor vehicle and they don't bother you. I could never quite figure that one out when we stay at Daytona. If I ride my bicycle to the shower house security gets all bent out of shape and makes you walk it back, but I can hop on my full dress Harley and cruise right over and they don't care. Also you can pick up a nice smaller bike for a just a few grand and get 40+ mpg.

Glad to hear your first trip went well. I can appreciate the Daytona infield shot:

 

[Bob86ZZ4]

I think I'd rather flat tow than dolly. I know a guy that wrecked a few tires putting his car on the dolly before he figured out that raising the front tires changed the angle of the back tires and the alignment was all out of whack then on the back. I think he finally figured out how to get it aligned so it wouldn't scrape off the back tires when dolly'ing. But it needed some clever alignment guy. Also, most of the dolly's I've seen seem kind of rickety. If the car is flat towable (there's charts and such to see what cars can be flat towed and what can't) I'd go that way. Very easy to hook up and release. Or I'd look into a nice tandem axle open trailer just big enough for your toad. Aluminum for sure. But then you have to deal with the trailer and where to put it when not using it. That would open up more possibilities for toads though. And you could take different cars all the time and not be stuck with just the one that's outfitted with the flat towing hardware.

 

[bushpilot-TC]

Dolly's have GOT to be a PIA (where to leave it/deal w/ it & you can't back up w/ one, if the car is on it)....same storage/parking problem w/ an enclosed or open trailer.

I flat tow our jeep (wrangler) - its as easy as pie and the turning radius is as good as the coach (w/out the jeep). I use a blue ox aventa (aluminum) tow bar (retail is over 1200 for the bar & base plates) i picked it up via craigslist for 250 bucks (got lucky, the previous owner also had the jeep/wrangler base plates & sold 'em to me for 50 bucks...they retail for 450).

our cabinets stay shut for the most part....but you've got to do a PRE-FLIGHT and make certain they're shut TIGHT...we've got one thats a little loose on its catch but even it stays closed....everyone has had a cabinet pop open at least once.

best MPG we've seen is slightly over 13 (slow going backroads in light fog, from atlanta to destine)...and even that leg of our trip saw generator run time (we slept in a rest area for a few hours).

generally and consistently we get 9.9 mpg (on long interstate trips....houston tx to winchester va)...the thing gets crap mileage on short trips (houston, tx to austin, tx).

worst I've seen is 8.6 running a bit hard/fast thru the mountains of tennessee & virginia.

we like our coach for the same reasons - can take the 120lb Sheep Dog & we leave when we want...and sleep anywhere we're tired (usually interstate rest areas)...and we sleep better....ive slept 8h in rest areas when i was REALLY tired.

my mother in law loves me more for the coach....she gets to see her daughter (my wife)...and we sleep on the "curb" - so we don't crowd or cramp their lifestyle like we might if we stayed IN their house.

we've got the smart-shift (12 speed meritor)...i wish i could start off in a higher gear than the default (auto mode) 3rd....but to do that i'd have to pay someone to reprogram the coach....speaking of which - our cruise sets at 72mph (max)...it would be nice to be able to set it higher but i think better of it...dont need to go fast & it just burns more fuel if you do.

these things take time to get used to - go slow, don't be afraid to get out and walk around to check - before proceeding....its a lot less embarrassing to stop/slow down & walk around than it is if you damage something....my moto is...ive got reverse and I'm NOT afraid to use it !

regarding backing up (can't be done, even w/ a flat tow) - but i can disconnect our jeep in about 30 seconds or less (pull 2 pins & disconnect the electrical/plug)...ive gotten into situations (rare) where i had to back up & had the jeep...but again....id rather do it / take my time and NOT damage expensive stuff - than try to look "cool" or take a chance.

heres a few pics of the flat tow / tow-bar set up

 

[RLPRACING]

4/3/14

Well after taking two months off due to one of the worse winters northern Ohio has had, I'm back at it.
Got the cabinets up over the dinette/sofa.

 

[RLPRACING]

4/9/14

Built a bed frame around the fresh water tank and included a couple sets of drawers on the end. Ran the tank fill hose to the outside and installed the little door. Also in that outside pic you can see the new outside outlet I installed too.
To make some of the molding / custom cabinets, Matt and me fired up the old planer and cleaned up some raw hickory.

 

[RLPRACING]

4/14/14

Got the bed room cabinets up. Made a custom headboard out of two cabinet doors. There is a base cabinets on each side of the bed. Not a lot of room to walk around the bed but thought I wanted to use the space up front rather than a walk way only used a couple times a day.

 

[RLPRACING]

5/1/14

After the hickory lumber was planed, it was ripped into 2.5" strips. The knives on the planer was changed to a molding knife and the profile cut. Stained and poly added then all the doorways completed. I went with a different stain on the doors and trim then the cabinets to get a contrast rather than everything dark.
Robert fabbed the stainless steel counteredtop.