Re: [VAC] 75 airstream

["Mark Seawell" <seawell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joan,

I'm more of a lurker than a poster, but I'd like to second Jerry's comments.
I'm sorry to hear you got taken, but with patience anything can be fixed.

We  bought our '67 Tradewind from my parents when they upgraded to a new
AS.  They had owned it for a few years and my family and I had camped
with them a few times.  Well, when we took ownership of it we wanted to
add our own personal touches to it.  The main thing was to replace the flooring.

When I removed the bath (it's a rear bath BTW) flooring, I found why the floor
in the bath always felt "soft".  A previous owner had repaired the floor with a
metal plate.  I think this plate actually attracted moisture and caused the
floor
rot to be get even worse.

To make a long story short.  I removed the back sections of the belly pan,
took out the toilet, dropped the holding tank and cut out what was left of the
rotten section of floor.  I then fitted in a piece of marine plywood to match
the section I took out.  I then covered the entire floor from the under side
between the frame (luckily the rot had not gotten past the frame on either side)

with a larger piece of marine plywood and screwed them together.  I puttied
the seams on the top side  and put down our new flooring.  That may not have
been the ideal way to fix it but it looks great and should last a long time (we
plan to keep the "Silver Bullet" for a long time).  The alternative was to take
out the entire bath and put in a new floor section from the top.

Yes, this was a frustrating job and I was not to pleasant to be around while I
was
doing it but it's been well worth the effort since.

Good Luck,

Mark

ps If anyone would like to hear how I made bunk beds for the children  in
     our 24 foot  Tradewind just let me know.