I decided to take a short break from repairing the floor and turned my attention toward waterproofing.  With the interior wall panels removed I was able to test some suspected sources of the leaks that caused the floor to rot in the first place.  Our old trailer had a radio antenna mounted on the front.  This antenna was completely useless to us, but it did give the trailer a vintage look.  However, I suspected that the old, hardened gaskets against which the antenna were mounted were no longer water tight.  I slowly poured some water against the exterior above the antenna and then went inside to see what happened.  A small rivulet of water ran down the interior wall from the antenna hole.  Suspicion confirmed!  Since we have no use for that antenna and I did not want to find and further maintain those gaskets, I decided to patch the hole.

Here is a picture with the antenna removed.  You can see the hole where the antenna used to be mounted.  If you look closely you will see that there is a small circular hole above that looks like it has been filled with grey body filler.  I hadn’t planned on doing anything about that spot, but it comes into the story later.

Next I had to figure out how to make a 2″ x 2″ aluminum patch.  I have a nibbler for cutting sheet metal, but I wasn’t sure I could cut a straight line with it.  So, I made my own guide fence from a piece of angle aluminum and two clamps.  With this home-made contraption I was able to cut a piece close enough to square that I could use a file to finish it off by hand.  I don’t have a large workbench so we had to use the edge of our front porch.  I had to make sure to sweep up all the little bits of aluminum afterwards so that none of them end up embedded in the bottom of my bare feet on a later day.

Next, John and I practiced bucking solid rivets.  He held the bucking bar and I ran the rivet gun.  The first time I pulled the trigger on the rivet gun nearly scared his pants off.  He didn’t expect it to make so much noise causing the piece of scrap aluminum to rattle.  But after a few practice runs, both he and I got the hang of it.

John held the patch in place and I drilled 1/8″ holes for the rivets, installing cleco’s in each hole to hold the patch in place.  After all the holes were drilled, we removed the cleco’s and then squirted plenty of Sikaflex sealant on the back of the patch before remounting them with the cleco’s.  We removed each cleco and bucked a rivet into each hole, one-by-one.  I made lots of smiley indentations on the second rivet.  Arrrgghhh!  Rookie mistake.  But the other three turned out pretty good.  To our surprise, as we drove in the last rivet, the grey body filler popped right out of its hole.  Then we had a another hole to patch!  Oh well, a patch is a better solution than body filler anyway.

Here is a picture of both patches installed.

Not too bad for a couple of amateurs, right?  I think they will polish up nicely.

Now that the leaks are fixed, I’ll get back to replacing the floor.

No sooner had we returned from the trip to Pine Hill than I dove into the job of fixing the floor in the front of the trailer.  The floor right inside the entry door had been weak ever since we got the trailer.  When you step inside, the floor sags causing a tear in the belly pan.  You can see where a hole has rotted in the floor in the lower left corner of the picture below.  I also noticed that there was a hole where the floor had rotted in the front right corner of the trailer.  On Saturday I worked up the courage to dive into the project of fixing the floor.  It didn’t take long to remove the front gaucho.

Then on Sunday I began drilling out the blind rivets holding the lower left interior wall panel.  The rivets that had a nice hole in the center were easy to remove.  But those where the shank had broken off above the head of the rivet were a major hassle.  It took quite a bit of time and emotional restraint to remove those rivets without expanding the holes too much.  I discovered that it’s actually easier to remove solid rivets!  To remove the solid rivets by the door I:

• punched a guide hole with my center punch
• drilled into the center of the rivet head with a #30 drill bit until the bit was sunk just through the head of the rivet
• carefully used a hammer and a flat head screw driver to knock the remainder of the head off the rivet
• used my hammer and a small punch to push the rest of the rivet out the hole.

I didn’t have any problems removing any of the solid rivets.

At this point all three lower interior panels have been removed.

Next I will take out some of that insulation and begin the task of cutting the bolts that attach the floor to the body of the trailer.

Stay tuned for more updates.