Thursday, June 18, 2009

Work on the King continues...

The latest on the evolution of the 62' Aristocrat Land Commander into a usable trailer...



Here's the new header that Gary made in place on the trailer. This piece not only keeps the walls up, but it also supports the ceiling members, so i't pretty key that it be intact. Of course, you remember the original, rotted and peeling piece, right?


Here's a close-up as good as I could get ot the way it attaches to the ceiling pieces. Can't really see how the groove works, though. Just too tight without removing the roof skin, which we'd rather avoid if we can.


Here's the new wall as it's getting framed out. The larger pieces run the length or width of the wall and hold everything up, the smaller ones are minor supports. When the new propane refrigerator was put in, these major framing members were simply cut and no additional support was provided. This is ultimately what caused the wall to sag.

The new supports are held on with biscuits and brads rather than the original metal strapping, hopefully making a more solid connection. We'll add the strapping, too, once the framing is done, and we'll likely add more/better insulation.


Here, G's put the skin back on because he realized that it was almost impossible to get the framing members in the right place without the skin as a reference. Since the skin's been removed a time or two already, it's not really "regular" anymore - so it takes a lot of tweaking to get everything to where it should be.


Here's the inside of that wall. You can see the large hole cut in the trailer for the refrigerator just under the window.


This is the wall that we took out to rebuild, just set against the opposite side of the trailer. All of the panneling for this wall will be replaced (you can see the corner of the replacement wood through the doorway).


The inside of the trailer/workshop. Gary's getting to pull out ALL of his cool tools and toys, not to mention buying a few more. Here's another look at the replacement panneling material purchased from Home Depot.

Here's the section of floor where the probelm refrigerator sat. If you can imagine, the skin was never quite correctly reinstalled, and this flooring edge was left somewhat exposed to the elements. It didn't quite rot away, but it was coming delaminated a bit. Nothing that about 50 staples into the structure below won't fix, right?

So, our analysis has come to 2 conclusions:

1. The Driver's side wall skin was removed at some time, most likely to install the propane refrigerator in the kitchen unit. Structural boards which made the wall a wall were cut without new supports being added. This alone would have compromised any integrity the weak little structure had in the first place. Then, the skin was replaced incorrectly using silicone sealant which leaked. The moisture from the leaky seal caused the header and footer to rot out - leaving what was left of the wall completely dependent upon a thin skin of aluminium for support. If you've ever stood on a soda can, you know what the result of this will be.

2. At some time, the rear driver's side corner sustained some sort of impact. This broke some of the framing, "scooted" other pieces out of alignment and also contributed to the leaking/rotting process. This is when the Bermuda Grass got in. Whether this made the aluminum can effect worse, or happened before it we can't really say. What we can say is that it means more demo, this time of the rear wall of the trailer:



However, what this seems to mean is the discovery of even more damage, since every piece we look in or under means more work!

Just a few fun images of what it's like living with the King in your back yard:




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