Anyone interested in 83 Pace Arrow Tear down and Rebuild?

[fulltimin]

Started to look into some water damage in the kitchen of our 83 Pace Arrow. The more I looked, the more I found. I have some pics of the damage so far. Anyone interested in following a rebuild thread?

[magik235]

I made wheel wells for my Jeep out of treated plywood covered in Gluvit then Herculiner more than 10 years ago. They still look good. The entire body of my Jeep is made from treated wood. 1/16 in diamond plate bends well. I emailed you pictures since Photo Bucket no longer works for posting pictures.

[PastorCharlie]

I like fiberglass. If 3-4 coats of fiberglass were chopped and epoxyed over a frame it would be superior to the original.

[STBRetired]

Have you measured how much travel the tires actually have? How much space is between the axle and the bump stop on the frame? How far below the floor are the tires now? You might be able to get the height of the wheel well even lower.

As others have said, I would line the wheel well with metal of some sort. Maybe you could just cut down the old wheel wells and use them as the liners for new boxes.

[JoeH]

I would not use plywood even if coated with POR and undercoating. A lot of debris will get tossed against the wheel wells and will likely penetrate the coatings. Yes I know POR is tough, but a piece of glass,sharp rock,etc at 50+mph will damage the coating and then subject teh plywood to water intrusion. Then you are getting back to what started this whole project !

[blownstang01]

Those wheel wells would be very easy to replicate by any reputable sheet metal shop with a Pittsburgh Lock machine. Also would be lighter than the plywood. That would be my choice personally.

[fulltimin]

After looking at the flimsy steel that was used originally, I think that making a box out of plywood would be as strong if not stronger than the flimsy steel was.

I figure, if I coat the inside with either Por 15 and undercoating, maybe just undercoating, that should protect the wood well enough to keep it from rotting.

If I am a little paranoid, I could add some aluminum or even steel on the bottom of the plywood to keep the junk that gets kicked up, from getting to the plywood.

That would make it a whole lot easier, to make the box and fasten it from the inside, than trying to deal with that from underneath. Lol.

Using some glue, and maybe some Kreg joints and screws should work just fine.

So, at this point, I think I may do that. Plywood, glue, screws, maybe Por 15, undercoating.

Kinda sounds like a plan to me.

Then again, if someone has a good reason why I should not do that, please let me know.

[fulltimin]

Flipping it over, I took a measurement from the bottom to the top of the inside. That comes out to 9.5 inches.

That measurement is from the bottom which was below the floor joists. So, we can subtract 1.5" for the height of the joists, and then another .5" for the flooring that Fleetwood had installed.

That means that there was 7" sticking out above the surface of the floor. 7" of clearance above the floor.

That means anything I build doesn't have to be higher than 7" on the inside.

[fulltimin]

I did something today, that I have done on occasion, when trying to figure out what to do next, or maybe I should say, how to do, what I need to do next.

I pulled out the original wheel wells. These were made of galvanized steel, and believe me, the steel they are made of is pretty lightweight stuff.

It would not be hard to cut that stuff with a standard tin snips. I took a couple of pics of what was there.

In this one, you can see the overall shape of the original. The majority of the top was pretty flat, with the front and rear edges curved pretty well.

[fulltimin]

larry barnhart wrote:
maybe a hole drill in the wood so the screw could slip without the wood making more fiction or the head went off center in the wood and the head can break very easy.

Chevman

I did drill a hole, but I drilled it through the wood and steel, but it was small, and still allowed threads in the wood, but that wasn't a problem, because it just drilled immediately into the steel. However, it turned out to be a lot slower than just reversing the screw and letting it "chew" out the threads in the wood.

I did not try just drilling the wood out, but that would probably much better, however, I am not sure if it would be a time saver or not.

I have both a drill and an impact driver, so it would have been a simple matter of switching tools, but I am guessing, time wise might not be too much different. It probably would have been a little easier on the arm though. Lol.

Anyway, at this point, they are in, and I am happy about it. Really windy today. 20 to 25 mpg steady and gusts up to 45. Yay! Or not! Lol.

[larry_barnhart]

maybe a hole drill in the wood so the screw could slip without the wood making more fiction or the head went off center in the wood and the head can break very easy.

Chevman

[fulltimin]

One of the things I discovered with these screws, kind of surprised me. It didn't take too much to break off the end of the screw, that is the "drill bit portion" of the end of the screw.

These are self drilling screws, and I broke more of them off than I would like. However, that being said, I did manage to use all of those that broke.

What happened was, when I started screwing the plywood down. The screw drilled through the plywood, and the threads were surprisingly strong in the plywood. When the end of the screw got to the steel, the screw lifted the plywood up in the air, and applied too much pressure on the "drill end" of the screw, and broke off the end of the "drill".

I did not have that problem when I was screwing through 1/4" plywood, as the screws did not hold well in 1/4".

What I ended up doing, was to run the screw down through the plywood until it contacted the steel joist. Then I ran the drill in reverse, and let the threads kind of enlarge the hole, then, reversed the drill again, and then the screw would drill into the steel at it's own pace.

That seemed to work pretty well, although I still broke a few of the "drill" wings off. In those cases, I just used another screw to drill through the steel, then reversed the good screw out, and used the one with the broken wings off to screw into the hole in the steel. That way I didn't waste a bunch of screws in the process.

In all honesty, I can't totally blame the screws for this, because they weren't made to drill through the thickness of steel that I was using. They were made to drill through slightly thinner steel.

All in all, it did take somewhat longer to get the screws in, but, it was still quicker than drilling a pilot hole with a drill, then switching to the impact driver that I was using to drive the screws.

There are screws made that have a drill bit end, and a larger set of wings on them which will drill through the wood. Once it gets to the steel, those larger wings will break off before going through the steel. That way, the screw threads do not lock onto the plywood, and the drill end still drills through the steel, and self taps into the steel.

I guess that would have made it easier, but after figuring out how to make these work, it came out okay.

That's the update on the screws. Glad the floor is glued down, finally. Yee Haw!

[fulltimin]

As was already posted, I finished the floor tonight. That is, gluing and screwing it down to the joists. Yay! All except for the area over top of the rear wheels.

I guess I should have said that I will post a picture tonight, instead of pictures. Lol. Well, actually a picture and a link to the same picture, only larger. If you have broadband, it won't take long to load, if you are stuck on dial up, it will take a little while.

It's the same basic picture, just a lot larger, since we are limited in size on our pics on the forum.

It took probably about 4 hours to pull these pieces of plywood up, cutout the holes for the wheels, and then glue and screw the plywood down.







And the link to the larger picture is here.

[fulltimin]

Bruce Brown wrote:
Go to your local metal shop and have them roll some steel then fab up some new ones at whatever size you want.

But that costs money. Lol. That's a joke folks! Don't take life so seriously.

[Bruce_Brown]

Go to your local metal shop and have them roll some steel then fab up some new ones at whatever size you want.

[fulltimin]

STBRetired wrote:

fulltimin wrote:

Well, should it be done? Yes.
Do I want to? No.

Will I? Yeeaaaahhhhh....

Why? Cause I consider it a pain in the butt!

The old steel that was in there is rounded, and won't fit, because I made the hole a little smaller than it was.

I can rework the steel, but I am not looking forward to it. Then again, maybe it won't be as bad as I am dreading. Lol.

Doing that, and building the inside box is next.

Pics of floor coming later tonight!

The motorhome we use to pull one of the race trailers had a tire failure that destroyed the inner fender. Turns out that a fuel drum was just the right curvature so we cut a section out of an empty one and used it as a replacement. Kept one of the "ribs" for stiffness and just welded on the flat pieces for the sides. Maybe you will luck out as well. That MH has 16" wheels. Don't recall if you ever stated the size of yours.

Same, they are 16". Like I said, I still have the old ones, and it probably won't be too bad to rework them a little. Just not looking forward to it.

I'll probably try that first.

Then again, I've had other things that I dreaded, and turned out not to be as bad as my thoughts had it looking. Lol.