All,
I just did this on the entire floor of my 1969 Caravel. Well, I lifted
two of four secured cabinets. I too found that the long Phillips head sheet
metal screws they drove into the plywood floor had rusted in the wood and
clogged the threads. Aside from stripping the slots with my Makita (they
wouldn't even budge by hand despite impacting them), when finally free, they
spun in place.
The solution was to chop off the end of the 1"X1" batten just inboard of
the screw with a wood chisel and a hammer. I was then able to break up the
short piece of batten and remove the exposed screw with a claw hammer.
Almost all of the original 12" squares came up very easily with a wide
bladed putty knife and I replaced them a few at a time with new, slightly
thicker ones.
I made up a couple of hardwood wedges that I used to raise the cabinets.
I only removed one screw at a time so as not to change the cabinets original
orientation relative to doors opening, etc. This was probably over kill but
I had to remove the screws anyway so I allowed that I didn't have to remove
all of them first and could do them one at a time.
FYI, I used Armstrong Imperial Texture 51858 tiles I got at Home Depot,
the closest pattern I could find to match the original tan marble pattern
ones. I used Henry's Clear Thin Spread Floor Tile Adhesive #430 and a very
specific trowel they describe on the side of the one gallon container. I
the trowel at Home Depot along with the adhesive and tile. It's a
SuperiorBilt 85-T4-17. 1/16" X 1/32" X 5/64" notched model. I called
Henry's Customer Service line and got good basic advice from their tech rep.
The adhesive is water soluble when wet and comes up like magic when it cures
with common paint thinner, it's just great to use.
The job went smoothly, like I said, 8 to 10 tiles at a time. That way I
was able to replace like for like and knew that my tile alignment would be
smack on. I got pretty good at cutting odd angles using the tick stick
method and the whole job took about four days of a few hours here and a few
hours there.
After everything was replaced I went back (this afternoon) and redrilled
the battens for new hold down screws that ended up being about 2" inboard of
the original, now nonexistent ones.
This is probably way more information that 98% of you reading this need
to know but I would have appreciated having a description like this about a
week ago before I started, so this is for those of you about to tackle the
same task.
Oh, here's a funny sidebar. The directions for spreading the adhesive
and laying the tile said to keep everything 65 degrees or higher inside for
several days before and during the installation and as I'm also preparing to
have the valves replaced on the two 30 pound propane tanks, I've been
running the 9,000 BTU heater for the last week 24/7. The guy at the propane
service needs them to be empty to do the valve change of course. I hope to
take them in this next week as soon as the last tank is empty.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO ANYONE PLANNING TO REPLACE VALVES ON THEIR TANKS!!!!!!
The guy there told me to get them changed before May 29 because the
Federal law is going to get tougher which might disqualify my perfectly good
tanks (and yours). I didn't get details at the time when I took one in last
week and had this conversation with them.
They weren't able to change the valve then because they said that there
can't be a speck visible rust on my steel tanks. I'm in the process of sand
blasting them to bare metal and the thin film of miniscule rust on the
exposed areas as well as the normal rust on the base (not sandblasted there
yet) was enough for him to tell me to return with them completely painted
and not a trace of rust. I plan to quickly paint them with a cheap spray
can this week so as to get the valves changed before the deadline. I'll
then remove all paint, prime and finish paint the two of them the right way.
Regards,
Glyn Judson
1969 Caravel #508
Santa Monica CA