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Originally Posted by monocoque
Thanks Malcolm. I wondered how folks were removing and reinstalling full sheets of flooring given the way the flooring fits inside the c-channel at the base of the midship walls. What about reinstalling? To reinstall it seems it must be necessarily to create an extra front to back seam. Of course there are no factory seams lengthwise. So I am trying to imagine how the factory installed the full sheets? Possibly flexed the walls out slightly? I posted a photo of the floor channel in no. 54 of this thread.
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I did in fact reinstall with a lengthwise seam down the middle. I actually reinstalled my floor twice because I mistakenly used presure treated plywood the first time before I found out that it is ultra corrosive to metal - especially aluminum. The second install used Polyboard instead of plywood. For the plywood version of my install I installed the middle sheets lengthwise on each side of the centerline and put a spline down the middle with glue and screws. When I installed my Polyboard I also put a splice and spline down the middle but I added my sheets in 4' sections mostly because they were a little easier to handle by myself. The Polyboard is a little heavier than the plywood. I believe that some people in the forum have flexed the body out a bit to get the c-channel in place. I would be a bit reluctant to do that because it would be easier for the wall to fall off of the ends of the outriggers. I did have bracing in place that would prevent that so it might have been OK but I still favor an approach that distorts the body as little as possible. In my case I found that the middle on the curb side had slid out some because of floor rot in that area and had to pull it back into place with a ratcheting luggage strap.
I think for the original build that the c-channel might have been installed on the plywood before the body was set on the frame. Maybe even before the body was attaced to the u-channel.
Malcolm