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68Glbtrotter · 11-10-2005, 01:17 PM

68 Globetrotter 20'
I know, I know, I should do it myself, but I'm trying to weigh all options. I'm in a time crunch for the next 12 months and I do not have a great location.
Has anyone had just the floor replaced and frame repairs done by a "pro" and can you give me quotes? I have everything out so its just cutting the shell, welding the frame and replacing the floor

Do you have to take all the inner skins off to raise the frame?

Thanks,
Dan

**Stefrobrts** · 11-10-2005, 02:06 PM

It would be almost impossible to guess at an estimate without knowing how bad your floor is, how bad the frame is, and how much disassembly and reassembly is required. It would be hard to find two trailers that required the exact same repairs, and so another persons cost might not be the same as what yours would ultimately be. Not to mention differences in differet shops. Just finding a shop nearby you would trust to do the work would be a bigger concern than the ultimate cost, because a bad shop could end up fouling you up worse than a good shop that charged more to start with. There's a lot of things to take into consideration.

To remove the body from the frame requires gutting the interior and removing all the lower interior skin panels, to get access to the attachement points. It's a huge job. Are you sure you require an entire new floor, and patches wouldn't suffice?

PizzaChop · 11-10-2005, 07:29 PM

Have replaced rear floor and repaired frame on two units here in Danielsville within the past 18 months.

'72 Overlander

'73 Sovereign

It's a pretty straightforward operation, for the most part, although nothing every goes as smoothly as you'd like. If everything is out of the way, it's simply a matter of shearing off all of the carriage bolts (behind inner skin), removing as much of the old floor intact to use as a template, wirebrushing and reinforcing rusted frame before sealing and painting, and inserting new floor. Take a look at my pictures and you'll see what I mean. The truly difficult part is reassembling the bathroom, bedroom, etc. I'm sure I could do it again but you'd probably have to negotiate the price with my wife.

68Glbtrotter · 11-11-2005, 12:22 PM

I have already gutted the inside. Pretty straight forward with advice from you guys. All that's left is the h/w htr and the fresh water holding tank. They come out tomorrow. PO had a battery spill in the back, plus the normal bathroom floor rot.
When I got to h/w htr, I found that it had leaked also, more rotten floor. Plus PO had removed the floor in front of the main door and just added some loose boards for safety. I would say that 75% of my floor is in excellent shape. But the places where I can see the frame has me concerned.
Will post pics on this thread tonight.
Keep advice and encouragement coming.

Can you replace floor with shell on and NOT remove the inner skins?

Thanks,
Dan

PizzaChop · 11-11-2005, 08:44 PM

Dan,

You have to remove the inner skin in order to access the bolts that pass through the aluminum base channel into the plywood floor. Even with the banana wrap off, it's tough to get to all of the bolts from the outside. The fun part is that the lowest skin is the first installed so you either have to pull it out of the way or partially remove the next piece up. The corner pieces are particularly fun.

Please post pics...I'm curious...

59toaster · 11-11-2005, 09:06 PM

You didn't happen to get that Coach from a gentleman in Atlanta Named Marsh did you?

dustyrhodes · 11-11-2005, 09:43 PM

I will be moving my 77 Overlander to the auto hobby shop where I can begin the replacing the floor and working on the frame I am certain is rusted. I have been researching alternate materials and found plastic plywood. It is slightly heavier than plywood but stronger and certainly would never again have to be replaced secondary to water damage. I would appreciate any thoughts on using this material. I fear I am blinded by the Pros and am not seeing the Cons. Pizzachop thanks for the pictures they were instructive.

malconium · 11-12-2005, 04:33 PM

Dan,

In my case I probably could have removed all of the floor without taking the inner skin off. On my '73 most all of the screws or bolts around the edges were so rusty that I had to cut them off. I had started the floor removal process by sawing out big rectangles of the old floor as close as I could up to the sides and between the bolts down to the frame cross members. I used my circular saw with the blade set to just a hair less than the thickness of the plywood. I used an air powered cutoff tool to cut the bolts or screws either from beneath or by cutting right into the remaining wood strip around the edge. The hardest parts to get out were where the wood was the most instact. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your point of view) much of the floor around the edges was a bit rotten.

Attaching the new floor is where you especially need to have the inner skin off. I have wondered if it would be possible to use some sort of expansion or toggle bolts from underneath to attach the floor without removing the inner skin but it might be hard to tell best where to drill the holes. If you have everything else out you will find that it is not all that hard to get the skins out. I suggest you use a permanent market to write on the back side of each piece to idicate where it should go and which end is which. It took a lot longer than I expected before I could get back to assembly of my interior (still not done) and having the labels has been a big help. If you are just removing the lower level it might also be a good idea to add some strips of masking tape on both the piece coming out and the next level up so you can make some alignment marks to help with the install.

Malcolm

malconium · 11-12-2005, 04:37 PM

Dustyrhodes,

I have replaced my floor with a product called Polyboard. Check out the following post for a lot of the details. I do list some of the cons there too. In general, though, I am very happy with the results that I was able to acheive with the product.

http://www.airforums.com/forum...ice-14620.html

I would be happy to try to answer any questions you might have on what I did.

Malcolm

68Glbtrotter · 11-13-2005, 06:14 PM

of the floor rot in four places. 1. rear bath; 2. h/w heater; 3. door and 4. my newest location under the fresh water holding tank.
Removing the hot water heater proved to be the most difficult of all items I removed from the AS But that's another story for helpful hints.

The floor is in such good shape where not rotted, I'm leaning toward replacing the back over the black/w holding tank and the front at the door and window. I do not want to remove the belly if possible nor the inner skins...but I will if your suggestions lead in that direction.

Thanks to all who have already responded and no I did not purchase in Atlanta. It came from Florida via Guyton GA.

Dan

PizzaChop · 11-13-2005, 08:22 PM

Dan,

I can understand your hesitation with removing the belly pan but given the floor rot, do you really trust the black water tank supports?

I learned with the Overlander and applied the lesson to the Sovereign in that it's best to get everything out of the way for full inspection, repair, refurbish, fabricate whatever's necessary, and then put it all back together. If you're keeping the unit, you'll have more peace of mind in the long run. I know it's a pain and reassembly isn't half as fun as disassembly (I finally reinstalled the rear beltline this weekend on the Sovereign after replacing the floor back in May), but I don't plan to be back into it for at least 5 years (for inspection).

Others can chime in on this one but my advice is as long as you've got it apart, fix it right or you'll regret it later.

Jim & Susan · 11-13-2005, 08:41 PM

What Ron said. I've learned a bunch from his exprience. That is one reason why I pulled the entire floor out of mine. It isn't sexy, and requires a lot of work, but it paid off. The floor and frame were both compromised all the way thru the trailer and needed extensive repairs. You're probably better off over the long run to completely remove the floor and look at everything. Prob'ly not the best news, but prob'ly sound advice.

Jim

ankornuta · 11-13-2005, 09:13 PM

I think I'm going to do a body-off frame restoration and floor replacement. I'm in the process of pulling all the "furniture" out of the trailer right now. Then I'm going to pull the interior skin because I want to re-insulate and re-wire.

For the floor replacement and frame restoration, I don't know if I have enough room at home to pull the body off. I think I'd rather do it at our barn at our propery a couple hundred miles outside of town. Then I can just hoist it up and keep it suspended.

But the big question is... is it safe to pull my trailer with the body on, but the interior skin removed?

**Stefrobrts** · 11-13-2005, 09:17 PM

I patched my floor with the bellypan on. I just replaced the front half of the floor. I did have to remove the inner skins, but don't be afraid of that part - it was the least of my troubles. Probably the worst part was finding frame members that needed to be welded, so I had to hire someone to do it. But still he was able to do the work with the bellypan on. I'm glad I didn't remove the bellypan because the edges of it wrapped up and over the channel, and I don't see how I could have gotten that off or back on easily.

You might be able to get away with some big patches. While the floor is out you can repair any frame problems you have access to. The thing that worried me was that I would find frame problems and end up removing more floor in order to fix them. So you should consider that after you get into it the job could turn out to be bigger than you first anticipated.

Here's the link to my floor replacement project
http://<a href="http://www.airstream...=expensive</a>

ankornuta · 11-13-2005, 09:30 PM

Well, my intention with this project is to restore the trailer back to completely original condition. I really feel that the only way to do that is to re-lay the tile the way it was done originally... and that means laying it down on the floor before the body is put on. If I wasn't concerned with that then I could probably just patch the small rot areas. There are only three spots that are bad, the largest being about six inches square.

Thanks for the help too! It's nice to hear from someone who's been there

wkerfoot · 11-13-2005, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ankornuta

I think I'm going to do a body-off frame restoration and floor replacement. I'm in the process of pulling all the "furniture" out of the trailer right now. Then I'm going to pull the interior skin because I want to re-insulate and re-wire.

For the floor replacement and frame restoration, I don't know if I have enough room at home to pull the body off. I think I'd rather do it at our barn at our propery a couple hundred miles outside of town. Then I can just hoist it up and keep it suspended.

But the big question is... is it safe to pull my trailer with the body on, but the interior skin removed?

Andrew,

Why not wait to pull the interior skin off until after you have moved the trailer?

Bill

ankornuta · 11-14-2005, 08:47 AM

Good question! The reason is because I wanted to pull the interior skin as part of my "weekend project time" and then take a week off from work in a couple months to go up to the barn and do the floor replacement in one fell swoop. I figure lifting the body, removing the old floor, cleaning up the frame, replacing the floor, laying new tiles, replacing the body and reattaching the belly is going to take almost the whole week. If there's anything I can do in advance (like removing the interior skin) I want to get it out of the way...

59toaster · 11-14-2005, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ankornuta

Good question! The reason is because I wanted to pull the interior skin as part of my "weekend project time" and then take a week off from work in a couple months to go up to the barn and do the floor replacement in one fell swoop. I figure lifting the body, removing the old floor, cleaning up the frame, replacing the floor, laying new tiles, replacing the body and reattaching the belly is going to take almost the whole week. If there's anything I can do in advance (like removing the interior skin) I want to get it out of the way...

I have done it.......A week will be tough but possible. It takes a day to remove and a day to intall if your work mostly by yourself. Addressing any frame problems will slow you down a LOT.

I'm putting it bactogether and looking back on it the floor was not a big deal its the totale redoing of the systems like electrical that has taken me forever.

ankornuta · 11-14-2005, 04:39 PM

59toaster, are you saying that you pulled your trailer with the interior skin pulled off?

Thanks for the encouragement regarding my timelines, btw! I will be workign mostly alone. I'm hoping all I need to do for the frame is wire-brushing and primering/painting.

wkerfoot · 11-14-2005, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ankornuta

59toaster, are you saying that you pulled your trailer with the interior skin pulled off?

Thanks for the encouragement regarding my timelines, btw! I will be workign mostly alone. I'm hoping all I need to do for the frame is wire-brushing and primering/painting.

Andrew,

If you wanted to secure the shell without the inside skin, I suggest using steel studs, used in interior commercial construction and available at Home Depot or Lowes, as cross braces to keep some structural integrity. Uwe used them when he pulled the body off of his Overlander.

I am interested in 59toaster's reply as my Liner is kept about 25 miles away and brought home for work. I am staying off the freeway and keeping the speed under 40 mph while in transit.

Bill