Boy am I puzzled!?
I have been dismanteling my 1973 31'
Sovereign with an eye on floor repair or replacement. I had a few minutes to kill before supper so I started to loosen the lower inner skin on the curb side so I could get to the channel at the base of the wall. To my surprise this panel looks for all the world like it is plastic and not aluminum! Besides not sounding like metal when I tap it it is white on the back side. I also noticed that the way the side panels overlap each other from top to bottom of the trailer does not conform to what I saw in my copied 1973 service manual. The manual indicates that the second sheet up should be behind the edge of the bottom sheet. I thought when I saw that in my manual that this would be a good way to keep any water in the wall from leaking through the horizontal wall seams. My wall panels are consistently not the way the manual shows them.
What gives here anyway? Is this normal for a 1973 31' Sorvereign International? The wall panels look like they have been there for at least 31 years so it is hard to imagine that someone re-did the walls since the trailer was made. And what about all the hupla that I have read in the forums about the inner skin being an important structural element? This panel did not seem to be held on with all that many rivets and I doubt that if it is 31 year old plastic that it has anywhere near the tensil strength of aluminum.
Thanks,
Malcolm