First off we of course had to remove the ceiling and sides, we tried to keep as much as we could undamaged but Crybaby used so many staples there was no saving any of the ceiling, this is where we learned there was no insulation. As we took apart the cabin shelf which the bottom was only 2.5mm plywood stapled on we found this carried into the galley as the shelf bottom there too. The galley shelf was made up of the bottom stapled to a shelf face held on with two screws into the frame. I was upset about removing this because I had already stained the galley and it had become my one happy place with the trailer and my sign of hope, but this was not going to hold up over time and in order to rework the wiring this had to come out. It did make taking the walls out easier because we just passed them through this hole but it was a hard blow to my game plan.
Okay as we took the ceiling and walls out I started taking photos of the whole removal and everything we found and WOW! I am so surprised we didn't catch fire. Our running lights were connected with old extension cords they stripped and then they used wads of blue electric tape to connect them. The cabin and galley wiring was a bunch of mismatched wire, I think whatever he had on hand. The wires fed back to a small framed out rectangle stapled together; here all the wiring was wired into three (3) fuses, yes three.... now let's count here we have a porch light, cabin dome light, two reading lights, a galley light, and stereo, my count comes to five here not three and the ground wires were screwed together into the wood. I stood and just shook my head and my husband and I started to laugh like Tom Hanks in the Money Pit. I looked at the fuses and one was a 5 AMP, they should have been 15 - 20 AMP. This may be why our stereo never worked. Again I'm surprised we didn't catch fire. Everything had to come out we were going to start from scratch.
I had ordered all the supplies I needed to tackle this, oh thank you Amazon you have been a go to place for supplies. When my orders came in I had a Blue Sea Systems 5026 ST Blade Fuse Block with Cover, master kill switch, breakers, and quick connect parts, all the parts to lay proper wiring for the trailer.
I started with adding all the quick connect ends to all the light ends making sure they were all done the same. I made all my hot leads from the lights male and grounds were female this way years from now if something needs to be changed we don't have to rely on wire color. After I prepped the lights it was time to start laying my wire; starting with the porch light and the 14 gauge wire and ran yellow as my hot and black as my ground I jumped in with both feet. I color coded at all the ends so each is easier to recognize at a glance. I won't lie I ran into glitches and went through some connectors on this project and it took three days to complete.
As I made it to the galley we added the connectors to the mystery wire he had in the galley hatch because there was no way to take the hatch apart it was stapled, screwed, and riveted. This was more unknown cord that looks like it was stripped from a lamp cord or something like it, we held our breath and tested it..... nothing, DANG IT! Okay of all the places to go wrong this was the worst. We checked everything and tried again, nothing so now to search the problem and work a solution. We pulled the bulb and swapped it with the working dome bulb from the cabin, nothing so now we know it's in the wire. We pulled the light and plugged it into the wire I put in bypassing the mystery cord Crybaby put in the galley hatch... IT WORKED! Crap, now this means the worst possible we have to run new wire through the galley hatch. We gently tugged on the wire connected to our wire hoping we could pull it through and have an easy fix, nope the hole he drilled was too small and it was not going to work. Okay a trip to the hardware store later and a wire feed in hand I snaked it in the hatch... nope, the holes he drilled were only big enough for those wires to come through and nothing more... great. I took a step back, took some more medicine and thought this through. I took the new wire and taped a long length of it to the mystery wire, held my breath and started to feed and pull it through. My heart stopped when it snagged on the hole and for a moment I didn't think it was going to work but then it popped through! YAY!! Some high fives, a happy dance, and a great big kiss to my hubby and back to work. We connected everything again and flipped the switch and celebrated again when the light came on.
I even put in the wire for a vent fan for later down the road, and after installing a proper fuse for each load we turned to cleaning everything up and putting in the insulation. I think the best purchase we agreed would have to be the magnet we got to clean up all the staples, the many, many, many, many staples. Our final project, the insulation, a mold and bug resistant styrofoam purchased at Home Depot for $10 a sheet. This is the easiest stuff to put in with just a knife to cut it along the lines they provide on the back side of each sheet, it just pops right in. We had to call it quits with just the one sheet so my husband could go to work.
When we came in we were happy knowing we tackled this demon and on the road to having the beautiful trailer we paid for. Looking back we should have just bought the kit and built the trailer ourselves because this is what we are doing now.
My next entry will be the rest of the insulation and cutting and fitting in new walls and ceiling. This weekend we are heading to our first teardrop gathering, rain or shine, with our trailer as is… we may only have the insulation in but looking forward to meeting some new friends and getting some ideas.
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