[VAC] Re: A/S Floor Repair

["Greg Linder" <thelin@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd put my thoughts into the mix.  I have a (recently purchased)
'63 Overlander which has needed some floor repair.  Here's how I'm going
about fixing it.

At the door and below the window adjacent I cut the bad sections out with a
Skilsaw and Sawzall - also cutting the old attaching bolts off.  I scraped,
cleaned, and primed the frame and then used 1" angle aluminum as cleats
along the outside walls.  I pop rivited these to the ribs/inner wall with
large alu. rivets so the new plywood panel would lay on it.  Where it
doesn't rest on a rib I use cleats, urethane glue, and screws.  With
aluminum I use stainless screws, while using  self tapping steel ones on the
steel  frame.  In my case I supported r-11 fiberglass insulation between the
frame members before laying the new panels down - just like the original.
Then I use a preservative on the edges, and later when dry a urethane caulk
on edges and seams. This has worked quite well in my case.

The other major bad area in my unit is at the rear under the rear bath
vanity-thru the rear access door.  There is nothing worth saving here.
There seems to be a major engineering failure here where the rear bumper
meets the body.  The water is channeled right into the wood floor (any
thoughts on this?)  So far - without removing the belly pan - I've Sawzalled
a straight line at about 1" behing the front edge of the vanity where most
of the wood is ok, and literally ripped out the rest piece by piece by hand.
In the edges between body and frame I dug it out with small tools and
vacuumed it out.  It's pretty much ready to go back together as the other
sections did, but not until the fundemental flaw in the rear end sealing is
solved.

This is our first experience with an Airstream, and we've used it several
times even as it's being upgraded.  From what I've read on this list I feel
lucky to have most of the floor sound in a trailer that's lived on the Wa.
coast and we paid $500 for!

Hope this helps some.

Greg  '63 Overlander