NoDak84
May 01, 2017Explorer
Westholt Redneck Rebuild: Floor questions
Good day everyone. Hope this is the right place to post this. If you want to skip to my question, just ignore the quoted text.
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Here is my question; I want to remove the base plywood flooring intact so I can use it as a template to cut new 3/4 pressure treated plywood to replace it, but I don't see how it is fastened down from the top. I see lots of bolts underneath coming down through the frame that are held in by nuts. Is the floor somehow held in place by these bolts/nuts?
While the purists will probably look at what I have and cry, others will admire a camper that is still around and kicking in one form or another with some history behind it.
I have what was originally a Westholt tent camper. What info I can find says that they were made in the early 1960s. Mine has a California registration tag next to the manufacturer nameplate.
The person I bought it from said that the camper was originally used for years as a camper in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. It was bought in the early 2000s, with the canvas falling apart, by an alcoholic electrician. He used whatever materials he could get, plywood, some 2x2 and 2x4, and a pickup topper, (He also used about 5 different heads of screws.) to built it into the form that I bought it in. He lived in it for many years in the Duluth MN/Superior WI area.
The guy I bought it from, a general contractor, had gotten from the electrician and had been using it as a storage shed. He was hard up for money and so was selling it. We had to connect my pickup to his in tandem to pull it out.
I did some minimal fixing and used it as a camper for a year, but found many issues which can be summed up by the fact the electrician used fiberglass insulation and the seams were now leaking. Just about all the wood was in some state of rotting away. The only real option was to gut it and rebuild it. Spring cleanup is this week where I live, so I got my dad and brother to help me get the pickup topper off and then towed it around to the front to demolish the wood and toss it onto the berm.
I got just about everything stripped out except for the bottom flooring. That too has gotten wet over the years and is of questionable structural integrity and will need to be replaced.
Once I have the floor out, my plan is to pressure wash the remaining fiberglass insulation and other stuff off of the inside shell. I'll then make a frame of 4x4s to make the top rigid and add some extra height. I'll then re-use the pickup topper that I got with it for the roof. Going by my math, I should have about ~50" of interior headroom. Plenty of space for a little sleeper camper for one or two people. The door is big enough to crawl into and out of.
I don't plan on insulating the floor, since vertical space is at a bit of premium. I may add half an inch to an inch on the metal sides and cover it with automotive carpet. Not completely sold on if it is worth even trying to insulate it vs just carrying some extra blankets. The roof will be the fiberglass pickup topper.
It will look like ****, but will be a nice basic box that you can sleep in. That's all I'm really looking for.
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Here is my question; I want to remove the base plywood flooring intact so I can use it as a template to cut new 3/4 pressure treated plywood to replace it, but I don't see how it is fastened down from the top. I see lots of bolts underneath coming down through the frame that are held in by nuts. Is the floor somehow held in place by these bolts/nuts?