Well, 3ish months ago my dad bought a very nice travel trailer at a smokin price. The first step to his dream of not working and screwing around :) so, naturally I asked if I could take it to KOH. He just laughed and said if I had a real truck then maybe. Well, we got to inspecting the trailer closely (because doing that before you buy it is silly) and discovered that the back end of the trailer had a lot of water damage due to the roof at some point leaking. They did a very good job at hiding it. We decided that since rebuilding a travel trailer was something we have yet to tackle we would give it a shot. Thankfully, it's not as hard as we thought and its coming along very nicely. One more solid day and it should be done, including reframing some of it, all new insulation, new siding, cleaned up all the fiber glass, and we will put new trim on it so no one could ever know we rebuilt it. I'll add updates as they come, but with any luck it'll be good to go for a week In KOH. Turns out my dad wants to come for the week as well, so he will be pulling the trailer out there with my new truck and unless something changes I will be driving the dodge out to use as a chase truck/toy.













That's how we left it Saturday night, he got some more work done on the roof Sunday.

I'm apparently not smart enough to post photos from my iPad on to here, so ill have to do that when I get home.

Looks great.

Dibs on top bunk!

Looks nice.

Looking good!

Not good news, but you and your Dad are inspiring. Cool post.

looks like a fun project, you did a great job on the cj build so this should be easy for you two

keep the post updated with pics and info, im interested in how you are replacing the siding and doing the insulation

You got it sir, the insulation we are using is the styrofoam sheets. You can see some of it already in. I'll get some more pictures of it tonight.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Avis wrote:Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Look at you... fancy pants iPad man. :-)

alanzona wrote:Look at you... fancy pants iPad man. :-)

Gay. I hate how apple just assumes everyone who owns their product wants that projected in their signature. lol

Update for the roof portion..

The only thing holding up the canopy on this corner was pretty much rotted away... replacing the wood that was rotted would be a very big job and not easy at all, so we decided to add some angle iron and sandwhich it here, and down the line a ways where the wood was still in good shape.


This is the insulation we are using, bought it at home depot. This is the cheaper version, the more expensive version I would spend on if it were my house. Love this stuff.


Where the rubber roof is laid back here is the joint between it, and the fiberglass. This is where our leak originated from.. the previous owner did seal it back up but he didnt' bother fixing the damage already done. He, however decided to use bondo and silicone and ended up making a huge mess and ruining some of the trim that we will have to replace. lesson here is, don't use bondo on rubber sheeting and fiberglass... So we cut out the rotten plywood and replaced it with a new piece, then re-glued the wallpaper on the inside.


Here is a better shot of the roof area. there will still be another piece of plywood that will start at the top of the back 2x4 and go out to the edge.


This is the back piece of fiberglass, one piece that goes from the join on the roof all the way to the bottom. Thankfully its flexible enough to roll up, other wise we had zero walking room in the shop.



This is what we will be using to glue the fiberglass to the new wood we will be using..


We also scored a weight distributing hitch/hitch with sway bars on craigslist for $100.. new, they go for $300ish. We bought this when I thought I'd be pulling this with the Dodge to KOH. I"ll still use it with the new truck simply for the sway bar aspect.

(not all of it is shown in this picture, for those of you who are wondering)



Next step is to finish the roof portion so we can measure out the holes that need to be cut into our walls to match up with the holes already in the fiberglass, then just put everything back together. We will be fixing/buying trim and replacing all the marker lights. Still need to go through the whole thing and make sure it's good to go for a week of use.

Do we get an ending?

fatbob309 wrote:Do we get an ending?

hopefully its happy

I want smiley faces and unicorns.

Sorry, I forgot about this! :) It is indeed a happy ending. Most things can be, if you have enough money... as we so found out.

After we got the back re-built and dried in, we sealed everything up, cleaned, painted and put the trim back on and then started ordering parts..

We replaced all the clearance lights with LED lights

Caulked every joint we could to prevent more leaks

Ended up replacing every single propane part up front, the old 30 gallon tanks needed re-certified and that was pretty close to the same as buying a new tank. So, we bought two new 40 gallon tanks, replaced all the hoses, new regulator and hoped all the rest of it worked.

Installed another battery box so we can have two deep cycle batteries, and soon (probably not before KOH) we will be installing solar panels on the roof to keep the batteries good on long trips.

We turned everything on yesterday, stove, furnace, waterheater, etc.. to make sure it all works. And, it does! Only issue we had was the water heater as it wouldn't keep a steady flame.. so we are looking for a new regulator for that currently.

Things left to do, is pull the canopy out and see if/what it needs, pull the wheels off and inspect the brakes and bearings, put the spare tire back on, stock the inside with pots/pans/etc., and mount the spare tire. I feel like there are some more little things, but can't think of them right now. The major components are working and good to go for KOH, and that's all that really matters right right now. KOH will be our test run for it, so we'll see how she does.

Oh, I almost forgot..

Ha ha. Awesome.

Got another solid day in on the trailer today, got some more painting done, more seems sealed, my dad finished up the bathroom, I got the rear bumper painted, and spare tire mount back on, I also got the ladder back on, and built a separate stand that attaches to the factory stand with a hitch pin because the bottom of the old one looked like this,



And, the new one looks like this...




Also got the second battery hooked up


Also ended up being able to get the solar panel installed


This is the controller for the solar panel, just keeps it from over charging the battery.


Replaced the old toilet with a new one, little bit bigger and taller. The old one was made for 3 year olds I think.


Can't really tell, but we had to replace the trap/drain for the shower because the old one was loose and broke. Not a fun job, but it's done and works good.


As you can see from this picture, it wasn't easy to get to.


The old screen that was attached to the plastic ring was warped so bad that when you turned the fart fan on, it hit. So we replaced the plastic housing and screen, and it's good to go.


Spare is on..



Didnt' snap a picture of the ladder, but next weekend I"ll probably be pulling all the wheels and checking bearings. KOH is sneaking up quick!

Well, we've done a lot more since the last update and I think I can safely say we are 95% ready as of this morning...

I got a really important project done the other day, not quite as tall as I would've hoped but givin the only mounting option I had this will have to do. I"ll be flying an American flag and a DTOM flag.


This is another roof "patch" the idiots tried to do before we got it... needless to say, it didn't work. There was 1/4 inch of water on the ceiling above this we had to soak up, then tear out the rotted stuff and replace it with new wood and fix the roof the right way.




Then we decided to check the brakes and bearings... I expected the brakes to be okay, and the bearings to be shot, however it was the other way around. The brakes were trashed to the point I had pieces falling out of the drums while spinning them.



This is part of the adjuster that fell out


So we called a few places, and turns out Camper World sells the whole assembly already put together on the backing plate for 70 bucks.. so, we bought four and my life became a lot easier.





with inspecting the tires I wasn't comfortable with 4 out of 5 of them, so I was just about to get some ordered from Andrew at AZ Best Tire, when I stumbled on a craigslist ad for 4 less then a year old like new tires with rims for $400... couldn't pass it up, so I snagged those yesterday morning, cleaned the wheels and got them painted and on.


Today after some work related stuff this morning, I should be able to get the other side done and after that it's just little stuff to take care of.

Also, this is what we will have all week to run around Hammer Town with, looking for an antenna of some sort strictly for flying a flag, if anyone has one I can have/use for the week?



Less then two weeks!!! Can't wait!

I have a magnet mini-antenna you can use. It's a bout 18" tall and should hold a HG4x4 flat just fine. :-)