1968 Travel Queen Resto Mod - 13. Exterior, Skin & Openings

These are very good questions. You (and others) don't know at this point, but one of the next posts will show Reflectix placed over the poly-cyan board and wood framing.

I have considered both aluminum (duct) tape, the thin stuff you describe, not regular duct tape (like Duck Tape brand), and I have considered vapor barrier tape (such as Tyvek house-wrap tape). In the end I have decided against both (even over the joints of the 4' wide Reflectix. I think a post soon will include both the reasoning, and a link to the report I found that helped me conclude those choices. These matters deal with air-infiltration (drafts) and water (both liquid and vapor) intrusion.

My mapping will likely depend on my photos history (threads are being saved in .pdf and will be printed out and end up in a book - in addition to digital retention). Now that DD is grown up, it's unlikely she'll record over my historical record to save boy-band videos or "Full House" as she did with my home addition video tape in an earlier era.

And speaking of solar on the roof, today's efforts are evaluating exactly that subject (placement), as well as removal of the work directly above the propane compartment to install a support backing-board in the bathroom back-wall that I forgot about until now. So that's going to put me behind a few hours to a couple of days.

Looks good Dave!
I might have used some aluminum tape to seal the joints in insulation but take a couple of rolls...
Have you a Map of the roof structure for adding stuff (solar) later?

One of the most satisfying moments of this project, was the revelation - specifically pictures 7-13 of this post - showing Lil' Queeny's birch paneling plywood condition - way back a long time ago.

It was on that day - after discovering such damage and failure under her skin of so many other critical portions of the front and back walls, the corners, the wings and wing structures - that I knew this thing was doable.

Take a minute to look at those pictures and then come back here and see our last views of that wood before we cover it up.







What a difference "a long time" makes.

So I figured it was doable (and while I am not keeping track, it HAS been reasonably affordable), what I didn't know, was how long it would take me. At some point along the way, Lil' Queeny's completion date became irrelevant.

I'm still reluctant to state an estimated completion date, or month, but I'm pretty certain I can now say "prior to mid 2016". :)

For awhile I've had about one and a half 4x8' sheets (plus pieces) of the 3/4" poly-cyan foam board hanging around that I hadn't used up while building the main and bunk floors. And I knew what was left wouldn't be enough to complete the job, so the other day when I got the Reflectix I bought another 4x8 of the foam board.

Very recently I spent two days cutting, fitting and placing. And here are the results.











With just this much scrap.



Most are held in place by friction of fit and/or gravity, but there are a few using spray adhesive. Some on the vertical sections were sliced or pieced to conform to the waves and/or bulges of the paneling, the worst of which was just above the propane compartment.

But now there's a nice, fully-flush surface for final exterior layers to rest against.

Your welcome. :)

So there was one last board to put up (actually two more small ones that will be formed and fitted along with the metal). This is the original piece (my extensive original plywood stock has diminished greatly) - a backing support to the rounded under-cab sheet aluminum skin where it curves behind the truck cab.



Originally the ends came out flush with the sides of the camper, but I didn't like the way the metal fastened to the edge of the 1/2" plywood - especially as it curved - so I trimmed the board back 3/4" on both sides to accept end-caps, in the process removing two very splintered cuts from the original dull saw blade used.

The bevel was also somewhat wrong from the get-go, but I rectified that a bit (couldn't take too much off as it would change the depth of the board and the fit of the metal), primed it and stapled it back up with 1" staples, being careful not to run any points out through the finished wall.



You can also see some pencil markings I used to visualize and obtain a correct angle. There was lots of measurement and templating from the metal on the ceiling here to get the right placement.



And with that, insulation could go up.

Alrighty then - let's gets some underclothes on the little girl!

For starters, I bought two 25' rolls of Reflectix in the four foot width. This stuff is NOT inexpensive, for what it is (I think $43 or $48 a roll). In essence, foil-faced bubble wrap with a 5/16" nominal thickness. And while the air is trapped in the bubbles, it is fairly compressible at any given point (imagine the edge where sheet metal fastens). Better yet it is a good cushion for the metal skin, like pad for a carpet.



I used a basic hand stapler and 3/8" staples. Most sat well from the start, but where concentration lagged a few needed a light tap with a hammer. I started with the hardest surface and stood on my head for a while.



I trimmed the edges and openings with a utility knife, and a hobby knife on the small openings (clearance lights).

Now why does the "space program" come to mind?



Moving around back, I got that surface covered. You'll see a lot of piecing here. That's not a problem. There is a bit of R-value benefit, but the main value is the radiant heat reflection (bouncing that Infra-red back away on a hot day, or back into the interior on a cold one).





And I covered the entire surface, even those areas where it's not really needed for heat reflection, just to give a fully flush surface for the metal installation.

For front and back I used one roll, with only this little bit of scrap left-over.

Nice post. Thanks for sharing that.:)

The other day when I started looking heavenward - to plan getting the sheet metal down from the ceiling - I noticed (really taking a close look for the first time) this - written on the back side of the skin.



And I thought, "well I'll be, Lil' Queeny's birthday". I was only seven years old back then. And that's the model number of course - an M102T. For an 8.5'. Interesting.

And that reminded me about a childhood family vacation we took to (among other places) New York City when I was 10 (Dad and I wanted to go fishing, but we were out-voted). This is what I meant a few days ago when I said, "remind me to tell you about my Dad and the 100 foot rope he was too cheap to cut".

When a Mom and Dad in OUR economic bracket plan a family vacation to New York City (the "hopes and wishes" choice of the eldest theater-talented daughter - who had graduated from HS that year - and would likely stop attending future family vacations), they don't fly, not with four girls and a boy! You go in a station wagon, even if it takes 18 days! And you don't eat out everywhere and sleep in motels every night; you camp along the way. And that includes the three burner Coleman camp stove, WITH one-gallon can of white gas! (Mom says it was too big of a pain after the one and only use on THIS trip, so we ate lots of breakfast cereal - and corned-beef sandwiches for lunches). And you should have seen the folding plywood bed Dad built in the car so only he and mom had to sleep out under the stars.

One of the funniest sights you'll ever see is a New York City hotel bell-hop holding a small gas can with his pinky, while looking in dis-belief at seven people racing around a station wagon, transferring EVERYTHING from the bulging tarp in a car-top carrier to the interior of the vehicle, so that the car would fit in the hotel covered-parking lot!

You see, interior space was already spoken for to stow people and bedding. My little sister and I got pretty adept at pinching off ever so small pieces of foam mattress from our prone positions in the back and using same to decorate the rear sections of the two High School aged sister's hair-dos seated just in front of us. But my! Didn't they look pretty, at every stop we made as they turned this way and that to display how cute they were to any nearby boys their age (never thinking about what they sported in their hair until it was too late). And I won't speak of the time I was the cause of my same oldest sister pulling out her entire eyelash for one eye just before a date.

So on the roof of the car we carried the luggage (and the stove and the gas) in an open-topped expanded-metal car-top carrier about 4'-5' square and 6-8" high on rubber suction cups and straps that held it down to the rain-gutters. Dad covered it with a tarp and roped it all down. Bungee cords were just coming out and kind of new-fangled. Dad was a traditionalist.

He'd pull one leg of that rope tight and throw the rest of it over to the other side, where I'd catch it and hold it snug until he came over and pulled it in good, looped it through another opening in the carrier, and throw it back over to the first side, where we'd repeat our little father and son dance. Kind of like manual jacks on a TC.

Being 10 years old, I just thought that's how it was supposed to be done. It never dawned on me to cut the rope. Not until much later.

But Dad was a child during the Depression and joined the army when he was 17 (he lied about his age) during the enlistment hype of WWII. There was no point in cutting a 100 foot rope when after such a trip you could use it for other purposes! There was no extra money laying around to unnecessarily buy a new rope whenever you needed one. Not when you had a mindset of multiple-use for a single object - something I'm happy he passed on to me.

And besides, he and I needed SOMETHING to do while the girls got pretty in the mornings.

Dad eventually got him a 1972 12.5' TC on single cab Ford F250, just about the time I started driving. I'd meet up with him and Mom and two sisters on camping trips a couple of times, but one by one, we each left the family vacations until it was just Mom and Dad going.

That's when he finally graduated and got his Motorhome - a Pace Arrow Class A - a brand name he just loved as he described "Pace Arrow" with such a look of happiness on his face and a right hand that shot out like an arrow flying down the road. And that's when he gave over the truck camper to DW and me and our little family.

He didn't get to use that MH for more than a couple of years before health moved him out of that lifestyle completely.

And eventually that TC was too far gone, so I dismantled it and saved much. That's the one where I first saw a Hadco 410 fridge (the same unit as found in Lil' Queeny). I retrofitted our 1960 canned ham with lots of the TC parts. Water tank and pump, fridge, etc.

I still have hand-sized coils of 12 volt wiring from that camper in a coffee can on my shelf, albeit much fewer in number than they once were. I will probably even use some of that wiring on Lil' Queeny. The leather sling tip I'm using as a handle on that one cabinet door is from his 30-40 Krag hunting rifle (the strap had finally rotted and became unusable).

It was Dad who instilled in me those building blocks that make me who I am today - him and Mom both, and how to use and re-use. He never said, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without", but he lived it.

He did say, "well beat me daddy with a twelve foot pole and call me short-stuff" (and many OTHER colorful phrases) but those are not for this post.

On this job I've had a few opportunities to get into his personal hand and small power tools. This was his toolbox that sat right outside the back door in the garage for the roughly two decades I spent growing up.





Too cool huh?

He got that in trade (full of tools) from a man who had no cash, but needed car repairs at a time when Dad managed a small service station well before I was ever born. I guess the guy worked for Boeing.

I've still got many of his tools, some back inside the box and others laying on one work bench, while I try and decide just how to organize and/or display them in my shop for use and/or reflection.

Last summer, when we had my elderly mother with us for several weeks, and while showing her my progress on the camper, she said, "your Dad would be proud of you". She'll be back again soon for a short visit - maybe her last, as she's getting more and more frail.

Well, I thought I heard on an MSN.com news story recently that heaven was getting a terminal, a sort of divine Internet Cafe, if you will. If so, I hope Dad took the lessons and has been able to follow along with these posts. And I do hope you're proud of me Dad.

Today we work the small wood pieces on the front box wall, similar to yesterday's back wall tailgate opening treatment - and get both front and back installed.

The front wall is less in all aspects. This photo shows the new boards alongside the original 2x2s.



If you look close, you see the originals had some jagged chisel work on the near ends; that is to fit around the characteristics of the metal under-grid jack system. It has welds and such so each board is trimmed to fit that spot.

Also, the originals were nailed and fastened with corrugated staples, neither of which method I was to reuse. I cannot easily access the top of the wing on the fridge side, so as to run a fastener down into the center of a 2x2. Running a screw from below up into the wing would only provide 1/2" or less of purchase and maybe the point would come up into the dinette cushion (and perhaps my behind). Even worse, on the driver side a screw point might puncture an electrical cable. Why does this require a 2x2 anyway?

I chose 1x2s. Pre-drilled and fastened from below up through the wing and into the front wall edge was a better choice for me. And if I were to fasten a 2x2 in that manner, there might be a rocking or rolling tendency that would prove non-beneficial to the caulking I plan.



Now to fit and trim the ends, pre-drill the screw holes (after marking to avoid other screw heads), and run some sand paper over them.



And to check fit. Driver side.





And on passenger side.





I set them aside for paint.

Now back up on the roof I looked things over.

These holes are for an interior light fixture. The large hole is for the wires and the three small holes in a triad are for the mounting screws. I didn't like the "thin wood purchase" for mounting a light, never mind it is very lightweight. I guess theoretically if you strip one out you can twist the fixture slightly and make new holes, but that sort of short-cut never did appeal to me.



Here's another one. Note on this bathroom location, one mounting screw comes up into a roof rib.



Here's my lights. Originals I'll be re-using as part of the character retention. Besides, I'm not real big on interior LED lighting. I guess they're coming around to more choices (warm light spectrum), but they've always felt too cold to me (as in ambiance). Yes, incandescent puts off heat, but more often than not in OUR type of camping and travel we like the coziness that provides.



Between our two campers we had eight usable fixtures, but only three non-damaged lenses. I located one more lens from 5-Star RV in Denver giving us four total, although there are two different styles of lens. We'll discuss that more in Electric before too long.

I cut some small wood blocking, scraped the splinters flat around the holes, and glued the blocks into place. That'll hold 'em!

Entry way aisle.



Bathroom.



Aisle near fridge.



And forward bed-chamber.



All locations original.

Then I primed.



Then I painted.



And it was time for installation.





And out back to finish up.









Now like yesterday, let's look at some reminder pics of the front of Travel Queen campers.

Here's that 1964 from Durango, CO again. Notice how the piece has a little doo-hicky hanging down to cover a view of the jack system hook? They did away with those eventually; unprotected doo-hickies have a tendency to become damaged.



Another 1964 in Washington state.



Our '66 left and '68 right.



You may have noticed I primed the full back wall and the front box wall. That's not all I did. The outer surface of all the framing is also now primed - in preparation for additional covering. You'll see that in next post pictures, but it will get discussed later when we wrap the little camper in warmth.

I think tomorrow I'll see you over in Electrical.

I keep an informal eye on the number of daily views for the thread I'm working. Last year in its prime, I was seeing near 100-120. Since starting back up here recently, I'm seeing about 50 increasing to near 80.

Last night I checked before bed and found 517 views since yesterday morning's post! This morning there's an additional 618!!. Well over 1000 views in 24 hours? That seems impossible to me.

I know RV.net has been experiencing technical difficulties lately; I've taken to access Open Roads through Woodalls, so perhaps the number of views is some sort of anomaly associated with that.

If - on the other hand - the number of views is accurate, I suspect somebody from an interested group has found it and spread the word to their organization. As long as it ain't ISIS, I'd like to welcome you to my resto-mod and remind everyone that at the begininng of each thread (this one included) is an index to the other categories of the project (currently 14 threads).

The scope of the job has become incredibly greater than I ever imagined in the beginning. To illustrate this, one of the first parts purchases I made was a roll of window screen material; it remains on the shelf and will likely be part of one of the very last discussions.

Today involves a subject I think is quite unique to Travel Queen, although it will resemble similar components found on other campers, especially stick-builts. It is the more or less dainty, decorative tailgate opening treatment.

These L shaped boards fasten to the back camper box and wing region, both to extend the back wall metal support into the signature non-extended Travel Queen camper look, and to block direct view up into the truck bed from behind. Of course those are the originals on the left, complete with their covering of undercoat material that was found on the unsheathed, bottom portions of the rest of the camper.



Here is the left side. The under grid jack support system incorporates what amounts to an L bracket used for partially mounting the board solidly in place. Originally, two additional support locations were found: a nail from the board's other side surface into the lengthwise inboard 2x2 (I have inadvertent construction gaps there now), and a heavy metal L bracket (made from 1.5" angle iron) as found elsewhere in the camper, to support the lower part of the leg. I used those original brackets on the front camper wall installation, just in front of the water tank.





And the right side.





I used a router and finished up with a wood chisel, to remove enough material (it was on a slight slope) so as to fit the bracket and allow for a flush rear wall surface.







Here's the overall look.



Now - what to do about angle brackets? First I checked my brackets bucket (maybe you were wondering what kinds of things are in those coffee cans on the shelves).

Out of the group, I found these four - and didn't like any of them for this application.



I guess I could waste some time and run over to the hardware store and get some basic zinc plated angle brackets; there's not a great deal of strength required. But I kind of thought they would look ugly, all silver and standing out like, "look at me - I'm a new, cheap thing here on this old classic camper!". I wasn't feeling it.

But I had these! Originally used for the dinette area bed slide-out board between the table portion and the bathroom wall. I've replaced that design with a hinged top-access to an electrical cabinet. My dinette bed will be twin width - not double - so I wouldn't be re-using them.



I put the metal cut-off blade on the table saw and started cutting brackets.



Then I cleaned them up on the bench grinder and wire-wheel.



A couple of them had some old grime on them, so I gave them a lacquer thinner bath, which also soaked off most of the gold paint.



And primed them.



While waiting for another day to finish paint, and to prime and paint the boards themselves (For longevity reasons, I want them to be a complete, painted part to install, as opposed to installing first and then priming and painting only the exposed surfaces), I moved around front to see what I needed in THAT area.

In the meantime, here are some reminder photos of the Travel Queen back-wall styling.

A 1964 for sale quite some time ago in Durango, CO. Note the differing shape - one way to determine an unknown camper year.



Lil' Queeny for sale photo before she was ours. 1968.



These are the only two non-extended Travel Queens I've been able to find.

The extended campers - typically about 10-10.5' have a simple straight angle corner like our 1966 parts camper (may it rest in peace) in this photo the day we bought it out of Fort Collins, CO.

I still need to sand the back wall metal. I found the diamond pattern was better accomplished by hand. The electric sander worked very well on the horizontal line pattern of the roof/sidewalls and the under bunk and front camper-box walls, but the diamond pattern segments (gold colored) on the sidewalls didn't get an effective sanding by using it.

So I'll get to that, but for now - I was in the mood for something else.

I had a general plan for that rear roof-vent tear, but I felt whatever fix I did would fail if it didn't have good support beneath it. Time to shore up that area under the metal.

From the factory, both vents had 1/4" plywood lifts to hold that part of the skin higher than the surrounding areas, to create a slope for water run-off? I guess that works theoretically, but in practice, because of the metal rigidity, I think it just lifts the metal 1/4" away from it's underlying support out beyond the lifted area. Could that have contributed to the tear? Here's a picture with one leg removed.



My plan includes "Reflectix" (1/4" thick foiled-faced and backed bubble-wrap) over the structure before the aluminum skin - as a replacement for the 1968 factory choice (about the ONLY choice back then) of thin duct wrap (1/4" fiberglass batt with vapor-barrier paper backing - similar to residential fiberglass batts in your wall cavities, but very thin - which incidentally, was the camper's ONLY insulation).

Due to the thickness of the bubble wrap, the aluminum will be held approximately 1/4" higher than the camper structure in a sort of cushioned lift. So my 1/4" vent framing boards will in essence create a level playing field for the roof metal edges around the vent openings.

I didn't like the original four leg design. So up front I had re-designed the boards to bridge the roof ribs and create what amounts to a full square piece of solid wood material. Except that I didn't have a scrap piece that big, so I made two u-shaped pieces that placed the two butt joints over two roof ribs, lending good support to the joints.



Now back to the rear vent, I measured for distance to place blocking underneath the tear in the metal. Then I did the same for all four corners of the vent area, so as to have balance for any final decisions on the repair covering (probably some sort of extruded aluminum plate acting either decoratively, functionally, or both), and ended up with this.



I glued the blocks in place and added weight for good pressure while drying. Those are bags o' tire-chains.



While the glue dried I set about making the plywood square. Now once again, I didn't have a large enough piece of scrap to make a single unit, so I used the two u-shaped piece design back here as well.



I stapled the boards in place.



In the above photo, the near corner on the right side is where the metal tear lives. It goes 3.5" straight back (right) from the exact corner, so it will now have ample support backing. And the Reflectix will come up to, and butt against, the plywood edge, not over it's top surface.

Thank you. I'll agree on the "talented" (who wouldn't) ;) but the patience is subjective.

I considered myself very fortunate to have a comfortable place to work and time to spend on personal hobby activity in the form of a worthwhile project. And at the same time, getting a chance to play with various tools (some of which I haven't had opportunity to use in years) to fabricate different things at a speed I can enjoy.

My biggest complaints are daytime television, another radio commercial about 1-Income Tax Relief, 2-Proactive Plus and 3-that high pitched voice of the Party Girl owner/operator of a local party supplies retail store. :/ And if I have to hear "The Boys Are Back In Town" one more time!.!.!.!. (At least "Heart of Glass" comes on to nullify now and then).

But here recently, I've taken to playing my Smart Phone playlists from my personal library collected over the years. And you know what I mean if you've ever heard George Jones'es "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes". You know, Waylon really was a music man.

Today is kind of a day of rest. For the past few days I've been hearing a little whimpering coming from the other side of the garage door. I think it's Smiley, DW's car. Hey - it IS winter!

So I'll get the roof metal up out of the way and get him back inside for a good warm-up.

I must say - the wheeled dolly I made for the camper has been such a benefit to this project in these tight quarters (relatively speaking).

I made some measurements and saw it would work - theoretically. First I shifted the metal forward and swung the camper front down behind it.



Then moved the front wall metal draped over a work table to the far end.



That gave room to slide the metal over to where it's lifting system could gain good purchase.





Back up out of the way.



And with everything back in it's place, all was right with the world.