Vagabound's Build-Out - 1993 Ford E350 Box Truck
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I thought you intended to use it on your skylight installation.........It softens plastic because of the strong solvents......There's a PDF on the website that lists the solvents...
http://www.geocelusa.com/product/al...a-construction-tripolymer-sealant-detail.html
Limitations:
Do not use on traffic-bearing surfaces. Do not use on extruded polystyrene insulating sheathing (Styrofoam, etc.). Do not use on acrylic skylight glazing surfaces. Do not use in areas where food is processed or stored. Do not use for interior applications. Do no use for potable water applications.
http://www.geocelusa.com/product/al...a-construction-tripolymer-sealant-detail.html
Limitations:
Do not use on traffic-bearing surfaces. Do not use on extruded polystyrene insulating sheathing (Styrofoam, etc.). Do not use on acrylic skylight glazing surfaces. Do not use in areas where food is processed or stored. Do not use for interior applications. Do no use for potable water applications.
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I had a much longer post with links to all the products you selected earlier today but "lost" it ..............
The GAF product looks to be the most benign..................can be used on PVC
As NORM always says......"Read....Understand and Follow all the instructions............."
doug
The GAF product looks to be the most benign..................can be used on PVC
As NORM always says......"Read....Understand and Follow all the instructions............."
doug
abnorm said:
Thanks, Doug. sorry you lost that longer post. I know what that's like. Thanks for the info anyway.
As for the skylight, you're right that I want to use it for a skylight as well as other things, but there's no problem. The devil's in the details as always. The plexiglass skylight is mounted within an aluminum base. So the sealant would hurt the plexiglass, but it won't touch it, because it will only be applied to the base and roof.
Vagabound
Just a disclaimer for those people who might say to themselves, "Jeesh, can't this guy figure out anything for himself??". If I were all alone in the jungle, even without my trusty smartphone, I figured it out. However, you do exist, and you're hanging out in this forum, so I decide to bounce some things off of you sometimes to see what you think. Especially things that involve cutting with no way back. ;-). This is one such thing.
The photo below is the roof of the box on one side. The smooth grayish panel on the left is the roll up door. Take a look:
The roll up door is up as far as it can possibly go, so that's its limit into the box. However, the track for the roll up door continues on into the box another two or three feet as you can see. I can't see any purpose for the excess track, it's in my way, and I'd like to cut it off to shorten the track. There is a little stopper bolt at the end of the track now, and I would just move that to the new end of the track.
Can anybody think of an IMPORTANT reason not to shorten those tracks?
Vagabound
The photo below is the roof of the box on one side. The smooth grayish panel on the left is the roll up door. Take a look:
The roll up door is up as far as it can possibly go, so that's its limit into the box. However, the track for the roll up door continues on into the box another two or three feet as you can see. I can't see any purpose for the excess track, it's in my way, and I'd like to cut it off to shorten the track. There is a little stopper bolt at the end of the track now, and I would just move that to the new end of the track.
Can anybody think of an IMPORTANT reason not to shorten those tracks?
Vagabound
Attachments
No reason not to, it's just generic length. If you're removing support anchors, add more elsewhere, over do the stop anchor. Consider option of making it even shorter if opening to full height isn't important?
DannyB1954
Well-known member
It may be there for the installation of the door. Would you be able to replace the panels if that extra space were not there? It could be that the curved track transitioning the roof to the door is put on after all the door panels are put into the track running along the roof. Then after the track is installed, the panels are rolled back onto it.
For underbody storage, purpose-made boxes aren't real expensive even new...used ones could be cleaned up nice too:
[img=400x300]http://i465.photobucket.com/albums/...ads/IMG_20160507_112640_zpsyglboxtg.jpg[/img]
[img=300x200]http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/A8QAAOSwaZdXH-XG/s-l1600.jpg[/img]
36" Aluminum Truck Underbody Tool Box
[img=400x300]http://i465.photobucket.com/albums/...ads/IMG_20160507_112640_zpsyglboxtg.jpg[/img]
[img=300x200]http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/A8QAAOSwaZdXH-XG/s-l1600.jpg[/img]
36" Aluminum Truck Underbody Tool Box
Brad:
Thanks for your opinion about the door rails and the under box storage options. I'll check that out.
Danny:
I don't think I ever would have thought of that. Thanks a lot for bringing it up. I'll scratch my head on it and see if I can figure out if that's important or not.
Vagabound
Thanks for your opinion about the door rails and the under box storage options. I'll check that out.
Danny:
I don't think I ever would have thought of that. Thanks a lot for bringing it up. I'll scratch my head on it and see if I can figure out if that's important or not.
Vagabound
Progress Update:
The Beverly BoxTruckBillies
Somewhere along the way, during the history of this truck, something damaged some of the wood in the walls. That wood is now rotten. That's a problem because it weakens the wall, leaving nothing but two sheets of 1/16 inch fiberglass in that area of the wall.
The most obvious culprit is water leaking in, but I suspect a little dry rot and maybe other contributors. However, there is no indication of termites or of more widespread damage. It was quite localized.
So, without knowing exactly how I was going to do it, I decided to buy the truck regardless of that problem and fix the walls. Sweat Equity.
My first step was cogitation. It was partly fruitful.
My second step was using a hammer to walk all around inside the box and bang on the walls. The point of this was to identify which parts of the walls we're still solid and which were not. 80 to 90% of the total wall area was solid. I outlined the bad sections with a Sharpie.
The third step was cutting the interior fiberglass only and not the plywood and certainly not the outer fiberglass skin which I wanted to keep intact. I did that mostly with a circular saw set to a very shallow depth of about 1/8 of an inch. In places where the saw couldn't reach up near the ceiling and near the floor, etc., I used a Dremel and lots of little Drexel disks to complete the cuts.
The next step was to carefully peel the interior layer of fiberglass off of the wall. That was very easy in the places where the wood was rotten. It was very difficult in the places where the wood was still good, because a widely spread and strong adhesive had been used to attach the fiberglass to the wall originally and it was still bonded. After my first experience trying to get the fiberglass off the good wood, I abandoned that. I made all future cuts much closer to the rotten wood border.
The next step was to scrape all of the bad wood off of the outer layer of fiberglass. Again, where it was most rotten, it mostly just fell out or fell off. Otherwise, I used a paint scraper most of the time. Late in the process, I discovered that a claw hammer was a very good tool for that job. I flipped it around and used the claws to scrape the fiberglass. An important part of this process was to avoid doing one thing and to be sure to do another. I wanted to avoid puncturing the outside layer of fiberglass. It was a worthwhile goal, but as you'll see later, turned out to be unnecessary. The must-do item was ensuring a good solid edge on the plywood left behind in the wall.
Next, I used cardboard to make templates of the shapes in the wall that needed new wood. How I did that would take too long to explain, so I'll skip it here, but it was pretty easy. I then used those cardboard templates to trace onto my new wood, and cut out the shapes. I chose to use Flakeboard instead of normal plywood for two reasons. One was cost (50%), but the main reason was that no employee in Home Depot could help me positively identify the right plywood with exterior glue. It was really very silly. They did not even know what CDX meant. The flakeboard was clearly identified for exterior use with exterior glue, so I got it. In fact, I'm using it in an interior application anyway, so I don't anticipate any problems.
The final step in replacing the bad wood was to glue the flakeboard in place to the exterior sheet of fiberglass. I chose PL Premium construction adhesive for this. Without even trying to completely cover the back of the new boards, this process really sucked up the glue. After doing it, I estimate that one caulking tube of adhesive covered about 3 square feet only. That said, I also used that adhesive to fill all of the cracks between the boards, new and old.
One of the most challenging parts was the last part. I needed some way to press the exterior fiberglass up against the new wood so that the glue could bond properly. So, I cut apart a few old pallets, and used those small slats as external braces. In short, I put screws through the piece of pallet slat on the outside of the truck, through the fiberglass, and into the new wood. That's holding everything together nicely while the glue dries. After the glue dries, I will de-hillbilly the truck.
I had originally intended to put the interior fiberglass back up over the new wall. However, it was prudently suggested to me that I skip this step as unnecessary. Not only would it take a lot of time and cost with more adhesive, it wouldn't provide much benefit and that wall will soon be covered with foam board and another sheet of plywood.
So far, I have finished about two-thirds of the total area that needs replacement. Today it is quite cold and windy here, so I'm going to try to hide in the back of the truck and cut and scrape the remaining areas that need to be repaired. We'll see how it goes.
The photos below might give you a better idea what I'm talking about.
Vagabound
----------
The Beverly BoxTruckBillies
Somewhere along the way, during the history of this truck, something damaged some of the wood in the walls. That wood is now rotten. That's a problem because it weakens the wall, leaving nothing but two sheets of 1/16 inch fiberglass in that area of the wall.
The most obvious culprit is water leaking in, but I suspect a little dry rot and maybe other contributors. However, there is no indication of termites or of more widespread damage. It was quite localized.
So, without knowing exactly how I was going to do it, I decided to buy the truck regardless of that problem and fix the walls. Sweat Equity.
My first step was cogitation. It was partly fruitful.
My second step was using a hammer to walk all around inside the box and bang on the walls. The point of this was to identify which parts of the walls we're still solid and which were not. 80 to 90% of the total wall area was solid. I outlined the bad sections with a Sharpie.
The third step was cutting the interior fiberglass only and not the plywood and certainly not the outer fiberglass skin which I wanted to keep intact. I did that mostly with a circular saw set to a very shallow depth of about 1/8 of an inch. In places where the saw couldn't reach up near the ceiling and near the floor, etc., I used a Dremel and lots of little Drexel disks to complete the cuts.
The next step was to carefully peel the interior layer of fiberglass off of the wall. That was very easy in the places where the wood was rotten. It was very difficult in the places where the wood was still good, because a widely spread and strong adhesive had been used to attach the fiberglass to the wall originally and it was still bonded. After my first experience trying to get the fiberglass off the good wood, I abandoned that. I made all future cuts much closer to the rotten wood border.
The next step was to scrape all of the bad wood off of the outer layer of fiberglass. Again, where it was most rotten, it mostly just fell out or fell off. Otherwise, I used a paint scraper most of the time. Late in the process, I discovered that a claw hammer was a very good tool for that job. I flipped it around and used the claws to scrape the fiberglass. An important part of this process was to avoid doing one thing and to be sure to do another. I wanted to avoid puncturing the outside layer of fiberglass. It was a worthwhile goal, but as you'll see later, turned out to be unnecessary. The must-do item was ensuring a good solid edge on the plywood left behind in the wall.
Next, I used cardboard to make templates of the shapes in the wall that needed new wood. How I did that would take too long to explain, so I'll skip it here, but it was pretty easy. I then used those cardboard templates to trace onto my new wood, and cut out the shapes. I chose to use Flakeboard instead of normal plywood for two reasons. One was cost (50%), but the main reason was that no employee in Home Depot could help me positively identify the right plywood with exterior glue. It was really very silly. They did not even know what CDX meant. The flakeboard was clearly identified for exterior use with exterior glue, so I got it. In fact, I'm using it in an interior application anyway, so I don't anticipate any problems.
The final step in replacing the bad wood was to glue the flakeboard in place to the exterior sheet of fiberglass. I chose PL Premium construction adhesive for this. Without even trying to completely cover the back of the new boards, this process really sucked up the glue. After doing it, I estimate that one caulking tube of adhesive covered about 3 square feet only. That said, I also used that adhesive to fill all of the cracks between the boards, new and old.
One of the most challenging parts was the last part. I needed some way to press the exterior fiberglass up against the new wood so that the glue could bond properly. So, I cut apart a few old pallets, and used those small slats as external braces. In short, I put screws through the piece of pallet slat on the outside of the truck, through the fiberglass, and into the new wood. That's holding everything together nicely while the glue dries. After the glue dries, I will de-hillbilly the truck.
I had originally intended to put the interior fiberglass back up over the new wall. However, it was prudently suggested to me that I skip this step as unnecessary. Not only would it take a lot of time and cost with more adhesive, it wouldn't provide much benefit and that wall will soon be covered with foam board and another sheet of plywood.
So far, I have finished about two-thirds of the total area that needs replacement. Today it is quite cold and windy here, so I'm going to try to hide in the back of the truck and cut and scrape the remaining areas that need to be repaired. We'll see how it goes.
The photos below might give you a better idea what I'm talking about.
Vagabound
----------
Attachments
Every Road Leads Home
Well-known member
Looking good Tom.
I like your clamping system, that's always one of the trickiest parts when using construction adhesive for oddball projects, figuring out how to get good clamping pressure. Looks like you're almost done with the more tedious parts of the build and then you can start working on the fun stuff.
On the extra door track.....I think they leave that extra track there for when someone slams the door up real hard/fast. It's sort of like a runway....gives the door and tension spring a little extra space to slow down before returning to it's normal fully opened position. I think if they get opened too fast/hard and slam into the stop pin it can mess the tension spring thing up.....picture a window shade opening too fast and then it spins out of control at the end. As long as you are mindful that the extra track is no longer there, I think you'd be fine.
I like your clamping system, that's always one of the trickiest parts when using construction adhesive for oddball projects, figuring out how to get good clamping pressure. Looks like you're almost done with the more tedious parts of the build and then you can start working on the fun stuff.
On the extra door track.....I think they leave that extra track there for when someone slams the door up real hard/fast. It's sort of like a runway....gives the door and tension spring a little extra space to slow down before returning to it's normal fully opened position. I think if they get opened too fast/hard and slam into the stop pin it can mess the tension spring thing up.....picture a window shade opening too fast and then it spins out of control at the end. As long as you are mindful that the extra track is no longer there, I think you'd be fine.
jimindenver
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Nice job
Just my 2¢ here but I'd paint at least the bottom of the wood up a foot or so on the inside, if not all of the exposed wood.
I agree trying to cut/install FRP isn't really necessary but it would add some strength. Anyway, painting the bottom will lessen the chance for moisture wicking up and creating the same problem you just corrected. Any spill or leaking container later may be less problematic in the future.
Looking good and hope the ignition solves that one for you.
I agree trying to cut/install FRP isn't really necessary but it would add some strength. Anyway, painting the bottom will lessen the chance for moisture wicking up and creating the same problem you just corrected. Any spill or leaking container later may be less problematic in the future.
Looking good and hope the ignition solves that one for you.
When I do de-hillbilly my truck, in other words get all of those pallet pieces off the sides after the construction adhesive dries, I'll have a bunch of little holes in the outside fiberglass of the box. Bad. Those holes need to be filled somehow.
At first I was thinking about some sort of fiberglass resin. However, I'm a little worried about that for vertical applications and it seems a bit like overkill.
Then I thought about normal hardware store AB epoxy. That one still seems like a good idea.
Now I'm wondering if some type of product like the Geocel 2300 that I just bought could be used. I would guess that for requirements, other than being a decent sealant, are that it would be sandable and paintable.
Thoughts?
Tom
At first I was thinking about some sort of fiberglass resin. However, I'm a little worried about that for vertical applications and it seems a bit like overkill.
Then I thought about normal hardware store AB epoxy. That one still seems like a good idea.
Now I'm wondering if some type of product like the Geocel 2300 that I just bought could be used. I would guess that for requirements, other than being a decent sealant, are that it would be sandable and paintable.
Thoughts?
Tom
jimindenver
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Tom
I would suggest wood plugs glued in.
I would suggest wood plugs glued in.
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My go-to product for a tough exterior rigid adhesive/filler is JB WELD (the original 24 hr cure).......comes in a larger boxed size as "Industro Weld"......
It's a two part waterproof epoxy.......mix equal parts to produce a thick paste......apply with a putty knife
TIP:........During the curing process..... before full setup......... you can work the epoxy with tools or rags wetted in denatured alcohol........the technique "feathers" the edges so no sanding would be required..............product is grey/dark when cured
doug
It's a two part waterproof epoxy.......mix equal parts to produce a thick paste......apply with a putty knife
TIP:........During the curing process..... before full setup......... you can work the epoxy with tools or rags wetted in denatured alcohol........the technique "feathers" the edges so no sanding would be required..............product is grey/dark when cured
doug
BradKW said:
Thanks for the early-morning laugh. I needed that! Hey Jay Leno, do you think that I could also use abnorm's suggested product to inject into the walls where I have small places that need to be reinforced re: earlier conversations about rotted wood and historic buildings? if reasonably possible, I'd like to buy one product to do both of these tasks. My guess is the answer is no. Why? Because if a product is fluid enough to leak down through the wall and do that job properly, then it won't stay in the little holes on the outside of the box.
Jim:
It seems that wooden plugs, after it's all done, would leave me with the same original problem -- needing to find some kind of sealant to cover the outside part of the hole.
abnorm:
Haven't heard of that one. I'll take a look. Based on how you describe it though, it seems like what I'm looking for, and similar to or the same as my AB epoxy idea.
Tom
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