'78 Sovereign 31' Full Monty

[marzboy]

Since this is my first and only shell off I can only comment on my experience. What I had to do was shift the interior with floor jacks and wheel dollys till I got an alignment that worked. Next I had to jack the front and back of the trailer til the floor was level. What I found is that each rib had to be adjusted a bit to get into alignment. I used "L" brackets made from aluminum channel bolted to the rib and thru the subfloor. I had some ribs that didn't want to touch the sub floor. Did you already remove the internal cross bracing? That will come in handy for tweaking the position of the skin. Once you get things lining up putting the clecos in things start to line up so don't stress the hard part is over.
Here is a picture of what can happen by trying to manhandle aluminum into place. Luckily I had to replace the corners anyway so I got some valuable fabricating and riveting practice in.

[GreyMattr]

Wowsers! That's pretty wild. The hard part is definitely over, but I need to tow it to storage by next weekend so i need to the skin to where i can rivet it in place and tow it.

I think my plan is to drill out the rivets where the "trouble corner" piece meets the middle panel under the rear window. Then hopefully i can make up for the slack in the corner by massaging the corner piece about an inch further behind that middle panel...if that makes sense.

[marzboy]

You really should try to re align the skin as "massaging" .032 2024 Alclad can prove challenging to say the least. Did you replace all of the "u" channel? if so that is a bit of drilling for you. I would make sure the floor/frame is jacked level before you do any drilling. also I would work from the center front of the trailer to the middle of the wheel wells on the front half and center back towards the center wheel wells. See if that doesn't help to correct the slack. I know its hard to picture just go stair at it for a while like I do.

[GreyMattr]

The shell is fully on!

Using industrial ratchet straps and some ingenuity we got the skin where it needed to be.

It took a full day of buck riveting to fasten it down.





Now time to cipher on some insulation...

[Monza]

...and then I threw in the towel.

Or do we have updates after three years since your last post, what's happened?

[duncans]

You've built up the audience tension, threw in a near failure, overcame that barrier, and then......and then......what? what happens next? Is it a go? Is the insulation, wiring, etc progressing? I can't stand the suspense!

I hope all is coming along without drama. I wish you much success.

Susan