Since I was up so late last night sanding the Bondo smooth on the roof, I wanted to get it painted first thing this morning so it would have time to dry.

So shiny!

So after I finish this, Jason yells at me from the garage that he needs my help. (usually in the form of my tiny hands that can reach pretty much anything inside the truck…)  A few weeks ago we decided to order new suspension for the truck because we’ve overheated stock shocks before on rough gravel roads and we’re just kind of sick of it! 😉  We also bought new wheels and tires because the tires on the truck are almost worn out and new wheels just look cool!  We’ve had enough bad luck with broken tires in the middle of nowhere that we don’t want to mess with that again!  Either way, our sweet new suspension was just sitting in the computer room taunting Jason until he found time to install it! We went with Fox 2.5 coilovers with the adjustor knobs.  They should work awesome!

truck all torn apart!
Old wheel and tire with new wheel and tire!
Pile of crap that goes back on and the front air dam that won’t be going back on!
ooooooooh!!!!!
That’s the remote reservoir because fancy!
It raised the front ride height about 2″
Pretty truck!
It looks way better without that stupid air dam under the bumper.

If it wasn’t Sunday, we would have also gotten to install the new wheels and tires! But, alas, no one was open. Maybe Monday or Tuesday!

Back to work on the camper! Here’s a view from the back of the lift
off topic, but there’s a tiny hummingbird in the neighbor’s tree!

Since we worked so hard on getting the aluminum onto the roof yesterday, today we wanted to get all of the aluminum trim installed onto the shell.

Side clamped on.
Front held down with landscaping stones again.
The back is done too!

We actually managed to get that all done today!  Tomorrow I get to clean up all the epoxy and paint and maybe put some more primer down on the interior of the camper! Even just the primer makes it look way brighter and more finished in there!

As usual, there’s a lot of downtime between waiting for things to dry.  I also did some work on the interior.  I’m choosing to go ahead and finish the forward dinette area just so I have something to start with before I tackle the galley.  It’s almost an overwhelming amount of design, so I’m at least giving myself a place to start…

Cutting a seat out of some leftover Divinycell foam and fiberglass. This should be strong enough!
All mocked up! The other side looks similar, but I didn’t get a picture.

And now I have to confess to some stupid stuff.  I blame the heat, but I started by cutting one of our aluminum trim pieces an inch too short, and then as I was grinding, I managed to suck part of the power cable in to the grinder.  I’ve never done that before and it just pissed me off.  No damage to the grinder, but I was annoyed enough that I stormed back inside and ate some chocolate chips.

well, crap….

So now everything is put away and I’m waiting for the epoxy on the trim to dry before I put the cover on the camper.

The paint job on the roof isn’t very pretty, unfortunately.  The texture from the fiberglass on the top of it is really noticeable.  It’s a solid 10′ paint job.  I really really really hate Bondo and all manner of body work, so I’m just going to call it “good enough” and go on with my life.

At least it’s done!
From the side

We discussed the other day maybe painting the roof white to help keep it cooler, but with the colored canvas that I’m planning I decided that would look kinda stupid.  So I painted it gray. 😉