Little Girl Refurb 1972

[cole3444]

Thanks for posting about your black water pan not having drain holes. I don't think mine has any either and since my tank filled up over the redo time with water I am going to drop my belly pan and put a few drain holes just in case. Good luck and I know it will look great when you finish.

[Minno]

Made good progress yesterday and today.


This is where we stopped yesterday. The old section of floor is cut out and removed. We removed to the very rear, under the hatch and inside the rear c-channel. Discovered that the outside edge of the plywood was not rotted, so our water problems all seem to have stemmed from the toilet gasket and flange leaking for a few years.

We were kind of in a quandary as to how to support the new seam in the floor. If it wasn't directly over the black tank, we would have used a plywood gusset glued and screwed to the bottom of the floor, spanning the seam. But, since the black tank is in the way, I came up with the idea of using two pieces of 1/8" thick by 3/4" angle iron welded together back to back.


Here's the two pieces of angle iron welded together, ready to be slipped under the plywood still in place. They sit on top of the frame.


Kind of hard to see, but I rabbeted out a 1/8" by 3/4" groove on the underside of the plywood. That was fun... Used a rabbeting bit on a trim router to do most of it, and then my oscillating saw to finish it up. This picture is before Kay saturated the edge, top and underside with wood hardener.

Making the rabbit on the new piece of plywood was really easy since it was on sawhorses and there wasn't frame in the way.


Here's the angle iron slipped into place. The new section of plywood will sit on the exposed angle iron. I'll use floor screws to anchor it in place once we install the new section of plywood.


We used the old piece of plywood as a template to cut the new 3/4" marine plywood. Here's it's slipped in place. It is coated with penetrating epoxy, which has not completely set up yet, so we just stuck the plywood in place for the night to keep critters out. Put duct tape on the bottom to cover the holes for the toilet, sink drain, and vent. Tomorrow or the next day, we'll screw the floor to the fame and re-install the rear bolts.

Chris

[Bubba L]

Chris, sounds like a great way to make a floor splice. We all have to think outside the box and get inventive in repairing some of these places. Good thinking and good luck going forward.

[dbj216]

Well, the new floor is more better. It is a major repair job, but you folks built this trailer and certainly can do any repairs that it may need without additional help. That is the advantage of doing it yourself.

My 75 Overlander had a big, bad leak at the toilet flange. My black tank pan was basically the black tank. Hey, it was a good way to maintain "social distancing". My 66 Trade Wind also had a bad toilet leak that rotted out the bath plywood and black tank pan.

I used flat sheet metal about 1/8" thick for my splice above the new black tank in the Overlander. I used screws about every 6" on both sides of the splice. The angle iron is much stronger, but I had selected a splice joint without careful consideration of where the black tank was located. So I had to stay flat.

David

[TouringDan]

Nice job on the floor repair. I like your angle iron idea. There is another advantage to our Tradewind having a porta potty instead of a regular toilet. No toilet seal to leak.[emoji3]

Dan

[Minno]

Yeah, you're right on the toilet seal. The new one we'll install is much beefier than the one that cracked. It was pretty gross dropping the black tank (and I'm a nurse who's experienced every fluid the human body produces).
We've not screwed the new floor in yet - waiting for the epoxy to dry. But we realized last evening in looking and stepping on the new floor that it has more give to it than we'd like. Ideally we should have taken out the whole rear piece of subfloor and replaced but that would have meant taking out the bathtub, water heater. Ish. We've decided, after bouncing around some ideas on stiffening and supporting that section of floating floor replacement, that we're going to change to a larger angle iron of 1 inch that's 1/4 inches thick. We can get it from a local place in Minneapolis that's not far from us and will cost less than $30. It should be much stiffer than the current
ones we've tried. Hard part will probably be getting the replacement wood out since we put it in wet with epoxy!
Stay tuned!

Kay

[dbj216]

I'm quite surprised your angle iron allows the new subfloor to flex. If you stood on the angle iron when it was just placed there for the photo would it flex with your weight? That angle iron splice is much more than Airstream originally supplied back there. It is one of the larger expanses of unsupported plywood in the trailer. Feel sad for the folks in 76 - 80 trailers with 1/2" plywood under their bath.

I assume old and new subfloor pieces are attached to the angle iron flanges with fasteners so the wood can't move on the angle iron. I might suggest a #8 screw every 6" would be adequate. You folks probably did more.

David

[57Vintage]

I'd suggest looking at extruded aluminum angle. There are a lot of options of thickness and width. I think you'll find it much more rigid than steel for the same size.

[Minno]

Thank you, 57 Vintage, for the suggestion for extruded aluminum angle. We picked up both he iron angle we had already ordered and added a couple pieces of extruded aluminum with our pick up yesterday. Sure enough, when we tested each set in place, the extruded aluminum was stronger/rigid, and that's what we went with. The new subfloor is now in place and screwed, elevator bolted in place! Yaay! Now we'll add 2 pieces of 1/4 inch plywood over it, as he angle sticks up above the subfloor about a quarter inch. We have thicker flooring in the rest of the trailer, so this will even things out a little more also. Then we can add our new vinyl, and put things back together in the trailer. That will be our Saturday job. Sunday (when it'll be a little cooler and we can maybe work outside again) we will work on getting the black tank reinstalled and belly pan back in place. l
I'll let Chris add the pics, I'm no good with that and theiy're on his phone.

Kay

[Minno]

As Kay mentioned, we have the subfloor patch back in and bolted down.



Looks very pretty all covered with epoxy! We used self tapping floor screws from e-trailer along the angle aluminum and left over elevator bolts on the sides. The rear is all bolted back together as well.



The angle aluminum is proud of the subfloor, but it's lower than the thickness of the 1/4" plywood underlayment we'll put down. I'm going to rout a groove in the bottom of the underlayment to go over the angle aluminum which will give us a smooth top for the sheet vinyl. Because the angle aluminum is less than the thickness of one sheet of underlayment, we're only going to use a single layer which is what we had before.

We are going to coat the underlayment with penetrating epoxy as well. Don't want to have to do this again if we can help it!



Pic of the underside. I need to cut off all the screws so they do not interfere or puncture the black tank. We used a generous amount of the max strength lock-tite on them since I knew I had to cut them off.

Nice to have a solid floor again.

Chris

[Bauxter]

Chris, Kay, I am really sorry to hear about this. I understand completely, the work that will be required to get back on the road.
Are you going to re-use the black tank that you built?

Is there anything that can be done to prevent another toilet bolt failure?

Do you think the toilet bolt break was caused by floor/shell movement, or was just a material flaw?



All the best!
Mike

[Minno]

Hi Mike!
Yeah, we were bummed too. We think it was a material flaw as the replacement bolt survived just fine for 4 years. The black tank Chris built is still solid with no cracks or leaks, so we will replace the flange with a heftier one and reuse.
We learned: if the toilet rocks, investigate!
aluminum angle is stronger than steel of the same size
penetrating epoxy goes a lot farther than you think it will and the
leftovers get reeeaally hot
We got subfloor overlay done yesterday - took longer than estimated (per usual). Today is cooler here so we can work outside again, getting the black tank back in and belly pan on. Bought new aluminum for belly pan due to the extreme corrosion we had. Think that was from toilet chemicals, not us.....
Probably this week of working evenings to finish her up.

Kay

[Minno]

As Kay mentioned, we installed the underlayment, which unfortunately, we had to install in two pieces. We tried really hard to install it in one piece, but with the tub still in place, there was no way to get it into the bathroom and then down flat onto the plywood subfloor.



This evening, we finished installing the vinyl floor and connecting the sink drain and vent. We took this opportunity to re-do the vent and gave it a riser directly out of the tank instead of running it along the floor as we did initially. This was another one of those learning experiences from a couple of years ago when we had the black tank back up into the vent pipe and plug it. The vent is the one on the left.

We also started putting the cabinets back in. Hooray!!!!

[dbj216]

Little Girl is on the mend! She is a blue ribbon Airstream

David

[Minno]

Finished putting her back together last Tuesday, two days before my surgery. Surgery went very well, but I have a 9 lb lifting restriction for quite awhile. So, we wanted to get her all back together ahead of that.


The black tank it now supported by two 1/2" sheets of plywood and a partially new frame. The plywood is coated with penetrating epoxy. Above the plywood, instead of using the foam wedges, I cut wedges out of 2x4's and we foamed them with Great Stuff large crack filler to hold them in place. That plus the side frame support we added will hold the wedges in place and hold the tank up tight against the bottom of the floor, instead of letting it drop, which we think added to the failure of the toilet fitting. We took this opportunity to add a flushing kit to the black tank as well. And, we are not covering up the black tank inside the bumper so we can see if it ever leaks or collects water.


Underneath, we replaced the belly pan under the black tank and bumper. I bought two 4x8 sheets of aluminum, but only used one. Anyone in the Twin Cities need a sheet of .032" aluminum suitable for belly pan?





Inside, it all looks pretty much the same as before. But, a different vinyl floor and we now sport baseboard trim around the front of the tub, vanity cabinet, and next to the door. Used right angle aluminum in front of the tub and next to the right side of the door (matches the baseboard in the front of the trailer), and then 1/8" x 1/2" straight aluminum in front of the vanity/water heater cabinet so I could bend it around the curved corner of the cabinet.

All ready for the next camping trip!

Chris

[dbj216]

Little Girl had surgery and so did you. Little Girl is well and you will be soon.

Maybe you have the most robust black tank compartment ever made.

David

[wcronin4]

Nice job Chris and Kay! Speedy recovery, Chris.

[Minno]

Thanks Bill and David.


Putting the black tank through a test this week. Granddaughter is staying in the trailer, and using the plumbing. No leaks!!!



Chris

[Kprinsen]

Do you have any of the plumbing blueprints for your rear to side bath conversion you could send me !?
Thanks!

[Minno]

Ours is a rear bath. We contemplated going to a side bath when we did our initial renovation, but ended up leaving it in the rear of the trailer.


Kay