I cut a hole in the top of my van today, and glued in the adapter for the rear roof exhaust fan.
It was daunting, actually cutting into the most expensive thing I’ve ever owned. “Well, if I fuck this up, I can always just chuck it and buy another 28,000$ van.” Right.
But it mostly went well. The adhesive I used (3M’s Window Weld, as was recommended by the adapter manufacturer) didn’t squeeze out from under the adapter when I pressed it into place, so I’m worried I didn’t use enough. That shit was hard to squeeze out of the tube, but I did have 3 beads, each 1/8th of an inch wide, as was called for. So I went back and added more on the inside and outside edge. Hope that works well.
Letting it set overnight (likely about 20 hours), and then installing the fan flange.
My plan was to install 2 roof fans, and make 400 watts of solar fit around them, but now I’m having doubts about that. I was not aware that these fans require 8″ clear in their rear, and that throws off my (already troubling-ly tight) measurements. Now I’m thinking this one fan in the rear is more likely, with 300 or 400 watts of solar forward of it. Hopefully I can return some stuff. Otherwise I’m gonna be trying to shift it on ebay to recoup some of the cost.
I did take a bunch of video, which I’ll be posting to this site eventually. I have to learn to do some basic video editing, and I need to organize a “projects” section in addition to this blog.
I wonder if singing Zeppelin to myself while working will get videos taken down on the youtubes. Maybe we’ll find out.
There is a lot left to do (basically all of it), and 6 weeks till my lease is up. That gives one pause. Gotta stick to doing my level best. And I’ll have some help for a few weeks.
For now I’m still doing an hour of math everyday (going through my advisors basic text on probability, and studying each chapter and doing all the problems…proceeding slowly and with completion, just as I prefer and was unable to do while in grad school), and exercising for 2 hours each evening. If things come to a head, I may end up doing nothing but van stuff every day.
Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. Today felt more like I was working on my own project in my own way, and I want it to feel like that. I’m going to do my best to manage stress and frustration as we get down to “crunch time.”
If I can get the heater in (arrived from Russia yesterday) and get the walls insulated, I can throw a cot in that motherfucker and get by while still working. But that’s not plan a.