Been away from the AS for awhile, my little sister helped me set the shell back on the frame early last spring, but no progress since then until last week. Made some pretty good progress over the last week, finished securing the shell to the frame/deck, FINALLY got the bane of my existence, the ext. wheel wells, secured, and rolled it out of the shop last Thursday so I could bead blast the corrosion on the upper panel seams. Which brings me to the reason for this post.
As I feared, that corrosion has eaten right through the panels in several places. It's right at the seam between the very top panel and the next one down, both sides of the trailer. I still don't understand why these are the only seams that show any corrosion, they're so high on the trailer that there couldn't have been any standing moisture there, even if those particular lap joints never got sealed. But it is what it is, and now I need to deal with it. Replacing the affected panels is out of the question, so I'm going to have to patch. Which finally brings me to my question.
As I see it, I have two choices, a simple overlay patch, or a more complex joggle joint patch. Either way, I'm going to have a seam that laps the "wrong" way at some point. So two questions, which patch method is best, and do I need to be concerned about lap direction? Oh, third question, what's the recommended rivet spacing? I'll be using buck rivets, if it matters.
Which brings up my last (for now) question. I've blasted all the corrosion off, so now I have nice clean bare metal that's in need of protection. I have some Captain Tolley's on the way to seal the seams, but what should I use to actually protect the metal from any future corrosion? This is a one time project, the only time I expect to have the interior skins off in my lifetime, so I want to do this as right as I can. Thanks in advance for any help. Now back to it
. Later.
Dave
Linear Mode
