Furnace mod/fix question...

Hey Bruce, when you did the fix on your furnace, how much sheet meal work was involved? Can you give an estimate on any materials I may need?

My Elk is in a storage lot, so I'd like to be prepared when I go to work on it. Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by Redhawk

Hey Bruce, when you did the fix on your furnace, how much sheet meal work was involved? Can you give an estimate on any materials I may need?

My Elk is in a storage lot, so I'd like to be prepared when I go to work on it. Thanks in advance.

I purchased a small furnace vent (use metal, it gets hot) and mounted it vertically under the pullout bed. IIRC the vent was positioned so only a single cut on the front plate of the furnace was necessary to accommodate it. Metal duct tape was used to seal it all together.
EDIT: Maybe not, perhaps two cuts, removing a piece down the middle, was necessary.

The flexible side vent to the bathroom was replaced with smooth-side Aluminum dryer duct and insulated. Leave space for more batteries if that's in the future.

A new large return vent was mounted low on the bedroom partition.
Misc. screws will be needed.

Think that's about it. Not much really.

You will need some wood cutting tools, but IIRC a sharp knife is all I used to cut through the thin plywood and fabric. I removed the front furnace plate and did that cutting in my workshop. You could probably do it with a hack saw if it was clamped somehow (or maybe even tin snips, I don't recall).

EDIT: and while you are in there, make sure the furnace is securely mounted. Ours was just forced in place and not screwed down.

Thank you very much....

I'm mainly concerned with the upholstry part of it. What did you do with the fabric?

Originally Posted by Redhawk

I'm mainly concerned with the upholstry part of it. What did you do with the fabric?

Once I figured out where to put the vent, I marked the four corners and used a razor to cut the fabric.

Made four cuts, one from each corner to the centre, or similar. No fabric was cut out.

Then folded the fabric wedges out of the way and cut the panel (with the razor too IIRC).

Then the fabric wedges can be pushed into the hole and folded around the edges, trimmed if necessary, and the vent inserted.

I forget how the vent is attached, maybe it was just a tight fit?

Oh and by the way. The existing small round vent to the living area? Initially I just blocked it off. Now I have a couple of 12V receptacles mounted in it for charging the portable computers when boondocking.