Repairing corner rot
A week after last using the camper I had it sat on its jacks - I didn't bother putting it on saw horses as I would be re-loading it again soon.
However, after a couple of days I went inside and found the door frame had cracked - it had moved out 1/8th of an inch:
The floor didn't appear to have cracked, so yesterday I wound a ratchet strap around the camper:
Pulling on the strap by hand pulled the door frame back in, but checking underneath the floor wasn't moving - so the side had separated from the floor, at least at the back.
Stripping off the siding:
Not looking good:
While we are at it - check out some of the high-quality Shadow Cruiser workmanship - only revealed once the trim is removed:
I used a hot air gun to dry any damp wood so I could tell which was rotten and which was just a bit damp. To be honest this isn't going to be a top quality fix and I may need to rebuild it in a couple of years time, but I need to use the camper this weekend. Thankfully these old campers are pretty low tech, so tearing parts of them down and rebuilding them isn't rocket science.
I put the ratchet strap back on to bring the side back into alignment:
I then cut, screwed and glued a piece of ply I found in the garage - using it to strengthen the original floor in that corner and give me a solid base to screw through to the frame:
I left the glue to set over night.
This afternoon I carefully removed the ratchet strap, wondering if the glue and screws would hold - thankfully they did.
I then cut the rotten timber out using the power jig saw and located an old piece of floorboard that was one of the few good ones I saved when I replace the floor on Sally's horse trailer 10 years ago (luckily all this time in the garage means it no longer smells of horse urine :E). I cut it down not just to replace the timber I had cut out, but also to fill in the insulation gap in between to make it stronger than before:
Here it is screwed and glued in place. I also found some spare triangles of timber in the garage so glued them into the corners of the frame to strengthen it:
Here is another piece in the top corner. This is from a piece of plywood I painted yellow and had as a sleeping platform across the rear of my Land Rover 101" artillery tractor some years ago:
In the above picture notice above and to the right of the yellow plywood the staples. To the right are the ones holding the frame together (I hope there is glue there as well). But if you look carefully you will see where the staples have gone in hard they have split the horizontal timber. So the builder has banged another couple of staples in to hold the crack together. More quality construction from Shadow Cruiser :R.
Here is that side with everything glued in place:
I considered replacing that horrible pink insulation with proper modern insulation, but when I checked with my local hardware stores they only sold that stuff in 25mm or 50mm thicknesses (and 8ftx4ft sheets, which is a bit more than I need). This panel is only 20mm deep. So I stuck with the original pink stuff.
I was going to leave this overnight again for the glue to fully dry, but when I checked the weather we are due to have heavy rain starting early tomorrow morning. So I waited until around 8pm when it had mostly dried and put the siding back on. Not perfect, but better than it getting soaked.
Not a tremedously pretty job, but sufficient. Given the abuse this camper gets and the likelihood of this needing to be opened up again in a couple of years, there wasn't much point in getting this all perfect looking:
But at least I can use it this weekend.
:B
Steve.
However, after a couple of days I went inside and found the door frame had cracked - it had moved out 1/8th of an inch:
The floor didn't appear to have cracked, so yesterday I wound a ratchet strap around the camper:
Pulling on the strap by hand pulled the door frame back in, but checking underneath the floor wasn't moving - so the side had separated from the floor, at least at the back.
Stripping off the siding:
Not looking good:
While we are at it - check out some of the high-quality Shadow Cruiser workmanship - only revealed once the trim is removed:
I used a hot air gun to dry any damp wood so I could tell which was rotten and which was just a bit damp. To be honest this isn't going to be a top quality fix and I may need to rebuild it in a couple of years time, but I need to use the camper this weekend. Thankfully these old campers are pretty low tech, so tearing parts of them down and rebuilding them isn't rocket science.
I put the ratchet strap back on to bring the side back into alignment:
I then cut, screwed and glued a piece of ply I found in the garage - using it to strengthen the original floor in that corner and give me a solid base to screw through to the frame:
I left the glue to set over night.
This afternoon I carefully removed the ratchet strap, wondering if the glue and screws would hold - thankfully they did.
I then cut the rotten timber out using the power jig saw and located an old piece of floorboard that was one of the few good ones I saved when I replace the floor on Sally's horse trailer 10 years ago (luckily all this time in the garage means it no longer smells of horse urine :E). I cut it down not just to replace the timber I had cut out, but also to fill in the insulation gap in between to make it stronger than before:
Here it is screwed and glued in place. I also found some spare triangles of timber in the garage so glued them into the corners of the frame to strengthen it:
Here is another piece in the top corner. This is from a piece of plywood I painted yellow and had as a sleeping platform across the rear of my Land Rover 101" artillery tractor some years ago:
In the above picture notice above and to the right of the yellow plywood the staples. To the right are the ones holding the frame together (I hope there is glue there as well). But if you look carefully you will see where the staples have gone in hard they have split the horizontal timber. So the builder has banged another couple of staples in to hold the crack together. More quality construction from Shadow Cruiser :R.
Here is that side with everything glued in place:
I considered replacing that horrible pink insulation with proper modern insulation, but when I checked with my local hardware stores they only sold that stuff in 25mm or 50mm thicknesses (and 8ftx4ft sheets, which is a bit more than I need). This panel is only 20mm deep. So I stuck with the original pink stuff.
I was going to leave this overnight again for the glue to fully dry, but when I checked the weather we are due to have heavy rain starting early tomorrow morning. So I waited until around 8pm when it had mostly dried and put the siding back on. Not perfect, but better than it getting soaked.
Not a tremedously pretty job, but sufficient. Given the abuse this camper gets and the likelihood of this needing to be opened up again in a couple of years, there wasn't much point in getting this all perfect looking:
But at least I can use it this weekend.
:B
Steve.
