The final countdown!!

Wow...it has been so long since I made a post...and time is running out!  With just over a week until the season starts, it's clear that our bold prediction of making a July 4th finish date was just that...a bold prediction.  Furthering the notion that we (or I) are eternal optimists, I actually lost $15 to my older daughter Rian who bet me that we wouldn't be finished by August 15th...yeah, missed that one too!  Anyone want to bet whether we'll be ready for the season? 

There is so much to talk about in terms of updates, but frankly most of this would be really boring to everyone else...except for me and Jeremy.  So let's stay away from construction updates ad nauseum and focus on what's important...the tailgates!  We'll save the boring stuff and maybe some life lessons we learned for a post mortem. 

So here's the update:

- We will be tailgating the Miami game in a little over a week, and every game there after!
- We've started a Facebook page which you can like and follow us on...we don't have much content on the page now but that will surely change.  www.facebook.com/TheOTeamTailgate.  Like us!
-  We've also opened a twitter account  @oteamtailgate.  Follow us!
-  We'll be keeping both sources up to date with our tailgate plans and of course our adventures each Saturday.

So what about some other big news?  It occurs to me that we had plans for a big reveal with the exterior design, but at this point the first time people will see it will actually be AT a tailgate.  Who knows, this might be the worst kept secrets in the long, esteemed history of tailgate vehicle reveals.  So why not...here she is in all her glory!  We think it turned out awesome!!

One other thing that should help build excitement..as if that's necessary at this point:

We just bought a full time season parking pass for the top part of the Fawcett Lot!  This is the same area we're in every year, but instead of being on the grass, we'll be in the actual lot...this will allow us to park much closer to Olentangy River Rd. which makes the walk to the stadium a bit shorter.  Should be a nice upgrade!

This won't be the last post on the Blog, but likely one of the last...Jeremy and I will do a post mortem about our progress over the last 8 months...but for now, it's time for Facebook!  See you on the flipside...

I gotta guy for that...

The season is rapidly approaching and we still have a lot of work to do.  However, we have recently made some significant progress that has reunited our fire to to get this project finished.    One of the big concerns we had was with the seats in the front cab.  The ones that came with Carmen had seen better days, so we searched Ebay high and low to try and find suitable replacements, but we weren't having much luck finding seats specifically built for our model Ford.  We did however, stumble upon a set of brand new leather seats in grey that were "universal van seats".  The color and price were perfect, so we just figured we could make them fit.  Turned out we might have been a little ambitious.  After several hours of blankly staring at the bottom of the seats and the existing brackets in the cab, we came to the realization that we might have to do some custom fabrication and welding.  Turns out, I gotta guy for that.  

That guy just happened to be my cousin Dino Ianiro.  After a quick discussion of what I was looking for, Dino said he would be happy to help us out.  I packed up the seats and headed up to the Cleveland area for Dino to take a shot at them.  He even let me have some fun!

Look at those sparks fly!

After a few hours of hard work and maybe an adult beverage, we had one of our seats customized to fit our existing bracket.  Dino was even nice enough to keep the other seat and finished it up on his own time as I had to go back to Columbus.  When we are cruising around in our comfy new seats we will know who to thank. 

Here is Dino testing out the new seats!

2 for 1 special!

Realizing that it's been a few weeks (again!) since my last post, this update actually covers a couple posts I was planning to make...so here we go...

I love it when a plan comes together

Over the past couple weeks, our path to completion has become much more clear.  The linchpin in all of this was getting the exterior paint plan locked up.  The further we got into the build, the more daunting the prospect of trying to paint Carmen ourselves got.  The reality of trying to secure a location that we could actually do something like this, and the need for a better compressor, as well as needing a lit of time to get it done just seemed like a bad idea.  This doesn't even account for the simple fact that we weren't convinced we could do a good job.  So the search was on to find someone to paint Carmen.  The problem is that this wasn't going to come cheap based on what we were hearing...

We had an idea that seemed full of promise - find a custom paint shop that would be willing to drastically reduce the price of the job in exchange for permanent advertising on the vehicle.  I made some calls and actually had some interest on this.  The problem was that out of those that were actually interested didn't have a booth that was big enough to hold Carmen...or in the case of one place they were just retarded and clearly wanted no part of the job despite talking a good game on the phone.  So the prospects were not looking good...and our anxiety around actually finding someone to do this that wasn't Maaco was growing.  I ended up calling Creative Mobile Interiors which is a shop that does high end RV builds to pitch the idea.  They loved it, but really only focus on interior work.  At this point, they referred us to a place called Star Jet who they use for their exterior paint work.  Star Jet's business is painting buses and RV's.  We got in contact with them and the conversations were pure magic.

We talked to Dick Cahill and based on some pictures he quickly gave us a quote that was very reasonable...this was all under the pretense that we were going to do the body prep work (e.g. stripping all the lights, sanding, etc.).  Here's where it gets really good.  Dick tells us that he's willing to let us use his shop and equipment over a weekend to get Carmen ready for paint.  So awesome.  We were done at that point.  Jeremy and I went over to meet with Dick and also had the chance to meet his wife Dee, and sister Tawana.  It's a family biz, and we really can't imagine a better fit for what we need.  Great people that we're really looking forward to working with.  You can check then out at www.starjetbuspainting.com. As of now, it looks like we will do the prep work on Saturday May 19th (my birthday) and Carmen will be painted the week of the 21st.  So cool.

We have also talked to a woman who does re-upholstering and will be recovering our seat cushions for the back of the ambulance.  And Jeremy has secured the services of his cousin Dino who will do the fabrication and retro-fit to put our brand new leather seats on the original bases so we can replace the cab seats.  

All of this points to us getting this thing done!  I love it when a plan comes together...

A banner day!

Jeremy and I both took these last two days of the week off to get some much needed work done on Carmen.  With the paint date pending, it's important that we deal with all the infrastructure items so we're ready to go.  Having a couple dedicated days is great, but it was made even better when we made the call to my secret weapon...the previously mentioned handyman, Vic Silva.  We were experiencing some pretty weird electrical issues that clearly neither I nor Jeremy were in a position to try and troubleshoot.  The emergency lights were working intermittently, the outlets in the back weren't working at all, and one of the reverse lights (and thus our backup camera) was not working.

We got started early on a day when the rain was steady.  It was all hands on deck.  Jeremy was working on trying to finish recovering all of the interior panels and actually got everything we had to recover totally done!  See Jeremy in action:

Jeremy at his mobile workstation.  He was not very happy with me when I took this picture.  Primarily because he has gotten so good at recovering these panels that we've started referring to him as the male version of a seamstress...which we have coined "seamster".  So next time you see him, you can ask if he carries a "Seamsters Union Card".

The electric took a lot of troubleshooting (by Vic of course), and after much tracing, some driving around town looking for parts, and some calls to companies about equipment they put into service more than 20 years ago, ALL OF IT WAS FIXED!  We have steady emergency lights, the outlets and inverter work, and the backup camera that originally gave us problems was fixed in a flash.   Thanks Vic!

Vic didn't know I took this one!  Here he is deep in the troubleshooting process for the emergency lights.

Today was a HUGE day.  We'll see what tomorrow brings, but enthusiasm is building.  Oh yeah, and July 4th?  We got it.

Until next time...

Has it been that long?

WOW!!  I just looked and can't believe it's been 4 weeks since my last post...I guess another month gone by with not as much progress as we'd like.  To be fair, it's not as if nothing has happened (you'll see below), but with a spring break trip for me as well as a crazy work schedule for both of us, our project plan continues to get ignored like a middle child.

As I think about the project we've undertaken, there are certainly times when it can be a bit overwhelming to think about how much we have to do...and that we signed ourselves up for this.  But the real truth of the situation is that Jeremy and I are both do-it-yourselfers and take enormous pride in being able to create something.  We're the guys that love it when someone says "You did all of this yourself??"  Set against that backdrop and the reality that we've both tackled bigger jobs in our own house, this is less of "what have we gotten ourselves into", and more associated with the pressure of trying to get done by summer.  People are watching.  People want to see it done.  People want to come to our tailgate.  Anything short of completion, to the level that we envisioned, simply isn't an option at this point.  The flop is a distant memory, we've seen the turn card, and with only the river left...we're pot committed, and even more, we're all in.  Time to bring it home.

So where are we and what's new?  For starters, we've made all of the final design decisions for the interior and all materials are on hand.  Here's the rundown:

- The walls will be covered in two different types of laminate.  One that looks like natural light wood and one that's pure black.  

- The seats and cushions will all be recovered in red.  

- For the floor, we're using a commercial grade roll out floor that's made for garage applications.  It's dark gray.

- The ceiling and door panels which are currently white and blue vinyl will be recovered in new scarlet and gray vinyl (mostly gray).

We we able to spend a good bit of time working this weekend and made some nice progress.  A few descriptions and then I'll get to the pictures.  

We have been working mostly on the "infrastructure" which is utterly boring, but critical to making all the shit that everyone cares about work...power, audio/video wiring, storage for our gear, etc.  So most of this has been centered on the back cabinet where all of our big stuff will be stored.  This includes the EZ-up tent, tables, cornhole and chairs.  We ripped it all out and put in new side walls, a new floor, and prepped by pulling all the wiring that will feed the back entertainment wall.  As of now, it's the closet thing to finished we have on Carmen.  See below:

Some wiring still needs to be cleaned up here

This is the left wall of the picture above.  The compartment will be totally closed, so we need some light.  The little receiver with the antenna is for the backup camera and will send the signal to the cab

The other big project from this weekend, was recovering the ceiling panels.  To be honest, we weren't sure how these were going to turn out, but damn if we didn't nail it.  They've yet to be installed, but take a look at the pics below and you'll see what I mean.  We bought all new replacement lights as well so everything on the ceiling will look brand new.

This is almost the exact layout as it will look on the ceiling.  The holes were all originally for lights and we bought new ones, but we'll also add two speakers in the ceiling.  Take a look at some of the original posts and you'll see how huge of an improvement this is!

A couple of speakers and lights dry-fitted.  Gonna be awesome...

I also spent some time today working on REALLY boring stuff like getting a couple of the storage compartment locks and latches to work where they had been previously been non-operational (due mostly to rust).  During this project, I had a helper...

Bottom line, we have an ass load of stuff to do, but we're getting into that stage where every time we work we have really cool results when we're done.  The budget is pretty well contained as of now and won't take anymore hits until we move to the cab and outside.  But she's making progress!

Until next time (which incidentally I hope is less than 4 weeks from now)...

How we doin?

It's becoming evident that trying to hit a July 4th completion is going to take a massive effort.  Impossible? No.  But as Jeremy and I both match up our schedules for the coming months and look at other commitments that will require us to be out of town, we will definitely have to make the most of the weekend time that we have to work on Carmen.  Yesterday, was no exception.  We spent most of the day working and made some good progress.  We started bright and early at 8am and worked straight through to 5pm.  A good day overall with some minor setbacks that kept us from having having an awesome day.  Here's the rundown:


We spent most of the morning working on the back speaker box which is being built exactly against our last design for the media wall facing the back.  The box went together pretty well, but truth be told the face of the box took two attempts as the cutouts for the subs were 1/2" too big on the first attempt.  Not a big deal on time, but with MDF at $30 per sheet it did cost us some extra dough.  That issue notwithstanding, the box went in on the first attempt and when we dry fitted the speakers we were pretty happy with the result.  See below and you can judge for yourself.  Notice the red and silver Sony Xplod speakers we sourced (not made anymore) to give it that Buckeye look:

Think this will make some sound??  We certainly hope so.  The whole box will be wrapped in black carpet that's typically used on speaker boxes.  If you remember on the design, the TV cabinet will be built right on top of this box and based on current measurements, the TV will fill almost the entire space above!


The next thing we worked on was installing a backup camera...this is where our productivity hit a snag.  The package says "Installs in Minutes!", which is then qualified with a "for most users".  I remember saying to Jeremy before we started - "We're not most users".  The reality is that the actual physical install went pretty well, but then we had all kinds of problems getting it to actually work.  The unit is wired into the backup lights so it only kicks on when she's in reverse.  You just wire it into the reverse lights and mount the receiver unit in the cab which receives a wireless signal.  Sounds easy right?  We never did get it working right.  It seems we have an issue with the reverse lights on the left side which is of course the side we used to wire in.  This will require some more investigation as to why the unit isn't getting power, but suffice it to say that the hour plus we spent working on this left us a little dejected considering that we didn't achieve a successful result.  See below for a zoom in on the installation of the camera which will end up being attached at the bottom of the license plate.

We spent the rest of the day, finalizing the prep in the refrigerator area (see last week's post), as well as pulling all the wires from the media center inside to the back media wall.

We will likely spend time this week trying to finalize all the infrastructure items which includes pulling wire, rough electric and any carpentry.  Once these items are all done we can actually begin finishing the inside which will be pretty exciting.  After that, it will be off to interior storage to work on the exterior and the cab.  Good things on the way.

Until next time...

Carmen gets her first new toys!

So it's been a pretty slow February as it relates to working on the ambulance conversion.  Jeremy's been traveling to Buffalo off and on through the month, and I have been traveling quite a bit as well...last week to China and early this week to Mexico City.  The scary thing is that our schedules don't look much better as we hit March.  This will make the original goal of having Carmen done by July 4th, which seemed very attainable in January, a little more in question now.

The good news is that we made some progress this weekend.  On Friday night, I replaced the batteries (she has two), and then on Saturday, we started building the back entertainment wall.  The reality is that most of the hard work is coming up with the right design and dimensions.  Making the cuts and assembling the box is pretty straight forward once you have a design in mind.  Jeremy and I spent some time Saturday working on it and things should go together pretty quickly.

On Sunday, I went out and spent some time working on reconfiguring the cabinet that will house the two beverage refrigerators...the result was awesome!  The fridges fit perfectly and once the cabinets are refinished the look will be awesome.  See below for how the fridges look at this "rough" stage:

AWESOME!!

In addition to working this weekend, we did continue to have strong support and interest with three "ambulance showings"...two on Saturday and one on Sunday.  Universally, people seem to be really into the idea behind our ambulance conversion...if not only for the interest in coming at tailgating at what promises to be one of the best setups on campus next fall!

We continue to buy things for Carmen, but not quite at the blistering pace you would've seen in Jeremy's last post.  Truthfully we have most things we need for the back outside of building materials.  The purchases now are either small accessories or items that we need for the cab or exterior.  I did get a nice Valentine's gift from the family though...all kinds of Buckeye trinkets to adorn Carmen with.  I even got Buckeye fuzzy dice for the mirror...should add a nice touch.

Next on the list is finishing the rough construction...entertainment wall, doing all the wiring and electric reconfiguration.  After that it will be on the finish work in the back.  Once we're done with that, Carmen will find a new home at an indoors storage facility so we can start working on the cab and the exterior.  Somewhere in there we'll finish the mechanical work as well which isn't too much at this point.

Here are a couple more pictures of the back at this point.  The left wall, while open in the back now, will be totally closed off with the entertainment wall and an extension that will connect to the existing cabinets.

Stay tuned...the next post should show the back entertainment wall built!

Until next time...

She is joking right???

So when I got home yesterday, I had all these packages for Carmen waiting for me.

Nancy came home and said "I'm glad to see Carmen got a lot of packages for Valentine's Day." I think she's joking, but I guess I should have gotten her a larger bouquet of flowers just in case.