Some time ago I picked up an '87 Fiesta on a Ford E-350 chassis. I knew it was going to need repairs going in, though it's entirely possible I bit off a little more than I can chew on this one..
It clearly has had some level of water leaking at some point in it's life, evident by the discoloration on the wood, and I knew I'll need to locate and fix that.
My current "big" issue is obvious sagging of the roof around the AC unit, and I suspect part of the problem is poor engineering/design from the factory, which didn't give nearly enough support under the AC.
I think I should be yanking down all of the support structure, and replacing the side-to-side beams with solid pieces, then adding in short pieces front to back (as opposed to the front to back beams being one piece like it is now). Tie that in to the wood going down either side of the roof, and then support of the bottom of the wood on the sides with the top of the steel van body. In my mind, this would transfer much of the load of the AC and roof to the steel body. But then I don't know if that's going to cause other issues I'm not thinking of.
It clearly has had some level of water leaking at some point in it's life, evident by the discoloration on the wood, and I knew I'll need to locate and fix that.
My current "big" issue is obvious sagging of the roof around the AC unit, and I suspect part of the problem is poor engineering/design from the factory, which didn't give nearly enough support under the AC.
I think I should be yanking down all of the support structure, and replacing the side-to-side beams with solid pieces, then adding in short pieces front to back (as opposed to the front to back beams being one piece like it is now). Tie that in to the wood going down either side of the roof, and then support of the bottom of the wood on the sides with the top of the steel van body. In my mind, this would transfer much of the load of the AC and roof to the steel body. But then I don't know if that's going to cause other issues I'm not thinking of.
