Last ditch effort

For some reason, we still thought we could just lift the body on stilts, roll out the trailer part and fix the floor.  With this in mind, we removed most of the interior cabinetry that secures the walls the floor.

With most of the cabinets removed, we added some cross bracing to hold up the walls.

Back inside

At this point, we still thought we could repair the floor in pieces like they do in a vintage Shasta travel trailer.  Removing the rotten front panel and a little prying showed that just wasn't going to happen.

The cardboard floor extended throughout the trailer, so could only be replaced as a whole frame up rebuild.  Of course, there was no instructions online for how to rebuild a floor that was only 1.5" thick...

I do like the way the light filters through the removed open ceiling panel here though...at the time of purchase, we thought we would only have to replace this one bit of plywood near the vent and be on the road.  ha ha.

Reboot

The floor had us thrown for a loop, but there was really no way to go but forward, so we just pushed onward and removed all the skins, starting with the front, back, top that folds over the sides.

With the exception of the sill board, the sides didn't look so bad for the amount of damage to the interior paneling

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A lot of the rot doesn't look too bad, but the classic vintage trailer "icepick test", showed that much of the dark material needed to come out.

Uh oh

This trailer is one of the cheaper models.  As such, it has a "short frame"...the metal frame that should extend to the rear of the trailer actually stops and the rear spring mount.  As such, once we got the rear bed out of the camper, the rear floor was bouncy like a diving board, giving us a good excuse to figure out how the floor was constructed.  Turns out...not good.

This was one of the only trailers I can find info on that had a corrugated cardboard floor...like a cheap dorm room door.  The reason it was so bouncy is that it was supposed to be supported by the walls, but you can see how 50 years of sitting worked out for that idea

At least I always have lots of help from my stalwart nail/staple pulling expert.

Moving inside

The back rot was a little daunting for a beginner, so we moved inside.  The original flooring was likely asbestos based, so we wanted to get it out.

After fully removing all the tiles, disposing of them in sealed bags, we washed down the floors several times to make sure there were no potential fibers remaining, as the kids still enjoyed playing inside.

Finally, here's a cute photo that was part of the trailer when we bought it.  There was a time when every family had a trailer like ours, and they all explored the country together.  This is what we hope to do with our family some day soon.

Baby Steps

The first thing you learn about a classic "stick and tin" travel trailer is that they were built from the inside out, with every cabinet, seat, closet or bed forming an integral part of the support.  Even the walls, which are only 3/4" thick wood framing with 1/8" plywood panels on the inside form a type of unibody construction, where everything separate is weak, floppy and insubstantial, but taken all together quite rigid.

Considering all that, the first order of business was removing the rear skin.  The back corners had some water damage, so it was important to see what was hidden under the aluminum.  What was hidden was....not great...as large portions of the rear framing and plywood fell apart into dust in our hands.

We also had some additional questions, as our floor structure was quite unique.  Most Shastas and other trailers of this era were built with 3 inch floor joists and 5/8" plywood floors.  From the outside, ours looked like 1 inch joists with 1/4" skins on the top and bottom...weird.

Shelter

The trailer sat in the driveway for nearly a year.  The kids loved playing in it, but we were a bit overwhelmed with all of the potential problems we had impulsively acquired.

Finally, Mama said it was "time", so we bought a Costco carport and started researching how to rebuild our tiny home