| Floor work, etc...
Mac&Jalina
I did not keep records as to how long the various parts of the floor work took but I can hazard a guess based on what I can remember. I did most of the work all by myself and it would help to have two people for some of it.
1.) Install bracing per my approach - maybe 2 hours
2.) Carefully measuing and documenting holes and cutouts in the floor and making templates for the front and back curves - probably 2 hours
3.) Cut out middle parts of floor panels with a skill saw - maybe 3 or 4 hours
4.) Remove the rest of the floor material, cutting out screws and bolts as needed - probably a solid 8 hour day. This task does depend on just how rusted the screws and bolts are and wether or not any of the floor around the edges is rotted. The non-rotted parts were the hardest to get out.
5.) Reparing, cleaning and painting of the frame depends on what you find. I had to have a new rear cross member welded in for me (I don't weld). I found a couple of other places later that could have been welded that I repaired instead by adding angle iron brakets and bolts. I did not scrape everything down to clean bare metal. I wanted to sand blast the frame but the attachement that I bought from Harbor Freight seemed to need more air power than my portable compressor could put out. So I wire brushed and did a little sanding on the worst spots. I used Hamerite paint that supposedly bonds with the rust. I would guess that I might have put in as many as two days on these various parts.
6.) Cutting and attaching the shims on top of the shorter cross-members - maybe 2 hours.
7.) Cutting and installing the new floor panels including putting in a lot of screws and bolts - probably 2 days. This step is the main one where help is the most usefull for bringing in the panels but I was able to do it myself with a lot of grunting and sweating.
8.) Remove the rest of the bracing - about 1 hour
Keep in mind that I did not do all the steps in exactly the order I listed here. For example I installed the bracing as I needed it and added the shims and floor as I worked my way from the back to the front of the trailer. It occurs to me that there are a few other steps too. I had to take out my outer wheel wells and do some patching. They had to be re-installed before the floor went in. It also takes a while to remove all the various plumibing that goes through the floor and to remove at least the lower level of the inner skin so as to be able to access the screws and bolts.
I hope this helps give you a general idea of time spent. Feel free to ask for more detail if I have forgotten some part of the process that you would like to know more about.
I believe you are correct about removing the rivits on the side trim. I did not have a lot of my interior intact but the part of the kitchen cabinet that was intact was held together mostly with rivits but also a few screws here and there. I did notice by the way that the various wall panels and cabinet panels that connect to the inside of the inner skin are not attached in very many places. The curved aluminum channel is rivited to the inner skin but the panels are slid into place and held typically one place at the top and somewhere along the bottom. I think the idea was that the panels could slide around a bit as things flexed.
Malcolm
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