Aaron, do you recall where you bought these? I've looked at the big box places and nothing comes close. Any ideas?
Jim
Jim,
I found screws at Home Depot that worked fine. There are two sizes. The short ones only work for 3/4" material in direct contact with the metal frame. Any additional spacing (such as over the wheel well area, etc.) needs the longer ones. They are self drilling and taping. I did find that it helped to predrill the hole if the metal I was attaching to was thicker than it is on the typical cross-member. This was particulary true for the angle iron cross member over my fresh water holding tank. Take a look at the photo for product name and appearance.
Those are definatley the same screws that were used in my Sovereign. I cut/ripped the floor out around the screws that wouldn't come out and then used the angle grinder to cut off the "hold outs". Tha angle grinder worked great, and milled them off flush. I also added a cross member when we were "rehabbing" my frame. One of the stamped steel cross members was so rusted at the bottom that it was useless so we made a new cross member out of 1 inch box stock to run along side it. The new floor is screwed to it. I also turned the C channel into a boxed frame all the way back to the kitchen area (this happened to be all the farther we had the floor/belly pan removed) since the bottom portion was a little rusty from pooling water in the bellypan for who knows how many years. We just took some good heavy angle and butted it along the good side and welded it so it fit over the old steel. We then took a piece of flat steel and welded it to the new steel and the top of the old beam to make a box channel. Then I ground down all the welds, and primed and painted the whole works.
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"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
Y'all aren't gonna believe this, but....Susan and I were driving around our small but rapidly expanding town the other day trying to find the new Sherwin-Williams paint store. We happened upon a Fastenal store that I didn't know we had here. Guess what he had in stock? The new ones are on the left, the old ones on the right. Sorry about the poor quality of the pictures. But they are exact duplicates except for the fact that the more modern are more rust resistant. Go figure.
Jim
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What is that line from "Miracle on 34th Street"? Something like "Maybe he's only a little crazy, like those men in Washington."
bsherman,
Just curious if you were able to put new plywood in without removing the bellypan? How did you bolt it?
In the part of my unit where I did not take out the belly pan I used bolts in the places that I could reach by sticking my arm under the floor from the edge. Everywhere else I used the self-drilling/self-taping screws. They do seem to hold quite well and I put them closer together than I did with the bolts.
I have the rear 1/4 of plywood out of my 68 tradewind and am playing with the bolts now. The tank that held my b/w tank was half rusted out through the bottom and I will be replacing it and the supports that hold it. The belly pan seems to be corroding where it is screwed to the supports. Is this electrolosis or is it from the water that was pooling in there?
After all is back together I can bolt where I can reach and screw the rest?! Sounds good. Does anyone ever really keep the water (rain) out of the rear access door? I was thinking about fabricating a galv. box back there to hold the battery/ water gadgets etc. and if rain came in it wouldn't sit on the plywood floor. Mine was sooooooo rotted out it was compost and growing vines!
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