More Avion rehab

Finally got enough warm weather to do a little work on the Avion!

Time to get busy on the roof mounted items.....

 Disassembled and  cleaned up this exhaust fan - works fine after a little lubrication!

The cover on the roof was very moldy and dirty.....

Amazing powers of a scrub-brush and bleach!

There were two different fans - hopefully to keep us comfy....this one actually had lichen growing on it.

Equally nice results....

The rooftop air conditioner is not going to be usable.  The outer cover was just crumbling and the unit itself isn't worth fixing. 

The air conditioner itself was too heavy for me and Duane to get down on our own....so Pat came over and they rigged up a pulley system to hoist it off.  I would have snapped a photo of the actual "hoist", but I had to hold the rope for them while they guided off the roof.  Safe and sound now in the bed of the pickup waiting a trip to the recycler!

A little progress

The past week was just chilly and wet....no fun to work in the unheated hangar. So, we mostly did not! Then we took a short trip up to the mountains for my grandma's 98th birthday party and sadly, Duane's uncle's funeral. Today we got a good bit accomplished, not a lot of it was very photogenic though! Duane's been working on some wiring and installing new clearance lights. I've done some small item cleaning/rust removal/painting. I braved removing a window too! We've decided all the windows need to come out and be re-sealed/reinstalled to make sure they are not leaking. It's actually a pretty straightforward task.

Just a bunch of screws and the window slides out.  Leaving the existing, gooey sealant to be removed.

And the window itself has to be cleaned up too.  Here the new grey sealant tape is in place right at the edges.  The window fits right back where it was and hopefully will be leak-free for years!

Front floor in place finally!

Lots of fun this weekend - got the final piece of the front floor in place.

Bottom piece in place.

Foam insulation in place.

Tah - dah!!   This makes maneuvering inside the trailer sooooo much easier!

Cleanup

The background in a lot of the photos so far has been pretty chaotic, to say the least.  It's gotten to that point that we're spending several minutes searching for the tool we want.  It happens to us on every project.  It's just how we roll!

Before:

Looking forward....the last section of flooring will have to wait until Duane does some re-wiring....

More Avion Flooring

We're getting there, slowly, ever so slowly..."slowly I turned, step by step". I'm easily distracted - thinking of the Avion maybe at NI-AGA-RA Falls someday. Anyhoo, the next 4' section floowing was an evening's accomplishment!

Looking into the trailer from the doorway.  Our recently completed, narrow section of flooring is to the left.

First the framework was built, glued and screwed.   Starting to fill with foam pieces.

All filled up and ready for the topside piece of plywood.

That section is all done!!  Really nice to be able to walk inside the trailer without having to balance all the time and worry about falling thru the framework.

New floor finally going in the Avion

All the prep work is finally done so we can start to install the replacement floor. 

We thought about installing solid oak, but it is incredibly heavy.  The original floor was a "sandwich" of two thin sheets of plywood with  1 1/2 inch styrofoam filling.  To keep the trailer as original and lightweight as possible, we're going back with the original style. 

We haven't decided yet on the final floor covering, but it will likely be a nice vinyl for durability. 

Ready, set, measure, cut!

This is the area under the refrigerator and the stove....we had cut back all the rotted wood to good, solid original floor.  Then it was bolted to the metal frame.

 Next we measured and fitted the foam board in place.  (it's what you see green)

And there it is - the first section of floor replaced!  It's nice and "solid" feeling.  A good evening's work!

New fasteners for the Avion storage compartments

The fasteners for the little bottom storage compartments are rusty.  Still functional, but very rusty.

A few of those solid, bucked rivets.  Good as new!  (and hopefully no rust since the replacements are stainless!)

Riveting experience for the Avion

Riveting is something I usually leave to Duane.  If it's a solid rivet (not a pop rivet), I usually hold the "bucking bar" and he uses the air-driven rivet gun.

But he was busy with other things and said "why don't you patch that hole?"

So, I got busy.  Had to ask advice a couple of times.  It was fun though!

This is a piece of the skin that was removed from under the trailer.  The hole in it is from the old battery drain hose.  We are relocating the battery, so we won't need that hole anymore.

Don't be concerned about the corrosion visible on the sheet - I scrubbed it well with Scotch-brite and that's about the best I can do.  It's under the trailer (so not visible) and the aluminum isn't really in that bad shape.

I cut a square patch and smoothed the edges with the belt-sander.

Drilled the holes and used Cleco fasteners to hold it in place.

All done - this is the underside.

And this is the patch as it will look on the trailer.  (If you crawled under it and looked up, that is!!)

A little progress

This will probably not look like that much progress, but I can assure you it took alot of work!

The new board you see had to be carefully fit into the space it occupies and then bolted to the trailer from the bottom.  It's the first, important step  to replacing the floor.  The darker wood you see is some of the original wood that was not rotten.




The biggest challenge was getting the wood cut exactly to fit the "bow" of the trailer. A cardboard pattern was carefully cut.

And after much measuring and fitting, that part is done!

Caulk removal and tag!

No exciting photos.....I spent hours and hours this weekend removing caulk.  Dried, stubborn, multi-layered caulk.  Latex caulk, plumber's putty, and many un-identifiable caulks.  Doors, windows, skin-seams.  All the old caulk has to go.  Heat gun, pic, chemicals, toothbrush.....I used them all with varying degrees of success.

There is no telling where the thing leaks, so we're going to seal it all up new!


We did finally get the tag today.  It's been exactly 1 month today since we got the trailer title.  The state of NC penalizes you if you exceed 28 days before you apply for the new title.  I don't know why.  They just do.  So that was as good a reason as any to go to the DMV.  What fun.  Waiting 1 hr. in line.

But, we did get a bit of a nice surprise.  The DMV lady offered us a "permanent" tag for the trailer.  Only $75.  Since the yearly tags cost $18 (I think) - we thought that was a nice deal.  Done!

Not that we'll actually be using the tag any time soon.....but the slightly silver color should look good on the back of the Avion!!!