Floor it man!

   We planned on getting the 1st floor in today. Once again "Leeola " threw a wrench in our plans. Had to take the front piece off to get to the front set of mounting holes for the floor. Then we concentrated on getting the rotton nails out of the lower aluminum sill plate. We were glad that we salvaged the front part of the upper floor to use as a template for cutting out the front lower plywood and the lower sill plate. Once that was done we made a huge mistake of jacking the front end up so we could drill the holes for the lower floor and sill plate. Bolted the floor and sill down, and let the body back down. Hummm something must have went wrong because the body did not meet up with the floor. Took a few frantic moments trying to figure out how to fix it, but we did. Had to loosen the floor bolts and gently work the outer skin out. Tighten the bolts again and pull down on the body. Put a couple of nails it to hold it in place. Whew!

 The sun was going down so we cut and sealed the bottom of the 2nd piece and put it in place for next time. Didn't get as much done as we wanted, but still anyday that something starts going back together is a good day! Next week we are going camping with the Felbobs, Harrisons and Kurt. Should be a fun time, it's been a few years since we got such a big crew camping together.

We were framed!

   I got up early today and ran to Fleas 'n Flies. O.k. most people call it Fleet Farm. Picked up a couple of wire brushes and paint for the frame. Kurt came and helped today and started on the frame. Took a couple of hours to clean and almost an hour with three of us painting the frame. The truss fame has lots of nooks and crannys, but it sure looks fantastic.

Next weekend we plan on kicking butt and hopefully will get the bottom floor, lower sill, insulation, upper floor and bolts in. Wish us luck! The following week we have a big camp out planned.

Floor? What Floor.

   We were not sure what to do about the floor. Knew that it was a double floor and that the edges were rotten. After much discussion Scott decided to make a exploratory cut to see what we up against. Crap. The lower floor is worse than we thought. Guess that is going to have to be taken out also. This led to much more discussion about how we were going to do this.

  
   The decision was made that we would take out the middle section of the top floor and see how the floors were attatched. Found lots of treasures that the carpenter ants and mice left behind. There were lots of acorn shells, and shredded insulation in addition to things that we can only imagine what it was at one time. Sure glad that we bought dust masks for this project.

   One of the selling features of the Vagabonds was the double floor and that the heat from the furnace was fed into the floor to heat the trailer. On day two of demo we found the front vent. Today we found the heat exchanger that is in the floor. It is a unique system that the hot air is channeled in between the channels in the floor. Kinda makes you think if it really worked to keep the trailer warm? Anyways we removed it and I would like to make some kind of artsy fartsy thing out of it.

   Who is that masked man? And what did he do to my trailer floor? Fear "Frontierman" and "Frontierbar" demo-ers of rotten wood!

   At what point do you decide if this trailer is worth it? At what point do we stop? One good thing came out of the day was we found that the truss frame is in really good shape. To be continued....

  

Chasing the rot. Day #2

  Started the day by going to get a load of wood, and the new breaker box so I can start the new wiring. After we got home we had to finish what we started last week. Turns out that we are once again chasing the rot. Where will it end? Just about all the sills in the front are rotten, and the plywood has pulled away from the frame. Scott and Ed found that most of the bolts that hold the floor down to the frame are gone. Found a few surprises, like she has a double floor, and we also discovered that someone at one time covered up the vent system in the floor. Next week we are going to have to buy a few sheet of 3/4" plywood to replace the floor in the living room.

 Found this written on the back of a wall that we removed. We thought that was pretty cool. Scott, Ed and I plan to also sign the walls and leave a message as we put her back together.