Today was some painful work
It started with having to modify the middle set of dome lights.
Fucking fuck.
Sorry
WTF type of torture device did this ford engineer think up? I needed to pull down the covering over the wire loom that runs along the drivers wall. I read about it before hand and thought I knew what I was doing, I started to pull, just slightly. SNAP, followed by 5 more snaps in rapid succession. In a moment, I shattered 6 of the clips holding this cover in place. Barely any effort. I think the worst part of all of it was the sound of all the little pieces of plastic flying everywhere and falling into places where they will never be retrieved.
The black cover in this photo is the offending unit.
I’ll have to figure out the part number on these and order a case of spares.
I needed a few more inches of wire to relocate the dome lights. If you happen to need to do this, it appear that this black wire with green tracer is not hooked to anything. This wire is what was holding me back from gaining the extra length in wire that I needed. I did not want to just cut the wire, in case it is actually needed. I made the decision to try and release the clip. After about an hour of fighting with it, I finally tried one leg of a pair of tweezers.
I recently acquired these tweezers when I sliced my hand open and needed some stitches. I think the nurse sensed that I was looking, longingly, at her selection of stainless tools. She gave them all to me when she was done. Score!
Well, the tweezers worked perfectly! I taped it all up and moved on to the next item.
I installed the upper bulkhead between the garage and living space. If you look close on the left, you can see a gray plug. Normally that plug is hidden behind the black cover. I was able to relocate it and gain the length needed.
When cutting the bulkhead (as well as other panels), I tried to keep the, as close as possible to the sheet metal but not actually touch it. If there is contact, a squeak could result in the future. The only place things contact sheet metal are in paces where they are bolted to it. You can also see I picked up the factory wheel well covers and installed them.
Now onto the really painful part of the day. Insulation in all the small spaces. I might have gotten 1/4 of the small space insulation done.
I started with a small chimney sweep and pushing the insulation down the channels but that was not working well.
I ended up breaking the insulation up into cotton ball size pieces and pushing though the holes in the interior. Painfully slow. A air hose blower would coax the insulation down the channel.
Sally got a bit of work done on the pressure relief venting. The transit has vents at the rear that relive pressure when a door is slammed. They also help the HVAC. When fitting wall panels or a bulkhead, one needs to pay attention to airflow. She cut a sheet of plastic and made ductwork from the rear of the van to the front. I’ll make sure the wall panels are vented to this ductwork.