[mswartz]

Alan, thank you for the suggestions. I cannot afford the money and time to pull the frame for powder coating, although I agree it would be a great solution. I am using the Pettit Paints polyurethane marine coating system with 6980 Steel Primer on clean steel as the base, as I've used this before and it has held up well in salt spray environments. It requires lots of attention to surface preparation, as most coatings do. Also, a good suggestion on stainless tubing for the propane. I have access to the threaders and benders for stainless tubing and if I have a few dollars left over, I would like to go this route.

An update: A few days after my July post, I had to get back to work (ie, what I get paid to do) and with travel away from home for so long I haven't been able to get back to the Bambi until a few days ago. It has been sitting up on blocks, axle off, awaiting attention. A sad sight.

Unfortunately, I leave in two days on another business trip, and have had only about 12 hours toward getting the frame area over the axle prepared, and have that cleaned and painted. With that done, my next steps are to get the axle/brakes/wheels on to allow me to move the trailer indoors for work over the winter.

Any suggestions on locating the Actibrake controller? I am leaning on an interior installation.

After that, the remaining action items are:
1) selecting the insulation for under the floor (I've browsed the discussions over fiberglas/reflectix/none);
2) fabricating belly pan sections from the stainless steel sheet;
3) deciding on isolating material between the stainless bellypan and the now-painted frame;
4) finishing cleanup, prep and painting of the remainder of the frame;
5) removing the 120VAC power cable, installation of 120VAC 30A inlet on exterior wall;
6) insulation installation;
7) bellypan installation.

At this rate, I should be done by February. Given the weather here in New England, that is optimistic.

Thanks for any suggestions.