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.

Big news! (which should be no surprise)

So Jeremy and I continue to evolve the design from our original plans as we think more about what will work best in the open canvas that is Carmen in her raw and unfinished state.  Of the many design decisions we have changed along the way, many are minor.  With the exception of two to date...


Back media wall:  So no longer will you be able to see in from the backdoors to the inside of the ambulance.  We decided to build a full floor to ceiling wall that will house the 51" TV and the 6 speakers. It's a trade-off to not be able to see in from the back, but the setup when we get there will be nothing.  Just open the doors and you're ready to go.  Take a look at Jeremy's mockup below.  Man that's gonna be killer...

Beer...and how we're going to serve it:  So this is probably not going to be shocking to anyone that knows us but...we're gonna be setup to run kegs!!  Our original plan actually didn't include that if you can believe it (sounds weird saying it out loud!).  In the picture below you'll see a tall, narrow door open.  Our original plan was to run a compressor on the inside and convert that opening to a full size fridge bottom to top

After thinking through it, having nothing on the inside is probably not ideal, and on hot days this setup will likely be challenging.  So we are now putting two small(ish) beverage fridges in the inside near the cab.  This should have pretty decent capacity.  Then, and here's the cool part, we are going to setup the aforementioned tall, narrow door as a vessel to hold and serve draft beer!  It can actually hold up to 4 1/6 barrels in a 2x2 configuration top and bottom.  Then, on the inside of Carmen we'll have two taps coming out of the wall.  Really glad we landed on this.  Will provide nice flexibility and definitely some "wow" factor.


Speaking of wow, the red underglow lights that Jeremy bought arrived recently...yeah, we're those guys.


Until next time

It's gotta be the shoes!

So in the past week, Carmen got some new wheels and her tires were cleaned up.  Amazing difference!

We also finished all of the demo in the back!  It's time to start building!  Other news and accomplishments in the past week include:

- Got new leather seats for the cab.  Bought them from a salvage place in Indiana. Brand new grey leather seats from a Honda Odyssey.  Really nice and as the them continues...really cheap!

- Have purchased or have virtually everything for the back with the exception of the inside TV and the refrigerator setup.  

- The design for the back wall is complete.  This is where the external TV and outside speakers will go.  Imagine this...you'll open the back ambulance doors and you're greeted with a wall of entertainment!  51" TV, 4 6x9 speakers and 2 subs.  I think that'll do.

- Fixed the steering wheel alignment with some help from my handyman Vic.  Wait, who's Vic?  Here's a picture of him turning a wrench...I promised him he'd be on the internet.  Thanks Vic!

We also had some ideas and suggestions on solar and bio-diesel which spawned an idea of making Carmen a "Green Tailgater".  Still like the idea, but is probably going to be too expensive in the near term and will take us off course...it's not easy being green!  How did I possibly just make a muppets reference.  Didn't see that one coming.

We've also made the official decision that we'll be painting Carmen ourselves.  Believe it or not, I have most of the gear to do it.  It would kill our budget to have her painted by someone else.  So we'll take our time, do it ourselves and save some precious money. . .not so much on the time side.

One last point, Jeremy is officially addicted to getting packages for Carmen delivered to his house.  He told me the other day..."I came home and it was a sad day...no packages for Carmen".  There's an easy solution for that - It's called eBay!

Until next time...

Getting worse or getting better?

So, it's been a couple weeks since the last post...I'm sure you all have missed your Carmen updates.  We haven't had as much time to work on Carmen lately with Jeremy being on the road for a new project and my travel picking up as well.  We've been fitting in time when we can on nights and weekends and I have to tell you, the excitement is definitely building.  We're still a long ways off from completion, but are at least at the point now where most of the major design decisions have been made and parts and equipment are being sourced.


Which brings me to this announcement - the exterior design is complete...and I have to tell you I think it's going to be really sweet.  While we posted draft designs of the interior though, we will not be posting or discussing the exterior design.  We're going to save some magic for the big reveal!


We also made some changes to the interior design that should really "punch it up" as well as make our setup process much easier.  Oh yeah, and there TV for outside viewing has been purchased...how does 51" sound?  Like I said, excitement building.


So this all sounds better right?  Is this even a question of whether it's getting better or worse?  Take a look at the pics below and you'll know why I ask that question.  We're getting close to being done with the tear out so this is about the worst she's gonna look.  But it's all in the name of progress!


We'll have updates more often as the build is going to be starting soon. 

 Is this this White Trashy?

 The cab is under attack!!  Yes, that's the engine.

 The only big item yet to pull out int he back is the floor.

 Ceiling gone!

All of the cabinets will be refaced.