I had said that this post would be in a few days but i kept on forgetting to take pictures of where i am at on the rebuild, in this post i am finally putting the insulation back in the van. The insulation is polystyrene the original poly used on the van is 25 mm thick so i added another 10 mm to it to give me 35 mm thick leaving 4 mm in the cavity not that you can see it as the frame is 39 x 25 mm tube. Speaking of tube i love looking on you tube if i am not sure of things as they have some great information, well i was curious how to cut the polystyrene with minimal mess i have seen hot knives and hot wire cutting machines on ebay before so i thought i would look at you tube. I came across a video of a hand held hot wire cutter similar to the one i made in the following pics, i was a bit worried when i saw it hooked up to a battery charger but it seemed to work and did a good job as the fella was making model glider wings pretty impressive i thought. Well i thought i would make one, i figured that it will work or i would probably get electrocuted but gladly it worked you will see to alligator clips on there so you can a just the resistance or heat in the wire. I used an old charger which i had and made the frame out of pvc pipe from bunnings making sure that the throat was deep enough to cut the widest panel i needed, the wire is ni-crome from memory and attached to a spring to help keep tension in the wire.
In the pics you will also see that i have finished insulating all four walls and i have also finished the roof, i shaped the round corners on the front and rear of the roof with the hot wire then smoothed them off with a belt sander. Tomorrow i will start fitting the exterior wall cladding to the van and see how that goes.
Once again thanks for the kind reply's as they are very inspirational.
Good job Trekka. Years back I had a millard van 2005 model. It had a sticker on the side "FULLY INSULATED". The cladding was removed for hail damage repairs.
The polystyrene was 12 mm thick & 2 - 3 inch gaps arond it. One panel where there was lots of wires had nothing.
It might as well not been there.
Cheers Pete
Good job Trekka. Years back I had a millard van 2005 model. It had a sticker on the side "FULLY INSULATED". The cladding was removed for hail damage repairs. The polystyrene was 12 mm thick & 2 - 3 inch gaps arond it. One panel where there was lots of wires had nothing. It might as well not been there. Cheers Pete
That could be because electrical wiring is affected when in close proximity to some types of foam insulation and could cause electrical faults.
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Thanks for the comments i appreciate the feed back, i am thinking about leaving the back wall unclad as it looks like it could make a good feature wall. all jokes aside i have even bought some self adhesive foam insulation called foam shield from Clark Rubber to stick to the inside of the top of the four season vents, hopefully that may reduce any heat which could radiate though them. I hope all this will reduce the heat to a comfortable level.
That's quite interesting what you were saying about the foam and some electrical wiring i did not know that, when i removed the polystyrene during the dismantling of the van the polystyrene had tracks melted into it so the electrical wiring could run through it so i am thinking it should be okay (fingers crossed).
It's only some polystyrene apparently Trekka, I had this issue with my old Franklin. The original wiring was in grooves in the polystyrene and after 40 years all appeared ok so I (I think) safely assumed I could replace the wiring in the same grooves.
But, that little nag that sometimes pops into my head and sends me signals went off so I thought bugger it!
This is what I ended up doing.
Your framing would cause an issue I didn't have of course. Maybe stop the conduit at the frame so only the cable goes through? Don't know.
Might be all too hard in your van so consider it Just A Thought
Jim
-- Edited by Grandad5 on Friday 20th of July 2018 10:45:14 AM
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I had a look at the old wiring today that i had taken out and visually it looked okay not hard or any thing like that my old van was made in 1975. All the wiring has been replaced with new gear and double pole power points etc so it should see me out with any luck.
I like the picture you posted you should not have any trouble now with the wiring in conduit and i am assuming the wall is back on the van.
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