2026 Jamboree Splitty
Today David Cissna, Brian, Mary, Sue Rice, Russell, Greg and myself managed to get some items checked off the to do list. David and Brian had an extremely frustrating day with the sliding windows. They got started well installing some of the seals and did some more assembly with the newly (yesterday) arrived hardware but were stopped cold by our new glass piece. Seems US safety glass is about 1.5mm thicker than the metric stuff so our locally sourced glass just wouldn’t fit into the seals/frame. Absolutely wouldn’t go. Very frustrating. Then we discovered that the rivets to hold the vent window lock plate in place were solid rivets that require special tooling to hammer in place. We weren’t going to hammer on Wayne’s freshly painted frames and found pop rivets would absolutely work in their place. 5/32” pop rivets. Not to be found at Any hardware store that Brian could find. So that had to be put off for another day. The good news is that Mike found an online source where we could order the correct glass so that’s on its way. Be here for next Saturday. And when I got home I found the correct size 5/32” rivets in my rivet box of goodies so we’ll be able to get this buttoned up next week.
David and Brian went on to install the other two pop out windows on the drivers side. This is a thankless, frustrating, time consuming job using tiny screws and much patience. But they got them in and also installed the latches. We still have some mismatched hardware issues with the latches to resolve but these are mostly done.
Sue and Mary worked at getting the floor shifter and the rear hatch latch assemblies cleaned up and ready to install. Russell was able to get the shifter painted with its first coat and it looks new. He’ll get another coat on later today and it’ll be ready to install next week. The rear latch assembly is ready to install but the lock mechanism needs to be rekeyed. I’m taking it to the locksmith in Mesa Monday to see if they can make a new key for us. Just the key mechanism that bolts to that assembly is around $100 and we’re trying to avoid that expense. We’ll see.
Russell and Greg were back at the interior. Late yesterday after I left they got the walk through floor and pedestal side mats in. Did a nice job that looks like a couple of pros did it. They are also putting the finishing touches on the shelves and the table that attaches to the cargo doors. Everyone owes it to themselves to come over to Russell’s and look at how nicely this is turning out! It’s impressive!
David also worked on shimming the driver door to make the door reveals all line up. He did an incredible job and it looks perfect. His skill set is pretty remarkable.
I even managed to get some of the big bolts that we used in mounting the Rack & Piñon steering system lock tighted and torqued down. Meant removing and reinstalling the shocks again but we’re getting good at that.
And Greta once again did a wonderful job preparing a terrific meal for everyone. This one was even Vegan. Incredible…..
Forgot to mention that Russell also got the front door strikers in. We don’t have a new striker for the rear hatch but those are the same as the ones in the bays. I think we have one in the boxes of past year’s bay window stuff. I’ll find it this week.
~ John Manning
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