Rain... pounding around our ears and swirling about our feet. This is Southern California. Where we're lucky if we get two weeks worth of rain out of the whole year. Not complaining tho. I like it. It's inconvenient, but we need the snow reserves in the mountains. We've been thirsty for far too long.

This does, however keep me from being able to work on the frame. S'okay. Because I'm taking the time to plan how to do the rebuild. And doing lotsa research on things like what the 'eck is marine plywood and why should I use that instead of regular cheapo plywood. Another thought is do I really want to keep the stove? I like to cook outdoors on an open fire when I camp. Or just hit the local diner for a hot meal if needed. I've also been entertaining the idea of building in a shallow, hidy-place cabinet under the floor for things like rifles and thier ammunition. Or for hiding chocolate from my ravening children.

So I watch the rain streak our windows, and work on other things for now...

Vintage Travel Trailer Part5-frame

The frame design is about as lightweight and minimal as it can possibly get. The ONLY thing supporting the wood base and the weight of the entire trailer was the one length of angle-iron at the front and the two main C-channel pieces. Not even a length of angle iron for the back. The piece you do see on the back there is merely the rear bumper and has nothing to do with supporting the trailer body.



While I understand the reasoning for the frame being built so spare, I don't like it.
I'd rather add some additional weight in raw steel to get a more solid floor base and a safer trailer.

I plan to add some additional support to the frame using 1 3/4" angle-iron similar to what was used for the front cross-piece and two inner cross pieces. Ideally, I'll be able to bolt the metal of the wheel housings directly to the angle iron itself rather than to the wood base like the original layout. (My planned additions are in red.)



I have a MIG welder and can do the welding. However, I'm not sure that I'll be able to get the angle-iron pieces bent to match the original one in the front. That will require heat and force that I'm not equipped with. It's certainly not something I can manage in my garage. I'll have to have a welder or metal fabricator do that for me. And it might be too expensive. If it does turn out to be cost prohibitive, another option will be to just weld up smaller pieces of the angle iron from the corners to the edge of the C-frame channels. Either method will produce a stronger, more sturdy frame.

Vintage Travel Trailer-part4-home

Well, I got the trailer home. And it only took me half and hour to learn how to back up a vehicle and trailer... whew! I'm going to have to go find a big parking lot and do some practicing till it becomes second nature.



Got the trailer in place in the driveway and unloaded all the damaged wood and dinged aluminum and rusty nails. Idunno... maybe I am a fool.

I slipped all of the sheet aluminum up into the rafters of my garage and stacked all the damaged wood bits on the side of the house (covered with a large, reflective hanging tarp for protection from the elements). The windows, clean wood and appliances all went into safe storage in the garage as well.



Child 1of5 helped me sweep the remaining debris off the old floor...



and I got my first real look at what I was dealing with. You see that honey-comb of cardboard?

Wow.



I'm amazed it held up for as long as it did. Apparently, the entire floor piece is a 1-1/2" thick construct of 1/4" ply over an interior latice-work of cardboard held within a 1" x 1" wood frame.

Once the top surface had been cleaned of broken glass and such, 4of5 and 3of5 clambered aboard for some playtime.



Then the rest of their siblings swarmed onto the trailer and headed to the back. We all learned a quick little lesson in applied physics when the combined weight of his brothers and sisters tipped the back-end of the trailer down on it's tail and nearly launched the 2-yr-old onto the roof of the house. Okay... not really, but we all thought he was gonna get some serious air.



I placed a pair of automotive jacks under the rear bumper to keep THAT from happening again. With the jacks in the back, and the wheels chocked, you can now dance the Rumba on that trailer bed without worry.

The frame... I need to take a look at that frame.

Vintage Travel Trailer-part3-teardown

The interior was a study in devastation. Splintered and rotted wood. Dust, grit and mold. I managed to save most of the cabinet doors. Sanded and re-finished, they'll look nice I think.



I saved the windows, aluminum trim, and the sheet aluminum. The stove, sink and icebox appeared to be in okay shape. As I removed the cabinet box that had hung over the sink, I discovered a paper towel rack made from plastic that is a near perfect match in color to the appliances. And somehow, the gas lamp still had a grip on it's (original?) glass globe.



Everything was carefully removed from the trailer, and then re-stacked back onto the floor or bed. I used a pair of rusty old c-clamps to clamp down the metal of the twisted and buckled wheel wells to the remains of the rotten wood floor. Hoping that they would hold everything together long enough for me to get the trailer down to my house in the valley below. Without those clamps holding them up out of the way, the metal of the wheel wells would have shredded the tires in no time.



Once everything had been strapped down under the tarp, I hooked up a magnetic set of trailer lights and headed home.




The trip was uneventful. In fact, the trailer tracked beautifully and there was no bouncing or skipping during the long drive home. That, at least, was encouraging.

vintage travel trailer-part2-teardown

I've been doing some research. These little travel trailers were frugal in construction and weight. 1" by 3/4" strips of locally available wood were stapled together to form the structural framework. 1/8" or thinner plywood birch was nailed and/or glued to the inside of the frame, and sheet aluminum was stapled and screwed to the outside. Sometimes insulation was installed, and sometimes it wasn't. It's apparent that the interior cabinetry also doubled as additional structural support for the framework as well.

Simple, but effective.

I decided that I could rebuild the trailer using what wood was left as templates and reusing as much of the original aluminum sheeting, cabinetry doors, and original fixtures as possible.

So, I arrived early one chilly Saturday morning at my father-in-laws cabin and began the tear-down.

My plan was simple. Carefully dis-assemble the trailer piece by piece down to the basic frame and floor. Then, lay all the rubble back onto the trailer bed and strap it all down with a tarp for transport to my house down in the valley.

With the help of one of my father-in-law's buddies, we were able to completely tear down the trailer by sun-down.

I took lots of pictures as I tore down the trailer. We tossed all of the rusty screws, nails and staples into an 5-gallon plastic bucket. I'll use stainless steel fasteners when everything goes back together.

The dry-rot damage was catastrophic. Virtually none of the interior birch plywood was reusable. It was all I could do just to try and keep as much of the walls together as possible during the tear-down. I tossed all of the overly rotten wood, broken glass, and insulation. I did manage to save several of the cabinet and drawer doors. Sanded down and refinished, they'll look very nice. I was pleased to find the iron rings for the stove in one of the drawers.





Like I said, we took LOTS of pictures. And I made several sketches of the shape and character of the trailer profile. Taking note of the location of access plugs and recessed hatches... etc. I also made lots of measurements with a tape measure before the tear-down began. Adding the dimensions to the sketched drawings as I went.

I used a black, permanent marker to label and identify the purpose and location of every piece of aluminum and wood I hoped to re-use later.

I discovered that this trailer had a thick grounding cable from the fuse box to the frame. I'd thought that most manufacturers of these trailers just used the aluminum body itself as a ground. Was this grounding wire a safety redundancy? Is that better?

Vintage Travel Trailer-part1-the history

I just bought a house. And that changes everything.

Now I have the space necessary to make it possible to begin working on some of the projects I'd kept locked up in the corners of my mind.

The vintage travel trailer for instance.

Somewhere around 2007 or so, my father-in-law had obtained possession of a beat-up, vintage travel or camping trailer. His buddy who'd sold it to him claimed that it had been built in 1957, and had an old black and white photo of said trailer from around that time to prove it. Unfortunately, my father-in-law had discovered that aside from being "vintage", the trailer also leaked through a series of holes punched through the aluminum sheeting of the roof. (The result of a late night attack with a wood awl by an enraged former acquaintance of the past owner.) All of the cushions were missing, and it appeared that there was some minor dry-rot in the wood paneling.

My father-in-law took the trailer on a couple of camping trips and then parked it. He'd found another vintage travel trailer that was in much better condition and offered the first trailer to me for $400.

I did some internet research, fell in love with the idea of owning a vintage travel trailer, and bought the old thing, hook line and sinker. ..heh..

At the time, my wife and kids and I were living in an apartment. And there was no-where at all to park a vintage travel trailer. So, my father-in-law agreed to keep the trailer on his property until we could get our hands on our first home.

Unfortunately, three years sailed by with no luck finding a house. And every time we visited my wife's father, I visited my poor little trailer. It was painfully obvious that the damp conditions, the rain, and the snowy winters of the high mountains were taking a serious toll on the old, birch plywood.

Fungus had entered the trailer. I could see it crawling over the wood surfaces of the interior paneling like an obscene lover. Yet, all I could do in my impotence was to curse at the dry-rot before leaving.

Finally, my wife and I found a home. And I was ready to go rescue the trailer from the treacherous pine forests of the San Bernardino mountains.

However, I got a call from my father-in-law to inform me that the trailer had finally collapsed that winter from the combined weight of the snow on the roof and the dry-rot decay that had infected the wood. The next time I visited, I beheld the fullness of the disaster. It really was a wreck.




He wisely suggested that I give this particular project up as a lost cause. He was right of course. But I didn't listen.