[VAC] half inch sag and paint removal

["Jrnymn" <jrnymn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone,

Just reporting in on some stuff I did in my Overlander
this weekend.

Saturday I pulled out the shower/wall panel.  It came
out intact except there is residue from the paneling
still on it and some grey window caulk strips along the
aluminum wall banding.

Next I took out the screws along the curve of the shower
pan.  From that chore I think I figured out why I've got
elephant ears on the rear curb side.  There is
practially nothing supporting that corner of the
trailer.  When I slid the shower pan back, all I saw was
tattered belly pan (which I expected) and ground.  I was
expecting at least some 2x4 or something.  This means
the toilet was only supported by the wall and so the
stress concentrated where the elephant ears show up.

At least this confirms my original diagnosis of having
to replace the whole floor!

Then I went to work removing the lowest panel that runs
from the former shower wall all the way to the door.
Except for the main ceiling panel, it is the longest
one.  There were surprisingly few rivets to remove and
the bucked rivets around the door were not as hard as
they looked.  I just used a controlled depth Dremel bit
to shave the head down to just a paper thickness, spot
drilled a center for the full drill bit and went to town
on them.

I was more concerned about hitting an electrical cord in
the wall than anything, even though I had the power off
on that side. The panel came out without incident.

Having finally exposed the channel that rests on the
floor--I got to see how much settling had really
occured.  Every single bolt was rusted.  A few were bent
at an angle (shell shift?) and all of the washers were
rusted into the nuts.  But get this...the washers and
nuts were at least a half an inch above the floor of the
channel.

This was 3/4" plywood to begin with, now I will be
surprised to see more than an eighth of an inch of
material under there.  The channel has some wrinkling
along the top edge---probably due to some flex stress.

I decided to spot test some stripping goop.  I bought
some "citrus" stuff to try first.  It was pretty wimpy.
It made the latex coat a little gummy, but didn't make
the Zolatone soften much.  Temps were around 60 degrees
but even after letting the stuff sit for half an hour,
just wasn't enough.

So I bought some toluene type stripper to try on Sunday.
It was quite visibly more active in paint removal.  A
Bondo scraper did really good in getting the residue off
without scratching the aluminum.  Chem-resistant gloves
and eye protection are a must (which I wore during all
of this) as this stuff burns on the skin.  Accidentally
got a little drop of the stuff on my finger.

Anyhow, the 'heavy' stripper worked better on the
paints.  It made the latex really soupy but the Zolatone
was turned into a kind of flaky paste.  My guess is the
age difference of the paints accounted for this.

The stripper was too caustic to be used on the front
fiberglass endcap (hence SPOT testing).  I'd be better
off just using a wooden scraper and elbow grease with
it.

But with the aluminum parts, even though the stripper
works pretty good, there is still a lot of surface area
to do.  And it is darn splat messy.  If it were all
Zolatone only, it would be a little better, but most of
the surfaces have latex over it.  I can't imagine trying
to do so much where over 60% of the surface is
overhanging curve or ceiling.

So now I'm thinking....do I really want/need to remove
the paint?  Basically yes, the latex is not all that
attractive, and the Zolatone is quite aged and dirty
(which is why the latex was applied no doubt).  It's not
that I want 100% mirror shiny interior, but I do want
the back end cap, bathroom, and kitchen area to be that
way.  The rest of it will be covered with furnishing and
fixtures or indeterminate in color at this point.  I
honestly don't see myself painting the interior skin,
and plan to let the color of the furniture and fixtures
soften the potential "industrial" look.

Would a heat gun be better choice?
Would taking the panels to a commercial vat dipped
stripper be a good idea?
Would a vat dipper be able to handle the whole curved
endcap?

I'm hoping contracting something like this to a
professional will be more economical than all of the
materials/labor/disposal I'm going to have to do on my
own if using stripper is the only way to go.

Jay L. Griffin [a.k.a. Jrnymn "Journeyman"]
http://homepage.dave-world.net/~jrnymn/jrnyindex.htm
    ____---,____
  /  '--'       [ ] O  )   Overlander '56 26'
  :-----O O---------------^#6066 WBCCI / VAC