Devils Tower

Devils Tower

Monday, May 30, 2011

Some people should not have access to power tools


Today was round 3 of our Memorial Day thrash.  We made some headway, not as much as I had hoped, but nonetheless forward progress. My goal initially was to have the complete belly pan removed, but that didn't work out.  I was wanting to examine the frame to see about adding gray water tanks between the floor and belly pan.  This will determine our configuration, whether we end up with a full size bed or a twin bed with a shower.  Enough blathering.....how about some pics.

Belly pan in early stages of removal

The floor below the hot water tank is trashed.  It must have been leaking forever.




Shower pan finally removed.















Looks like Paul Bunyan has been at it again.



Yep, just as I thought.



I guess I am going to have to remove the plate and add a city water inlet here.  I hate to  waste a good hole.

Good Lord, a fat man with a drill is attacking our trailer.

Finally got the belly pan removed.  It was way more involved than I had hoped.  I had to drill out a lot more solid fasteners than I wanted to.  But the trailer has to feel better. I know I do.  That sheet-metal disaster was embarrassing.

The old hot water tank.  Would love to save it, but I believe it has been leaking for a while.

Corrosion around the seams.

This was one of the previous owners fixes for  barrel lock being inop.  Nice, huh?

Looks like Brutus Bluntforce has been working around here.

I had to cut the step off, due to the fact that step had been welded to the frame.

Headed for the dump.

The other half of the owner installed latch.  At least it could have been straight.

Nice little owner installed access panels.  This is what started the  belly pan removal.
This is a staged photo, but it looks good, yes?

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Memorial Day Weekend Thrash continued

We have been at this for 2 days so far and we have made some significant progress.  The floors are kinda soft in certain areas due to hot water tank leaks and windows leaking.  The previous owners had done a temporary fix, but it was unacceptable.
 I do believe that just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.
  These things tend to snowball and as luck would have it, by the end of the day this is what the trailer looked like. After 2 days of scraping linoleum tile, the floors are finally somewhat clean.  Someone, somewhere in time decided to attempt to build a toilet/black water system with basic hand tools and from the looks of things, possibly a broad axe.


 Trying to decide if this trailer came with a shower or if someone added it.  I am thinking the guy that installed this may have been cross-eyed. Not sure how it ended up in the corner.


  The previous owner tried to build a shower pan out of galvanized steel.  This is coming out.


   These two holes are the hot water tank door (Aft) and the forward door is a baggage door that came out under the bed.  This is where I plan on adding a window unit on rails that will slide out when we are parked, but will disappear when we travel.


The heater looks like a vintage house heater.  This thing will probably heat the trailer fine.



While removing the dinette, I found a Albuquerque paper dated 1970.  We are assuming the trailer was from the New Mexico area.

 This is the front dinette area.  There was a home made water tank under the seat.


This may seem like an abstract picture, but actually this is to show what the wife is spending a lot of time undoing.  What you see is the rubber trim between the cabinets and the wall.  The previous owners must have contracted with Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles to paint this interior.  Apparently there was a shortage on masking tape due to a strike at the factory, because whoever painted this didn't realize that straight lines are a plus.  Lotsa paint thinner and rags to undo this mess. This is what it looked like after scrubbing the old latex off.



Memorial Day Weekend Thrash

We brought home the Avalair on Mother's Day weekend.  It was a flying trip out to West Texas to pick it up.  This weekend was the first time we have had to actually work on it.  Hopefully I can figure out to post some pics of our progress.  These are some pics of before we started disassembling the trailer to modify/restore it.  Don't panic, it will be back in shape before you know it.  There was just some hokey stuff that the previous owners have done over the last 50 years.