We made it, but a day late...

Finally got the trailer buttoned up enough to take on the road, although a day later than we wanted. Still we travelled about 400 miles round trip with no real problems.

July 26th, 2012

Camping on Friday July 27th

New Firestone 6.70 -15" tires

Still work to do, but glad we got it on the road. Next up is exterior paint and applying the finish to the interior.

1 day before we leave....

About all I can say is it will be road worthy and we will be able to sleep in it. The biggest item is that the roof is on - whew! I certainly didn't want to screw up $400.00 worth of aluminum. The walls and roof were insulated with Styrofoam and I got all the wiring done. Also, the new Goodyear 2-11/16" WW tires arrived and I am having them mounted today. I need to get the last side aluminum piece on, the front and rear aluminum and install the windows. I also need to reassemble the door and get it on. Here are a few pictures from the last few days of work.


July 22, 2012 - 5 days until it needs to be on the road!



Adding insulation - I love Styrofoam (what a mess)

All insulated and the new whitewalls.

My son painted the wheels red until we actually get them powder coated.

July 23. 2012 - 4 days to go. Sure don't want to screw up the roof!

The electric shears sure come in handy!

July 25, 2012 - We will  be on the road tomorrow afternoon (I hope...)

7/25/2012 - Interior



7/25/2012 - Interior






So the plan for today is to get enough done to make it to my wife's family reunion this weekend. The windows will be installed, but I am only using putty instead of butyl tape so that they can be easily removed when it comes time to spray the interior and exterior of the trailer. Same goes for the window brows and exterior lighting, that butyl tape is a mess when you need to remove something. I didn't install the vent since I didn't want to cut a hole in the roof yet. There will still be lots to do when we return, but I am hopeful that I'll be finished up tonight so that it can be used....

New aluminum, walls and floor!

I ordered the aluminum for the roof, rear and front of the Deville from Hemet Valley RV and it arrived on July 3rd. Larry at Hemet RV was extremely helpful and the material arrived about a week after it was ordered. I only wished I lived closer, as shipping and packaging was about 25% of the total cost (total cost was $764). Larry did suggest double boxing so that the material would arrive undamaged, which did add some additional cost. The pattern that matched my existing aluminum was a 2" Mesa 4" Run.

I think each box had about 100 staples in it, but well packaged and not damaged!



Material for the roof. The roof itself if flat aluminum, but the upper front and rear have a 2" Mesa 4" Run pattern.



I have stripped the finish of all the cabinets and my wife and I got all the welt put back on. I opted to make my own welt as everything I found was either too dark or too white. This color should work well once the shellac is applied, plus it is the same diameter as the original welt.

The original shellac is stripped from the upper part of the closet.

Here is the welt before assembly, it is a light tan color.

Yesterday I took advantage of the sunny weather to get the walls on, the flooring in and start on the ceiling. By the end of the day the clouds were rolling in so we quickly placed the new roofing on and strapped it with tie downs just in case my "tarp carport" leaked.



Help from my son and brother!



My brother and I placing the first ceiling panel.

Ready to get the flooring in....

Here I am cutting the floor before putting it in the trailer. Sure hope I measured right!

It fits!



Do you think we will be camping in it in 10 days?



Hurrying to get something over the ceiling before the rain comes....

Here you can see the Mesa pattern that was used.

Progress on the walls finally!

Progress on the walls finally!

I was able to get the new birch paneling on the walls this weekend. I did change it up a bit as the orignial paneling had several seams in it. I tried to use the full 48" width of the paneling so that I didn't have quite as many seams. In order to do that I had to add some nailers so that I would have something to nail the edge of the paneling to. I also used paneling where there was originally a masonite or pressboard type material so that the backs of the cabinets will now look a little nicer.



Here is the original paneling you can see the seam at the right side and the press board material on the left side. The pressboard is the back wall of the large storage cabinet.



All the paneling removed and down to the bare frame

I used the old paneling as a template so that I could mark where the windows were as well as where to put nails. This also shows one of the seams that I eliminated with the new paneling.

Ready to finish!

 I also got the door all taken apart and found some rotten wood at the bottom that needed to be replaced.

Figured it was time for an update....

Figured it was time for an update....

I've got the deck back on the frame and am working on replacing the rotten framing and rotten wheel wells.  Here are a few before shots.

On the wheel wells I bought a 2x12 figuring I would use 1 piece of wood rather than the 2 pieces that were used previously, After thinking about the single piece of wood I started to worry that it might be prone to warping so with the help of my brother (he has the good tools) we ripped it in half length wise and than reversed the grain so that the grain on the two halves ran in opposite directions. We glued and screwed the pieces together before cutting the wheel well out.

Old and new wheel wells

I bought a 2x4 of hemlock to cut into strips to replace the curved portions of the framing. I chose hemlock because it had a fairly straight grain and was knot free. I was hoping I could just bend it to the required curve, but no such luck. To get the curve I built a really crude wood steamer out of items I had in the garage: PVC pipe, rags, foam insulation and a deep fryer. Filled the fryer with water and let it boil then piped the steam over to the PVC pipe that had the wood in it. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to get the wood to the point that it will bend, but it did work!

Wood steamer on a budget!

Yesterday I picked up all the 1/8" birch paneling (11 sheets) so I should be able to get the old birch off and new stuff on shortly.

Frame and Floor

Got the frame painted with a product called Chassis Saver. Just needed to wire brush the rust and then coat. The Chassis Saver encapsulates the rust. Below is the coated frame.


Chassis Saver coated frame



This is the underside of the deck with some of the wood replaced

 This is the underside of the deck afer the first coating of a water based roof and foundation coating

I lucked out and picked up the flooring from the Habitat for Humanity surplus material store. Marmoleum and it only cost me $70.00. Should work well for our color scheme of WSU Crimson and Gray.

Deckless

"Deckless"

Got the deck off this afternoon. I think I'll just clean it up and use POR-15 on the frame under the deck and paint the exposed portion to match the trailer.

Final Teardown

Today I spent about 4 hours finishing the tear down. I ended up using a reciprocating saw to cut the 3 bolts on each side since there was no way I could get them loose. I also used the saw to cut some of the nails that were holding the sides to the frame. I used temporary bracing so that the walls didn't fall over once I took the roof off.

Here are a couple of shots:



Notice how the trailer was framed for a window at the back. I've seen pictures of Devilles' with the window installed there.





Temporary bracing - didn't want the walls to come tumbling down!



This angle sure makes the trailer seem short....



The original flooring - This will be replaced with Marmoleum

Some of the siding. I learned the hard way to reinforce the door opening so that it doesn't buckle when I move it.