Vintage VAP Episode 216

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For Friday, August 22, 2014, you're listening to The Vap, Episode 216, Dumb vs. Smart.

With two tons of aluminum hitched to his bumper, cruising down the internet superhighway,

The Vap is streaming right to your ears.

Vintage Airstream Podcast.

And now your host for the Vintage Airstream Podcast, Tim Shepard.

Living in aluminum.

We are back again, Episode 216.

I'm your host, Tim Shepard, and I have with me Colin Hyde. Welcome, Colin.

Good day, everybody.

Coming to you again from beautiful Peru, New York, where it's pouring rain right now and rather cool.

But as in, I don't know, 40s or 50s, I suppose.

But we're heading off camping very shortly for a week, so that should be fun.

And guess what we're going in?

Hell, what are you going in?

The 59 Ambassador.

But I have a choice now, and we really scratched our head, but really, we're not quite there

yet with the 69 Ambassador, but that is a possible option at some point.

All right.

Well, it's sunny out here in Northern California, 80 degrees right now.

Of course.

Is it ever any different?

Yeah, it can get hotter.

Oh, excuse me.

Yeah.

I mean, it's...

It's 738 at night, and it's 80 degrees.

But, yeah, it's been pretty good weather, so...

But we're going to continue our Summer of Power series.

You know, we've been doing shows power-related.

We did solar.

We did LED lighting.

We did a little bit about boondocking, and we did battery monitoring, which you missed

last week, because you were Cub Scouting, right?

Yes.

Well, it was last show.

Yeah, it was last show.

Excuse me.

Yeah, so I was with my son at Scout Camp, which, yes, I was not in a trailer.

I was in a tent.

Ew.

Yeah, well, it is a tent that I can stand up in, and I do have...

I'm using my grandfather's old World War II Army cot.

Ah.

So it's got relative comfort, but nothing like an Airstream, of course.

Of course.

Not Fifth Avenue on wheels, you know.

Exactly.

So I thought this show, we would continue on and get a little bit more in-depth on chargers.

You know, we're always talking about converter chargers and dumb chargers and univolts and

smart chargers, so I thought, you know, we ought to get the smart charger guy from bestconverter.com

Randy on.

So I've been trying to set that up, and he had a few minutes tonight, so if you're ready,

get Randy on the phone, and we will talk about smart chargers.

Cool.

All right, let's go.

Okay, I want to introduce to everybody Randy Clevens on the show.

Randy's from bestconverter.com, and he's been a long-time advocate of nice, smart converters

for RVers for a number of years, and way back when I restored the Ambassador, he helped

me select the right converter at the time.

That was, like, going on eight years ago, huh, Randy?

I believe it was.

I remember that.

It was about seven or eight years ago.

Eight years ago, I believe.

Yeah.

Now, bestconverter.com, so that's been around quite a while.

How did you get that started?

Well, that was in 2002.

I was still serving in the military as an attack pilot, but I was an avid airstreamer,

like all of you are, and needed a power converter for my unit, and went to buy one, and found

out that nobody knew what I needed, and I didn't know what I needed.

So, I started doing a little bit of research, and within a few months, I found myself knowing

more than the average person did, and the next thing you know, people started asking

me questions that I couldn't even answer, and then the business found me.

That's really the truth.

I wasn't looking for it, but I convinced a company to sell me a case of them, and I didn't

know what I was going to do with a case of them.

So, I...

I tried to sell them, and the next thing you know, here we are, 12 years later.

It's funny how that happens.

Yeah.

That's right.

You know, I mean, because the whole 12-volt side, you know, a lot of people who have houses,

and, you know, maybe they do some handyman stuff.

They might be familiar with putting in breakers and adding outlets, but the 12-volt side of

life, I mean, it's kind of a different ball of wax, isn't it?

It really is.

And, yeah.

You know, it's ironic that a lot of the questions that I get come from electricians who have

wired, you know, many houses and even commercial stuff, and when it comes to the 12-volt side,

it's not that it's any more difficult.

It's just the fact that it's different.

And I think that's what most people struggle with, is the interaction between the 12-volt

side and the 120-volt side in an RV.

Yeah.

For sure.

So, the main thing is going battery-powered and to keep your batteries up and running.

I mean, we did the show on solar, but the real big way to do it, of course, is using

a charge converter, and I think, as we all know, the usual, typical charge converter,

especially in the vintage Airstreams way back when, they were nothing more than just a power

supply basically attached to the battery, and that doesn't do too good for a battery

to sit there at 14 volts or something all the time, does it?

Well, it doesn't, and I don't think today they're really anything more than a power

supply still, except for the technology has come a long way, and their ability to regulate

themselves and provide a clean DC supply to the DC accessories and also double as a battery

charger.

So, it is essentially still a power supply, and a lot of people refer to them now as smart

chargers.

I don't know how smart they really are, but they certainly do a better job than any linear

ferroresonant type of power supply from years ago.

So, I mean, that's kind of what we've been referring them to, too, over the last eight

years is smart chargers, but what's the difference between a dumb charger and a smart charger?

Well, that's a good question.

I don't know.

I can tell you my take on it is that one that varies the voltage depending on the state

of charge or whatever voltage it sees when it's initially connected to a DC system, and

what it does for those first few minutes or hours and then days is...

It's really what I think a smart charger does, and none of them necessarily do it the same.

And I guess it depends on your RVing lifestyle or habits, if you will, to determine which

one is the best for you.

So, there's a lot of variables out there.

So, the smart chargers, they charge...

I'm looking at your side here.

You have different stages.

Three stages.

Four-stage chargers.

So, it's those stages that they refer to as making it smarter than just a plain off-the-shelf

charger that may have came with your rig, right?

Yeah, I think so.

The ones that Airstream use have always been single-stage.

It's just a constant voltage output.

To my knowledge, they're still using the Parallax, which is a 13.8 output, continuous.

You can get you can change the voltage in the DC system and the batteries, and it never

changes.

And then the three-stage chargers will have a boost phase, the nominal phase, and then

a float or a storage phase, and they will go through those different cycles, depending

on what you're doing with your RV, whether you're storing it, using it, initially plugging

And then, you know, it goes on from there.

Whether or not that's good for every situation just depends on the RVer and how they use their RV.

So a multi-stage charger is going to be an improvement over just a single stage, right?

Always, in my opinion.

Yeah, so it should prolong the life of the battery?

In theory, it will.

And I've certainly noticed that over the years, that I'm on the eighth year of my batteries from using a multi-stage charger.

I can't say how many years I would have gotten out of them had I not had one.

But I know that when I had my first Airstream, I was going through batteries annually, and I knew that wasn't the answer.

Right, there you go.

And I'm running probably about eight years on mine.

I got Lifeline AGMs from you eight years ago.

And I have the WFCO.

Is there a pronunciation?

I always call it WAFCO or something.

I'm not sure what to say it.

But I have the WFCO converter, which is a three-stage 55-amp, I think.

And that's what I've been using.

And, yeah, my batteries are still going great.

Yeah, that is supposedly a three-stage charger.

There's a fourth stage that some companies use, and that's always the fourth stage.

I say usually always the desulfation cycle.

Some people refer to the equalization, but it's really not a true equalization.

It's a desulfation cycle that Progressive has patented and others have copied.

And what it really does is, when it's in the storage mode,

every so many hours, usually about 24 hours of storage,

it will raise the voltage back up to its boost voltage,

whether it be 14.4, 14.6, 14.8, for several minutes, usually 15,

to mix up the electrolyte or try to prevent stratification that leads to desulfation,

which is...

The battery experts declare the number one cause of premature battery failure is desulfation.

Now, is that just for the flooded batteries, or is that used on AGMs as well?

It's used on AGMs.

I don't know how effective it is.

I know some AGM manufacturers don't recommend it,

but I often think that they assume that it's a equalization charge when it's really not.

Because it doesn't go to that high of a voltage, nor does it stay there that long.

So I don't...

I know that it doesn't hurt AGMs, or I probably...

And you probably wouldn't...

Well, I wouldn't have eight years on mine.

I think you said that you've got a three-stage.

I've got a four-stage, and it certainly hasn't hurt mine.

But there are customers that call that are concerned about it because battery manufacturers say,

not to use it.

Well, I truly believe that there's some misinformation between desulfation and equalization out there.

I haven't heard of the desultation one.

I always heard it as equalization, so that is interesting.

Now, does that...

You're talking about the PowerMax Boondocker?

The Boondocker does have it.

It's a four-stage.

And it and the IOTA that a lot of people have used and the progressive dynamics that a lot of people use

all have that periodic rise of voltage to mix up the electrolyte, if you will.

And the theory is that if you mix it up, you prevent that stratification on the batteries.

Now, we know...

We want a multi-stage charger.

We want to be smart.

We want our batteries to last a long time.

So how do we decide on the number...

How big of one?

The number of amps?

I see you have 35 amps, 45 amps, 60 amps.

I mean, how do...

As a customer, how am I going to know?

Which one should I pick and why?

Well, that's a good question.

First, I can tell you that most people that purchase chargers from us, converters from us,

that I don't get to talk to, purchase too large of one.

They think that bigger is always better.

And it's not necessarily true.

And if you look in the literature of some of the manufacturers of these converters, these chargers,

they'll tell you never to go to a higher amp model than you currently have installed.

And that's probably good advice, but it's...

The only reason is because of the...

The cable between your distribution panel or your converter to the batteries

needs to be able to handle that much current.

And, you know, usually they'll handle the next step up

because manufacturers don't necessarily install inadequate wiring,

although they don't waste money either.

They're not going to install, you know, 2-gauge or 4-gauge on an RV

that only has a, you know, 20 or 30-amp charger.

Because it's not necessary.

But most people in general buy too much converter.

The way I recommend it, and, again, I got started with a lot of Airstream customers,

and they would say...

I would ask them what they had before, and a lot of them wouldn't know.

It was a Triad, Ultra, or something that, you know, with a bunch of numbers.

And, you know, you never knew what the model really was,

especially, you know, you get back into the 70s and the 60s and the 50s.

Who knows what that thing was?

But, you know, what I do is I base it on the length of the Airstream or the RV

and the number of batteries you intend to charge.

And I start at 35 for a, you know, small 16-foot trailer with a single battery.

I can't see why you would need more than a 35-amp converter.

And then as we go up in length and number of batteries, we might reach 75.

You know, for maybe a 34-footer with two or four 6-volt batteries,

we might get up in the 75-amp range.

And that's kind of how I recommend it.

So there's no perfect formula, but you got to have something,

and at some point you just have to make a decision.

With it in mind that when you do this,

you might have to upgrade your wiring between the converter and the battery,

depending on the size you get.

That's right.

So that could be the case.

And if I can get that information from the customer, I would recommend that.

And I have to, a lot of Airstream people before, you know,

make sure if you're going to use a 60-amp unit that you've got at least eight,

preferably six-gauge wire to the battery so that it can handle that current.

And then the length of run matters, too, with the voltage drop

and everything associated with that.

So the closer you are to the batteries, the better.

And if you're pulling new wires, like a lot of people are that are, you know,

remodeling vintage Airstreams, if you're going to pull new wire,

you might as well pull big.

Then you don't have to worry about, you know, the size of the converter to choose.

Now, a lot of our listeners might be replacing, you know, in their vintage trailer,

they might be replacing an old, what Airstream used to call a univolt charger.

And a lot of them actually had the fuse box.

The fuse box.

The fuse panel built right into the univolt itself.

So what would you recommend if they go with a multi-state, you know, new smart charger?

What would you recommend they would do for their fuse distribution?

Well, that's a very common question that I get, and I always ask,

or I try to remember to always ask if it's a univolt from, you know, 15 to 40 years ago,

whether or not it had it.

Well, it did have a integrated fuse board.

And if it did, I know that there's a couple of options.

Some people will salvage that fuse board and then just install a deck mount converter on the floor

and fabricate a way to mount that next to it and use it and maintain it.

And then the other option is to buy a separate standalone fuse board.

We call the FB9.

It's our most popular.

But you would mount next to your new converter, and you would transfer the wires from that old fuse board

that was integrated to the univolt to that fuse board, that FB9,

and just kind of clean it up, start from scratch, if you will, and not salvage the old unit.

Another benefit to that is you can use the newer automotive ATC-style blade fuses that are easy to find

and use.

It's easy to replace should you blow one, and it makes for a cleaner installation.

So what I always ask is, is your fuse board integrated to your univolt, or is it on the wall?

If it's on the wall, it's up to you.

You don't necessarily need to replace it.

If it's integrated, you need to get a separate DC fuse board or split that case open and salvage that old fuse board.

But then you're still going to be stuck with those old glass-style fuses.

And they may or may not be corroded.

So, I mean, each situation is different.

Yeah.

I remember on my 71, I tried.

I did salvage it.

I took it off and put it in a box because on my 71 Safari, if I remember this right, Colin,

there was like a small current sensor built onto that fuse block that drove a meter up in the panel up front.

Is that right?

I believe so, yeah.

Yeah, I was able to reuse it.

But I would recommend a new fuse panel.

And the newer ATC, much easier to deal with.

Isn't that what you guys do, probably, Colin?

Yeah, that's all new blade fuses in there.

Simple, straightforward, you know, auto parts available type stuff.

So, you have a number of different brands, Randy, of converters.

What makes someone choose one over the other?

Oh, goodness.

That's a loaded question right there.

What's the flavor of the month?

Is it MS?

You know, honestly, anymore, it doesn't really have mattered.

But I listen to a lot of feedback from my customers.

And when a new product comes out, I test it.

You know, what?

With what limited, you know, equipment that I have.

You know, I have a warehouse, and I have a test set, and I've got an RV,

and I've got, you know, ways to test them and see what they do.

But I can't take every converter that we carry and go out and boondock with them for a week.

I just, you know, that's just not feasible.

So, I have to do some generalization and, you know, come up with what, you know, is the best for their situation.

And with so many brands, well, there's not really that many brands.

But with the brands that there are, I try to tailor it.

And, you know, I'll be honest with you, a lot of the recommendations that I give are based on sales and feedback from customers.

You know, at the time that you got yours, I think you said it was a WSCO.

That was the new guy on the block.

Okay.

Nobody knew a lot about it, and some people have had success with it.

Some people have had, but not.

Progressive is a good unit.

It's a voltage-based converter.

Some people say it falls on its face after a couple of hours and doesn't deliver good current.

And then there's IOTAs and the boondockers that are, they call them current-style converters,

where they really do move the current, even at lower voltages.

And I'll be the first one to admit that I don't know the exact proprietary programming that goes into it.

They would never share that with me, you, or anybody else because they don't want their competitors to know.

But they all essentially do the same thing with a little tweaking of the internal components.

So it really depends.

And on what the application is, that boondocker, for example, is probably our most popular right now.

In fact, it is.

And that came about from our company's niche has been kind of boondocking most of our customers,

not just necessarily our community, but a lot of the other communities.

And they wanted a converter that had a little bit higher voltage for boondocking.

So I said, well, who can make me a, who can make a converter that's got a little bit higher voltage for our boondockers?

And they said, well, how about we'll call this the boondocker and we'll crank the voltage up a little bit.

I said, well, there you got it.

People love it.

It's not for everybody because not everybody boondocks.

But it does.

It doesn't mean that you can't use it if you don't boondock.

And again, back to the air strings, especially the modern ones, they're stuck on those parallax units.

I think from the mid-90s until now, we're still using that parallax unit,

whether it's a deck mount 7400 series or a power center 7300 series, 7355.

Well, then you've got your choices between the old.

You've got your 3 by WSCO that is good for general RVing if you're normally connected to shore power and don't need manual control.

And then there's the progressive dynamics 4600 series that can be replaced with that.

And it allows manual control for a lot of people that rely on a generator and need to force it into the boost mode.

So it really depends.

So without, you know.

I don't want to get in trouble because these manufacturers of these converters,

they certainly don't give us kickbacks to push their products.

So I try to balance it out.

And in my opinion, it's just my opinion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's nice to have a choice.

I'm curious about this boondocker because, you know, boondocking is camping without hookups.

Therefore, your converter is going to be off while you're boondocking.

What makes this one special for boondockers?

Well, it does have a nice high initial charge voltage and amperage that, you know,

it gives you a nice boost initially when you show up to an RV site or start a generator or whatever

and need some current put into it pretty fast.

It does a really good job.

But it doesn't necessarily hang there for hours and overcharge batteries as well.

It's probably the most efficient in terms of the number of people that call back and say,

converter X or converter Y is overcharging my battery.

We don't ever hear that with the boondocker.

But there are customers.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

No, I think I get it now.

Because, like, you might have.

The generator time, we're limited to an hour or two hours use during the day.

So this one, having its higher voltage and charging rate, will get your battery back up quicker

than probably the original manufacturer charge that came with your rig.

I'm sure that's what they're referring to.

And it is.

It really is.

The progressive does that, too.

And you can control it.

But I have to caution people on that 4600 series.

Several calls on overcharged batteries.

And it's not because the converter would have done it.

It's because they go in there and they can't leave that button alone.

They always want to be charging at the high rate.

And they're not watching their batteries.

And, you know, they're gassing.

And they do that for a couple of months and their batteries are shot.

They just think that more power is always better.

And that's not necessarily the case.

Now, they're smart chargers, not necessarily smart campers.

Right.

Let the smart charger do its thing.

Leave the technology alone.

It's programmed smarter.

Yeah.

I hear you.

It even says in their own manual, we don't recommend it.

But whatever.

Yeah.

I got it.

I mean, if you're in a situation where you've got only so much access to power,

you know, 110 volts to use for maybe an hour or something,

and you want to get that last little boost before you've got to unplug, I get it.

But, yeah, it's not something you want to, you know, walk by and click on all the time.

There certainly is an application for it in a time and a place.

There really is.

But, you know, you've got to just educate yourself a little bit on what's really going on,

and you'll be fine.

Yeah.

Nice.

All right.

Well, I appreciate you coming on.

I know you have to go.

You had some stuff come up today, and I appreciate you trying to make time for us.

Very interesting to learn a little bit more about these.

You can reach Randy at...

BestConverter.com and find out where he's got going there.

He's been a long supporter of the show and also Airstreamers getting their old Univolts out and smart chargers in.

Well, I've had four Airstreams.

I love them.

Love you guys.

I love every name that goes on in that community.

When I get a chance, I get over there to check out what you guys are talking about, and it's great.

I really enjoyed listening to Ralph's show last week.

He's great.

He's a wealth of knowledge, and if you guys need anything, just give me a holler.

All right, Randy.

Take care.

Hope everything works out for you.

All right.

Thanks, guys.

Have a great night.

All right.

That was really cool.

I'm glad we could get Randy on.

That's interesting stuff about tri-state chargers and four-stage chargers and boondocker.

I never thought of a charger being called a boondocker, kind of an oxymoron.

It is.

You know, and sadly, you know, earlier this time we were camping.

We were out at Fish Creek Pond, and, you know, I run into this all the time.

In October, people having to run their generators constantly to charge the batteries up enough to run their furnace overnight.

Well, you know, in July, this is certainly not necessary, even around here, believe it or not.

But people insist every day, because there's given generator hours, they would run these typically, you know, construction-type El Cheapo generators.

Just to make sure their batteries are topped up to keep their lights on.

You know, and I'm going, come on, guys.

There's technology here that's, you know, capable of doing all kinds of wonderful things.

And they're, I don't know, I think it really comes down to education as opposed to available technology.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, we've talked about in the past people trying to hook up their truck and run their truck to get their battery.

And then it doesn't make it through the night, and they don't know why.

Yeah, and they rev up the truck.

They'll rev up the truck.

Yeah, that's real helpful.

Yeah, there's just not enough charging power coming in.

Or they'll even plug it in their generator for an hour, and their, you know, single-stage OEM converter is just not able to put out the 55 or 60 amps that Randy's talking about.

And so I get it.

I get the idea of the Boondocker series or, you know, any of these.

Smart chargers where, you know, if your battery's down, these things can ramp up and really push out the current.

And that'll get your battery up probably to snuff so you can make it overnight, you know, if you don't want to go solar, right?

Exactly.

So, yeah, I mean, that's cool.

I mean, his battery's eight.

This is funny.

You might have to put them in the same time I did, you know.

Eight years on my batteries, too.

Hopefully they go a lot.

Keep going.

Hope so.

But I think, thanks, Randy, for being on.

We've talked about smart chargers.

Hopefully people listening to this show can get some more out of this and realize that, hey, that's probably a good investment.

And I know we talked about 12 volts, and I remember Randy having on his site, bestconverter.com, a book about 12 volts.

I'm trying to find it here.

But it really helped out just kind of getting the basics of 12 volts and how it's different.

It's different from 110 volts and wiring and wire sizes and fuses and stuff, you know.

It's kind of a, it's called managing 12 volts.

It talks about keys to electrical self-sufficiency and determining your requirements and, excuse me, battery capacity and different types of batteries and charging systems.

So it's probably a good investment, you know, if you really just, if you don't have any background in 12 volts.

But get some.

If you've got a good background in it and be able to wire your own vehicle, your own restoration, probably not a bad investment, too.

So let's move on.

I know that I heard from a little bird there that you ended up with a few Go Power solar panels.

I did.

I bought a, well, I bought a couple for another one of my cars.

I bought a couple for my clients and then I bought the kit like you did, basically 400 watts and 400 watt panels.

And I haven't put it on yet because I haven't had time, of course.

But I have pulled them out of the box and had a good look at them and I'm very impressed.

I think what I'll do is probably take them with me on this little trip we're going on shortly.

And may lay things out.

And, you know, I don't know.

And, you know, hook it up sort of in a crude fashion to my batteries and see how it all works.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, did yours have red and black power cables coming off or both black?

Both black.

Yeah.

I heard there was a slight change after I got mine.

Is yours red and black?

Yeah, mine were red and black.

So I'm not sure what that entails or what it means.

Hopefully it's an improvement.

You know, we always want to be improving things.

Well, I mean, it is molded on positive and negative on the end, so.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

Well, and those connectors are keyed.

They only go one way, right?

I haven't tried yet, but I did look at them and it's just a mess of wire and stuff.

But I did notice that they had the molded positive and negative right on the ends.

Yeah.

Very good.

Yeah, I'd like to get some feedback after you go camping with it.

Let us know how it goes out for you.

Because you...

You are going to be boondocking, right?

Yes.

Well, that's what we do probably 80 or 90% of the time.

Although, I know we talked about this earlier, I guess, but when I was away in July,

we went for a week on the two batteries and never...

Didn't have solar at the time.

We didn't have any generator.

We didn't have any access to power.

And I've done this many, many times.

And it lasted a week.

It lasted a week easily without any problems.

Granted, though, we're not running any kind of technology really on there.

It's lights and a compressor.

So...

Why did you opt for 400 watts of solar then if you don't really use what you got?

Because I'm going to push the limits here.

Okay.

Going to start getting some...

My travels.

Yeah.

Start getting some technology in there.

Yeah.

And also, I like the idea...

That we're having to plug in.

Yeah.

That's really true.

I have yet to plug my converter in, with all respect to Randy here.

Since I've had the solar on there.

Mostly just for testing it and stuff.

But, I mean, the trailer's plugged in the house, but the converter's turned off.

So, I guess at night, the battery starts to drain a little bit from my Wi-Fi ranger

and my LP detectors.

All that stuff.

And then...

And you're fantastic vent running a couple of times?

No, I don't have it running, actually.

But then in the morning, you know, it starts charging back up.

Yeah.

So, you're cycling the batteries quite well then?

Evidently, yes.

Yes, I am.

That's good.

Yeah.

Can't hurt a thing.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Make sure you can hook those up.

We're going to be going camping, I believe, in October.

Actually, we're going to be going glamping.

Well, but isn't that what you always do?

Yeah, but this is actually more glamping on steroids, from what I've been told.

Oh.

Yeah.

This is a step up.

This is like super glamping, I guess.

So, you're going to a resort?

Yeah.

Yeah, we're going to one where, evidently, when you pull in, they empty your black tank

on the way in because they don't want your black tank in their dump system.

So, they dump you on the way in.

Okay, then.

And then, when you're camped, as you walk around, if you happen to drop a piece of paper,

there's a little guy in a golf cart that comes and picks it up and throws it away.

Oh.

Now, is this one of those campgrounds that has room service?

It has 24 shuttle service to the casinos.

Of course.

Yeah.

I knew there had to be a catch to it.

There's something.

But, anyway, more on that later as we get closer.

That's way out in October.

So, we're already set to go.

Hopefully, we can go.

Is this a rally by any chance?

Yes.

It's the Fall Air Forums Rally.

Fall Air Forums Glamping Rally?

Yes.

The Glamping Rally.

Yeah.

We might be converting to this one because it's so glamping.

They have a giant pool and two spas and all that kind of stuff.

Life is hard, isn't it?

It's going to be rough in it.

It's going to be rough.

Okay, then.

Are we doing a show from there by any chance?

I hadn't thought about it.

We'll have to see.

I guess we probably can.

We might have to move it to a Saturday night.

I don't know.

We'll have to see.

But, yeah, that'll be fun.

But, yeah, set up your solar.

Let us know how it goes.

Oh, yeah.

Don't worry.

I'm really looking forward to it.

Oddly enough, one of my clients arrived, I guess, yesterday.

And they had...

They have a 06 Quicksilver Bambi.

So it's a 16-foot trailer.

And I was discussing with them about solar and da-da-da-da.

And they want to be boondocking.

This is their first trailer.

They've had giant motorhome, toy hauler type things before.

But this, they want to go off the beaten track.

Da-da-da-da.

And so we were talking about solar and whatnot.

And they said, yeah, we'd like to look into it.

And then it occurred to me.

I said, oh, my God.

This thing's really small.

How could they fit any kind of capacity up there, you know?

But anyway, yesterday, I got up with my panels.

And I laid them up there.

And believe it or not, on a 16-foot trailer with air conditioning, TV antenna, fantastic vent, awnings, et cetera,

including plumbing vents and fans and all that stuff, I managed to fit three panels up there.

So 300 watts, which is huge for a trailer of that size.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's very good.

And you're going to have to cut you up some templates so that you don't have to use your panels once yours are mounted.

Well, exactly.

Yeah.

But it's a handy way to do it.

That's what I did.

I just used the cardboard box and cut them out and used it to lay it out.

But, yeah, very good.

So you're starting to get some interest in the solar.

Oh, yeah.

I've got to order more, actually.

Very good.

It's doing well.

And also, obviously, some of my other major restorations that are in there.

And it's making sense there, too.

So that's where we're going with it.

Cool.

All right.

Okay.

Well, let's move on.

We have a phone call here from Todd in California.

He has a 72 Overlander.

He has a couple of questions about the disassembly, trying to get it apart to replace the flooring.

And he's kind of confused about the best way to do it since it has the 70s.

Now, the 70C channel is a little bit different.

Why don't you describe the way?

The 70s C channel forms around the flooring.

Well, it's actually started in the 70s, but it's carried right on up until today.

And that, to me, is actually one of the great design features that's come along much better than what was used in the 60s and 50s.

But basically what it is, it's an, well, we've always called it a C channel, but I guess it's more like a U channel.

In the base of the wall.

So the bottom portion of it sits on top of the plywood.

One part of it is what supports the exterior skin, and the other side is what supports the interior skin.

Excuse me.

And typically in the older trailers, the bolts would go down through that, through the plywood floor and into the outrigger.

But in 69, they started, they added another part of this extrusion.

Where the plywood is actually encapsulated with a C as well.

So it's sort of two C's stuck together, one of them sideways, or oriented 90 degrees to the first one.

And what that allows is the plywood end grain to be encapsulated.

And so when the bolts go through it, granted when they tighten them up, it'll crush that C to some degree.

But it certainly limits the amount of...

The amount of water that can get at the end grain is easy.

Although, obviously, water getting inside the walls can get down to the plywood through the holes drilled for the bolts.

Yeah.

That's never a good thing.

No.

All right.

Let's have a listen to Todd's question.

He has like three, but we'll go into the whole thing.

They're all kind of related.

I think we can get the idea.

Hi, Tim and Colin.

This is Todd from Loomis, California.

Which I think is out near Tim's neck of the woods.

With a 72 Overlander Field Find that we're calling O'Shiny.

And at some point she will be.

I have to note I grew up in upstate New York outside of Schenectady.

So I can certainly appreciate Colin's comments about the weather.

And Dad went to school in Worcester, Mass.

So I think that's the trifecta.

He got both of us.

We've gutted the inside of the trailer and made templates for all of the floor panels.

And I think we're ready now to lift off the shell and see what, if anything, is left of the frame.

And I have three questions about that.

The first is, since this is a 72 and the C-channel wraps around the plywood floor,

I'm trying to understand what the right order of disassembly is.

Do I pull off the shell plus the floor so I can look at the frame?

Or do I...

Do I pull off the shell plus the floor so I can look at the frame?

Or do I disconnect the ribs from the C-channel and try to lift just the shell off

and then take the floor out piecemeal?

The second question is, could you talk a little about the relative costs and merits

of using jacks to get the shell off versus building gantries and trying to hoist the shell off?

I don't have either the winches or the chain hoists or the jacks.

So I'm going to have to go and purchase all the pieces.

And third, how much bracing do I actually need inside the shell before I lift it off?

Looking on the forums, I see some people saying you don't need anything.

Some people have got a couple 2x4s just to sort of keep the shape.

And some people who have got a completely self-standing 2x6 honeycomb that could withstand the next earthquake.

I'm wondering how much of that is really necessary.

Appreciate the show and love all the help and looking forward to an answer.

Thanks very much. Bye-bye.

All righty. Todd, thanks for sending that in. I appreciate that.

So he's got a 72 Overlander with his goofy C-channel.

So how does he disassemble it? Does he have to like take it all apart like he's talking about?

What's the best way to remove the shell?

Well, what we do on all of them

is drill out all the rivets going into that C-channel all the way around the trailer.

And leave the C-channel on the floor and lift the body from it.

Okay.

That is how they put it together initially.

All right. So remove all the rivets. That will free the shell up.

And then what would you do? Just cut down the center of the plywood?

And then pull it out from the sides or something?

No, no, no. You lift the body off.

And you're left with the chassis, the floor, and the C-channel still on the perimeter.

Then you just undo or snap off all the bolts holding the floor and C-channel to the chassis.

And go around and undo any screws.

Because sometimes they have screws between the bolts going through the C-channel into the plywood.

And just bang all that off because you've loosened it all at that point.

Then you can go through. A lot of times these things are so rotted that you can break the plywood off.

Other times, you know, you've got access to the, in the 70s they used these self-drilling, self-tapping,

large head screws to hold the floor to the chassis in the middle portion.

You know, you can attempt to undo them.

The easiest way to do it though really is just to get a cut-off wheel and cut the heads.

Go sort of diagonally in and cut the heads right off.

You're obviously going to be cutting a little bit of wood at the same time.

So you're going to get a little bit of smoke going here and there.

But cut the heads off and you just go to each one of them.

And sooner or later there's enough gone that you can, the plywood will break free.

And then once that's free, you can go with the cut-off wheel and cut off the remainder

so it's flush with the top of the frame and cross members and outriggers themselves.

Alright, now what about the second question, the jacks versus the gantries?

He has to assemble the parts together to do this.

If you have to assemble the parts together to do this either way, what makes the most sense?

Well, the jack thing, I've done it both ways.

We've done it with a car lift in the past, like an automotive thing you'd see in your garage.

That happened to be what we had at the last shop.

By far the best way is lifting from above using a gantry or rafters in a barn

or some kind of building of some sort.

That's by far the best because you don't have to build any kind of structure inside.

You're lifting from through the roof vents.

So what's going on below, it doesn't matter at all.

It just lifts free from the frame.

Now you've got to have something big enough to do that in, like a big barn or something, right?

Well, yeah. When people call me, you know, I do consulting work for a lot of people doing these restorations.

And I always ask them, you know, like, what are your capabilities?

What do you do for a living?

What sort of equipment do you have access to?

And, you know, some people say, oh, well, you know, I live on a farm.

I said, okay, well, farmers, you know, you always have all kinds of stuff around,

typical buildings or equipment of some sort, tractors, backhoes, that sort of thing.

So there's always an approach.

Even a tree.

You know, I've had some people lift them off with trees.

Very small trailers, you don't even need to have two lifting points.

But anything larger than really a small Bambi, you really need two lifting points.

But you could do it with, you know, Harbor Freight sells cheap chain blocks.

You could do it with those.

You could even do it with a come-along.

But the chain block really is...

It's not much money.

I think, you know, 40 bucks, 50 bucks, something like that if you watch for them coming on sale.

You can get a light-duty chain block.

And we've been using ours for years now and haven't had any grief with it whatsoever.

That's how you'd lift it off.

I know there's a bunch of people that have built gantries with wood, you know, plywood and 2x6s and 2x8s and whatnot.

And I'm sure there's a bunch of pictures of this.

It might even be planned somewhere on the forums.

I didn't go that route.

I'm, you know, a steel guy.

I bought ready-made gantries, steel gantries on wheels and stuff and then modified them to suit what we were doing.

And they've worked out really, really well for us.

Now, the beauty of having the gantry type approach

or lifting from above as opposed to jacking from below

is ultimately once the body is off,

you reuse the same equipment in order to lift and flip the chassis

to do the ultimate job on your chassis as well.

But before you lift it off, you need to go to thevap.com and read the disclaimer so I don't have to read it.

Now, Todd was worried about braces.

I know in the past we talked about, you know, when the shell's free, it's pretty flimsy

and you should brace from the, you know, the door across the sides up and down with 2x4s and whatnot.

And I guess some people are going nuts with it.

Other people are saying you don't need to.

What's your take?

Well, a lot of this comes down to the era of the trailer you're dealing with.

Early on, we used to brace everything, triangulate everything.

And the main reason why we did that was because,

we didn't have space inside to leave the body.

That was the first thing.

So we would lift the body up, pull the chassis out from underneath,

lower the body down onto a flatbed trailer,

which had, you know, sides on it that went up, I don't know,

framework went up probably a foot or so.

So we had to lay, you know, 2x4s and stuff across that

and fasten them down.

So we were really trying to tie the body back down to something heavy

so the wind wouldn't take it away.

The critical thing there is, certainly on anything that pre-doorframe,

a continuous doorframe that includes a quote-unquote threshold,

you need to install a piece of plywood going across the door opening

to keep the body from sort of like bending in the middle when you lift it up.

But other than that bit of plywood on the era that doesn't have a built-in threshold

in the doorframe, you don't have to do anything.

We've literally done, I don't know, probably a hundred of these, I suppose,

over the years in varying methods.

And literally you don't need any kind of interior cross-bracing or structures,

of any sort.

Now, if you're attempting to do it with jacks,

that's when you're going to have to create all kinds of framework

because you're lifting it from below

and you're trying to obviously transfer that lifting point

to as wide an area as you can get.

But the nice thing about lifting from above,

we use like a 2x6 wrapped in carpet with a giant eye bolt in it

that goes through the roof vent

and that's what you hook your chain block onto.

So it's spreading the load over about a six-foot span in the ceiling

and picking up on a bunch of the ribs.

So that's worked well and, quite frankly,

that's exactly how Airstream did it when they were building the trailers.

That's where I got the idea.

So if they could do it, we figured we could do it.

We've been doing it for years now.

With no ill effects.

Very good.

Hope that helps, Todd.

Just, you know, when you're looking at it and you're pulling it off,

just take real careful, pay attention to how it's tweaking and coming apart.

And, you know, you might do some adjustments at the last minute

and just use your common sense there when you're pulling it off.

We talked about having it free of the body,

the body free of the chain block.

You've got to get the chassis out where it's windy and that being a problem.

Oh, yeah.

You know, if you're doing this outside,

you've got to make sure when you put the body back down,

it's going down to something.

I've had a few people call me and,

what do I do?

And I said, well, tie it down somehow or other.

Straps, you know, stakes into the ground, whatever.

Because this thing will roll up in a ball very easily if you don't do something proper.

Yeah, don't leave it hanging from the tree.

No.

We've got one outside now.

It's an early Bambi.

And we've got these sort of giant buggies that we designed and built

that the bodies will sit on.

And what we did with the Bambi was we literally screwed the C-channel.

No, we added some C-channels.

We drilled it all out to get the C-channel off.

But we went,

put some 2x4s on the buggies,

screwed them down to the buggies,

and then screwed through the holes that would normally go into the C-channels

where they'd be riveted.

And we literally fastened the body to these buggies.

So basically these buggies are heavy enough to keep this body from flying away

and to keep it sort of in a decent shape.

Very good.

All right.

Thanks for calling in, Todd.

Todd also wrote one in I think a couple weeks ago.

We couldn't do it then because we were doing the other show.

But he asks about after he strips the clear coat off of his trailer,

what does he need to do to protect it before he gets a chance to polish it?

Nothing.

Yeah.

That was my answer too.

Yeah, exactly.

Keep it simple.

Yeah.

A lot of people strip them and they're done.

They just leave them that way.

That's right.

Well, pre-'64, they never even clear-coated them.

Yeah, exactly.

So, no, it's not going to like as soon as the clear coat comes off,

it's not going to oxidize overnight and make your work more difficult.

It's already going to be difficult enough to polish it up.

Don't worry about that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it.

Don't kill yourself on that at this point.

Yeah.

All right.

That's about all we had for the show.

I think this will probably conclude our power series.

It's been fun learning about all this different stuff and some new high-tech toys to play with.

Hopefully, we can get some more direct experience, especially from Colin when he gets his solar panels on.

That would be interesting to get his perspective on that.

And I want to thank Randy for coming on the show from bestconverter.com.

If you're still running a dumb converter, go check him out.

Go check him out and smarten up your RV.

And appreciate Colin, of course, being on the show as usual.

And we will catch everybody next time.

Between now and then, give us some calls at 707-533-4VAP and leave your message on our voicemail line.

Thanks for tuning in.

Good night, all.

See you guys in bed, Jay.

.

Talk to you soon.

Bye-bye, everyone.

Bye-bye.

See you on the вместе.

We'll see you at most a near-엔.

.