The window stripping is now in all the windows except the non-opening window behind the door (which has a slightly different type of frame):
One of my friends did most of this work, I think made easier by using a 250W halogen work light to warm up the silicone stripping. Anyway, it looks rather nice and I just have to put a little Vulkem on the corners to finish up.
Most of the bulb seal is done too, just a few windows remaining, and four of the windows are completely back together, with newly-greased cranks. Nice to have windows that open again!
Here's a slighter better photo of the inside of the RV500 water heater installation:
You can see the slightly-angled baseplate held to the floor with carriage bolts, the shelf supports used to hold the vertical frame in place, and the aluminium sheet edging around it.
I need to get the plumbing done too, but I've been working towards getting the interior ready to paint. I decided that the surface-mounted conduit for the light switches was too ugly, and that some small patches over holes needed to fish the cables would look nicer. So I did that with a little hole-saw and a lot of swearing:
Now I need to clean up that filler and patch those new holes, preferably without drilling right through the cables I just fished... I need to find my drill-stops or get some new ones so I can avoid that. Still, once painted the same as everything else, I think the circular patches will look just fine.
I replaced the last interior panel at the back, street-side, adding a large patch where the old water heater was. Insulation again was two layers of FBF. Still needs patching on the outside, but for the first time in a while there are no gaping holes in the trailer on the interior.
So, just need to make those few patches, remove all the switch plates again, sand as much as I can stand to, clean, mask off the windows, and get to work painting. Well, I need to choose the colours too. Probably a pale green for at least the higher parts of the walls and the ceiling, possibly with the lower wall panels in a different colour.
I patched the cracks in the skin by the door - I can't find a "before" photo in the thread - with a slightly-more-than-semi-circular patch about 10" in diameter. That's a link to a not-that-great photo of it, I didn't take a good one. It went pretty well except that I drilled a couple of holes in the patch that turned out to be too close to the edge of the door frame, so I couldn't get rivets through them. So I might have to make another patch and try again, with the holes slightly further from the edge.
On my need-to-buy-soon list:
Alclad sheet for large exterior patch.
6061 sheet for belly skin.
Water tanks: black, grey, fresh.
Water pump/strainer.
PEX line & fittings.
Toilet.
Inverter/charger.
AGM battery (may cheap out for now and just use a slightly worn-out car battery).
For a free drill stop, you can strip off enough #12 solid wire that you probably have laying around and wrap it tightly around your drill bit like a big coil or spring. Wind enough around leaving only the tip of the bit free to the depth you want.
hey jacob. just read through your thread so far. great job! i'm documenting 2 of mine as well. i like the little circle patch you did. i just finished a third one like that on my 62 trotter today, in fact. also, i really like the front rock guard. very nice! can you see through it when hooked up? i've been thinking about getting rid of the fiberglass on my trade wind with something.... that aluminum looks like the trick!
You can see through pretty well - I should take some photos. It's maybe 50-75% blocked, but you can definitely see. Now, as to how well it'll work as a rock guard, that I can't say yet.
Dropped by the trailer this evening for a bit of patching and found I'd been hemmed in by a new wall in the warehouse:
Not unexpected actually, they'd built the frame for this wall last weekend, which was part of the impetus to get the window seals done on that side of the trailer. The only real annoyance is that I'll have to wait to do a large patch on that side until I've moved it, but otherwise it doesn't much matter.
On the inside I finished patching the holes I cut to fish the light-switch wires:
The rivets still need shaving though.
I took a few more odd photos - here's the patch on the edge of the doorframe:
which I think I have to do again because of the holes I drilled too close to the edge on the patch, something I'm not at all looking forward to, but oh well.
Here's how I've been trimming where the wheel-well boxes meet the wall:
And mostly just for the record, here's a few photos of the cluttered interior:
In the first & last of those you can see through the perforated sheet on the front window, especially in the first which was taken without a flash. There's also my kettle there, as it's impossible to do any work without a continuous supply of tea if you're British. We actually have a law. Well, we ought to. (I'm now remembering a mention - in a Stephen Ambrose book about WWII - of British tank crews who, after getting to a position on the front lines, would immediately make a pot of tea; and in fact the modern British Challenger 2 tank has a water-heater for just this purpose too.)
As ever, after a hard week of manipulating abstract symbols in a computer at work, it's nice to get down, cut some metal, drill some holes, and set some rivets. You know where you are with rivets. I also finally got around to downloading some of the VAP episodes & was listening to one or two of them after I got tired of listening to our local NPR station, kind of nice to hear some cheerful voices while I'm working, although I'm still working through some history podcasts on my ipod as well.
Hopefully this weekend I'll either get the spaces in the frame prepared for the tanks (cutting out cross-members with the angle grinder), or get some serious work done on sanding the interior for painting, neither of which are tasks I relish doing, but they both have to get done next, pretty much.
I stopped by my local West Marine store and they didn't seem to have any PEX fittings or pipe in stock, so it looks like I'll be mail-ordering it after all...
Hi Jacob,
Your patch jobs don't look like patch jobs! Round patches are actually nice to look at. You could put a small light fixture in the middle of the patches, even the outside one over the door, sort of a little porch light, and it would look like it was meant to be that way.
I like following your thread, you're ahead of me and your descriptions help me figure out what I'm doing. Keep it up.
__________________
ingrid
1967 24' Tradewind #19104 ~ Forums #4449
Didn't spend all that much time working last weekend - mostly, I put in the wiring for another light fitting in the ceiling right in the center of the trailer, as that spot was kind of dark (originally where the door between the bedroom & kitchen was, but I won't have a door there):
This was in the scope of getting all the interior patches I might ever need to do done, and of course now I'm thinking maybe I need another electrical outlet there, which means more fishing & cutting.
The original lights were: one transverse at the front above the bed; then the Astradome; then one lengthwise light over the end of the kitchen & the living space by the door; then one 14" fan vent; then a gap with no light (where I just put the new wiring); then the inside of the A/C; then a lengthwise light in the bedroom; then the back 14" fan vent; then a transverse light fitting in the bathroom. I plan on putting probably a 13W compact-fluourescent bulb in new fixtures in each of those five locations, so a total of 75W. Under the cabinets I plan on putting halogen downlighters but then probably replacing all those bulbs with LED bulbs which are dim but probably good enough for task lighting, so overall I should have a pretty good low-power lighting setup. Originally it was all small incandescent bulbs, and in fact I managed to blow a 20A fuse just turning too many of them on at once. Right now what I have is full-size 12V incandescent bulbs in bare fittings, as the compact fluourescents buzz - I suspect because of my converter putting out AC on the DC lines.
A friend of mine who likes to do it did shave almost all the Olympic rivet heads on the inside, which was a precursor step to sanding, so that's good. I did some sanding on one section of the wall:
I'm using a random-orbit palm sander which works well on the flat surfaces, not so well on the curves. I'm wondering if a belt sander would work better for those curves - I don't need to make a fine finish, I just want to take off the heavy Zolatone texture so I can paint over it. Of course, I am wearing a respirator for all of this.
It's unclear to me how close into the rivet heads I need to get - I suspect in places where I can see it, I need to remove all the paint to get a good smooth finish around them. The Dremel with a wire cup or wheel is best for that, and I found a guy on ebay selling them for $16 for 25, instead of the retail individually-packaged price of $4 each. They wear out pretty fast even just doing the edges of rivets, but they do a great job of getting right into the cracks.
Around the window is even trickier - lots of fiddly little surfaces, all covered in Zolatone texture. I'm doing my best with sandpaper, wirebrushes, emery cloth, but in some corners, well, I'll just have to live with a little texture.
Underneath I had another go at cutting one of the crossmembers. I'm thinking I may delegate this to a professional at the same time that I have the frames for the tanks fabricated - there's so much metal cutting to do, and I just don't have the full protective gear for it or a large angle-grinder that would get it done faster. I'm thinking I may just cut off the bottom half of the crossmember, leaving the top 1" or so in place, so it'd still provide a little floor support. So what I should probably do is order the tanks now.
Finished trimming the wheel-well boxes... what I want to do next is get a new electrical panel (I think a Blue Sea model) and throw out the big old breaker box, get the rest of the cabling into conduit, and temporarily mount the electrical panel where it will eventually be built into a cabinet, so I don't have loose wiring lying around any more. I'd really like to get rid of the terrible converter I have and get a new battery, but that's a little tricky - I want, eventually, to get a Xantrex Prosine 2.0 inverter/charger and an 8D AGM battery, combined cost nearly $2,000. Obviously I have no need for that until I'm ready to go on the road, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on a smaller deep-cycle battery & converter before that. I may compromise and get the big battery now, but get a smaller converter (maybe a used one I can resell on ebay) for the duration.
I really need to get on with ordering the plumbing stuff - pump, pipes, tanks - and also getting new regulators & piping for the propane supply. The propane stuff makes me nervous, but I think it's within my capabilities. Right now I only have two propane appliances - the fridge (which I haven't tested) and the water heater, but I guess I'll run lines for the cooker, stove, and gas lamp and just cap them for now.
Nice job so far on the restoration. Keep up the good work, I've been following your progress as I wait to retrieve mine from winter storage.
As far as removing the zolatone as a precursor to painting - try the "purple stuff" (can't remember the name, but if you search, can probably find it here) It's available in the automotive department at Wal-Mart. We used it to clean the inside of our AS, and found it took off the dirt very well, and the zolatone too if we scrubbed to hard (we like the zolatone and opted to keep it). If your choice is to remove enough to paint over, I think this will be an easier option for you.
__________________ AIR 12256 Currently Looking 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 2001 Honda XR650R Currently Looking...for an Avion Truck Camper (or a Classic Argosy MoHo)
I just ran and checked my bottle, it's called "Purple Power". It's fairly strong, make sure you've got good ventilation.
__________________ AIR 12256 Currently Looking 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 2001 Honda XR650R Currently Looking...for an Avion Truck Camper (or a Classic Argosy MoHo)
Thanks, I'll check it out. I went down there yesterday and did some more - the sanding is messy but pretty quick, I just need more sanding discs. Amazon has them for $16 for 50, which seems pretty cheap.
I sketched up a diagram of the frame back of the wheels here - apologies for the lack of labels.
Dimensions are not in fact exact,although the inside dimensions of the tank areas should be pretty good. The front is to the left in this drawing, and it starts roughly at the back wheel of the trailer. The right hand side is roughly at the back bumper.
The block at the left just reflects that the trailer is on blocks right now, so I had to adjust measurements made from the ground. The oval on the right is the chain link welded to the bottom of the frame near the back.
The diagonal dotted line goes from (quite approximately) where the back wheel hits the ground to where the chain link welded to the lower frame rail at the back would hit if you tilted the trailer back.
The vertical dotted line goes from that imaginary line to the bottom of the frame rail, so it's (approximately) the maximum depth of anything you want to add to the frame at that point (minus suspension movement, etc etc - you probably wouldn't want to have anything actually 9" below the frame there, but it does mean that I think 4-5-6" would be okay).
If you look at this rough drawing (first reverse it in your head), the grey water tank goes in the space under the "47.5" dimension, and the black water tank goes under the "37" dimension.
This photo shows the black water tank area. This one shows the grey water tank area (and the wheels and so on).
The dimensions for the grey water tank assume removing one crossmember and other braces, and the 3.5" depth from top to bottom of the frame does not include anything stuck to the bottom of the floor (like cleats where I repaired it). The usable space inside the frame is probably more like 2.75".
The width inside the frame is about 54". So, the area of the grey (and fresh) tank is about 2,500 sq in. Conveniently, 2,500 cu in is about 10 gallons, which means that for each vertical inch in depth you make the tanks, you get about 10 gallons capacity. 2.75" inside the frame + 3.25" outside should be fairly safe and give 60 gallons, which is pretty good.
If I did it without removing a crossmember the space is 23" long, which obviously means half the space per vertical inch. I'm not sure that'd be big enough - on the other hand I'm not sure a 47.5" length of 5/8" floor is going to be solid enough, although I could just glue another sheet of 5/8" flooring to the bottom of it. I was thinking of leaving the top part of the existing crossmembers in place, but maybe the thing to do would be to replace them with 1" or 1.5" square steel tubing or something, welded to the frames, to provide the floor support there. I have to think about this a bit more...
Spent the weekend sanding the interior - these are photos from Saturday night, so only show about half the work, as I forgot to bring my camera on Sunday - I'd say I'm now about 1/3 done with the entire interior though:
Some notes:
The correct time to remove everything from the interior is before you start sanding. Even if you're extremely lazy. You'll just have to pick everything up anyway and now it'll be covered in dust. (I never learn.)
A belt sander does indeed work faster than a random-orbit palm sander, although it chews up the underlying metal a little - nobody will ever be polishing the interior of this trailer without replacing all the panels. However, if you follow it with a few passes with the palm sander, it's overall quite a lot faster than sanding the whole thing with the random-orbit sander and more importantly, requires a lot less pressure to strip the paint which is useful when working on the ceiling panels.
I used both 50- and 80-grit belts - both worked about the same in terms of removing paint, I'll probably just use the 80-grit from now on. Neither one tore up the aluminium underneath enough to make it difficult to smooth out with the palm sander.
Don't use a belt sander on the fiberglass endcaps as it'll tear right through them. Use the random-orbit sander.
I used 60-grit discs on the random-orbit sander, which seemed to produce a pretty good smooth finish.
Sandpaper is cheap. I threw out the belts & discs as soon as I found them slowing down the work significantly.
3M Safest Stripper works reasonably well to take off at least the texture of the paint, and quite well around rivets if you wirebrush them after letting it work for an hour or two. But overall, sanding is still much faster if your goal is "flat" and not "shiny metal". I plan on using the stripper to clean around the rivets & seams.
A Dremel with a cheap wire wheel works pretty well on rivets & seams, but is quite slow. Wirebrush & stripper is definitely faster.
I'm really looking forward to getting to repaint the inside. I know that some people like the Zolatone, and that's great, but I really didn't like either the texture or the particular colour, not to mention the stains, wear marks & discolouration. I also like the polished interiors, but I don't have the patience to strip it or replace all the panels with new ones. So what I'm looking forward to is a nice, even, new colour in a smooth finish.
Actually a few new colours - I'm planning to paint the endcap above the bathtub probably the same colour as I repaint the bathtub (maybe just white, with something like the Whitecote waterproof gloss finish). The ceiling & walls in the rest will be the same colour - probably a very light shade since the interior is so claustrophobic as it is. And at the front I plan on painting the lower wall panels around the couch/gaucho in a darker shade since that's the one place where you can actually see most of the wall down the floor.
Still have to pick out the colours though. I know I need to coordinate with red oak cabinetry, although I'm probably going to strip some of the dark shellac(?) coating from it and have a more natural red colour. I still haven't decided about the floor either - not even what material. It's basically: real bamboo hardwood, engineered-wood (probably bamboo veneer), or Marmoleum Click, although on that last I wasn't too taken with any of the colours when I looked at them in person. Decisions, decisions.
I ordered a Sawzall to see if that'll make the cutting of frame crossmembers easier - I have a friend who knows more about working with steel who I'm consulting on this part, and it looks like he may be able to do some welding for me too. Then, finally, I hope I can get started on the plumbing, and the LPG plumbing too.
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