1957 Leisurehome - Fairweather June Park-Model Resto-Mod

Enjoyed the other thread a lot, subscribed!

Looks like you have fun with these builds.

Very cool. Looking fwd to following along with this build.

HOWEVER....what's this "waiting until next June" ?? !! We need to have a barn raising for you...a bunch of us need to come up and put up a barn, with heat in it, so you can work on these projects thru the winter ! :)

Okay. ;)

Love your post and sense of humor! Thanks!

Well thank you folks. You've always made me feel real welcome right here in the vintage trailers. There's some welcome, by several, in the truck campers forum, where I do Lil' Queeny, but it's different here - better. So again, thanks. If you like my stuff, be sure to stay up on Lil' Queeny in Truck Campers this winter. It's where I'll mostly be.

The shop idea has been on our minds for many years. Every time we've done home remodeling or expansion - and there has been quite a bit - it generally adds more work for the finish, and outfitting portions after the actual build. Seems one can always add more and never get to use it. I know, that's what we're kind of doing with the old campers.

And early this spring we even got bids! But we could never really decide the best location: close to the house, clear out in the field, attached, dis-attached, smaller or larger, pole barn or steel shop. Spend money unwisely, or not.

To date, we've decided to just keep the attached three car garage as the work area. It's already set up, heated, has water and a solvent tank, radio. Of course its drawback is the reduced area and overhead door sizes - when compared to a shop.

Years ago we contracted to have the addition built (three car plus garage below, Master bedroom above over 2/3 of it). At that time, my neighbor asked if I was going to put in a taller garage door in one of the bays. I said, "hadn't thought about it". We decided yes, and got with the builder and raised the whole 1/3 side of the garage by one foot. So the double bay is the standard 7' door, and the single bay (where I used to park the truck) was the 8' door. The builder also talked up the joys of scissor trusses, and glad we did!

They weathered it in and we did the finish - the part which takes all the time, and a lot of money, but not on labor. Then later got the downstairs main floor changed up to a great-room style by yanking out interior walls.

Doing the work ourselves over the years (and on these campers, painting the house this year, the flagstone fire-pit) has saved us so much money in labor all these years. But the labor is... well... laborious! I don't think I have a shop left in me! That's why I like piddling with small campers.

DW has always seen these old falling down barns and farmhouses and single room cabins in our travels. She wants to go embrace these and fix them up and restore them! That's why the two of us seem primed for a new hobby with the old campers, especially if we view them as "modifications" (sometimes severely) as opposed to restorations. Modification is what provides you license - to create, to use up stuff, to make decisions based on availability and significantly reduces cost.

Like the flagstone fire-pit - it needs a little history. The pit used to be the truck parking place, before we had a domestic yard.

Then when I demo-ed my dad's 1972 11.5' camper and moved appliances into our second canned ham - the 1960, we dug a pig roasting pit, edged it with rail-road ties, and covered the ties with the camper aluminum. Built a heavy door/cover. We had two pig-roasts, two years in a row, for New Year's Eve and a "friends and family" gathering. Burned scrap wood for about 24 hours, then put the half carcass in the ground (wrapped in many layers of foil), and baked it for another 20 hours, pulling it out of the ground (under the dirt sealed door) at about 8-9 PM, and a couple fellows would haul it to the make-shift table in the garage (now the main-floor living room).

Later, after the aluminum and ties burned out, we made a boulder fire pit out of excess yard rocks we uncovered while landscaping.

Then in 2009, we built the geometric shaped fire-pit ring and seating for a wedding in our yard, again with railroad ties, this time cut to shape with a chain saw.

Then this spring, DW was chatting over the fence with the neighbor lady, who mentioned they were removing their flagstone rock retaining wall at their basement exit area and were putting in those stacking rock retainers? They were hiring a dumpster and getting rid of the flagstone in that fashion. DW said "we'll take it"! I went, "Oh shoot"!

He bought a Bobcat for the job (and for other stuff - after watching me and Lil' Willy plow out his drive last winter several times - 'course they gave us a bottle of Choke-Cherry wine - twice - for the gesture, which is what I was after all along), and then this spring, he brought load after load of rock up in the Bobcat bucket and dumped it in piles - right in our "trailers parking area"! While I battled the early spring weather working on Tow-Mater, maybe you remember.

But this summer, while our son was home during the eclipse, we enlisted youth and vigor. Because rock work sucks!

DS makes his living "doing stuff". One of the best gifts I've ever received was from DS; it was only a text - on Father's Day one year. In it (and he did something real similar that year for Mother's Day) he thanked me for teaching him through example, that he could learn to do anything. Like that time we fixed a stuck float on his 1964 Ford Econoline forward-control van in the Walmart parking lot, or the time I drove it home and shifted through the gears, sans clutch, while he drove behind in my truck marveling. Or the time he impressed me while I was hunting and he changed the starter on that same van, in that same parking lot, in a snow-storm, after getting some detailed instructions from the Auto Zone veteran (now our bud). DW shown the headlights, but he used a cell phone flash-light. Oh sure, he can cuss. Like me. I came up with some pretty clever new phrases that hot August day I was re-positioning fiberglass batts in our main-floor reno rafters wearing nothing but a pair of short pants and flip flops - no serious!

But anyway, while he was here, we got his help, and he was excited to build a "stone work", as he has recently played a little with that and actually had to buy some tools to do so.

Then he moved all the excess into a storage wall along the driveway up front. Well, here...





A nice rock wall for storage until we get it into the NEXT project which is a pond/hill feature just beyond that little pine tree.

And grass is now growing (after seeding) in the fire-pit.

Free material. Building materials. We made a recent run to pick up a good size load of 2x6 redwood. Real redwood from the 80s, because somebody tore down a deck and set it up on Craigslist "free" stuff. Some 2x10s in fir. All unloaded, and sorted to length now in the field. Except scrap still in the trailer which needs to be stacked on the wood pile because we didn't take time to cut firewood this year. :/

And speaking of the field, we need some place to park resto-modded campers right? So we "got's this idea see"?

Take a couple of those redwood 2x6s for example, maybe an ugly or starting to rot edge and put it downward, with the good edge up. One longer than the other. Two in L shape. Stake that out at spots in the field which lend themselves to a cool little "RV spot". Out back we have three pine trees, finally doing well in the Wyoming wind and cold of our winters. That spot we call "The Pines" and with a landing built of 2x6 in L shape, and a little gravel fill to level it, Voila! Instant camp spot, and parking area for Tow-Mater.

Michael Martin Murphey (kind of a friend, as we met him one year, and then stayed in touch a little, when our son promoted him while doing that kind of work at a concert here in our town). Yeah, he came to mind as I got a song stuck in my head, "And ole' Tow-Mater.... in the pines!

Now Fairweather June, and let's face it, this is her thread, will have to live in the field this winter too. There's a low spot, where SOME is hidden from the neighbors, and that will become our new "camper staging area". Right off the new main road being created right through the middle of things. Then little tangents will come off (mostly back-ins) from the main road and go to little short connectors to places like "The Pines" and Tow-Mater. Or to another one when we get Fairweather June done, at a place called "The Garden Spot". And maybe another one in the future at the further reaches in a place where we've buried all of our pets over the years. We'll call that "Pet Cemetery" and it will have an appropriately themed camper build parked there! Of course, first we have to watch the movie "Pet Cemetery" and make sure we're not buying into something that's "Just wrong".

So that's the plan, and cheaper and easier than building another building. These things are supposed to be weather tight anyway right? Little tiny homes? And I expect we'll sell some, and move them through as time goes by.

We still want to do a small one for DS. And that can be built in our garage.

Yes, next spring or summer, in between more house projects, we'll demo the Leisurehome, and make storage places inside or out for the materials. But when we build the frame, or the floor, or the walls, etc. we'll do it in the garage. The shop. :) Because that's where we have our fun times.

Next winter is more for Fairweather June. So like with Lil' Queeny, Fairweather June will take a few years. And we'll probably get to DS's build prior to June's completion. But that one again, will be pretty cool. Unless we can get that little black and white canned ham for him, and if so we might lean heavier on resto than mod.

I got side-tracked today, but tomorrow I'll fill you in more on this recent acquisition.

When we returned to the Pawn Yard the first time, we told the owner, "we're still thinking". It was rainy.

He said, "I hope you don't mind that I don't come out and stand in the rain with you".

We said, "Nope!"

Sitting there in DW's little yellow Jeep in front of the trailer we scanned from the warmth and dryness of the car. I looked again at the sunburst on the front lower sheet metal and told DW, "We could harvest that metal and make TWO campers out of what's there". (I'd been thinking in terms of salvage for some smaller builds I've been designing in my head).

DW said, "And it has a titled chassis! What kind is it?"

I said, "I don't know, I couldn't find any identifying tags".

Later when I spoke to the owner again, he corrected his original description of the trailer as a 1954 - while reading the title, "it's a 1957 Leisurehome".

We couldn't find very much online about this make, but what we did discover was kind of interesting.



For one thing, this was a company making mobile homes (more so than travel trailers) out of Salt Lake City, Utah - my home town! I used to ride my bike all over that place, back before it got post 60s modified - the town, not the bike. Come to think of it I DID modify that bike, but that's a story for a different forum.

And according to this advert, their smallest mobile home in 1957 was a 23' "Traveler".

Note the sizes seemed to be every 3' or so. Fairweather June is a 20 or 21', depending on how they interpreted the 20.5' actual length.

Therefore, I suspect our trailer was their largest travel trailer, the size just before they got into their mobile home lengths. No idea on a model name.

I've seen online, a "16' Leisurehome Vacation", and some smaller ones that look like a canned hams, or other similar styled TTs. None I've seen in the smaller sizes have the look of this one, or of the advert mobile home models!

And if we size it down by a foot or two, we are open to and have license for, renaming the model too!

What else?

Well the advert says these are specially insulated for extreme weather, and were popular in Alaska and Canada oil camps. There's evidence that's how ours was likely used during it's most recent lifetime (North Dakota Balkin oilfield? Wyoming oil camps?).

But I think ours started out life as a more expensive sort of travel trailer rig for a Shriner. I think the Shriner's are a branch of Masonry, but I don't know much about that stuff. Check out these painted over emblems on the back of the trailer.



There's the Shriner emblem at the bottom, add-on by a first owner perhaps. And above is the manufacturer label.



Leisurehome Trailers, singular and one word. And yet on the previous advert, two words and plural! Like the travel trailers were a division, requiring a slight difference in identification.

And both the mobile homes and our larger TT is in 8' wide.

Extreme weather insulating? What is that, 2x2 construction with double thickness fiberglass batts when compared to many TTs using 1x2 construction?

Here's a side of the bathroom used most recently as a closet. Note the wall framing.





And there is some salvageable birch wood paneling in this camper. We'll be harvesting as we demo.

Here's the other side of the bathroom. Check out that light fixture!





What is "Floor Flo" Heating? This add-on radiant heater is what we found. Nice in cold oilfields, but June doesn't want to keep it. We'll find a purpose for it somewhere - just not in this trailer.



Our planned heating system is two units. One is a non-electric, gas only tank heater like the one in Tow-Mater, for up front facing the dining area adjacent to the entry door, kind of right where this radiant heater is placed. We're taking it out of a smaller truck camper we bought and are now planning to demo too, due to some mouse concerns in the bunk. The other heater is a combo gas/electric with the fan - small, but effective, newer like we had in our 2003 Starcraft pop-up TC, and which we harvested out of the kids 1995 Skamper camper. That way we have two, for needs front and back - depending on how cold it gets where the trailer goes, and one not requiring electricity.

Note these door latches. These look just like a pair I had on an old hardtop I bought from a Jeep salvage fella in SLC named Dew, when I was in my 20's, for our 1973 Jeep CJ5, our first family vehicle. The top was older, but I don't know by how much. Maybe it was late 50s?







Yeah, guess I'll be rebuilding another door. :)

From the back of the trailer, this view shows a number of things. First note the falling ceiling. The original leak damaged ceiling wood has been covered by this 1/2" insulating board, what I've called soundboard. A relatively lightweight fiber stuff in dark brown that was commonly used back in the day as house sheathing, except in corners where they strengthened with plywood for sheathing.



The roof is leaking badly, and the whole central ceiling is falling. We bought a second respirator for DW, as she wants to be involved in this one, so someday soon, we'll pull the ceiling down and get it to the dump. First we want to get in and harvest other stuff we wish to retain.

Right side of the front room.



Left side.



Note the missing glass pane.



Which allowed in birds that nested here. Total yuck!



I caulked in a plastic panel for the winter.



More previous construction. Two bunks, non-original. Oil camp? Front room maybe had recliners and a TV on the shelf?



Here's the side dinette, and partly removed so I could get the range out.





There's my dustpan. I've been looking for that over the past few days!

And some salvageable cabinetry.





There's some mix and match of hardware, you might note.





Previous to removal work.



Look at the dirt blown in here on the floor!



Check out this 120 volt Range vent fan and wall control!



We'll dispose of all the ****, including this included TV, then get the other dinette half out and put both here on stilts to keep it off the floor, which continues to get wet, soaking up water like a straw into the wood of the bottom edges, and then someday decide if we wish to build fresh, salvage parts, or some combo of both.



I foresee a ceiling "pull down" and "dispose of". Maybe some other interior obvious stuff. Then when it comes time, we'll harvest exterior metal, and take it apart from outside in.

I haven't yet determined the best method of fixing the crushed forward corners, but if I'm shortening up the front by a foot anyway, I may be able to simply cut the damage out, and set the front side windows back in place at a distance from the front wall corners equal to that of the front wall windows. That would give the appearance of full wrap-around glass, with small structural corners, and let me clip away damaged metal.





Or maybe I'll just straighten it. Now that I see it again I have to keep the similar length between front wall and entry door opening, for a wide enough sleeping area in this room.

In fact, the foot or two I should remove in length might best come from here, where the opening is for the range vent,



and here, where the repair job was done, perhaps where a fridge originally lived.



Peeling chrome on the license plate fixture.



I duct taped several openings in prep for winter. Killed a wasp nest in the roof vent, and got back onto the house jobs needing attention. All in good time!

Today: Floor Planning.

I used to kind of be a software guy, back when it was advantageous to know that stuff with work and career, or even with personal projects which are helped by knowing software.

But in more recent years, I find it awfully hard to justify learning anything new - software related - until the next time I do.

But what I learned to use many years ago, and it is still pretty fresh even today - Graph Paper! That's what I used in the late 90's to provide our vision to the contractor building our home addition. I even use it to best imagine where to place living room furniture every Christmas when we have to put up the tree, again. It's SO much easier than moving couches and stuff around several times!

Once you've chosen a scale (I prefer 1/4" graph paper squares), where like one square equals one foot, or 6 inches, or 3 inches, for example, once you have sized your project in full size to the greatest amount of real estate you can pull from an eight and a half by eleven, then you can size and cut out your objects.

Objects might be windows in a wall, couches in a living room, water jugs in a utility trailer, etc. And then you can save these little cut out sized scraps of paper in an envelope and come back another day to check/see if your NEW thoughts on the project might pan out.

I don't use it on every project! Sometimes you just have to handle the real deal, the actual objects. But for the initial vision, it helps me.

Oh I've tried graphing software, but word processors made much more sense to me. And software engineers don't speak-a-my-lanquitch either, like what the heck is a vector map?

I also used to be a Local Area Network (LAN) manager assistant in my place of employment, because I was on the payroll anyway, had a bit-o-aptitude and most importantly, a willingness to learn and assist - which is often the missing ingredient when a worker is needed to do more with less.

Techies don't think about naming office printers, they just install the drivers and let the "default" name get selected, like HP456tf or EP2500-Laser-rama-hoo-boy.

I'd always try and think like a user, because I was also one of them. So I'd rename to things like Laser-Training Dept or HP Inkjet-QA Dept, and such.

What always bothered me was whenever a techy acted like God to the user, like just because they understood something you didn't, they could treat you like you were stupid, and they were amazing, and they were doing you a favor or something, and all you could think about was how they'd get their's someday, and you might just try and pull some strings with Samantha in Human Resources and make it happen even sooner!

Seriously, that's just for humor sake, we shouldn't think that way about others. I mean everybody is hauling around one bag of baggage or another. We should be helping each other, not pointing fingers, laying blame, misdirecting attention away from our own failings.

When we get impatient with another, we shouldn't angrily speed around them. Wait until it's safe, smooth, unobtrusive. Let them go through whatever it is that's making them do whatever you don't like, but instead of giving them an angry reaction, or raising a finger, just try smiling. Not only does it calm you! It gives them a "positive" to focus on, and most of us need a positive to focus on - especially these days.

And if you ONLY have one finger, because of that shop accident, wave with your other hand - for crying out loud!

But anyway, I like graph paper.

So for this project I chose 1/4" equals 6". And every inch is then 2 foot. Easy Peasy! First I drew up a 17' long box (at the floor). Where the front room juts forward a foot at mid height, I drew that in too. I didn't draw in the additional 6" jut forward at the front roof line.

And then after closer inspection of the frame (just a little), I determined it was maybe a good idea to shorten the rear by a foot, and push the front of the house box back by a foot. Therefore, two sheets of paper here. You can see how I lined up both to the wheel wells, which are in the same vertical vector (is that what vector means?).



That's not for study, just comparison. Here's the closer view of the shortened box now.



The walls drawn on the paper are too thick, I think. Should be about 2", and the windows and doors are "shaded" in their measured spots - that's the sheet metal sizing (with existing holes and openings) which directs the necessary floor planning.

Also directing the floor planning is weight and balance. Heavier objects (water tank, appliances, etc.) are placed as close as possible to "right over the axle", or forward of the axle, and balanced between left and right sides.

Somewhere along the way, I heard from someone who indicated they knew, a home-built trailer should target loaded weight of 60% forward of the axle and 40% behind the axle. Of course that is just a rule of thumb and whether a trailer is real heavy or real light is likely to adjust that rule somewhat.

I don't know "nuthin'" about fifth wheels, but for bumper pulls, I've always heard you want a target of 10-15% overall trailer weight on your tongue. A favored world is like 12% I think, but somewhere in that range is generally safe - probably. My attorney says I have to add that word "probably" in there every so often. Or "I think" and "maybe".

(Just kidding. I don't have an attorney. I'm hanging out there just like the rest of you - maybe.)

So let's look at this again.

The original floor plan is a rear kitchen and bath. Kitchen sink and counter along the back wall, L shaped into the range (very cramped) and the back wall shared with a cramped door into the bathroom, which was originally perhaps a stool and shower at the rear, and a closet forward. Maybe. I haven't inspected all floors yet, but there's a 4" hole in the rearward spot.





We've moved that kitchen to the right side (curbside) in our plans, and put the bathroom all along the back. That shower and stool can still be moved a bit because it's paper.



That's the little forced air furnace under the bathroom basin. And the convective non-electric old-school furnace by the entry door.

And this change centers the kitchen sink on a side window, where the dinette used to live. That window is the same base height as the original rear kitchen window, which is now in the bathroom. The new kitchen window is a little higher on its top edge, giving a tall cook like DW, a greater visual, a more "campsite view" than at the rear - generally, and an easier left or right view so as to "be part of the other goings on". Kitchens in another room, or with the cook's back to you, belong in a different era, not our new century where we're providing a "breakout" for our emancipated June Cleaver!

And another thing! What many men don't get about women is that it's easy to have them be your best friend! You CAN go on vacations together. You don't have to hang with the guys and they with the girls (unless of course that's what drives you). No, you can be great partners if you have similar interests, and mutual respect. And a bathroom.

That's all it takes, respect, and a bathroom. Friends forever! Cereal!

So we haven't yet decided if we want to outfit this bathroom with a cool stool and shower - you know, of the period, because I think we can find some used stuff. Or rather, should we use that cool wet-bath stool and shower floor combo from the kid's Skamper camper that we already have, mod that bathroom up real slick-like, and just keep the period touches in the front-room and the kitchen. So there's all that still to determine, as time goes by.

But note again on the plan, all that floor space in the kitchen - you could DANCE in here, and maybe we will! Kitchen triangle: sink, stove, fridge - all over and/or near the axle.



By the way that's a pocket door between the kitchen and the bath.

And a pantry with pull out shelves into the aisle. Three rows, narrow. Maybe.

Another design element I've learned to apply (which most manufacturers don't think about, or seem to care about), is the water heater location. Keep it close to the use areas, especially the shower or bathroom basin. That's where you want hot water immediately, so you don't have to run your "limited fresh water supply" into your "limited gray water holding tank" every time you just want to splash some warm water on your face. Sheesh, it ain't rocket science.

In our poorly thought out, new(ish) Komfort TT, I open the hot faucet in the bathroom, I let it run at full and count thirteen seconds (one thousand one, one thousand two...). Then I plug the basin (cold still coming in, but then it turns warm, and then hot) and by the time I have half a gallon - or less - in the basin, which is all I need for a morning wake-up wash, I've run how much down the drain from my limited supply? Keeping the water-heater close to the use area, in effect reduces the necessary size of your grey and fresh water holding tanks! I can't help you on black water, that's a whole 'nuther thing. But a good diet helps!

Fresh water tank (cold) placement is not as critical. Other placements factors are: where are most campsite/RV park hookups located? These things should be thought about.

Or furnace vents. But sometimes you have no choice and must put a furnace vent right by the entry door, when you're trying to retain vintage character for example. Besides, "learning from burning" is not ALWAYS a bad thing! We raised two kids that way! "Now let that be a lesson to you!"

But anyway, losing the side dinette, and making the front room into a big dinette/living room/bedroom combo, really allowed for a nice sized kitchen and bathroom.

Now up front, with all the big windows (see them shaded in the walls?) there's the living area. Hang-out City.



And at night? Convert that cool dining booth into the cool huge bed!



No camper queens for us! That means a 75" long bed. WAY too short. We need the full 80" length of a standard king, queen or long-boy double. Width? Fortunately, not as big a concern for us, in fact Lil' Queeny is odd-shaped due to the bunk vee-nose; its width is queen at the wide spot and double bed width at the foot and head. I think we can do it, especially with the enfolding embrace of the night chamber itself.

But note (back here in Fairweather June) the bed pulls out to partially block the entry door. Oh well. Too bad, so sad. I think falling out of the door from bed-height during a fire escape is STILL easier on the body that is a, say.... roof escape hatch!

I also had some ideas about putting at least some grey water holding tanks ABOVE drain level by installing a 12 volt fresh-water pump to pull grey water out of a reduced size lower tank and pumping it into a higher (in the warm room) grey tank for freeze control, as we have no heated basement, but it isn't really necessary, just a thought.

If we determine flipping axles isn't a "handling" concern, and doing that CAN be, then we'd have better clearance, as well as a place to put gray and black holding tanks under the floor, close to or above the axle axis, and perhaps even insulating them in a way that is easy for maintenance as well as anti-freezing.

So, I guess that's the plan.

Today: Inspection, cleaning and storing Fairweather June's appliances.

Fairweather June came from the factory with an apartment sized floor standing stove/oven range - made by Preway.



Where does this term "range" come from? I have no definitive answers. But here's what I think - and YOU can Google it.

Back in the day, the full "range" of cooking chores around the residential area, be it: the cookhouse, the kitchen, the cave, the community gathering area of the village - consisted of many multiple versions of heat source used in food prep.

When what we call a range was "invented", it covered the entire "range" of cooking chores in one sweet package: broiling, baking, warming (the oven) and frying, boiling, poaching (the stove-top). The "cooking range" was born, shortened to "cook range", and finally to just "range". That's what I think.

Three generations ago it wasn't uncommon for families to have between 16 and 20 kids. These large families were generally seen as necessary, because the older kids would become the caregivers, and workers, for the family as more came along. Our agricultural society more or less required it. Post WWII we moved into the cities and got spoiled. We had fewer children, but we lost fewer to illness or accident, that had previously kept our numbers in check!

Our proliferation remained however, even while we enlightened sorts (two generations previous), that is to say this group of us who had off-spring, but without a high mortality rate, because the cities came with Pediatricians, and by the time Fairweather June came along, average family size was closer to 7 kids. Over time (last generation) we had even fewer (we had two) because kids came to help out less, and because video games got too expensive.

So thank goodness we compiled all those family domestic chores into one object that could do a range of jobs. Laundry day was affected similarly. And any of those other "days" in which 16 kids could be kept busy with cooking, cleaning, ironing, baby-sitting, etc. while Mom and Grandma got fixed up.

Cereal! All you have to do is watch 1950s reruns. Woman had all KINDS of time to get fixed up. I mean they wore dresses to scrub the floor - I never noticed a scuffed knee on these ladies or a run in their hose! Perfect lips - even in black and white! Fingernails to die for!

But then, when the 16 kids became only seven (and we used to brag on that measly little number), and later only two - Moms could finally wear jeans, because now they were expected to do the work earlier generations sluffed off on the kids!

And I'm here to tell you, when it gets hot in the summer (for me that's above 70) I have to get out of the jeans, and put on the shorts, because I get too hot. And then my knees look AWFUL all summer long! Can you imagine if I had to wear a dress with bare knees, restore and modify old stuff, AND look presentable when DW came home from the office, coworker women in tow expecting drinks and stuff with MY knees! You're just lucky you've never SEEN them!

So at least we've got a range. That should control the workload. And this one is a floor model, did I tell you?

It wasn't abnormally dirty, but it was dirty. The whole time I was cleaning this bad-boy I was thinking, "you really have to like this sort of hobby to be willing to clean up somebody else's mess like this". Well - I was thinking that, and wishing I had 16 kids to do all these chores.

But it's cool. Most RV ranges are a 17" or 22" inch model, which is the height. They all seem to have kind of a standard width and depth. But there was a time before this base standard (depth/width) that had a little less depth. I've seen some of these kind of "set on a shelf", rather than surface mounted to a cabinet face. In fact, we have one similar that has less depth - a "Princess" Range - came with Ta-ton-ka.

Ta-ton-ka? Oh, that's our other truck camper. It's really weird. We bought it on a lark, and on the way home named it Ta-ton-ka, because the terribly thought out "Cab-Over Bunk Previous Owner Modification" (COB-POM) looks like a cartoon caricature of a charging Buffalo!





That's the bunk with mouse damage. We're harvesting parts and then we'll dispose of this one - or cut off the cab-over and make a "Cowboy Camper". But it has this brown (called bronze on Wikipedia so probably a late 50's early 60's) Princess Range planned for a special camper some day. The camper itself is a 70's.



Not Fairweather June! No sir! Fairweather June is bringing her floor standing model from home for her "on the road" independence activities. The 50's era home-maker liked to eat too! It wasn't just to provide sustenance for the family, or for the husband, even though she'd always sacrifice the best portions for others - and eat hers cold half the time.

I didn't know much about this sort of range - so as I cleaned, I disassembled and inspected and learned. It's pretty basic. But unlike electrical appliances (which will generally only electrocute you), gas ranges use a fuel type that explodes! So you have to be careful. Wise even.

It seems these days, people have lost their ability to think. So if you're going to use one of these from yesteryear, and be around their explosive nature, you have to swim against the tide and think. You know, like for instance, get the flame (match, lighter, flint and steel) all ready AND burning in gas nozzle proximity, BEFORE turning on the gas! And if it doesn't light right away - turn off the gas!

Ummmm, maybe you should just get those new and improved attorney designed models if that lighting instruction seems overly complicated to you.

So here's what I found.

Grates, burner covers, burners and pilot light tubes.



One front burner MUCH bigger than the other three.



Those three (I think a fourth is missing) pilot light tubes fit into these three in a central gas source bowl thingy. That's the range control manifold in the background.





Close-up of stove top burner valves and manifold.



And a stepped back view.



The presenting surfaces cleaned up pretty good!





At the bottom is the broiler - set right below the oven burner.





Note three height choices - for the broiler alone! You slide a broiler pan in here. I guess.



And below that is simply a crumb tray and the range base.



In the oven, TWO, count them, TWO shelves - on THREE height settings! Oh - that June knows how to live!







This is at the bottom front of the oven, back when the word "light" was spelled "lite".



This is NOT a finger hole to open a door where the lite beer is kept. Everyone SHOULD know, the beer is in the fridge, which we don't have yet, so don't even ask. Or better yet, YOU bring some cold beer next time - for crying out loud!

But even so, it IS a door that you can lift. Pull these latches back away from the walls with a screwdriver...







Revealing the oven burner and heat deflector.



Which simply lifts out.



Upside down.





Note the air shutter is sealed at a position. I didn't attempt to improve upon it.



This end of the burner slides over the oven valve oriface.



Seen in the lower back there.



Here's how it goes back.



So I moved on to the sink. Cleaned, inspected, taped the chrome band and reassembled the installation ring and clamps...





And got that and the range...



Stored out of the way on a high shelf.



So now we can go back out and harvest some final parts (fixtures, cabinets, etc.) and set Fairweather June up in the field for winter. Until next summer, when we take her apart completely, discover what makes her tick!

Today: Putting her to bed for the winter.

Here the other day, I finally took a shot of the trailer from a window up above. Obviously, sometime in the past - roof failure. Water came in, and of course, fix attempts. This looks to me like perhaps a long runner (board or something) was laid lengthwise and then patched over the new ridge and over the seams, with some sort of asphalt roofing material.



I don't know - maybe it worked - at first. It doesn't now, and hasn't for a long time. On the inside, they covered the water damaged ceiling with new ceiling (that soundboard stuff I described before), which probably soaked up intruding water to an extent that kept drips into the interior under control. But then all that water just sat there and "hung out", like we intend to do - but in the dining booth.

I don't really want to go in and stand under it, while we pull it down, but we might do some of that. Rather, once we start onto it (next Spring?), I think it best to first pull the asphalt roofing material and see what we have under it.

Then start removing metal, probably straightening and forming the edge molding as we go - put both into some sort of storage method to protect it.

Only then will we see the condition of the current structure underneath. Now there's a possibility, some (much) of the walls will be fine! If so, and salvageable, we may repair damaged areas and leave much original, do a new roof, etc.

But I suspect we'll find enough overall structure needing attention, that we'll probably salvage what we can as "parts and materials", and then just demo the whole thing, from outward in - with a respirator, in the Wyoming wind. That wind - if you stay upwind - acts like "suction to a surgeon".

The family came by yesterday; DSIL - our metal guy - was looking over the frame and mentioned some things I had already noticed, like for instance, the damage at one end of the rear frame where somebody had messed it up with a torch while welding on the heavy "drill-pipe" bumper sometime back ago.

In closer inspection, we think the trailer's overall length of 20.5' is modification (bumper) whereas from the factory, it may have not had a bumper (like perhaps their mobile homes didn't?), just a heavier angle iron at the rear wall/floor corner. If that's an accurate assessment, the trailer would have been a factory 20' travel trailer - no bumper, thus the tire storage compartment?

Also, to lighten frame work, every other (I think) cross-member has a sort of truss crosspiece with little wires welded in zig-zag fashion between an upper and lower smaller steel piece, in essence, turning those normally full piece cross-members into obvious truss style lighter weight members - that whole single axle thing. DSIL said we'll inspect each weld.

This sort of "frame work" is planned for inside the garage shop. And so are the structure builds, such as the floor assembly, then the walls, and finally roof. Built inside, carried out to the trailer for assembly. That sort of build. If it works. If we can make it happen.

Once again, the ideas fluttering around in the head right now are of course, retention of vintage character, while conducting significant modification behind the scenes, with an eye toward adding more interior comforts than came original, while using perhaps lighter weight materials and/or build style - if possible. The challenge is a great part of the interest on this baby.

For example, Leisurehomes marketed these as "the extreme weather" mobile home (trailer) right? And as I said before, that's probably the 2x2 construction with 1.5" of insulation.



But this little lady is called "Fairweather", and done right, we might lighten her quite a bit by building in 1x2 construction with 3/4" poly-cyan insulation, wrapped in reflectix, like we've done with Lil' Queeny, ending up with more overall R value than 1.5" of the fiberglass of yesteryear, better air infiltration sealing - a tighter, more cozy and warm unit over all, while saving on weight!

This Spring, Tow-Mater's arrival into our family interrupted our Spring and Summer chores and projects plans - but we got to them eventually.

This Fall it was Fairweather June's turn, and her arrival has slowed us a little on some of our last outdoor chores to complete before snow flies.

We're also working on one of those "camping spots" in the field for Tow-Mater. It's really coming along cool and we'll share its end result in the Tow-Mater thread before too many more days go by.

But we played trailer Dominoes yesterday as part of this process, and got June parked in her winter spot, a section of field we're calling the "staging area" or a place for new acquisitions and the resulting demo and/or salvage work.



This is a low spot, but the wind really rips through here, from the left side, and will hit the trailer at the left rear corner, while keeping snow blown clear of the roof. I think we're battened down pretty good. And at least to us, and others LIKE us, she looks pretty cool from the road!

See you back here sometime in the future, this thread will be around for awhile.

Hell ya man... GREAT project, I'd be lying if'N I said I weren't Jealous.
Westend with" the cowboy hilton" has a bunch of good ideas in his 40 page thread on his rebuild.
Lots and lots of zip lock bags for small parts ID and tracking.

Keep up with the pics as you go we love them :)

-Repo