[fireflyinva]

Jordan,

I wonder if you might reconsider taking the shell and the belly pan off--It seems that you only want to weld, and that can be done with the shell & belly pan on.

I have to admit, I'm a bit leery about pulling off the shell--it just seems to open up a whole new range of complication and possibilities for damage. Plus, I've noticed around here that there is a much higher likelihood that folks quit on a project with a shell-off instead of keeping it on. So, when we had to start structural repairs last spring, we decided to go the shell-on route (and we are doing many of the repairs you mention).

We've done quite a bit of welding of trailer frame members from the inside with no problem. You also don't have to take the shell off, even for the outriggers. Same for new tanks. Really, the only reason I can think of where you absolutely have to remove the shell is to remove and replace the trailer frame.

Regarding the belly pan, in our era of trailer, the attachments held both the bellypan, shell and floor on together in a rather complex clamshell arrangment. You can't attach any of these independent of the other two elements. I'm not sure about your planned sequence--it appears a bit out of whack for replacement (I'll have to work this through a bit more).

For belly pan issues, the preferred technique (again, for this era trailers only) seems to be to cut it out below the line of sight. But why cut it out, unless you plan to have something (like a tank) hang at lower clearance? And then, even if you do add in a tank, all you really should need to cut out is the affected location, not the whole thing.

BTW--you may want to consider cutting out the floor in sections, so you can still have a bit of a platform for working on the innards, then you can cut it off, section by section to replace the flooring.

I hope you don't mind my devil's advocate questions. There are folks here who have done lovely jobs with full shell-off efforts. But I think they would all admit that the job was huge--and all I wonder is, why bring on that extra effort if you don't need to (since the effort really doesn't seems to offer any meaningful advantage)?

Mary