What to do first?

[Aces]

I'll be acquiring a 1976 Sovereign. The price is fine and it currently lives next door, so won't have to move far. Its been sitting for many years and is pretty mossy, but from what I can tell from my novice eyes, the shell looks to be in good shape, no dents or damage and the windows are wheels look pretty good.
Im approaching this project for enjoyment, experience and education and have no timeline. I fully expect and intend to be stripping it down to bare bones and rebuilding.
That being said, the interior is disgusting. Clearly water damaged and previously and/or currently rodent infested. There is mold over all of the walls, along skin seams and around rivets and in fixtures. Overall, just pretty gross.
MY QUESTION(S) are:

- What is a good order of operations to get things rolling? Do I just head straight into demo? Should I take the time to do some cleaning first, vacuuming out rodent waste and spraying a lot of the mold off? I have to assume that even with proper gear, working too long surrounded by feces and black mold cannot be too great for you.

- Secondly, being a novice, once the interior comes out, how can I best determine where water gets in? Is it common or likely for seams and rivets to leak? If so, how best to find and repair the culprits?
Or is it more likely coming in through fans, vents, air conditioning, leaky windows, etc....

I'll be attaching some photos which I'm not sure illustrate just how poopy and moldy it is.
I look forward to responses and learning as I go. Thanks!

[tonydead]

-If you're stripping down to "bare bones" then get after the demo. No reason to try and clean anything. Find where everything is attached to the walls and/or floors and remove the screws and rivets the best you can to preserve the walls and floors.

-You will then want to determine if your floor is good enough to keep or not. It's fairly easy to find water damaged wood. On mine I was able to leave the floor and both inner and outer shell. If any of those three need replacement it suddenly becomes A LOT bigger job.

-When looking for leaks and you don't want to wait for it to rain have someone with a hose spray a 4' x 4' area while you wait long enough to know there isn't anything then move along down the trailer. To fix leaks you'll want to remove and replace all the exterior caulking (tempro) and there is a product to help address leaks at rivets. You'll become a caulking sealant expert in no time.

-The very first thing you will want to do when you start rebuilding, assuming it's not a shell off or floor replacement is to get the electrical done so you have power and light in the trailer to do everything else.

-The second thing we did inside was remove all that vinyl wallpaper. There is nice shinny aluminum under there.

- Replace all the water lines next so you're not trying to fix things you've put cabinets on. Determine if you need a new water heater, most likely, for the same reason. Plan out location of stove and fridge. All the gas lines you can do later as they are underneath the trailer.

- You can see my renovation a few threads down: 1976 Caravaner Renovate or Restore. Welcome to the 1976 club!

[rmkrum]

Leaks at rivets can be fixed with “Captain Tolley’s Creeping Crack Cure”. Available on Amazon or local Boat stores.

A good way to check rivets is with a small suction cup. If it sticks, the rivet is not leaking. If it quickly falls off, treat the rivet.

[InsideOut]

My "very first thing" is to document everything with photos.

• First - it helps to see how far you've come as encouragement throughout your restoration and

• Second - it helps to see how things are supposed to go back together or where things are once they are covered up again

Even if you are gutting it a starting afresh - it's only "as found" once. We tried to take pictures of everything - before, during & after demo and throughout the rebuild. It's amazing how quickly you forget how things "used to be" or are "supposed to be" and it's only that way on day one. a year or two into your major restoration, you'll be glad you did. 10 years later, we still pull out our before & during pictures to refresh our memories when troubleshooting things or sharing with friends "what" or "how" we did something.

Shari

[Lumatic]

There are mold test kits that will tell you what you have.,

The axles probably need to be replaced.