Extensions To Everything It Seems

I have been on the motorhome project all this week as time allowed

The ambulance body has one huge problem when it comes to fitting anything standard off the shelf.  Off the shelf windows and roof fittings seem to work on the assumption you are going to fit their products into parallel bodies that are between 25 and 40mm thick.  So if you are doing an ambulance neither of these apply.

The theme of the week has been fitting Seitz windows, Fiamma roof vent and the locker door for the toilet.

Here are some pictures of the problem.

 Look at the taper top to bottom and the gap to be bridged

The solution I decide on was this.  There is a wonderful product called Foamex (Best link I could find) used mainly in the sign making industry.  It cuts easily with a Stanly knife and is generally an easy material to work with.  In this instance I have made an extended frame and covered it with mat black vinyl as used in sign writing.  (additional photo of installation to come).

Next problem was the toilet door.  At this point the body is really flaring.  The inside is the square side its the outer skin that gets wider.

I used expanding foam to lock the inner and outer skins together and provide some insulation.  By now the body is about 90mm thick whereas at the top its only around 35mm.  So this gap need bridging.  Fortunately the toilet door comes with a channel which was convenient for use to accommodate my friend Foamex.

As Foamex is a PVC based product its easily heat molded and shaped.  A piece 120mm wide was used to bridge the gap in the body.  The curved corners were formed using a hot air gun. 

In the previous entry I fitted the N/S locker door, I have since fitted the O/S one as well.  I have also dressed the gap with GRP faced ply.  This is used extensively in the truck and trailer body building industry.  Linky  Fortunately I have a fair bit of this left from my trailer manufacturing business in the form of off cuts.

The same problem was solved with a different material for the bathroom roof vent.  Go back a bit and you can see the thickness of the roof.  I couldn't use Faomex on this as the fan runs too close so instead I used white polyester coated steel .8mm thick this was hand folded around a metal pole and inserted in the inner frame and then glued into place.

  The gap is for the fittings on the opener

Here it is fitted. The fly screen will hide the edges