For the past six weeks, we've been working on the teardown in fits and starts. Between work and family, it has been difficult to string together more than a few hours at a time for the trailer, so when it finally looked like we were within striking distance of getting through this stage, I decided to take a couple days off to push through. Andy and I put in a couple good solid days of work and got the trailer fully stripped down.
The only thing we left attached were the end caps. They are ready to come down, but I need to find a place to store them. My storage facilities are at full capacity as you can see below.
In fact, we had a brief panic when we got to the last large roof panel yesterday as it looked like it wasn't going to fit anywhere. Most of the skins are in my neighbor's shed and the furniture is in my garage. The center roof skin is actually three pieces of aluminum buck riveted together into one 12 x 8 foot piece. It's huge and awkward to move around. There was no way it was going into my neighbor's shed and it looked like our garage was totally full. After about a half hour of head scratching, Andy solved the problem by suggesting we empty half the garage, taco the center skin, and put it in the garage taco side down. We then put all the contents of that part of the garage (air compressor, random boxes, etc.) under the skin (or inside the taco as it may be). Here's a shot of that center roof panel just after we got it down.
There were several points during the teardown where we were slowed down for what seemed like days . . . probably because it was days. Removing the black tank was a horrible job that involved crawling around in the dirt underneath the trailer and disconnecting the various drain lines that lead to the main dump line.
I thought I would finish the same day I got the black tank out, but from there we ended up wrestling with the bathtub drain. After trying heat, penetrating oil and lots of torque that simply started mangling the drain, we left it alone and moved to the furnace and hot water heater. Those were stubborn too, but eventually came out without damaging anything. The tub came out a few days later before we were able to start taking out the skins.
As I pull back the layers on this poor old trailer, the insanity of my original hope to camp in it for a few years before beginning a restoration has become embarrassingly clear. The Captain was ridden hard, real hard, and was in pretty terrible condition. I'm glad to be wrapping up the teardown. It will be even better when we get rid of the old rotten floor and the final remnants of old trailer smell.
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Congrats on reaching a really important milestone, Norm!
ReplyDeletesteve
Finishing the teardown is a huge hurdle. I certainly can relate to your last paragraph. So much is hidden until taken to the bare bones. It still amazes me how this old coaches have kept on rolling despite their used-up condition.
ReplyDeleteEverything done to the Captain from this point on will be part of it's rebirth, nothing but positive. And one of these days you'll be able to walk around in your garage again. ;-)
Do you have any more details on how you finally got the stubborn bathtub drain out? We're almost there...
ReplyDeleteLynnetta, I ended up cutting the strainer with a sawzall using a metal cutting blade and then collapsed the strainer in on itself to free it from the threads of the iron p-trap. I highly discourage this approach as it involved using the sawzall like a jigsaw as I attempted to make a vertical cut in the strainer. Although it worked, it was very difficult to control the sawzall and avoid having it kickback and damage the trailer or me. I also damaged the threads of the p-trap a bit.
ReplyDeleteFrank recommended heating the trap a whole lot before you begin to try and loosen the strainer (keep a fire extinguisher nearby). The strainer was screwed into the trap with a bunch of pipe dope that over the years gets very hard. You need to get that hot enough to loosen up the oils in the dope and then start turnning on the tub wrench. I did not get the trap hot enough before putting torque on the wrench and just shredded the strainer.
Norm