Freightliner M2 Build

[RLPRACING]

Great pictures and work. Those storage doors look nice. Do they have gas charged supports to keep them up? Or are you going to put some sort of brackets/clips to hold them open? I think gas charged would be best. But I wouldn't put those little plastic clip things that a lot of class C's use. My previous camper had them and I didn't like them. They don't hold that good and they break.

For that awning am I understanding that they are manual type with the long support arm bolting to the siding at the bottom with a pivot point there? If that's the case what about making a metal arm that bridges the wheel well opening? That could provide your base mounting location. Of course it would need to be removable to get the wheels off. Is there no other way to shift the whole thing forward or rearward to make it work? I think I'd go find a nice automatic awning instead. They don't extend nearly as far down the side of the coach. I have an automatic and my brother has a manual on his trailer. So much better to have the auto.

I don't like the plastic clips either but I have bought them. Notice they have not been installed as I hope I will find something better. No, the doors didn't come with gas supports. Anybody know how to calculate which ones to use? Length and weight? On all of the doors is a chrome finger pull. Would like to have a chrome clip that grabs those but can't find anything there either.

On the awnings, we are thinking of mounting them high above the front door(like the autos which are NOT in the budget) which puts the rear behind the tire but I do like your idea of mounting the lower extension. Have to look at that.

As far as the jacks, yes they are high. In order to get them lower, we would have made brackets instead of bolting them to the frame. It looked like too much engineering that I didn't think was necessary at the time. We will just have to use blocks. Remember most of our stops are at drag strips and they tend to be pretty flat. There we use them to support the truck not lift it so when someone is in the trailer walking, you don't feel it in the truck.

Thanks for everyone's comments, keep them coming.

 

[Dragonslayer140]

If you end up going with the baggage door clips, there are a couple of RV parts suppliers that sell stainless steel versions of them. Much stronger than the plastic ones and they have a better spring also. Search for stainless steel baggage door catch online.

Dave

 

[RLPRACING]

11/9/13 Day 87

We are going with a Coleman 2 ton basement heat pump for our ac/heating. Went round and round as to using 2 roof top ac's plus a furnace or this one unit and the basement unit won. Unit has been installed in the front passenger side compartments. Also the return air duct is in place.

 

[RLPRACING]

11/10/13 Day 88

Generator in place with fuel tank in next compartment.

 

[RLPRACING]

11/17/13 Day 95

With good weather, we got a lot done. Side door light installed, black insert in place in the trim, all the compartment doors have been cleaned inside and out, refrigerator vent installed, bathroom vent installed and some of top clearance lights installed. Got the side door hold halfway done. Due to the compartments, it had to go part way up the door where there is nothing solid inside the door. So we are fabricating a nice piece for the inside side of the door and bolt through the catch. Nothing is simple, LOL. In my spare time, I continue installing the rigid insulation in the inside.

 

[RLPRACING]

11/20/13 Day 98

Got the rear lights on and the rest of the running lights on both the top and bottom. Now to wire all these.... Also I've been installing the rest of the insulation in the walls and ceiling.

 

[RLPRACING]

11/26/13 Day 104

Don't try this at home kids, but I had to break out the Mr Heater since the high over the weekend was 24 degrees. I was in and out so much, I didn't have to worry about carbon monoxide. I got all the foam cut and installed. Even though sponsorship is the lifeblood of racing, you can see I'm not brand loyal. The pink panther is from Home Depot, the other of course is from Lowes. Home Depot is a half mile closer so they get my business most of the time.
Backup camera installed on the back and you can see the black cable coming into the coach through the back wall. The upper clearance lights' wires pass through the side walls and are wired together on the inside. Each connection is soldered together and shrink tube sealed. I drilled holes through the side steel uprights and the wires pass through these front to back. Instead of trying to use grommets to protect the wires, I shot silicone ln the holes to hold the wires(not done yet in the pic). So the pic is the rear passenger corner. Wires going to the top are going to the light. Wired to the left are going to the next light toward the cab. The wires taped down are going down to the lower compartment and will connect to the tail light wires. I wasn't going to run a ground wire all around and just ground each light to the steel. But I was afraid if there was any corrosion over the years the light would lose ground. Since most of the wires will be sealed in the wall, it would be tough to fix it. All the lights are LED so I'm hoping I never have to replace any.

 

[RLPRACING]

11/29/13 Day 107

Blue skies and 34 degrees so I had the boys help me install the awning. We mounted the bottom of the arms at the coach floor level into the 2x2. This solved the problem of one of the arms being in front of a compartment door. The vinyl was a bit cold and the front flap didn't want to fully unroll. By the time we were done, I understood why. With temps forecasted in the 40's next week, hopefully I get a lot of the under the coach wiring done. Still have to run the hydraulic lines to the jacks too.
Have I mentioned I have a reserve spot on Lake Lloyd at Daytona Speedway for the 24 hrs of Daytona race at the end of January? This truck, my wife and me will be there! So far we have a floor to sleep on with a roof over our heads, compartments to store lawn chairs and now an awning to sit under and have a couple beers. Hopefully I get a couple other things completed!

 

[Bob86ZZ4]

Looks great. I'm very jealous of your trip to the 24 hrs. I'd love to go to that some day.

 

[Chrissi]

Floor has been insulated with one inch foam board and then sprayed Great Stuff around the edges to seal it. Not pretty but effective. 3/4" flooring put down. Pic is the lay out of the shower and the toilet. All drain lines have been run and the vent line has been brought up to floor level.

You cut the foam to fit in between the floor framing and foamed it? Is there anything under the foam?
Was thinking of adding additional insulation myself.

 

[RLPRACING]

We welded sheet metal under the floor rails before we added the lower compartments. Looks like you already have the compartments in place so that will not work for you. You could tack weld in sheet metal in each hole or at least tabs to hold the insulation in place. In our first small build, we used tabs and used foil backed foam. Placed the foam with the foil down to stop water from getting to the foam as some of it was not covered by compartments. Ideally, you glue it to the floor plywood but that can be hard to get to. If you are real good at planning/measuring, cut out foam squares that fit the floor rail holes, glue it to the plywood then flip it over and put it in place!

 

[Kenn-TC]

insulation

I used 2" foam insulation from Home Depot. I cut the foam with a knife to fit tight in the space and then used plywood to push it down. The frames are 3" so I ended up with a 1" air space above the compartments. I tried cutting and cluing the foam to the underside of the plywood and then putting it in place and it did not work very well. Good luck. Kenn

 

[RLPRACING]

Saw on Kenn's thread of how he is reinforcing his walls to support the awning and realized I didn't show how we did it. After we determined where we wanted the upper mounts, we welded in support tubes. The lower mounts screw into the floor main tubes.

 

[RLPRACING]

12/3/13 Day 111

Ceiling going up. We are using the VHB tape to attach the plastic ceiling dividers to the roof steel. Since the roof steel is on 2' centers, there is only one middle seam which gets attached by drilling 1/4" holes and inserting a plastic button and a pin is hammered into its center which spreads the button shaft to hold it in place. You can see we ran the ceiling lighting wires through the steel and popped them through the ceiling panels by drilling a hole. Lights get attached to the steel.

 

[RLPRACING]

12/4/13 Day 112

Let there be light! LED Clearance lights(from SuperbrightLEDs) now wired in and a strip of green LEDs are under the cab door steps. After talking to the local Freightliner dealer, it appears I have to buy another module to wire up the trailer plug and the brake controller. Also I installed separate brake and turn signal lights and the wiring is for one light. Got to work through that too.

 

[RLPRACING]

12/7/13 Day 115

Ceiling is complete so now the wall panels are going up. Technique is the same as the ceiling. Biggest problem is the temperatures. Its in the 20's right now and the VHB tape doesn't want to stick good to the cold steel. Had to stop using the propane heater as that was putting too much water in the air and thus condensation on the steel. Used a dehumidifier to get rid of the water and switched to a electric heater which just doesn't have enough BTU's to get the steel warm at the floor level for the tapes liking. Today I will wire up the coaches heat pump and see if that helps. 20 degrees outside, plastic over the windows....not good conditions to hold heat but we will try. We started at the rear of the coach. As you can see in the pic, the panels are not 4 feet wide and you may be wondering why. To get the spacing on the rear looking symmetrical, we had to place the steel tubes in this pattern. Now that's what pattern we are stuck with for the interior. Could have added other uprights but I'm okay with this look. Up the sides will be the same since the uprights were placed for an overlap of 1 1/2" on the exterior panels. Since the interior panels are installed butt to butt, they all will have to be shorter than 48". Just another of those things that come up after the fact and you have to deal with it as it is.

 

[hot rod]

I know it's too late for your build, but my aluminum guy (he builds circle track cars, and stocks a lot of aluminum sheets) was able to order sheets in both the standard 48" as well as 49" panels designed to overlap 1" on applications like ours. Not much more money than the 48" panels, just took a few days to get them in. I was wrestling with the same 48"/needing overlap issue until he came up with that solution for me. If you look at pretty much any enclosed trailer out there they are all built with the 49" panels and they usually put them in the brake and put just a slight bend on the last 1" so the edge stays down flat when they are riveted or screwed.

 

[RLPRACING]

I know it's too late for your build, but my aluminum guy (he builds circle track cars, and stocks a lot of aluminum sheets) was able to order sheets in both the standard 48" as well as 49" panels designed to overlap 1" on applications like ours. Not much more money than the 48" panels, just took a few days to get them in. I was wrestling with the same 48"/needing overlap issue until he came up with that solution for me. If you look at pretty much any enclosed trailer out there they are all built with the 49" panels and they usually put them in the brake and put just a slight bend on the last 1" so the edge stays down flat when they are riveted or screwed.

Wow, I didn't know that! Yes it to late for this build but you never know what's will come up down the road.

 

[Chrissi]

Thanks!
Probably too late to add foam on ours, we did not want any exposed foam on the underside. We'll sandwich it in the flooring.

 

[RLPRACING]

12/15/13 Day 123

Doing a lot of the work by myself now as the boys have moved on to their own projects. Truck is now at my daughters home which is next door to mine. Makes for a short trip to work on it. My son-in-law Matt and I have built a wood shop in his pole barn so that's why its there. Started installing windows as the interior panels go up. Also got the studs up for the bedroom wall.