Cut out the rotted section of floor by the door on Saturday with the assistance of a friend & her circular saw & jigsaw. To make a decent-sized patch, we cut about a 1'x4' section. The rot was actually worse further forward to the point where I could push a screwdriver straight through the floor.
I cut off either the head or the shaft of about half a dozen floor bolts with a cut-off wheel on the angle grinder. That was entertaining. Here is an exciting action photo:
You note I am wearing goggles and gloves. I could've used a long-sleeved shirt though. Ow.
Got some wood for the floor - I bought OSB, oriented stranded board, rather than plywood. Seemed pretty good to me. My friend cut it using the old pieces of wood as a guide and it test-fit in the gap perfectly. Screwed and glued the cleats after that.
On Sunday, finished the floor patch. The new section went under the shell no problem, glued & screwed it to the cleats attached to the existing floor, and then put bolts through to connect the floor to the shell, and the floor to the frame underneath. After putting in the five or so that were there originally, I decided, why not overdo it and put in another 20ish. Actually some of those were to connect the shell to a section a little further forward that's a little rotted, not bad enough to repair and not anywhere anyone ever stands, but just some reinforcement.
New floor screwed in:
Bolts on the underside, and the cleat (with the glue dripping off it):
Also some bolts in the old floor to connect it to the frame closer to the joint with the new floor. And a few bolts at the edge of the step to fix it in place. Basically, not like too many bolts is going to hurt.
New bolts into the step frame:
On top then used wood filler to fill the gaps and some of the screwheads and assorted holes, and also where the original floor had flaked up a bit. All of this will be concealed under the new floor. Anyway, with all those bolts the new section of floor is rock-solid, and so is the shell by the door, and the strain is all out of the section of skin above the doorframe where it had cracked. So basically, problem solved.
New floor with filler all around it:
Four things before that section is finished: clean and paint the frame sections I can get to underneath there; apply insulation to the bottom of the floor; replace the belly skin, and sand the floor surface level for the new flooring.
Also took off the curb-side awning:
The brackets for this were also the reason the floor was rotten. I'm happier without it although I guess in theory shade would be nice.
I've been thinking about putting the grey and fresh water tanks under the floor between the axles.
I can now see that the drain from the shower is actually above floor level, which means there would be plenty of slope to run it to a sub-floor tank, and because the dump outlet is right at the back, even if the slope from the tank to the drain outlet isn't that great, I can raise the front of the trailer with the tongue jack to create more of a slope. So I think that could be quite workable.
Another thing we did (and when I say "we" I mean I made another friend do it) was trace out the patterns from a bunch of rotted plywood sections of the original interior, remove any fittings, and then toss it in my car for the dump. This reduced the amount of useless junk getting in the way considerably.
And then finally we (and once again I mean, mostly, the other friend) put new foil-bubble-foil insulation on the insides of the sections of skin that were exposed. We put two layers of insulation, the first one glued to the outside shell with gorilla glue, which should act to prevent condensation on the inside, and then another on top of that just stuck on with mounting tape, so there's a little air gap. Then some foil tape in places to seal some of the edges.
Insulation:
To reduce the amount of conduction transfer I might put mounting tape or foam tape down the ribs where the interior skins connect, so there's no actual metal-to-metal contact. Of course this is about 10% of the entire interior, but I might as well do this section the way I'd want it all done.
Anyway, a good weekend, especially the floor. For a while it's been all demolition and it was nice to get some progress towards one little piece being finished.
Oh yeah, and here is the new rockguard on the front window:
The Airstream nameplate is just sitting on the window sill, not attached to the shell yet.
I think it looks pretty good, although there's no lifting hardware yet. It's about the same weight as the original fiberglass, very easy to lift.
Another progress report. I've been working on the electrical system lately after removing the toilet & bathtub from the back (and the battery).
The simplest job was the new LED taillights from Inland RV, which I really like:
I think they really match the original look,and they're much brighter than the old ones. I had to install the new ones about 1/2" down from the original location, because the original screw holes were too big for the screws that would fit in the new lights. Filled the old holes with rivets, no problem.
Also tested the running lights with new bulbs & diffusers from V.T.S., as you can see there. All good - although I already have a plan to replace those with LEDs too, and in fact one of the LED lights I'm going to test arrived yesterday.
I replaced the porch light entirely with a new one from V.T.S. - mine was not the same as the one they stock and I couldn't find a new lens for it. The new one looks fine, but was a tiny bit smaller than the old one, just enough to need a little work around the edges to make sure the old mounting holes didn't leave gaps.
On the outside, I cut out the original power supply cable (which had an oddball connector on it - maybe a standard non-locking 30A connector, but not the TT special connector - plus all the connections were wrapped in electrical tape and looked very dubious). I got a Marinco stainless-steel inlet from V.T.S. and a yellow power cord to go with it - I put the outlet on the street side, where the original water inlet was. Because the hole for it was a little large, I cut a square patch with rounded corners, then cut the correct-size round hole in that for the new power inlet, then riveted it over the original hole. The side-effect of this was that it also reinforced the connection. The connection was also right above a horizontal rib inside the shell, providing a bit of extra support. I seem to have forgotten to take a photo, but other than the stray Vulkem (yes, I should mask the skin, I KNOW) it looks great. And I like having a power cord that's not attached to the trailer and can be rolled up separately, and obviously one that has moulded plugs and isn't home-made.
I do have a photo of the boring inside of that:
I actually used an 8-gauge wire which is more than you need for 30A, 10-gauge would have been sufficient and easier to work with.
You can also see there the other project, which is going to be moving all the electrical stuff into the streetside-middle of the trailer, where the new and larger battery & inverter will be. Inside the bathroom closet and under the toilet bench was just not a good place for all that, and it'll be easier to run new circuits from the middle. So, that involved digging out the 110V and 12V cables and extending them forward.
For the 110V cables I used junction boxes - could only find shallow single-gang boxes which is why there's three of them, but they'll be inside the closet anyway, so no big deal. All the original cabling turns out to be 12/2 so the 20A circuit breakers are not actually over-rated. There are three circuits; one feeds the A/C, and the other two each feed some of the outlets. I plan on adding at least one or two more 15A circuits and many more outlets - already added one new outlet box at the back, but the place I want to put the others is at the front, over the table, for laptops, chargers, and other light loads.
For 12V, there are four circuits, one for the lights and the other three each feeding a nearly-random assortment of other stuff. I'll probably run new circuits for my new water pump and other high-amp loads, but the existing cable with 12-gauge extensions should be sufficient for the existing smaller loads, especially with LED lights replacing many of the incandescent lights. I extended those forward just with butt splices as they're low-voltage.
In the course of that, I also took out the voltage converter and the circuit breaker panel. They're eventually to be replaced; for now they're still in use, just sitting around:
I really need to label all those wires, especially as the 12V & 110V wires are exactly the same. I plan on running conduit along the top of the wheel well, where it'll be covered by other cabinets in the end, and the electrical panel will be about where the breaker box is now.
While I was on the electrical kick, I decided that I wanted regular on-off switch for the overhead lights, rather than having to reach up and turn the 4-way rotary switch. Even if I replace the entire 1964 fitting, I still want light switches at a normal height. Since I'm not removing any of the upper inside skin, the only way to run wire a decent distance is on the surface, which is ugly. On the other hand, most of the surface conduit will be covered by overhead cabinets, I'm filling the gaps between the conduit and the ceiling/wall with epoxy putty, and when painted to match the walls it shouldn't be too offensive. Here's the ones I did:
And an overview photo:
Of course, they look especially intrusive right now in that bright white. The switch by the door was originally the water pump switch, but I repurposed it. I may just add another switch there and return that one to being for the water pump, we'll see. Basically, I threaded the cable though the skin up to the level of the first horizontal rib at window level, and then drilled a hole and brought it through to the surface and into the wiremold channel. At the light end, I drilled another hole and fished it through to the back of the light fitting.
In the kitchen, I installed two new switches over where the sink & cooker will be. These will control the lights & the extractor fan. (I found that the original fan was still working, but I think the switch had died. Anyway, I prefer a visible switch on the wall.)
I had to put the switch for the lights toward the back in a surface mount box, because between the two over-the-bed windows it turns out there was a rib in the way inside the skin. I may still get in there and cut away enough of the rib that the switch will fit mounted flush, if I get around to it.
I'm quite pleased with this - I like having real light switches and hate fumbling around overhead.
As you can see in some of those photos, many of the original interior rivets are being replaced with Olympic rivets. So far it's mostly ones that had sheared or just come loose, but I will eventually be replacing every single visible interior pop-rivet with Olympic rivets. Why? Well, partly because so many of the original rivets had failed (this trailer NEEDS new axles), partly because there were a lot of screw holes that had enlarged beyond being re-usable, but mostly because I really like the look of the domed head rather than the ugly holes in the center of the regular pop-rivets. In fact, I like them so much that once I've repainted I plan on shaving the paint off the heads of all the ones that are in neat lines (not the strays) so they'll contrast with the paint. So I'm not even shaving the heads of most of these, just clipping them down with diagonal cutters.
On the Big Jobs front, having done one floor patch, I now need to do another right at the very back of the trailer. Here's what's there now:
A huge hole over the black tank (is that normal?), the back section completely rotted away and taking some of the C-channel with it, and rot all around the sides.
Now, replacing the floor itself is not so bad - two sections, for the left & right sides, and then maybe a smaller patch on the curb-side a little further forward, but the black tank is a challenge. I think I'm going to take it out either upwards or downwards after I cut away enough to see which is more practical. I did cut away the belly skin under the black tank and saw that the original metal box it sat in has almost completely rusted away. In fact, the tank is supported on a couple of 2x4s screwed onto the remains of the tank support box. Innnnnteresting. This probably explains why it's so low, too. So I think I'll replace the tank support box somehow, hopefully gaining an inch or so of clearance, and have the floor extend over most of the black tank with cutouts for the toilet flange and the vent pipe, rather than having most of it exposed as it is now. I debated replacing it entirely, but since I think it doesn't leak, and it fits pretty well, and that really is the best spot for the toilet, it decided to leave it be. Oh, and I need to fix the flange for the toilet, having broken it while removing the toilet. HULK SMASH!!, as they say.
I removed the bathroom - tub & sink - which was a fun game of Where Is That Last Rivet?? - my favourite! Brute force got it out in the end, with only minor collateral damage. I cut off the toilet bench section with a jigsaw - goodbye 1964 design, sorry. The bathtub and sink will remain roughly the same, with a new surround under the tub. I think I'm going to take it off to be professionally gel-coated though.
So, once the floor there is replaced, and the black tank back in place, I can reinsulate the wall cavities, replace the inside skins, and finally PAINT. I'm debating sanding before painting; the Zolatone is quite textured, and it sands fast down to a smooth surface, but still there's a lot of area to cover. I guess we'll see how lazy I am. I wirebrushed a little patch of the wall as a test - it actually looked great, a bit like brushed steel as you'd expect - but I fear corrosion, and anyway the end caps are fiberglass. I sanded another piece down to bare metal with the random-orbit sander and it also looked pretty good. We'll see - I may wirebrush or sand the wall behind the kitchen instead of putting in a stainless-steel backsplash as I was planning, but for the most part the interior will be painted.
Two separate tasks I'm still working on; one is glass. New tempered replacements for all the panes came in last week, visible on the floor in that picture. If I can keep from stepping on them, it shouldn't take too long to do. I did two panes already:
OK, you can't see much in that photo. But they're there. I may have to redo the non-opening window on the right as I don't think I got a good seal with the butyl tape.
Actually doing the windows is a pain. First the old glass has to come out. I am really good at breaking it in the process. Then both the frame in the shell and the frame that lifts open have to be cleaned, by hand or with a dremel, and the channels in them for the window stripping and bulb seal cleared of old rubber, adhesives, and silicone using picks, solvents, screwdrivers, and other implements of torture (torture to my hands, anyway). Then seating the glass on the butyl strip is actually quite straightforward, but I have still to get a good section of the window stripping from V.T.S. installed properly. I'm going to take down a hairdryer and try heating it next time, with silicone lubricant applied copiously, but it's still really annoying and I'm starting to think about a plan B, like a generic window stripping that doesn't go into the channel or something.
The bulb seal is also a pain, but I have managed to get some of that to go in correctly at least.
The other major task is working underneath the trailer to remove sections of the belly skin for various frame painting, wiring tracing (and some new wiring), and measuring/preparing spaces for underfloor grey and fresh water tanks. I found the angle grinder with a cutoff wheel goes through aluminium sheet like a hot knife through butter, so getting off the sheets has been easier, but a full-face mask is a necessity to avoid getting dirt in your eyes & mouth. Ugh. It'd be easier if I jacked the trailer, but the storage place wants to move it before January so I can't do that yet - anyway, I only want to jack it when I really have to.
The frame is pretty good, rust in a few more places than I'd seen but basically very sound. I need to paint it, another unappetizing task.
On the wiring front, I got a new moulded 7-way cable from V.T.S. and replaced the extremely corroded original cable with it. I connected the ground, running lights, brakes and tail/turn lights wires, but connected the battery wire only to the hitch jack, at least for now. My thinking is that tow-vehicle charging is a very unreliable source of power, there are various issues from cross-connecting them, and I'd be better off doing something like running an inverter from a heavy-duty alternator on the tow vehicle to a battery charger in the trailer. Not as efficient, but ensures full isolation between the system. Or, I could get a truck with dual alternators and have one dedicated to charging the trailer battery, with heavy-gauge wires. For now, I'm just going to assume that shore power or a generator will charge the house battery.
The other thing I'm doing is running a circuit & switch so I can turn on the running lights and the hitch jack either from the tow vehicle or from the house battery in the trailer.
Anyway, despite the chaotic appearance of the trailer and the complete lack of interior right now, I feel things are coming along. I'll be really happy at the milestones when I'm done fixing the floor, when the interior panels are all attached for good, when the new grey & fresh water tanks are installed, when all the windows are done, and when it's painted on the interior. That's when the fun stuff can really start - plumbing, new on-demand water heater, new furnace, possibly a generator built-in, and of course, replacing & rebuilding the cabinetry in the interior.
Last weekend was mostly focused on windows, as I was tired of having the brand-new tempered glass sitting on the floor just waiting for me to step on it. So, I stripped out all the old glass from the frames - initially I tried to cut it out, but since it always broke anyway I got to doing it the quick way by the end, kicking it in (with eyes closed! wearing safety gloves & glasses!) and then taking out all the fragments. Then my loyal assistants cleaned & polished the frames - you can get a lovely mirror finish on them but good lord does it take a long time to get there. We were using, variously, rags, Nuvite polish, and cotton wheels on the Dremels. If you really worked at it, you could get every single pit out and get a perfect mirror, but we didn't have time to do that all around. Laid in the new tempered glass - I used 1/8th, as the place couldn't do 3/32 like the original - and the hazard that I would break all that expensive glass was gone. Plus, I can now actually heat the interior of the trailer and work in something less than Siberian conditions. It's freezing here in Northern California right now. Here's some of the windows installed, anyway:
Anyway, I'm very happy to have nice tough tempered glass in all the windows, and just to have glass in the rear window, which had been replaced with plexiglass.
I also cleaned some of the frames in the shell (where the bulb seal goes), mostly using a dremel with a wire wheel. Not good for the finish, but these are pretty much hidden anyway and it does a great job of taking off all the corrosion. Soon those will be ready for new bulb seals all around. And then, eventually, I'll need to see about getting the window stripping around the glass.
Other than that it's been electrical work, patches, cleaning off excess sealant on the exterior, and shaving hundreds of rivets. If you've used Olympic rivets, you've probably encountered the ones that don't fold correctly on the back (probably obstructed) and snap off without leaving the mandrel in the center hole. So they have a dome with a big hole in the middle. Sometimes they've actually seated pretty well before they do that, sometimes not. Now, you can usually get those to seat correctly by drilling them out and replacing them using very very gentle pressure on the riveter handles, but for ones that have actually made a good connection, just snapped off in the wrong place, you can sometimes take a loose mandrel (usually plenty on the floor!), insert it in the hole, and then cut it off close to the face with diagonal cutters. That'll usually deform the mandrel enough that it'll stay in. Then you can shave it normally using the rivet tool and it'll stay in. If that doesn't work - sometimes the mandrel just spins and never sticks to the rest of the rivet - I've sometimes had better luck using a Dremel with a grinding bit. Anyway, thought I'd pass that along.
Here are five of the new outlets installed above where the table will be, and further forward by the front window:
This weekend I should be able to finally replace the floor right at the back of the trailer. Last weekend I took off the black tank (which is in excellent condition, but I may not re-use it as it's rather small & may not work with my new plumbing layout) and the decayed remains of the box it used to sit in, and the belly skin underneath it and under the bumper storage compartment (all filthy, corroded & ragged). Here's a view of that:
So, once the remains of the tank frame are cut out, I can cut out the rotted floor & replace it. I'm going to use three pieces - one for the street-side at the back, one for the curb-side, and one for further back on the curb-side where the awning bracket had caused rot along the wall. Then the whole floor should be solid, which will be a great milestone.
The next step after that is plumbing, which is going to be fairly tricky. I think I'm going to go for two large tanks between the frame rails, foreward and aft of the axles, for grey & fresh water. Both will probably extend a few inches below the belly pan, so I think they could be in the 30-50 gallon range. Weight should be fairly good - freshwater being the one with most weight in it while towing, and just forward of the axles being a good spot. Then for the black tank, I'll either re-use the current one in the current location, with new supports, or else have a new one made that fits inside the frame rails but perhaps extends further back - I was actually thinking right into the bumper compartment could work, but we'll see. If I did it that way, I'd probably run the drain lines forward to an outlet just behind the wheels on the street-side, which I think is how the new Airstreams are laid out. It'd be a short run from both the grey & black water tanks to there and ground clearance shouldn't be a problem that close to the wheels.
Once I have the tanks planned & ordered, I have to get PEX line & fittings, get an RV500 on-demand water heater, a new water pump, and start hooking things up. Pretty much all the original plumbing was shot - connected with hosepipe & hoseclamps, leaking, or just a spaghetti mess. Also, most of it was copper which is nice but extremely heavy.
Once the tanks are in, and I'm done underneath the belly skin, I have to replace it. The main thing I want to do under there is remove the galvanized steel ducting for the furnace, since I'm not going to have a furnace anyway, and it looks heavy, then patch the holes in the floor that the ducts ran through. I also need to finish repairing the wiring that goes through the belly pan, and run some new wiring for projects of my own...
Up above, I then need to prepare & paint the interior skin. Preparation may involve sanding it all to remove the Zolatone texture first. While I'm at it, the bathtub & bathroom sink need new paint; once that's done, I can reinstall them in their original position, and get a toilet and install that too.
Once the interior is painted, I can put in a new floor covering - marmoleum possibly, or engineered bamboo or wood or even real bamboo. We'll see.
Other than that, and in no particular order, my checklist looks like:
Finish replacing bulbs in exterior teardrop lights with LEDs.
Replace the refrigerator vent & the new cover.
POR-15 the frame.
Replace the cooker vent cover.
Replace the door seals.
Replace all the window screens.
Replace the air conditioner (this one may not happen anytime soon, as the old one works even if it looks terrible and I got plenty of things to spend money on already...)
Rebuild cabinets where necessary (a lot of the plywood is shot, but the frames are good) and replace inside.
Build a new kitchen cabinet for the cooker from scratch, or modify one from Ikea perhaps.
Possibly build an enclosure for a generator, depending on how I feel about the strength of the frame & my likely budget at that point.
Build/rebuild the enclosure for the fridge and reinstall it. Oh, perhaps I should test that it actually works on gas first... it definitely works on 110V at least.
Get new cushions & fabric for the front gaucho.
Replace the interior light fixtures.
Get curtains or blinds for the windows.
Get a new battery, circuit breaker panel, and an inverter/charger.
Figure out what I'm going to do with the space where the back bed was - desk? Washer/dryer? Storage? We'll see...
damn, couldn't give you Karma, so here's a public Kudo for your work and your willingness to spend time documenting it for others.
Zep
I got it covered.
__________________
Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq and millions of others are by far the most popular with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form. -NY Times 11/91
Hey, thanks! Nice to know someone is reading my deathless prose...
Here's a few photos of patches:
The 2nd picture is of a patch covering a hole left by the original rectangular light fixture (that one was already missing). I put a 1" grommet in there, but I think I'm actually going to cut out the center and put a plastic electrical box recessed into the roof there instead, so the wirenuts & wires aren't sticking straight out of the surface. The light fixture will cover the box. I also added a switch to this fixture, running the cable around the Astradome vent by removing the vent surround, and then down the wall in one of the wiremold channels I'd already installed.
The patch on the front covers a couple of holes where the original TV antenna was mounted. Once polished, I don't think it'll show up much.
The circular patches were made using only a compass & ruler to mark the six rivet holes. Here's a diagram from Wikipedia illustrating how to mark the holes:
They're marking a hexagon there, but I would measure in about 1/2" from the edge of the hexagon to mark the hole for the rivet. On some other smaller circular patches, I used only 3 rivets which you can obviously do just by skipping every other hole going around.
Having both left- and right-cutting aviation snips helps a lot for cutting these curves in either direction, and for cutting holes in the skin for electrical boxes. One set is not enough - pick up one of those 3-packs that cut straight, left, or right.
I installed a switch for the light above the bathroom, too (the light bulb is just for testing):
Fishing the cable through the fiberglass endcaps was easy, and I replaced a 12V outlet on the wall with the switch. I still need to make a patch and then replace that light fixture; ran out of Olympic rivets again though...
Retrofitting a switch is simple: run a cable of appropriate gauge from the fixture to a one-way light switch, connect the black & white cables to the switch (either way around), then wrap the terminals in electrical tape. At the other end, disconnect the positive cable coming from the fixture that's connected to the +12V supply, connect the white cable from the switch to the +12V supply, and connect the black cable from the switch to the positive cable for the fixture. Being 12V, you want to keep these runs as short as possible but a few extra feet isn't going to hurt. The wire gauge ampacity though should be sufficient for the fuse or circuit breaker. For example, if the 12V DC fuse or circuit breaker is 15A, 14/2 probably suffices; if it's 20A, 12/2. My trailer was all wired with 12/2 for both 12V & 110V, but I use only 15A fuses for the lighting circuits (and even that will probably be excessive once I convert to CF lighting - four 23W CF fixtures would be only be about 7A), so in some places I've used 14/2 cable for the switch wires rather than 12/2. In general using the same as the supply cable will be best though.
I'd like to see another trailer, pinkflamingoes - I've literally never been in another Airstream than mine.
Holiday weekend - a perfect time to work some nice long days in a cold warehouse, right? So, I went to work on the last two feet of floor, where the bathroom was - here's the "before" photo:
You can see bad rot on both sides, and the floor right at the back completely missing, along with part of the C-channel there. Because of the lack of frame/shell connection, the bolts had pulled through the C channel as well.
I had already cut out the belly skin under this area between the frame rails, but I didn't want to cut out the rear corners of the belly skin if possible.
So, I cut off the bolts I could get to, removed as many of the channel screws as I could reach, then cut out the floor in three pieces; one piece inside the frame rails, and then the corners separately. Had some trouble with the corners with a bolt I couldn't get to. Some judicious use of the wonderbar dealt with that problem...
Using the old piece as a template, I cut two pieces of OSB to fit. Two pieces partly because to get it under the corners it seemed like doing it in two parts would be easier, but mostly because the pieces of OSB I had left over were 4'x2' (hey, when we bought the 4x8 we were in a friend's Mini, so it had to get cut down to move it). In order to keep the hole for the toilet from being on the joint, one piece was 4' wide and the other was about 3' wide, so the joint was off-center:
This needed two cleats underneath, one to connect crosswise to the old floor, and one lengthwise to join the two new pieces. Used the levelling jacks to hold the cleats in place, then screwed & glued them in place, then took out the screws once the glue had set. You can see I carefully chose the screws:
Hey, they were what I had on hand. The new piece was also bolted to the frame rails in 3 places on each side.
Because the C channel at the back had broken out in one place, and generally was in poor shape, I added a piece of angle aluminium inside the channel. Glued it to the existing channel and floor (I would hate to be the guy who has to remove this) and bolted that to the last crossmember of the frame. Seems very solid now.
This is after some filling. You can see that on the sides, outside the frame rail, I actually used a cleat on top of the floor because I had no access underneath. On one side this is under the bathtub, and on the other it's inside a cabinet, so it's not a big deal. The floor was screwed to the shell C channel around the curved corners, again because there was no access underneath.
Anyway, now it's rock solid. The shell & frame move as one at the back when you step on the bumper, and the floor is strong.
I re-insulated the wall on the curb side with two layers of foil-bubble-foil, and replaced the inside skin panel, and temporarily put the bathtub back where it came from. Looks good!
On the outside, I test-polished a couple of areas using Nuvite C and a wool polishing wheel on my drill (I intend to buy a real polisher when I get to it). Mostly I was concerned that my, hmm, vigorous efforts to remove various kinds of junk glued or riveted to the skin had caused more damage than could be polished out. But while it's not as nice as the untouched skin, even the most-damaged part of the skin (where the serial number plate & some other plaques had been) polished up pretty well:
There are some scars, and I may work on getting them out, but overall it looks pretty great. The untouched skin went to a mirror finish with hardly any work at all. If there are some scars in places, well, that's also the price of 40 years of use... In a lot of these photos you can see scuffs where I've had to remove various kinds of sealants and stickers. They polished off without much trace, alarming though they may look.
A photo of the Marinco power inlet:
Needs to be cleaned up but I think it's quite nice. I also bought hardware for the water system:
This came from West Marine - a water inlet, a hose connector for city water, and a vent for the freshwater tank, all chromed steel or brass. Until I'm further along with the plumbing I won't start cutting holes in the outside for these, though.
Another West Marine purchase was a stainless steel louver vent that I put over the hole for the cooker vent. Originally there was a removable plug; I think this vent will allow enough airflow but we'll have to see. Over the top of that will go the original ABS clamshell cover, once I've resprayed it:
I replaced the curb-side outside electrical outlet & cover with a Marinco cover and a new dual 20A outlet (it's a 12/2 20A circuit). To assist with keeping water out, after wiring & testing the outlet I filled the entire box with silicone sealant.
A friend cleaned the jalousie window frame, cleaned the glass, and then put the glass back in the frame and put on new weatherstripping:
The new fuzzy seal on the sides makes the window really hard to open or close, but hopefully it'll squash down (or I'll trim it down with a razor). But the clear vinyl weatherstrip and the silicone across the bottom make for a really good seal.
New nameplates went on front & back:
I replaced the trailer connector cable with a moulded cable, and the breakaway switch, and re-did a lot of the wiring for those and the hitch jack. That merits some additional comment. The original wiring connected the tow vehicle +12V line to the trailer battery. There are various complications from doing this and I decided not to do this, especially not using only the #10 wire in the connector. So, the two 12V systems are isolated. This poses a problem for using the hitch jack, as it has to either be powered by the tow vehicle or the trailer battery. So I wired for a switch (don't have the waterproof switch I'll need yet) to connect the jack to either the tow vehicle +12V or the trailer battery. And because I wanted to be able to turn on the running lights while the trailer is disconnected, I did the same for the lights circuit. The turn signal circuits remain simple straight-through connections. I also wired in the new breakaway switch while I was at it. I may use a small dedicated 12V battery (with a test switch & light) on the tongue for the breakaway switch, so I don't have to worry about whether the 12V breakers from the main battery are set (and for right now, so I can safely tow without any main battery at all).
For the wiring connections, I used butt splices with heatshrink tubing over them, so they should be pretty weather-resistant. I hate the intermittent electrical problems that come from corroded connections.
I did a few patches on the outside, got ready to replace the cooker vent chimney & cover by cleaning off the skin, and patched the remaining inside light fixtures. This time, I remembered to only run two wires through the patches:
You can see my very stylish light fixture there consisting of duct tape and a bare bulb. The real fixtures ought to be much nicer.
Here's a photo of where the kitchen countertop will be:
Here's the original kitchen countertop:
You can see that originally there was only one switch (for the water pump) & one outlet plate. Now there are four switches, for 2 overhead lights, one kitchen counter light in the cabinet, and for the cooker fan, and an extra outlet box. Outlets are useful!
And that's that for the weekend. Next step could be painting, but there's still more electrical work I'd like to do inside first and it's also FREEZING here in Northern California, so perhaps not the best time to paint. I think what's next is some serious plumbing work, which begins by carving open the rest of the belly skin between the frames in front of and behind the axles, and then getting some water tanks made to fit there for fresh and grey water. I think I'm probably going to get a new blackwater tank too, because I'm thinking I'll put the sewer outlet on the street side behind the wheels, rather than right at the back. I can also get a much larger black tank, possibly even extending back into the space inside the back bumper. But I have to do some measuring for that, and a lot more time crawling around on my back under the trailer first.
Things are coming together though. A solid floor throughout is a big deal, as is having the windows back in (although the stripping is not done on them). It's quite cozy in there with the heater on now.
Jacob D I look forward to every update to this thread. It amazes me how you can have so many more hours available to you during a weekend than I do. Guess you are better at organizing and planning than I am. Glad you found a warehouse to work on your trailer.
The open mesh wire hole under the trailer was under the Dometic refrigerator. It allows proper updraft of the warm air from the cooling coils to leave the back of the fridge. Also, since your trailer is a 1964, if it originally had a BayBreeze A/C unit on the roof, the mystery water lines are the original condensation drains for the runoff from the air conditioner unit. My lines are still in plance in my 65. Best of luck in your restoration/renovation/rejuvination !!!
Yeah, I think those lines were there from the original A/C, which was long-ago removed & replaced with the Coleman unit that's on top. All gone now anyway along with just about every other piece of plumbing in there.
And yeah, the grill in the belly skin under the refrigerator was the air intake. I'm thinking about how to replace it, maybe a louvre grill something like this, with a mesh screen to keep out mice & so on. There was also no kind of chimney there - just an opening into the belly pan - so I may make one myself from aluminium, with edges that overlap the floor and the belly pan to keep water from splashing directly into the belly pan.
Restoration/renovation is about right - I'm trying to stay original wherever I can, and the interior I'm hoping will actually look pretty original. I've debated painted, laminated, or metal-faced cabinetry but i think I'm probably going to go with red oak just like was used originally. Most of the cabinet frames are usable, made from solid hardwood; there's some dry rot, but it's repairable I think. Most of the plywood is not, because the veneer has delaminated off, or at the floor edges the wood is just rotted. But I think I can find similar 1/8" and 1/4" red oak plywood and I've traced all the original panels, so it's more a case of rebuilding the original cabinets than a whole new design.
I should draw up a floorplan, but it'll mostly be similar to the original:
(Mine is a 26 foot Overlander double, 2nd from the left.)
The previous owner had replaced the back gaucho with a fixed bed, which I tore out & I haven't decided what to do with that area yet.
From the back, the bathtub & sink will be the same (but repainted); the toilet will be a standalone rather than under a bench; the bathroom cabinet will be the same as original. The wardrobe will be the same and there will be a curtain from the wardrobe to the bathroom cabinet as there was originally, to separate off the bathroom.
On the curb-side, instead of having the dresser & the kitchen separated by a divider (to the right of the cooker, containing a spice cabinet), the dresser & the kitchen cabinets will have one continuous piece of countertop going from the door to the wardrobe. That should give more kitchen workspace and open up the inside a bit - the original purpose of the divider was to separate out the back bedroom, but I want to do the exact opposite. The dresser face frame will be the same though. I was thinking a solid oak countertop would go well.
I haven't decided how to handle the kitchen cabinets yet. The original construction made the extended worktop section (just inside the door) a separate cabinet to the 24" wide section behind it holding the sink & cooker, and I still have that separate cabinet, in moderately good shape but with a lot of extra holes cut in it. Then there was a face frame & partial interior frame that went where the cooker & sink are, but that whole area was wrecked. I may just start from scratch for the kitchen cabinets.
I was thinking that inside the kitchen cabinet there might be a good place to install a generator compartment/box for an Onan Microquiet 3600LP. Heavy, but it's just forward of the axles and balanced to some extent by the refrigerator and battery on the other side; there's already a patch on the exterior there from the original furnace, so building an access door would be straightforward. The exhaust would presumably run across under the belly pan and out on the street-side. If I did this, I'd probably reinforce the frame underneath the floor where the generator would sit.
My plan in the kitchen is to install only a cooktop, and no gas oven. Originally, there was a large 4-burner cooker with oven installed there, but I don't cook much. Underneath, I may put in one of those tiny dishwashers - I hate cooking, I hate doing dishes, you know how it is. Again, we'll see. I'll re-use the original sink though. On the end of the kitchen cabinet, I may install one of those nice marine propane stoves that I've seen some other people here use - again, we'll have to see how the space goes, but I like the idea of a cosy heater with a flame and a chimney there.
The overhead cabinets will all be re-used in their original locations - most of them effectively need to be rebuilt from scratch because of delamination, but I'll use them as a pattern and re-use the hardware.
On the street-side, the full-height pantry cabinet and the storage cabinet next to the fridge will be re-used. But instead of a countertop, I think I'll build a cabinet face that goes up & meets the overhead cabinet above, and use the space to install a combination microwave/convection oven and some more storage. Somewhere in that piece of cabinetry I'll be installing the new circuit breaker panel, inverter, and a battery close to the floor & axles (probably an extremely large AGM).
At the front, I'll be re-using the original swing-up table which is in great shape, and the original gaucho bed with new cushions & fabric. The frame for the gaucho needs some repairs but is usable.
Basically, not that far from the original layout & design, and hopefully using most of the same frames & style of wood veneer on the plywood panels. The light fixtures will be different but look appropriate, I hope; the interior will be repainted as I can't stand the dirty, worn, flecked-beige Zolatone; the floor will probably be marmoleum, which is not far from the original vinyl tiles although I'm thinking about underfloor insulation and maybe even heating. There'll be a lot more light switches and outlets, but that's Progress for you. But overall it should look a lot like the original interior and be re-using most of the original cabinets. Externally, other than removing the fold-out TV antenna and replacing the light bulbs with LEDs, and a modern air-conditioner, the look will be completely original.
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