new old member

[friel01]

Hi all,
I believe I was a member 10-12 yrs ago when I got the trailer, but maybe I was just lurking. Signed up now though... bought the 1961 overlander down in Az (where I lived at the time) and a biddy and I polished it (Nuvite F7 only, took 100 man hours), and I redid the inside, leaving all the systems original (even picking up an old dometic RM25 to be period correct. I did, as you can see from the pics, change the color scheme inside.

[friel01]

after having it in phx most of its time, moved up here to the Seattle Washington area andbrought hte trailer up last year. I was worried how it would do in the wet conditions, but I am happy to say, it did great its first wet winter up here, no leaks.

While still in AZ I also aquired a bullet hole... and it had been broken into and sustained minor damage.... dont you hate people that mess with other peoples stuff?

After about 9 yrs since its polish, it wasnt quite as shiny as ithad been,so this summer I spent a couple more weekends repolishing it. I am happyto report that repolishing is nowhere near as bad as that first polish to get rid of the elephant gray oxidation. It is still a lot of work though. These pics show the before re-polish look

[friel01]

the repolish took 4 days, doing it in Nuvite F7, then again Nuvite C, (both with a dewalt polisher), then I only made it partway with the cyclo and the Nuvite S (just did the end caps). I probabyl have another 4 days of cyclo work to do, not sure if I will get to it this year, or if it will have to wait.

I also have finally given up on the old-school water system, and ripped it out this summer and replaced with a modern poly tank, a demand pump and pex piping. I should have done that a long time ago! And I similarly am tired of hoping ht efridge will work, so I trashed it and currenbtly have a bigempty space where I keep an ice chest (we rarely camp more than 2 nights in a row anyway), and someday will replace with a modern fridge that actually works!

Did I mention that polishing is filthy dirty work?

[TouringDan]

Welcome back. Your 61 Overlander looks great. What did you put on the floor?

How did you survive in Phoenix without A/C?

Dan

[friel01]

the flooring is composit vinyl tile (turquoise and cream). The wood subfloors were solid, so just scraped off the old asbestos tiles and these went right
down.

Asfor phoenix without AC, well, I think 'survived' is the right word. Actually, all the camping is done a couple hours north of there, up on the rim (5000ft higher than phx), where it is cooler, or even further north where it is even cooler. Certainly a lot more opportunity here in WA state.

[rogerdodger]

Welcome back to the forums. Nice trailer!