Driving Away
I guess it’s time I posted this last major build post. I’ll probably end up renaming and/or relocating the blog and continue with updates as the trailer build progresses. (Done.) And there will be trips to document too … For now, here’s what happened.
When we last left off, we had primed and sealed the exterior with Kilz2 and it was glowing in the dark.
The next morning, I did another coat of Kilz2 over everything glowing. And then my dad started on the exterior paint. Red! To match the Jeep!
The first bit of color …
From there, on a serious deadline to get the trailer road-worthy (aka legal DOT lights, securable and not glowing in the dark) I completely slacked off on photos. (Thanks to my stepmom Cindy for documenting some of the rest.) I did the rest of the trailer wiring – through the hatch while dad painted.
Door painting while attempting to crawl inside and wire stuff.
Door painting while attempting to crawl inside and wire stuff.
Post hatch wiring when we found the hatch wouldn’t close. I rough cut the front of my counter off and dad made some serious dents with the sawz-all, a hammer and chisel on the 2×2 rails and the frame of the hatch. (It wasn’t fun to demo what we’d built but I had to get on the road and the hatch had to at least close for that.)
The battery box and framing was complete. We wrapped up the wiring and packed it under the battery for transport. The trip home would be without 12v power.
I also took advantage of the bed side storage and backed in parts yet to be used – rear stabilizers, wiring and sockets – as well as things I’d potentially use on the road like my backpacking stove and an inflator that doubles as a vacuum.
Windows in, painted around and opening for some breeze.
Since the real plate for Rolbak was somewhere on I-71, we added a sheet of paper to the license plate bracket to satisfy the police. Then we made some interesting work of rigging the hatch to close.
Ready for take off!
Dad helped be back the Jeep up to the trailer.
Then he said good-bye to the cats (Statler, Simon and Izzy) and his grand-beagle Amos. (Tupelo was up front since she called shotgun.)
Optimizr with her companion Rolbak. (#databasegeek)
And we were off. (And praying it didn’t just fall apart completely.)
On the road! (At 2+pm CT…)