Month: March 2016

I finished mounting the floor to the body. Next step was to check the floor flatness.  I set up a laser level at the front, and checked at each of the other three supports.

 

 

Ideally all three would be exactly the same height, but there’s about an eighth of an inch off flat.  That’s very good, and since the frame is a little bit flexible that will cause no problems.  The left side was the same.

Now I was ready to re-mate the body and frame, but I realized I should do the floor beams first.  I could fabricate those later, but it would mean I was doing a bunch of assembly on my back under the trailer.

There are three longitudinal beams, each 2×3. One is mounted to the outside of each of the frame channels, and one runs down the center. Each has the same shape. There’s a straight section in front. 15 feet two inches for the outer ones, and one inch longer in the center. Then an angled sections a bit under three feet. First, I can’t find 2×3’s locally.  I was able to find good quality douglas fir 1×3’s, but only 14 feet long. So I made the long beams sections by gluing 1×3’s, with doubled sections.

Now the original beams were mounted by fairly large wood screws coming from above through the floor.  There are several reasons I don’t like that, but many of the screws were in places I can’t get to.  So I had to do it differently. So I made a number of mounting clips from aluminum angle and mounted those to the beams.

Sorry.  I framed that picture poorly.  The three beams are exactly the same length, but there are some 2×2’s on the ground that make the center one look about double the length of the others.

Then I slid those between the trailer and the body.  I jacked up the body enough to get the current supports out, and jacked the frame up to meet it. I was able install the bolts in the  front left support and the right rear support.  Here is the trailer with frame and body back together, sitting on a couple of supports.

I made eight frame supports.  Four I threw away.  Two are supporting the frame, at the rear spring attach on each side.  I kept two more. Partly because I may want to support the front of the frame, and partly to use them as a place to tight the tarp ropes. They are big enough to be a decent weight.

The other right side supports fit just fine, but there’s a problem on the left. I took for granted that the width was constant.  I made the floor sections all 92 inches wide, and kept them centered.  Front, rear, and right side all fit great.  But on the left side the trailer appears to be slightly wasp wasted. In the center it’s about half an inch too wide.

Annoying.  It means I have to

• remove the bolts between the body and the lower 2×2 and pivot the 2×2 out of the way.
• remove the 2 inch #10 screws that come up from below and tie the wall to the floor
• find a way to slide the wall in about a half inch over about ten or twelve feet.
• reattach the wall to the floor.
• reattach the body to the lower 2×2
• Plug the existing support holes.  I do that by gluing in wooden dowel pins.

Then I can drill new holes and complete the mounting. I should be able to get this all done tomorrow.

I’ve been working on three different things, depending on the weather. I took all hardware off the drawers and cabinets.  The existing hardware all matches, but I don’t like it much.  It’s old mild steel that ironically was original finished in “antique”.  The kind that’s just a slightly dark varnish. So here’s the hardware.

The middle one in the second picture is the door catch, which grabs the one on the left. It’s very positive- you have to squeeze the top and bottom to release it.  So I soaked the catches in denatured alchohol and scrubbed off the black, then sandblasted everything so it looks like this:

Then I primed and painted.  Just a rattle spray can, but hopefully it will last for a while. I used “metallic antique brass”, which I think will look a lot better with the wood.  Looks nice I think, but I’ll leave alone for a few days to let the paint really harden.  Won’t be actually using this for at least a week.

All the cabinet doors and drawer fronts were stained dark.  Look like this:

So I’m sanding those down to bare wood.  Have a lot more to do, but they look like this after sanding.

I have to sand every square inch of wood. I’ve probably done a third of what I have to do.

And I’m working on the framing.  I have a local welder building me new wheel wells from 1/8 inch aluminum.  Going to be strong and light.  These one of the old wheel wells I cut out:
An ugly combination of plywood, a strip of galvanized steel, and nails.  LOTS of nails. Just designed to leak and rot. The wood in the wheel well was rotting on both sides. The wood on the right side of the trailer, once the well was cut out, was a little water damaged but not much.  I drilled a number of holes into the lowest 2×2 and put in about a cup of ethylene glycol using a plastic syringe.  

The left side was worse. The bottom 2×2 and one vertical was rotten. Also, I’ve gotten the water heater, water inlet, and furnace.  I need to tweak the framing as necessary to support those.  So on the left I removed the bottom 2×2, sistered a section of the 2×2 under the window, and rearranged the supports a bit.  Sorry these pictures are so poor. On the left side I’m up against the fence.  I left just enough room to walk around the trailer.

The new wood at the top of the picture is glued (gorilla glue) to the existing 2×2 that runs under the windows.  The water heater will go at the bottom right of this picture, to the right of the wheel well. Once I cut the hole for that I’ll put in whatever framing is necessary. Also I’m running out of those angle clips (just cut from a 1×1 aluminum extruded angle). I need to make another couple dozen, and when I do I’ll add some here.  Probably do that tomorrow. I need to do a similar rebuild on the right side.  That’s on the agenda for the next non-rainy day, .

After dodging more rain, most of yesterday was clear.  So I got the last floor section out, and the last few feet of frame channel wire brushed.

And painted.  Looks like this after two coats of Alumathane.

And that completes the frame work except for the very front.  I’m going to have a new hitch welded on and possibly some other work, so I’ve left the very front foot or so alone. I need to mount the rear floor section, but that’s easy. Higher priority is to get the wheel wells redone.  I’ve asked the guy who rewelded the frame to make me some new aluminum wheel wells.

Yesterday had no rain and we got several rain-free hours today, so I :

removed the next section of floor

inspected the frame, which was rusty but the welds look fine.

Did the standard wire brushing, with sand blasting where the brush can’t get.

 

and added two coats of Alumathane.  Here’s after the first.

 

 

After the same adjustment with the pipe clamp I got the floor in place and attached.  Forgot to take a picture. This completes the four flat floor sections.

I got the brakes wired up.  14-2 Marine wire with heat-shrink adhesive crimp connectors. Sorry for the poor quality pictures.  Right side.

Left side (leads come from the front to here- that the wires coming up.  Then from here to the right side.

 

And the axle.

There are loops welded to the axle and the left side frame channel to support the wires.  The second wire is an 18-2 (way too heavy, but the smallest gauge marine wire I could buy locally) for the thermostat. The electrical attachment studs and nuts are brass, so I kept them but used locking compound. I’m a big fan of locking compound but it didn’t exist in 1950. The cable clamp studs and nuts are mild steel.  I replaced the nuts with stainless, and again used locking compound.
There was a stud but no separate clamp for the wires from the left side brake to the front, so that’s currently not supported. Next time I go to the hardware store I’ll get the proper wire clamp.

Note that I hadn’t attached the wall to the new floor yet. There’s the 2×2 at the base of the wall, which sits on the floor, which sits on another 2×2. When all the floor is in place I’m going to adjust the height at four locations with a laser level.  I’m afraid of building in stresses if I lock the floor to the wall when it’s not level. I was preparing to install the new floor section and realized that the lower part of the wall was spreading outward by about half an inch on each side.  Not good. I decided to put in two screws for each floor section, just a couple inches apart. At the rear end of the first section, the rear end of the second section, and where the wheel cutout begins at the third section. That should allow enough flexibility when I do the final assembly. If necessary I can pull the existing screws and put new ones in a different location.

 

As I move down I am tying the floor sections together in the center, with a four inch wide section of plywood.  Same stuff as the floor. I also have some 2×4’s on jacks so the floor is stable enough to walk (carefully) around inside.

I got a nine foot pipe clamp. Since I don’t have a helper to hold the far end, I had to get creative.  A couple temporary deck screws and some string did the trick.

And it was easy to crank the near side flush.

And the new floor is now in, and the supports for that floor section is back in place.
I don’t normally leave pile of junk in the driveway.  That’s the last floor section and some associated detritus. I’m taking two floor sections at a time to the local dump.

I have one more day of good weather tomorrow, and the plan is for the next support and floor section to come out.

 

No big items today.  I completed painting this frame section, including the inside of the wheel assemblies.

To be more specific- the upper part of the wheel assemblies. I can’t get to the lower part now.  When the frame and body are together I’ll lift the frame up so I can really get underneath, and then I’ll check for spots that didn’t get painted.  I don’t think there are any, but there might be.  At that time I can do the lower inner part of the wheel assemblies.  I also completed the wheels and the propane holder.

I think it looks a bit better now. This is an interesting assembly.  It doesn’t look like it came from a factory. More like something a clever guy with a welding machine would make in his garage.  Of course that opinion means nothing. For the one nut and two wing nuts I got new stainless, but the other threaded parts are welded assemblies and can’t be replaced.  I also am working on the wiring for the brakes, but ran out of time.

We’ve had mostly rain for the last week.  I was able to get the front floor section in and the 3rd-from-front out, but that’s about all.

But now we’ve got some sunny days.  I got the frame cleaned up.

Note that this section has the axle, meaning a lot of extra nooks and crannies.  Those also had to be cleaned. Also this time around I painted some bits up front that I couldn’t get to from inside, and the wheels.
There’s an interesting mount for propane tanks.  This bolts onto the front of the frame. Kind of rusty, but it’s salvageable. I’m trying to keep as much of the original as feasible.

This little fingers pointing down from the top are just right to slip over the ring at the top of a tank. So I disassembled that and cleaned it.

The frame currently has two coats of paint, the wheels have two, and the propane tank holder has one.  I’ll get frame and tank pictures tomorrow.  I like the way the wheels look.

I mostly really like this Alumathane.  But it’s “only” good for 250 degrees Farenheit.  That’s way higher than most of the trailer bits will ever get, but brake drums could get hotter.  So for that I got this stuff:

I’m not making any recommendations, but it’s supposed to “stop” rust and is good for 1000 degrees.  Pretty sure it won’t get hotter than that.  So now the brake drums look like this:

While waiting for a welder, I cleaned the rust off the front section of the frame.
Then today the welder came. Very professional.  Of course there are limits to what he could do, but he fixed all the welds and added some reinforcement.  It’s now far stronger than when it was new.

And I was able to get two coats of the Alumathane on.  It’s curing now.  

Then I need a couple dry hours to get this floor section in and the next one out.

 

Today has been…. interesting.  I got the first section of new flooring in.

 

And removed the next section of floor.  Took those two floor pieces and some other debris to the dump.  I started to prep the trailer frame, and found this:

I’m actually surprised I have been able tow things around as I have.  I suspect that the house has been supporting the frame, rather than the other way around.  At least I have good access with the floor out.

Now I need to find a local mobile welder who can fix this. I’m kind of stuck until this is fixed.

I got the first floor panel out.  I had to cut it into three pieces, but it wasn’t that difficult. 

 

And I had a realization.  I’ve been thinking of cleaning the rust off the frame and painting while I’m on a creeper underneath.  How silly!  It’s about 100 times easier to do it now, while the floor is open.  The rust isn’t as bad as I expected.

Definitely rusty, but only fairly light surface rust.  That must be because (according to the previous owner, who I believe was the second) it was parked and not moved.  So I cleaned the rust off. Mostly I used a 4.5 inch grinder with a wire brush, but I have a small sandblaster and used that where the power brush didn’t reach well. At this point I looked at the welds, and all look good.  Decent quality and no visible cracks. And the first coat of Alumathane is on.

Tomorrow I’ll get the second coat on.  Not sure if the weather will allow me to replace the floor.  I might have to wait.  I need an hour or so of dry weather, and tomorrow is supposed to be wet.