Saturday, December 27, 2014

1957 Caravanner 1 of...


Frequent readers will most likely recall this 1957 Caravanner. She was in a few years ago for some repairs to make her usable for right then. A truly temporary bandaid. Now she is in for a shell off restoration.


As always, it begins with making templates. I made a template of the entire trailer. No guessing this way.



Next the drilling of rivets began. All the way around. Lots of holes...


Then under the gantry. 


There is always one blind rivet that hangs up the upward motion.


The chassis was brought into the shop next. I love that 1/4" maple plywood. It was nailed down to hide the rotten floor. 


The chassis was next jacked up to belly button level. This makes working under and on it more ergonomic(not really. It is just an excellent height to roll under and work on top of. Ergonomic sounded so sophisticated when the words were forming in my head that I decided to use it).


We just started breaking off bolts at the rear and worked our way forward.


The wheel wells got rather complicated. You may have heard of blind rivets holding the shell or belly pan in place. Well, there were blind screws. There were screws that one just could not see.


Something else that could not be seen was major structural cracks in the frame. This is right where the front shell meets the A frame. A little too much tongue weight or too much tension on a weight distribution system and this frame would have gone "snap"


The rear cross member and two others were replaced. 


A lot of holes were repaired.


Two out riggers were replaced. The longest and the shortest. What's up with that?


The steps were all messed up. I sort of made them semi usable when I worked on this trailer last time. Now the step works very well.



Paint/ rust preventative coating ready. 

Stay tuned. (Check back too)

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Grate A Tude


In my on going series, I have to give a super shout out to Fleet Part. Though not my number one vendor, I do use Fleet Parts a great deal for running lights, missing lenses, and lubricants.


Fleet Parts is kind of like an auto parts store but for trailers. I am not talking camper trailers, I mean tractor trailer, flat bed, refer truck type parts store. 


I love to be able to buy a box. Now a days everything comes in a plastic bag. I dig buying bulbs by the box.


They sell a lot of things I would never need.


They sell things I do use.


They sell things I wish I had use for.


They offer good old fashion service and advice. Often when they do not have what I need they can send me right to where it can be found.




Wednesday, December 3, 2014

In Pressed...

This post will be the beginning of a series. I feel that because some of my vendors treat me so well, I need to show how very grateful I am for the services they provide to me. I will provide links to every single one of them so you too can utilize them for your projects…

Yesterday I got a call from Dennis at Metro Plating saying that my second batch of items were ready for pick up. You might remember Metro Plating from two post ago.


Of course I went and fetched them right away. I am utterly astounded with how good the items look. They are almost perfect for being 60+ years old. The guys who work at Metro Plating do some incredible work to say the very least. 
Before you say that you wish they were closer to you, know you can Fedex, UPS, or USPS your items to Metro Plating from any where in the world. I recommend you do.