New Developement...an awning!

The wonderful things you can find on the http://www.fiberglassrv.com website.

I was reviewing a post from Randy who has a 1975 Boler that he is restoring.
He picked up a new 7 x 7 awning from Alberta Tent and Awning in Calgary.

After looking at the awning he got I looked up Alberta Tent and Awning.
I talked to this awesome guy named Steen and now I am the proud owner of a new
teal striped awning.

My grand plan is to have my Boler painted 1950s "Kitchen Apliance" teal on the bottom and white on the top.

This all sounds like a really happy story....until...

I got a call from Greyhound (Steen sent the awning in record time using station to station Greyhound delivery) he saved me mondey and it got here REALLY fast.

Now for the sad part of this story...It arrived without the poles. I have a feeling Greyhound has "misplaced" them. So I sent a quick email to Steen to see what we can do.

More on this later...AND pics of the new awning! Steen does really fantastic work!

Here is a teaser of the color. I went with the Teal stripped one at the bottom of the pic.

He made a duffel bag out of the same fabric to keep the awning in and included rope, tent stakes and I think ;) poles.

Progress continues...New tongue box

I got a box for the boler a few weeks ago at Canadian Tire.

I'd been looking around for one of these for a while but they are just really expensive. I saw this one on the Canadian tire website and added a "Sale Alert" so that I'd get an email when this box when on sale. Less than a week later it went on stale for $200.00 which is still a lot, but a nice savings of $40.00 so I picked it up.

It's been sitting in the garage waiting for me to get up the nerve to drill through the trailer frame to install it. Many thanks to Jake for helping me get that job done!

The plan -  to move the propane tank and the battery into a secure box at the front of the trailer.
I'm still moving towards installing my new converter, but needed to first install an outlet then take care of installing the battery...progress has been made!

Check out the new Delta aluminum tongue box!

The Box

Room left for my battery box.

Boler Returns

Just got back from a week away. I dropped the Boler off at Metro Trailers to have the bearings repacked and new safety chains added to the front. Metro did an Excellent job. I got he bearings repacked, the axle serviced, the chains welded on and the coupler adjusted for under $100.00...
They just rock over there at Metro!

In preperation for my new converter I installed an outlet under the front bench seat. I'm thinking that I can also use this for the new / old fridge when I get it installed. (I picked up an old three way fridge on kijiji) These bolers came with three way fridges (at least some of them did) , but there isn't anywhere to plug it in....very odd. Maybe it was suppose to be plugged in separately...at any rate I'm going to try running it using this GFI outlet. Not sure yet if both the fridge and the converter will run smoothly on the same outlet, but we will see ;)

Front bench seat compartment

New GFI outlet

Porta Potty cabinet....New home for my future converter

After much debate I decided to remove the furnace. It was only a shell so it really was taking up valuable space. I was really fighting the urge to fix it...but when I opened it up and saw that it was only a furnace shell it was just a matter of time.

Before

After

 

 

The furnace hole just happens to be the exact same size as the other cabinet to the right. I'm going to use that cabinet door as a template for creating a new door for my reclaimed furnace space!
The only problem...this is where the wheel well is. There are also water and electric lines running through the space. Not sure how much space I really gained, but it looks better.

Running lights installed!

Despite all the rain we've been having I managed to get the running lights installed.
Everything worked perfectly on the first try! Not bad for my first trailer rewire...

The second photo is a closeup of the new 7" tail lights from princess auto.
All these LED lights use a fraction of the power of the originals and are BRIGHT.

Looks like the little boler is going to TAKE OFF =)

Rainy Day...No Boler Renos

Couldn't get anything done on the lights today due to the rain. I did however pickup my running lights at Princess Auto. They look exactly like the originals. They will be great once installed!
It'll be nice to have the trailer lights working. Then I can get started inside.

I found some interior lights to replace the original non-working 12V lights. These are roughly the same size as the original. I love the stanless steel finish. AND they are LED! Perfect!

New LED Tail Lights

I finally finished rewiring the Boler yesterday. I couldn't wait to test it all out (which I ended up doing in the rain). My new Power Fist 7 inch LED tail lights are working perfectly!....that's the good news.
All the other lights on the trailer are NOT working. On closer inspection I discovered that all the old light fixtures had bad / broken 12V bulbs.  I also noticed that I have one leading running light on the passenger side that is orange, but all the other running lights are red... I'm thinking all will be well with new lights / bulbs.  I hate to remove the original running lights, but I am so impressed with the brightness of the tail lights that I think I'll be going all LED.

They are huge and bright! Like two light up dinner plates!

Back to Princess Auto to get new running lights =)

My 1974 Boler!

I recently purchased one of these little gems after much searching. I watched the Winnipeg kijiji listings for weeks to find the perfect one. Another great place to find them is on http://www.fiberglass-rv-4sale.com/ they list classifieds Boler as well as listings for many of its kin.

We looked at 4-5 during our search. There are many things to look for when searching for your very own egg. I'll post a link to the buyers checklist later.

There weren't that many for sale in WPG when we were looking, but I wanted to get going so we could do some camping!

I think we really lucked out when we found this one. The owners were really cool! We couldn't have purchased from nicer people!

My new favorite online hangout is fiberglassrv.com. There a many helpful "Egg" owners on this site.
There are also tons of mods / suggestions. My first task is to fix the wiring on the Boler. The tail lights work, but nothing else. After that who knows...so much to do! So much fun! This little egg and I are going to be spending a lot of time together!

Boler Floor Plans

This is the standard floor plan for the Boler. There were some choices like fridge vs ice box, furnace, window shields. I've seen some with cabinets over the dinette area, but I'm not sure if this is original.

The Boler

I've wanted one of these amazing little campers since I saw the Bee 2Gether office at the Forks here in Winnipeg Manitoba. The Boler was invented in Winnipeg Ray Olecko in 1968. His first invention was a fiberglass septic tank. This little camper sports a small kitchen, dinette and a couch that converts to bunk beds....YES bunk beds....how cool is that! The body is all fiberglass. Two pieces joined in the center by an aluminum "belly band". The Boler was the first in a long line of fiberglass kin. Many parts for this trailer can still be purchased from the Scamp website (one of the bolers more modern Kin).