Hello everyone! We have finally started renovating our 1972 Overlander. It's our first Airstream, and our first renovation, so we are digging into these forums and learning as much as we can. We are planning on a pretty serious interior renovation, but before we get started, we want to make sure that any necessary floor repairs are made.
I have gutted the interior, and have removed all of the carpeting. The sub-flooring in 75% of the trailer appears to be in great shape. However, there is some serious staining around the perimeter in the front. There is also some rotten wood in a few places that crumbles upon contact.
My question is this: From the pictures I have provided, can you tell if I need to replace the entire plywood sheets in the front, or can I patch those rotten areas? I guess that I am trying to avoid removing the interior skins. Might be easier, just to replace the entire plywood sheets, but I'm just curious what everyone thinks.
Given that you've gone to the trouble of removing everything, and that the floor is an integral component of the structure, you don't want to take any shortcuts at this point.
However, the Airstream service manual describes the process for splicing in sections of floor, and if you can do this in a way that effectively gives you a new floor, you might consider it.
If its not bad I would splice it in.. Thats what I'm doing here... I will show pics tomorrow of the inserted piece... The left side is solid and I don't want to mess with the plumbing...
if you can put your finger through it replace it, but if the middle is fine I would just cut out the bad stuff..... If it is just and 1/8 or so of rot on the top you can use some kind of filler....
Or you can just go for it if you have the time.
Mine lasted 40 years and is mostly in good shape, I'm figuring I'm not gonna own this AS for 40 more years.... And I'm treating all the ply wood so it won't rot anymore...
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Jason
May you have at least one sunny day, and a soft chair to sit in..
I believe I would consider splicing in only where needed. I recently helped my brother in law (63silver) do some splicing in his 63 Ambassador, and the floor turned out really solid.
I agree with what everyone else...splice it. I had a floor (it looked similar to yours) that I had to replace sections in which I just spliced it and it was very solid.
If you want to splice in pieces of subfloor around the perimeter (which is what I did in the front of my coach too) you still have to take off the interior skins in that area to be able to access the bolts/screws that go through the whole sandwich of C-channel, subfloor, and (often) outriggers. This also allows you to install new bolts once the spliced sections of sub-floor are installed. I would not attempt to splice in perimeter sections of sub-floor without doing this! Best of luck- tim
After you cut out the bad section of floor you can access the floor stringer and the nut on the bottom of the bolt. Although ours were so rusted my husband had to cut them off with a sawsall. Also be prepared when you cut the first section of floor out, you might find that the mice have made a mess with the insulation. Ours was so bad we ended up dropping the belly pan just to clean out ALL the mouse houses!
Thank you Annette, I'm realling looking forward to digging into the mouse houses. I'm starting to have second thoughts about this whole rotten floor thing. I think that I am going to put the carpet back down and pretend that I never saw it.
But Allen, If you don't cut the floor or drop the belly pan you'll never know how many little critter houses you are sleeping with. Maybe sometimes ignorance is bliss! This is what we would have been sleeping with. And this was just the front of the trailer.
Annette
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This is what we would have been sleeping with. And this was just the front of the trailer.
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