Capt. Wilson's 1959 Overlander

[BarryIowa]

More than likely those shocks are shot anyway. Plus if you have torsion axles, they are probably very stiff which would render the shocks useless. I think you would be okay to remove them for the trip.

[nmbosa]

Steve, thanks. Actually my brother-in-law has put in the bulk of the hours, but I've been putting in as many hours as I can along side him.

Barry, the shocks did in fact come off rather unceremoniously during the recovery. It was at about that point that my friend Jeff was ready to call me to tell me he was leaving the trailer on the beach in Oceanside. Fortunately, he persevered and spent a full day "modifying" the trailer for the 1,200 mile drive home.

The weather here has gone from 85 yesterday to about 60 and overcast this morning, so I just climbed up on the roof to get ready to polish the last 15-20 square feet that I could not reach from the scaffold. It's only 7:00 a.m., though so I think I'll wait till a couple more neighbors are up before I spin up the polisher.

Norm

[flyfshr]

Originally Posted by nmbosa

By the way, is there anyone following this thread who has an old WBCCI directory and could look up WBCCI #2617?

My directories only go back to 2001, so not too old. A couple named Rhodes from Dallas had that number in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Its not listed as an active number in the 2004, 2005, 2006 or 2007 directories. Its assigned to a couple named Cucinelli from Lincolnville, ME in the 2008 and not listed again in the 2009 directory. If you have plans to join the WBCCI, you could call and ask them to hold this number for you. If the Cucinelli's don't renew for 2010, then they'll issue it to you.

Brad
FF

[nmbosa]

Well, dammit, work on the Captain may slow down a bit. I broke my dang leg playing softball this morning. Six weeks in a cast above the knee.

Brad, thanks for looking up the WBCCI numbers. Looks like I will be limited to historical research for a while, but with some help from my brother-in-law I still hope to be ready to get into Ryan's shop by September.

[flyfshr]

Man, some folks have all the luck. Hope you have a speedy recovery and are able to get into Ryan's shop when planned.

Brad
FF

[3Ms75Argosy]

Norm, I'm local here in Seattle (by U Village / Huskey Stadium)... if you need help moving anything around, or anything for that matter, feel free to call me (p.m. and I'll send my phone#)
Marc

[BarryIowa]

Really sorry to hear about your leg! Hopefully you can work on some small projects during your speedy recovery.

[pbearsailor]

Darn, Norm, that is a shame about your leg. Our trailers are old enough they can handle a little delay ok. If you don't have any small projects you can do, I can send some down!

cheers,
steve

[nmbosa]

Thanks for all the kind words and offers of help guys. Maybe I can set up a little bench polisher in the living room to polish parts

Keep up the interesting posts on your progress, I need some reading materials.

[Sugarfoot]

OMG, Norm! A fracture is never fun. I pray that you will mend quickly.

[nmbosa]

Originally Posted by navyeod

Were the dexstar wheels zero offset?? Shouldnt be rubbing on the shock.

This update is completely out of chronological order, but shortly before I went on the DL last week, I spent some time under the trailer and realized my axles are offset to the street-side. There is about 2 3/4 inches more clearance between the outside edge of the rear, curb-side, tire and the wheel well, than on the street-side. On the front tires/axles the difference is about an inch. Although I have not taken accurate measurements yet, I could see a similar irregularity when comparing the distance between the frame and inside edge of the tires on each side. Everything is shoved over towards the streetside between and inch and 3 inches.

This sure seems to explain why we lost a tire that first day when we moved up from the 14.5 x 7 mobile home tires to 225 75 R 15 radials. There just wasn't enough room between the tire and the shock mount on the rear curb-side. Although Jeff thought the cause was an aftermarket shock mount that stuck out too far, I think he was wrong about that. The shock mount was probably original, but with the axle shoved over and the addition of wider tires, there just wasn't enough clearance.

I'm not sure how the axles got shoved over (and I'm crossing my fingers that this is not the result of some hidden frame damage), but when we install new axles, I assume we will be able to just correctly allign the axles to provide equal clearance on all sides. Any thoughts?

[utee94]

Hey Norm, I'm so sorry to hear about the fracture. I sure hope you're not in too much pain, and I'm glad you have folks that can come and help you out.

-Marcus

[utee94]

Originally Posted by flyfshr

Man, some folks have all the luck. Hope you have a speedy recovery and are able to get into Ryan's shop when planned.

Brad
FF

Ryan's got plenty of free time now that he's finished up with polishing for the time being. He should be able to spend a lot of time on Norm's trailer now, right?

[pbearsailor]

That's a strange one on the axles, Norm.

When you do get around to changing them, I've got one bit of hindsight on mine that might apply. I went with identical measurements for the torsion axle to what I had with the original sprung axle. I had enough fender clearance to change tires, but just enough. Of course, the thing that I've changed with the new axle is ride height which also opens up clearance and it's now easy to change tires. But, I'm tight on shock clearance, and realize now that I could have gone with just a little more track width to get more room for the shocks and still have been able to get tires on and off easily. I'm ok the way I am, but hindsight . . . .well, might have done it a little differently.

cheers,
steve

[nmbosa]

Originally Posted by pbearsailor

That's a strange one on the axles, Norm.

When you do get around to changing them, I've got one bit of hindsight on mine that might apply. I went with identical measurements for the torsion axle to what I had with the original sprung axle. I had enough fender clearance to change tires, but just enough. Of course, the thing that I've changed with the new axle is ride height which also opens up clearance and it's now easy to change tires. But, I'm tight on shock clearance, and realize now that I could have gone with just a little more track width to get more room for the shocks and still have been able to get tires on and off easily. I'm ok the way I am, but hindsight . . . .well, might have done it a little differently.

cheers,
steve

I was wondering about that exact point. There is very little room for shock clearance on my current set up (even if it were not shoved out of alingment), but there is quite a bit of extra wheel well clearance. Since we did not have trouble changing the tires with the current ultra-low ride set up, I think an extra half-inch track width on each side (1" total) would fit fine. I will be sure to take a ton of measurements before I do anything, but even if I can sqeeze just a quarter inch per side (1/2" total additional track width) it would give sufficient width to fit the shocks back on.

[truckasaurus]

I doubt it helps much but I noticed on mine that the shocks are actually mounted on an angle when compared to the plane that the axle mount plate and wheels are on. I dislike it as a solution but that's how mine were installed.

[nmbosa]

Truck, I've been studying your frame and axle set-up quite a bit, but didn't notice that angle on the shock mounts. Was your trailer originally equiped with leaf springs? Do you have any additional close up shots of the mounting system that shows the shocks?

[truckasaurus]

Norm, I don't know what was originally on my trailer, I had these axles, and the mounting plates, installed at InlandRV before I picked her up, (it was a bit of a gamble that it was as described by the vendor and the photos!).

Attached are a couple of shots but I don't think they show the shock angle, FWIW I would not have installed them like that. If you'd like more images maybe drop me your email address in a pm and it'll save your thread from chassis image overload.

[nmbosa]

We've got a little over a month to get the trailer stripped down and ready to go into the shop. So, since I'm still on crutches for a couple more weeks, my dad pitched in and started pulling the fridge yesterday. He found someone named Harry Miller had scribed their name into the side of it which was kind of interesting. He also found that the fridge had been riveted to the side of the trailer with a piece of scrap aluminum. It did not look like an original part of the install, but who knows.

Finally, the vent set-up is pretty ugly. Based on this photo from RJ Dial's site below left, it appears the 59’ through 62’ Overlander fridge’s were simply vented through a small opening in the skin at the left side of the back of the fridge that passed the exhaust gasses up through the skin to the small eyebrow vent on the exterior.

Captain Wilson (who I have learned through a review of his receipts and correspondence was quite concerned about C02) modified this by installing a 64’ style plastic flue to the right of that (see picture below right) and then cutting in a much larger vent through the roof that was caped with a 64’ style plastic cover on the exterior.

Unfortunately, as part of this modification, he also capped the counter top over where the fridge tail pipe exits (apparently to redirect the gasses towards the new flue) and this resulted in the hot gasses exiting the pipe within half an inch of the plywood. We found the plywood was quite blackend by this so I'll be looking for a better solution.

For the teardown, we are going to work clockwise from the fridge, bagging and tagging everything that comes out. I've read a lot about how annoying all the slotted head screws are and how most people throw them away immediately, but I'm keeping everything for now. Ryan (r&k weber) found many of the screws that contact the skins were made from aluminum and polish up pretty nice

[pbearsailor]

Glad the leg is on the mend and that your getting back to the trailer, Norm.

Make sure you've got a screwdriver that fits those darn slotted screws really well and put a bunch of downward (or upward as the case may be) pressure on your initial effort and turn them both ways to get them started. Once that slotted head gets messed up, it's no fun (I know ).

cheers,
steve