The belly of the beast. The Good - and the wastefull - pun intended

[Yoda]

Keith Yoda - thank you, for sharing the narrative and pictures of your trip into the belly of the beast ! This is all helpful information for those wishing to learn and possibly trouble shoot issues. Good stuff !

Dan

Thanks Dan - it all started with a big bow in the chloroplast under the water tank. I thought some supporting straps had broken. The one good thing I discovered is all of my tanks are supported along the edges with beefy L channel. No way from them to drop down.

[Yoda]

Well I started early while it was cool and buttoned everything up, including the mollex repair area as I got the OK from the dealer. The fun part was going back and sealing the edges with the foam sealant and the snugging up the hardware. I also foamed the gaps at the suspension and other places. Only half covered my self this time even wearing gloves. It all went back fairly well. Trick someone mentioned is to get the middle up and snug first (used the 2x4 long way instead of across) and it made the edges line up better. Ill do another walk around - or should I say crawl around on the dolly and double check after the foam cures.

I do have one more item to add to the screw box and that is some oversize belly hardware as a few holes striped out refastening.
You might want to have those on hand before starting a project like this. It will take some searching to find the rubber backed large washers.

Stay safe folks
Keith

[ThePowells]

Yoda Great job and thanks for a look ahead for me as I gotta swap gray tank valves and am planning on adding my tank bypass mod this weekend. My question to the group is, would replacing the pink fluffy insulation with the foam board insulation be feasable?

[Cate&Rob]

ThePowells
Hi Jerry,

I lined the underbelly of my Reflection with 1" rigid foam. (Reflections do not have batt insulation on top of the coroplast, just the reflective foil . . . which is probably a good thing since the batt insulation is a giant sponge to absorb water that will eventually get in there my some path). The rigid foam insulation sheds water, although I am not sure that it is closed cell and thus impervious to water . . . it is a much better idea than batt insulation.

1" foam was all that I could fit under the tanks. If you have more room on your Solitude, I would suggest a double layer of 1" with overlapping seams. The foam is "friction fit" with no glue or fasteners so that it can be removed if (when) required. I did put in additional cross beams to make the friction fit of rectangular sheets work out easily.

Rob

[Yoda]

Yoda Great job and thanks for a look ahead for me as I gotta swap gray tank valves and am planning on adding my tank bypass mod this weekend. My question to the group is, would replacing the pink fluffy insulation with the foam board insulation be feasable?

You will want closed cell foam. (not the white stuff) Closed cell will not absorb water. High density if you can find it (larger R value per inch). There is some tung and groove stuff out there - used on houses before stucco. It comes in long 2' wide or so planks instead of sheets for easier install on the house. I was thinking of adding foam while I had it open. Did a 1/2" thick test piece, but would not fit with current chloroplast under the tanks Cate&Rob Rob did you put new holes along the edges of the Chloroplast, or were you able to get the old holes to line up with the foam in place? I used double sides tape squares to get my test piece to stay in place. I do want to add the foam at some point - maybe a project for next year. Would require moving a few cables and moving wiring around (off tank belly etc).

Keith