M105a2 to camper conversion.

[acesneights1]

I'm not sure if my side racks are backwards or not. Right now the wood is facing in. Should it face out ?
I grabbed this pic off the net but they almost look backwards.

 

[Csm Davis]

Inwards the corner locks on the panels won't work and the boards are to keep cargo in.

 

[acesneights1]

How do I get the bolts out on the wood ?
They are headless and no nuts. Looks like I may have to grind them out ??

 

[Piper Cub]

Grinder or drill is the only good way I've found to get the rivets out. Unless you don't care about the boards then a sawzall and some bolt cutters work great.

 

[maccus]

It depends how rusty the carriage bolts are. If they are not to rusty and you have a wire feed you can tack weld a nut on the head of the carriage bolt, hold it with a wrench and remove the nut. If the bolt is very rusty I usually just take a 4 1/2 inch grinder and very carefully grind off the nut. Being careful not to damage the metal stake.

These two methods work well for me.

 

[Speedwoble]

You can buy a tool called a nut splitter or nut cracker. It forces a point like a cold chisel into the nut. One split from each side and the nut falls off. Run a thread chaser over the carriage bolt and it is ready to rust up all over again. That said, I used a cut-off disk on an angle grinder to cut the bolt and nut off. I cut through the nut, leaving about 1/16" of the nut so I wasn't nicking the metal stakes. then a cold chisel chipped off that last 1/16".

 

[jbayer]

How do I get the bolts out on the wood ?
They are headless and no nuts. Looks like I may have to grind them out ??

If I'm not mistaken the originals are BLIND RIVETS, NOT BOLTS, as piper cub said.
Not many choices for replacements either. You can't really use carriage bolts, nuts on the outside would wear through the cover if you use one, nuts on the inside would tear up anthing you carry in there.

 

[acesneights1]

I busted the wood off and cut the rivets with a whizzer. My redneck hotel is coming along nicely.

 

[acesneights1]

More progress. I cut down an old travel trailer door.

 

[maccus]

Looks nice. Well done.

 

[MWMULES]

You may want to add a thin sheet of plywood on top of you roof bows, it will help keep the top from "pooling" in rainy weather. It can hold many gallons of rain water up there, I found out the hard( cold, wet) way!

 

[acesneights1]

Used fiberglass bathroom panel on the ceiling. Gonna put some alum face insulation between it too. BTW if anyone has the vinyl cover, a Walmart tent repair kit works awesome on pin holes. I found 3.
I'll load pics later but had a slight engineering defect. I mounted the batteries on the tongue forgetting the landing gear had to go up so I removed it and put an electric camper jack. Much nicer for leveling out.

 

[DJones]

Good job keep the pictures coming.

 

[acesneights1]

Here's some pics of the electric jack install as well as more progress. Sorry some of the pics are sideways. I rotated them when I saved them but they still come out sideways.

 

[acesneights1]

forgot one.

 

[acesneights1]

can I get a staff member to change my thread title to M105a2 camper conversion sionce that's really what this turned into ?

 

[Valence]

Here's some pics of the electric jack install as well as more progress. Sorry some of the pics are sideways. I rotated them when I saved them but they still come out sideways.

If you are using iOS (iPad, iPhone etc), I've had the same problem. My hypothesis is that the device doesn't seem to be actually modify the picture, just remember your setting and only actually apply those changes when e-mailed, texted, or posted on Facebook (that way so you can always "revert" changes). Something is different about posting to SteelSoldiers as those changes don't get "applied".

The most reliable way I've found around this is to save the pictures to a full computer and, ensure proper orientation, then upload to SteelSoldiers.

 

[rustystud]

Good job !

 

[srodocker]

Nice! I just cleaned my 105 camper out from being used as storage. Time to clean up some of the mo.ld and try to get working on it again

 

[acesneights1]

The trailer worked out great. Gotta put a hot water heater in though. Those cold showers at night were a bit rough...I picked up some collapsible tent poles at the show and made a half ass canopy so I could keep the ends rolled up in the rain. Stayed dry, cool at night and no bugs.