Another Late Night Post...

Lets get right to it...

I got my hubs finished finally. I removed the races because one was nicked and I thought it would be best to just redo both sides. It cost more than I had planned but it is peace of mind. After removing the races I took a flap disk and wire wheel  to the hubs. They were looking rough. Here they are after the rust removal...

I primed and painted them with Rustoleum Professional Aluminum paint that I have been using for the frame and other parts. The paint won't last for ever but what the heck. It will stop them from rusting into oblivion. I installed the new races, packed the bearings, installed the grease seals and mounted the hubs. I will try to post the numbers and sources of the races, bearings, and seals at some point. This might help someone I guess. Here is my favorite picture...before and after...

I received my grease seals and outer bearings and races in the mail just yesterday. Unfortunately, the bearing supplier didn't ship me two sets like I ordered so I was only able to assemble and mount one side.

I also stripped and wire wheeled the three wheels. I primed and painted them with Rustoleum Metallic Silver. That is what I had on hand from other projects...

They don't look to bad. I think they will get repainted at some point. Probably the Cloudburst color we have picked for the body of the trailer. It may not matter too much as I plan on running full caps. I am still looking for some vintage caps that won't kill me budget wise. We are now $268 over budget so finding nice but affordable caps are is a challenge.

I also have been banging out the entrance door stuff. I assembled the Bargman L-66. If you are taking your lock apart remember to grease the parts. I put it 80% together before I realized I hadn't greased anything. I don't think it looks that bad...

I still think these things are junk. I don't like them at all especially for the money they command. If you are repairing and cleaning your lock here is the exploded view to help you out...

I finally finished the interior door panel. It didn't go that smooth. I did two coats with the shellac thinned with denatured alcohol on the advice of a VSTF member. It was looking a little on the light side color wise and I got cocky and applied the third coat full strength. That did not go well. I had to sand all of the finish off and start over. IT SUCKED! I did it all again but stuck with the thinned shellac this time. I think it looks pretty good... 

You can see that I have dry fit the door lock. It took a ton of working on this. My "guide plate" broke in my hands so I had to fabricate a fix. Did I mention these locks suck? Here is the plate I had to make...

It seems to work. I spent WAY too much time making it and making it fit.

I got rid of the stupid hasp the PO put on and got us a RV door lock from VTS. Here is the dry fit of the deadbolt. I think it seems to work pretty well and looks a lot better than a hasp...

Sorry the picture is crappy. It was getting late. I stopped there because the shelter is about 15 feet from the neighbors bedroom window and I don't want to be a crappy neighbor and be hammering and drilling at 10 at night. Stay tuned for more...

More Work. Nothing Done...

Here we are again. I have done a ton of work on the trailer lately but nothing really done. I really want to keep up on the blog regardless. If I fall too far behind it takes forever to update this thing. Resizing pictures, uploading pics, writing stupid and poorly written comments... It all takes time. Enough complaining. Let's get to it then...

Where to start? I removed the curbside rear skin to see the horror. And really it wasn't that bad. I was surprised...

The back lower corner has a bit of rot. Nothing horrible or nothing that can't be fixed...

There is some more rot in the wheel well area...

All of this is getting replaced of course.

I removed the wheels and had the tires removed from the rims at a local shop so I could pay the rims some attention. As you can see from the picture above it is still wearing the Chrysler caps the PO had put on it. One was destroyed when it went flying off on the highway during the initial recovery. I had assumed that both wheels were the same. Not so. One was a older rim and one a slightly newer replacement according to my local shop. I don't know why but I didn't care. I needed to find a spare so maybe I could find a match to one of the two wheels. More on that later...

The hubs/drums look decent. Just need a cleaning...

When we towed it home I noticed a scraping noise in the wheels. I thought maybe the brakes were too tight or something. No. I pulled off the drums and found the brake tension adjuster (?) and spring were riding free inside the hubs. This was actually on both sides. I don't know if they had just adjusted them all the way out (to free up the brakes) and that caused them to come off? I don't know. I honestly don't know much about brakes. I will have to fix it if we plan to use the brake system...

I am also ordering new bearings, races, and seals which normally wouldn't be horrible but some of the numbers on the parts I have don't match up to some of the parts like eTrailer.com. Trying to figure out if I can get all the parts from just one place. Frustrating.

Another frustration is the fact that I can't seem to get 1/8 birch plywood anywhere in the Madison, WI area. Everyplace tells me they have to order it but the supplier is out of stock. One place in McFarland told me they could have 4'X8' sheets by the end of next week. Then I get the call today that he was wrong and I can't get it until June. WTF?!? I called 5 places the day I ordered. Looks like I have to make more calls to track this stuff down. I really didn't think it was going to be this hard. I really need it to have it on hand when I reach this part of the restoration. That won't be June. Again... frustrating.

Back to the resto...
I started sanding down the frame and coupler area to get it ready for primer and paint...

I started doing the bumper also. There was 3 or four layers of paint on both the coupler and bumper. I had to do paint stripper twice...

Then I realized that the skin was getting in my way. I was going to pull this anyway so it isn't the biggest deal to do this. Here it is pulled. I see the street side corner had a nasty leak and there is quite of rot on that side. You can see the first coat of primer on the coupler also...

One of my side projects was to clean up the door trim. On some parts there was a thick layer of gritty oxidation. I quickly wets anded the parts with 600 grit to get rid of most of the grit. Then I shined it up a bit with the Mother's Polish by hand. Here is the shot of the main door hinge...

I also pulled the fridge vent access door. This was REALLY oxidized on the inside. I'm not sure if this was from hot exhaust air from the refrigerator or what? It took me a while to cut through the scale. It didn't turn out to bad...

Another side project is to figure out the door lock situation. We had a broken outside handle on our trailer. One of the VSTF members named "Flyingham" donated a outside lock assembly so I could fix what I have. I also ran across and bid on a  L-66 on eBay. I think I ended up getting a decent deal on it. The auction ended and I was surprised I had won. So here is the lineup. The top one is the donated half from Ham. Next is our original lock. Other than the broken handle, I never really though this looked that bad. Wow. Put it next to the  eBay lock and it looks like crap...

Here is the locks taken apart and given a vinegar bath to remove rust on some of the pieces...

All of the parts out of the pool, cleaned up with steel wool. I should be able to make at least one really decent lock out of all these parts...

But... I haven't done it yet. So many things...so little time. I have more info but I'm tired so I will save it for later...

Stay tuned for more.