I'm All Legal Now......

Happy Saturday afternoon from here in North Carolina.  It's Pod posting again today.  Trisha took her Mom and Dad to Charleston, SC for her niece's wedding.  Congrats to Emily and Chuck!!  Rob has taken some Advil and has gone to lay down.  He told me I could make today's post as long as I didn't tell anyone why his back was hurting.  

As y'all may or may not know, I am a 2010 model year Pod.  It seems the people at Forest River that built me made a small mistake and didn't put lights on my fenders or three lights high up on my back.  They've since fixed that problem on all my newer Pod cousins, and have also fixed a bunch of my cousins who didn't have this required lighting.  

One of my first major mods was when Rob added running lights to my fenders.  In fact, if you click right here you can read about and see pictures of this mod.  The other item was the lights up high on my back.  When my recall letter came last summer, none of us wanted to miss any camping trips, so we just put the job on the back burner.  Then next thing you know, it was spring and time to go camping again.  So when we were at the F.R.O.G. rally in August, Rob asked Susan T. for a light bar, telling her he'd install it at some point in time.  

Well since today was a beautiful day, Rob decided this would be a good afternoon to install my new light bar.  It only took him about 1.5 hours, and that was him working by himself.

Here's a "before" picture......

See no "up-high" lights.  First Rob started by taking the end cap off of the molding track and taking out the molding strip.....

Here is a picture of the molding cap.  Just one screw and a bit of caulk and then the molding strip will pull right out of the track.

The molding strip is easy to pull out of the track.  Rob said to just take it easy so you don't accidently tear it or anything.  

Next, Rob used some rubbing alcohol to clean and de-wax my surface so the caulk and adhesive strips would stick like they are supposed to.  Rob also measured and marked how high the light bar was to be.  He said he wanted it be level, I said, "Well yeah!"  

Then Rob cut a small notch in the molding strip.  This is were the wires will go.  If you look closely, you can see the pencil mark he made so he knows exactly where to cut .

If you look closely in this picture, you can see the "channel" the wires have to go in so the light bar will lay flat on my roof.  

In this picture, Rob has used Gorilla Tape to secure the wires in the channel.  He said he also left some wires in a loop to allow for some slack in case the light bar has to be removed for some reason.

Here is the light bar laying on Truck's tailgate.  (Thanks Truck for your help with this project!)

Rob has all the wires secured, and has run a squiggly line of caulk all the way around the underside of the light bar.  He said this will help seal the light bar to my roof.  All he needs to do is to remove the red film from the adhesive strips and he will be ready to but the light bar into place. 

Now if your wondering how Rob held that long light bar in place, he did have some help.  He used a short piece of dowel rod and some more Gorilla Tape to make a "stop" for one side.

Before I knew it, Rob had the light bar in place.  He then worked to carefully press down the light bar on the top and bottom to make sure there was good contact between the light bar and my roof.

Rob had some left over stainless steel screws with the tops painted white from some other project a few years ago.  These were perfect for the three screws needed the light bar's end pieces.


At this point, all that is left to do is screw the end pieces in place, caulk the top seam of the light bar, run the wire and molding strip back down my side, and re-attach the molding end cap. 

Here's  a picture showing the wire loomed and caulked in  place.  Now Rob says the wire loom isn't necessary, but the caulk definitely is!!

Here you can see where Rob did the "tie-in" for the wires.  He also didn't cut the length of the wire, he just coiled it up.  He said that was just in case the extra was ever needed for some reason.  He quickly tucked everything away, and put the stuff he took out of my storage compartment back to be ready for my next trip.

This is the caulk he used.  Rob said it was non-silicone, and for outdoor use.  It will seal, bond, and fill as it dries. 






And finally, here's the finished project......

Now that just looks too awesome (even sexy).  If your wondering how Rob can make my lights turn on with Truck parked beside me, well that's another story.

Thanks for checking by today.  I'm out of here, and I need to check on Rob to see how he's doing too!

Until next time, stay safe out there.....-Pod!