Another newbie mistake thread: time to bail out?

[sandgrubber]

I bought a 1971 Caravel. 18'. It had lino everywhere but the bath. The seller said floor was sound except in the bathroom. Well . . . have pulled apart the bathroom and put it back together again. Then pulled the lino and found there is pretty bad rot around the door and maybe a couple feet back from the door. This is Florida, so I guess that's to be expected. And I guess, in retrospect, the thing should have had a full off frame restoration.

Question: Is there any hope of fixing the edges and around the door, or is it better to pull the whole front section floor and replace it. Looks like I'll need to get someone to do some welding as well. Sigh.

I've attached some photos. Had trouble with them. My phone doesn't seem to do anything at all wide angle . . . seems to be stuck at 1.4X magnification minimum. Hope these are sufficient to show problem. It looks like someone has done a half-dash repair previously. The bottom rail of the cross member in front of the door is rusted through in one place. The C channel is rusty.

p.s. My intent is to sell the thing. I've discovered that 18' is not big enough for my purposes.

[Belegedhel]

I would agree with your assertion that the trailer probably needs a shell-off with complete floor replacement and probably a fair amount of frame repair. You say you are going to sell it, so the real question is, do you repair it first and try to get more for it, or provide somplete disclosure and sell it as-is.

My answer is sell it as-is. People just don't appreciate the work, time, and expense that goes into these trailers. So I doubt you will even break even on the cost of your repair work, let along get actual return on investment.

Could you patch the rotten parts and cobble it back together? Sure. But your buyer may very well purchase it with the expectation of doing a shell-off, so you are just wasting your time doing work that will be redone anyway.

good luck!

[bambibooth]

Originally Posted by Belegedhel

My answer is sell it as-is. People just don't appreciate the work, time, and expense that goes into these trailers. So I doubt you will even break even on the cost of your repair work, let along get actual return on investment.

I can't say whether you should fix and sell or sell as-is but this statement here is very accurate.

As a person who has sold a vintage trailer that was partially restored, I'll tell you people just do NOT understand what work is involved.