[tjmulv]

Hi,

I just finished my camper and we’re planning the maiden voyage for next weekend. I’ve gotten so much help from this forum I feel obligated to throw my two cents in.

So here goes:

I also put a layer of fiberglass on the inside, and my doors fit very well even though I didn’t install the stiffener before cutting them out. I was a little worried about the door sills not fitting well because of the extra thickness, but it wasn’t a problem in the end.

Based on info gathered from this forum, I filled in the rebate on the stiffener with a piece of scrap plywood rather than use washers. If you look at the picture in the manual, you will see there is no rebate on their stiffener.

Even though my doors didn’t bow out like some people have described, I still had to put in a lot hours to get them to hang right. Some of the things I did were:

– replaced 7/16 inch thick foam gaskets with 5/16 foam gaskets pretty much everywhere. It remains to be seen if that will keep the water out, but I think it will work just fine. The doors and the galley hatch fit much better and look better too. It definitely keeps the water out standing still, but I haven’t tested it going 70 mph on the Interstate yet.

– repositioned the fairleads to line up better

– did not cut the steel rods to the manual specs nor even the technical bulletin specs, which was supposed to correct the manual. Somebody pointed out on one of these threads that both were incorrect and gave specs that worked for me. Here’s the quote from Eric, “NO!!! 13 3/8″ is too short. They should be cut to 13 3/4″ and19 1/2″. Of this I am ABSOLUTELY SURE. If you cut them to 13 3/8″, you WILL be asking CLC to send two more.. My kit, hardware and build are exactly like everybody else’s. The ideal length is as long as you can get them without interfering with the door frame in the open position.” As you can see, he’s quite emphatic, and it worked for me.

– My hinges were a little off on one side so I used nylon spacers/washers in the hinges on one side to lift the door up a little.

– played with the cam on the door hardware to position the steel rods to line up with the fairleads

 

I cut the opening for the ventilator fan on the roof a bit smaller (at least a 1/4″ all around) than what is suggested by CLC’s guide holes, then sanded off the extra wood later. It’s not so much that the opening is the wrong size, the problem is that the hatch bezel doesn’t fit over the opening until weights are put on it to cause it to spread out over the opening. Having a little extra wood there makes it easier to position the hatch bezel before you put the weights on top (top of page 184).

Hope this helps someone out. Can’t stress enough about reading through the forum before starting a new task. Not all of the advice is great or will work for everyone, but it will open your eyes to potential problems on the horizon.

Tom

 

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