Subfloor

Mr. C used some auto trim to line the holes in the cross members and the edges of the outriggers as rub guards.

Rub guard for the plumbing.

Rub guard for the outriggers.

It was time to cut the new subfloor.  We used 3/4″ MDO (Medium Density Overlay) Plywood.  Each sheet had to be shortened from 8′ to 88″.  The front and rear pieces had to have the corners rounded to match the curve of the trailer.

The rounded corners of the subfloor.

We had saved the original pieces and had made a pattern before removing them.

Using the old floor as template.

The tricky part was cutting and fitting the piece that goes around the wheel wells.   Mr. C did a good job of measuring and cutting.

Lots of work to fit the sheet around the wheel wells.

The back piece did not align as intended.   We had to do a little finessing.  Once we were happy with the layout we used a tool called a biscuit cutter to cut slits in the edges of the plywood that abutted one another.

Using the biscuit cutter to make slits to join the two sheets together.

The biscuits and edges of the plywood were glued and two sections were joined together with tie down straps.  The glue set up really fast and the sheets were not perfectly aligned.  We got better as we went along.

All four sheets of subflooring cinched together.

 

Labor Day

Mr. C took an opportunity to play on Labor Day.  He spent the morning fabricating and welding a spare tire mount and brackets for bumper jacks.  Once the spare tire was mounted we decided it was too tall.   He will cut it down and make a new bracket sometime in the future.

It worked out that a friend was home and Mr. C was able to use his tig welder.  The bumper box is aluminum and Mr. C cut out a chunk in the bottom to fit over the rear trailer hitch.  Once the welding was done, we went for a boat cruise with our friends.

Painted Frame

Over the past week we have been painting the frame.  We painted a Rustoleum primer and silver top coat on areas of the frame that will not show once the belly pan and shell are back on.  The A frame and bumper were painted with a product called POR-15.  The primer is a rust preventer.  This is designed to work on rusty materials.  Seeing the bumper and the propane tank holder were rusty we chose this product.  The rest of the frame was new steel and not rusty, so it wasn’t necessary to use the POR.   Some suggest using the POR-15 for the entire frame.   It is much more expensive and is also trickier to work with.  Therefore, we limited how we used it.

We had to crawl under the frame in order to paint the underside.  Needless to say, we both ended up with a lot of paint on us.  The Rustoleum primer is thick and did not want to come out of my hair.  I didn’t really care for the look of battle ship gray.  After the first round of painting I wore a sleeve off of an old shirt on my head.   I ended up with a few silver highlights around my face.  Let’s just say there is a whole new meaning to the terms “silver fox” and “chrome dome”.  There are times when it is an advantage to be in control of the camera and this is one of those times.  Working with silver paint gave us both the appearance of the Tin Man.

With the painting finished (or so we hope), Mr. C attached the wheel wells and made sure the joints, seams and rivets were thoroughly caulked to avoid any penetration of water when driving in the rain or through puddles.