Maintenance & Restoration

nickkystardust · 05-27-2017, 01:33 PM

Hello Everyone,

I thought I would start a thread documenting the renovation of my recently purchased 1973 Boler trailer. We picked up the trailer for extremely cheap and thought it would be a great trailer to try our hand at a renovation. That being said, this thing was absolutely smothered in house paint and about 30 tubes of caulking, sealer, tar, etc. I will be documenting every step of this process and I hope this will help others with the same obstacles. Thanks!

-Nickkystardust

likeair2me · 05-27-2017, 01:37 PM

Looking forward to your pictures and posts.

Raspy · 05-27-2017, 01:46 PM

Looks like you might find a Boler in there somewhere.

nickkystardust · 05-27-2017, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raspy

Looks like you might find a Boler in there somewhere.

Somewhere hidden, it's in there haha.

likeair2me · 05-27-2017, 02:04 PM

Ogre's and (overpainted) Bolers are like onions. They have layers. And they both make you want to cry a little.

nickkystardust · 05-27-2017, 02:13 PM

Per the suggestion of some of the other members here, I went about stripping the paint by first hitting the outside with 80 grit sandpaper. After a light sanding to open up the pores, I used Aircraft fiberglass safe paint stripper. The real key here was allowing the stripper to sit for long enough to soften the paint so that it can be easily scraped off. Even though this stuff states it is safe for fiberglass, I still isolated the stripper with water immediately after removal.

nickkystardust · 05-27-2017, 05:01 PM

As you can see by these photos, I discovered that a large corner of the floor was rotted out and needed to be replaced completely. Looking over a number of previous posts, I went ahead and used a grinder to cut through the fiberglass along the edge and pull up the existing floor.

It was not extremely difficult but you really do have to be careful when removing it since there are some screws that go down into the frame. I decided to go underneath and pry up with a prybar in order to loosen the boards up a bit. I would highly suggest cutting fairly close to the outer shell since you will need to use the old floor as a template for the replacement wood.