Tom and Marge are out of the hospitality business and OTRA - On The Road Again! “Otra” is also, probably not coincidentally, Spanish for “other.” So welcome to the other Moonracer Farm, On the Road Again!
We found lots of visible progress at this week’s camper check, which will be explained with the photos below. However, the best news is that they have another big project coming in next week, so we MUST bring the camper home on Wednesday of the coming week. There will be a punch list of things that aren’t yet done which will be completed when we take it back sometime during the last two weeks of November, but this will give us a couple of weeks of having constant access to it so we can get done with some of the non-Koops’ jobs, like electric/water/gas, wood facing for the cabinets, and ordering of the mattress and bench cushions.
The first thing we noticed as we walked into the bay was that the top rail has been installed on the passenger side, and the driver side is on the roof and ready to be installed. The rail adds about 5” of height to the rig, but it will provide both visible and physical protection for the solar panels and the skylights/vents.
This is a closeup of the installed rail on the roof. The rectangular panels are removable because the inside needs to be accessible for solar panel wires, the vent from the composting toilet, and running lights which will be installed on the outside, along with the wiring for those lights which will run through the rail.
The front of the rail, where it tapers down on the nose of the camper.
The back door, which is covered with the heavy duty aluminum on the inside, just like the outside skin. We will be installing racks inside this door, so it needs a little extra strength. You can also see how the back of the rail is vented.
The slats for the shower stall have been made, but are not yet fixed in place. This photo is looking into the bathroom from the kitchen.
Closeup of the bathroom floor slats, not yet fixed in place. The drain pan is under the slats.
With the installation of the battery box in the foreground, the bench is now complete. We will put a table in the corner of the bench. We had been thinking about making it convertible for a extra bed if needed, but after seeing it, sitting on it, and trying to stretch out, we don’t think there’s enough room for a bed for a normal sized adult.
This box will hold the two lithium iron batteries (each 200ah) which will provide off-grid power. The box is big enough that we could add a third battery if it is necessary, as well as a battery charger if we are charging from shore power. Because the batteries are heavy and we want to be able to slide them into the box on the floor, rather than dropping them in, the lid is hinged to open both the front and the top of the box.
Water tanks are completed and installed. Each is about 35 gallons. The bracket in the middle will keep them from sliding, and the handles on the sides allow them to be lifted out. Despite being stainless steel, they’re light enough that I don’t have any trouble moving them by myself.
The bedroom closets are finished on both sides. These will be faced with wood. The two uprights will have vertical doors which open near the window, and the longer cabinet on the bottom will have a top door so it will open like a trunk. We are keeping the sides near the bed smooth so we don’t have any interference when we fold the mattress when we aren’t using the bed.
The cabinets are mirror images of each other. The back plate on this one has a hole to allow access to the cabinet/“headboard” which will be in the rounded nose, and which obviously has yet to be built. This will be done after the bed slides are installed on the floor of the cabover, which should be done by Wednesday. The cabinet in the next picture will be installed along the roofline next to the tall cabinet.
This small cabinet will be installed near the ceiling in the corner between the entry door and the passenger side bedroom cabinets, over the dining area window. It will be used for the components of the electrical system. The metal bar on the top is made to serve as a center pole for the doors, but will be removable with a few bolts so there will be room to work in the closet.
We are getting very close to seeing what the final product is going to look like! This week, the kitchen is almost in, the bathroom is really close, the outside stairs were made, the water tanks are done, and they’re working on the bedroom closets. The closets over the motorbikes now have doors from the inside, and the inside of the rear doors to the cargo compartment have been insulated. There’s still a lot of work to do, and Tom has to go over and do some things like work on the plumbing so the rest of the plumbing parts can be put in properly…but it’s really easy now to see what we’ll have.
We were really excited to see the finished stairs. They fold almost flat, and can be attached by the camper door or on the back, and we talked about putting a bracket just inside the camper door where they can be secured while we drive.
The kitchen from the bathroom door. The fold-down counter at the end of this line is new this week. Between the drainboard for the sink, the stainless steel cover for the stove, and this fold-down counter, I have an incredible amount of workspace for a camper.
The kitchen looking into the bathroom from the cabover where the bed will be. You can see the vast amount of storage in the cabinets on the wall, which will be wood faced.
Aluminum doors have been put on the closets built into the moto garage. You can also see into the bathroom from this angle, where the “tiled” walls have been installed.
The kitchen from the front, where you can see all of the counter space.
When the extra counter space is folded up and attached to the wall, the spice rack hangs from the wall.
When the extra counter space is folded down, the spice rack hangs down next to the stove. How nifty is that?!?
A better look at the bathroom walls, with Tom holding the corner sink in place. The washer and toilet are not yet installed.
These water tanks will be installed with the long side you can see against the cab of the truck. The plates on top can be unscrewed so the tanks can be cleaned, or so we can dump water into them from the top if we don’t have access to a hose for filling them from the outside port.
When we left on Thursday, Marcos and Nelson were hard at work on the framing for the bedroom closets.
This week’s theme of huge progress is…storage! While we’ve planned and planned, and seen everything designed with the CAD system, we didn’t realize exactly how much storage we will have in this camper until we saw it all coming together. We now have two giant closets accessible from the camper which are over the wheels of the motorbikes, lots of under counter storage in the kitchen - which is almost in! - and more upper cabinets which are framed and about to be installed. Other outside progress this week was finishing the back doors so they aren’t a puzzle to open and close, and the detachable stairs which are done, but waiting for paint to dry to be assembled. Inside, the bathroom pan is in, and the bathroom sink is almost built. We worked with Justin to design the battery compartment, which will double as a bench, and discussed a few tweaks to make the installation of the electrical system easier.
This is a little hard to see since it’s all shiny aluminum, but it is the closet over the motorbikes from the motorbike garage.
The closet by the door from inside the camper. That’s a normal broom standing in it!
The other closet, near the bathroom, same height as the closet with the broom.
The kitchen is in, and you can see the bathroom pan in the back. Koops’ added back and side splash plates to the sink, as well as a stainless steel fold-down top for the stove. They also made the plate under the stove a door so there is more storage under there.
Stove with the top up, and the bottom door open. There will also be storage under the refrigerator, which will be installed to the left of the sink.
The kitchen cabinets are shown upside down, but these will be flipped over and installed over the refrigerator, sink, and stove. Lots more storage!
The bathroom pan. The composting toilet and washing machine will be installed on the raised part, and slats will be put over the section to the left with the drain hole, and that will be the shower area.
This sink will be installed in the corner in the bathroom, over the shower section.
We’ve been planning what we will take in the camper, and have been making an effort to minimize. But, after seeing all the space we’ll have, we are rethinking some of the things we thought we could live without…because we may not have to. We still want to minimize weight, and don’t want excessive clutter or to cart around things we really don’t need, but we think things like a few extra sheets or towels, or a couple of warm jackets just in case we end up somewhere cold, might not be such a bad idea.
When we first went to Koops’ on Friday to do our weekly progress check, we were pretty disappointed. The only progress we could see was that the nose had been insulated, the lids had been put on the bench/water & utility box, and the water tank and butane stand was finished. Those are all good things, but it didn’t seem like much for a whole week of work.
But then, Justin took us to the back of the shop where we saw what they’d been doing. I have a kitchen! It has way more workspace than I had envisioned, and tons of storage, and lots of nice little touches. We can’t wait to see it installed.
The curved nose, now insulated. In the last photos, this was still silver. We’re still deciding how to finish it, and are thinking we will try to turn it into some sort of headboard for the bed.
The utility box/bench now has a top. Actually, three tops: two small ones one either end over the utility boxes, and one large one in the middle over the water tanks.
The box around the hot water and water pressure tanks, from the top. Butane tanks are belted in below.
The view from the back. You can see the belts on the butane tanks.
The box around the hot water tank and the pressure tank folds down, making a shelf in case we have to do anything requiring tools.
The bones of the kitchen. To the left, the platform where the refrigerator will be mounted with storage underneath. The sink goes in the middle, with a sponge drawer and a full drawer under the drain board. The stove will be mounted on the platform to the right.
Closeup of the sponge drawer and the drawer under the drain board.
Getting an idea of how the kitchen will look! The sink is one with the sponge drawer open, and the stove on its platform to the right. The stove has a stainless steel cover, and a fold down counter will go to the right of that, so I am going to have an incredible amount of workspace. I’ll also have an incredible amount of storage, with the space under the refrigerator, as well as under the stove, as well as cabinets over the whole kitchen space.
The other exciting thing that happened on Friday was that our entire electrical solar system arrived at Arrow Freight…all this plus two 200ah lithium iron batteries. We are closer and closer to getting on the road.
Progress on the camper over the last couple of weeks has again been going in fits and starts, with a number of things happening in the back of the shop so we don’t see anything when we look at the camper. But, there are a few things that Tom has been itching to work on with the rig, like getting air compressor stuff put together, so at the beginning of last week, he asked Justin if we could plan to bring it home for the weekend. This meant that a few things had to happen: the bathroom window had to be installed, all the roof vents had to be installed, the water heater had to be put in so that access hole could be closed, the two utility doors to the outside from the bench/utility box in the camper had to be finished, and they had to figure out a way to keep both back doors closed since only one of the big latches has arrived. We pulled into the shop yard at about 4:30 on Friday afternoon, and Marcos and Nelson were hard at work on the last few finishing touches…but they made it. And, we discovered that it was something of a whole shop event to see the rig pulled out, ready to drive down the road.
Although the guys at Koops’ have pulled the rig in and out on Monday mornings to sweep, this is the first time it has been pulled out to be driven down the road. Everybody who has been involved in the project so far, which is pretty much everybody in the shop, wanted to watch.
Marcos had to make sure it looked presentable before going out in public. This only caused a little stress, because I followed in the Isuzu and watched something dripping on the road the whole way home. I was worrying that a couple of months of sitting in the shop had something essential leaking, but it turned out it was just water pooled somewhere from the power wash.
I followed the camper up the road towards home. It looked gigantic in the shop, but on the open road it looked, well, normal.
Even though it looked pretty normal sized driving up the road, I went up the driveway first not only to video this momentous event, but also to make sure the top wouldn’t run into any wires or branches. Tom had thought to trim a bunch of branches last week in preparation for pulling into the driveway.
It was pretty exciting to finally see this sitting in our driveway, even if the inside is mostly empty. We did quite a few tours this weekend!
One of the main reasons for bringing it home was so Tom could finish up the dual air compressor system and get it installed in that open box you can see just in front of the back wheel. The truck came with two air compressors, one for the AirRide suspension system, and one normal air compressor as backup and to do normal air compressor things like blow up tires. However, none of it was protected, so the hose would dangle and catch on things, and the whole system would get dirty. Now, it will be easy to switch between the two compressors, and everything will stay neat and clean.
Roof vents are in! The two smaller ones are over the bathroom and the kitchen, and the larger is an escape hatch over the bed.
This box has utility compartments on either side, and the middle will contain two water tanks, each approximately 35 gallons. Lids will be put on all three compartments, and we will add a cushion for a bench. Another smaller box will contain batteries off the right side of this box, so this L will be our dining area.
The design for the water tanks.
Closeup of the utility box that will hold most of the plumbing components, like the water pump and valves to fill the tanks from the outside, or connect to shore hookups.
In the back, the rack to hold the water heater, water pressure tank, and two small butane/propane tanks was installed. The water heater controls are accessed through a door on the side of the camper.
The white door is the access to the water heater controls.
We will be taking the camper back by 9AM tomorrow, Monday, morning so progress can continue. We are really excited to see what comes next!
