Well here it is Jan 1 2005. I thought it time I put this booger back together because it seems to be in the way of everything else.
The poor old gall has sat gutted for nearly 1.5 years and its guts fill half my garage.
I chose this forum because it covers the majority of what I will be doing with the rest of the interior restoration. There will be a section that will end up in electrical when I rewire but most of the next part will be restoring the cabinetry and reinstalling it.
The interior cabinetry is rough but complete. Since this coach has sentimental value to my wife it is her wish that it appear as it once did and visually be a restoration. So the cabinets will be retained were ever possible and anything that has to be replaced we will do our very best to make it appear as original components. The princess stove will be retained.
What wont be original is the sub systems. Plumbing will all be up to date. Gray tank will be installed just aft of the axle. Complete rewire to current standards. The goal is a brand new 1959 Caravanner.
Some background. In early 03 My wife and I inherited a 1959 Caravanner from My wife's fathers estate. Its been in her family since 1980. Once we got it home we found that it had some serious issues with rotten floor. It was decided the best course of action was to do a frame off. That is fully documented in this post.
http://www.airforums.com/forum...ead.php?t=6554
Shortly after the body was back on the frame I had some health problems that sidelined me for the first part of the next year (04). Late summer I started piddling around with it again but between My job going away and lack of cash flow it sort of stayed sidelined.
Managed to change positions within the same company and stay employed so now that I am not concerned about a job I can get back into this. Course the new position has suck hours (Retail sales) but looks like I may make a little more money then I was till I can find something better.
I always take the last week of the year off so I decided to put some time into it this week and get a plan of action.
Our first part of this part of the project is refinishing the walls. The interior had been painted twice over the years. First coat of white and second coat of baby blue.
It was not done very neat and the only thing we can do is strip it off.
First concern is we now have a new linoleum floor in the coach. It was put down before the shell was put on to form a envelope to hopefully protect the floor from any water getting too it. There is no removing it. I have been hesitant to use chemical strippers because of the enclosed area and the floor so I have been experimenting with other methods.
Or first attempt was a heat gun and putty knife. It gets a lot off and the two layers of paint over the Zolotone is about 1/16 of an inch thick. It became obvious that there is no way around using a chemical stripper because it doesn't get it all off. Scraping is not removing enough to get us to a suitably smooth surface to except a new coat of paint or zolotone. I don't want to use a power sander out of fear of taking the tops off the Rivets.
This is going to be a real time consuming task and the time of year is one of our worst enemy's. Seems paint striper's do next to nothing below 65 degrees. What we are finding is working the best is to use the heat gun to make a pass to scrape the top off without a chemical stripper. Then a coat of paint stripper warmed with the heat gun so it will do its thing. This is going to take a while.
Here are some pictures of our 59 as it sits today.
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