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Old 06-20-2015, 06:31 AM   #41
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Name: Gary
Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
Posts: 311
Well... somehow a week went by before I made further progress. Went out last night and spent 2 hours on initial tear-down of rear damage. And half of that, just taking plastic off back-glass opening and cleaning up the tape residue... taking the battery case loose from the floor [bolts mostly broke right off--new ones later]... pealing up old flooring [only a little wet underneath it]... and gathering tools etc.

Then I used some 1/8" masking tape to mark straight lines for cutting, tracing along the edge of the tape with a black marker, and then removed tape. Marked off an area to take out that was just ahead of the damage, and passed through window or bin openings in straight portions [not curved corner parts], figuring it'd be easier to line up the pieces later.

I tried a tiny cut-off disc in a Dremel tool at first, but it was very slow going, and the disc broke right away as well. Switched over to a air-driven cut-off tool, with a 1/32" disc in it, and at slow-medium speed... and it cut like butter, without too much dust airborn. [I wore a good dust mask and long rubber gloves, but I was just making flour-like dust... which I vacuumed up later with the shop-vac.] Took 5-10 minutes to make all the cuts... including using the Dremel with a drill/cutter bit to finish up the inside-corner cuts down by the floor that the larger "shop" tool didn't readily get to. [I included a pic of a cut-off tool like the one I used, in case that's unfamiliar to people.]

Then, carefully wrestled the interior shell pieces out of the trailer, and took some photos [attached] for posterity. I think I'll start on the repairing of the inside shell pieces, before moving to the outer shell repair... [1] they'll be a nuisance to move or work around, all fractured and floppy, and [2] I can fairly readily turn the whole assembly this way and that for easier work positioning, compared to mostly-vertical working on the outer shell repairs. I think I'll temporarily attach wood braces to the broken pieces to line them up and make the assembly easier to handle... that'll make some extra screw-holes to fill in later, but pretty minor amount of work compared to all there is to be done.

I'll post more pictures as I go... they may serve as guides for how to do--or not do--something similar for other folks. [There IS that possibility that I'll make a mistake or three.]

All for now........
Gary
Attached Thumbnails
15-0619-02a.jpg   15-0619-03a.jpg  

15-0619-03b.jpg   15-0619-04b.jpg  

15-0619-05-tool.jpg  
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Old 06-20-2015, 03:20 PM   #42
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Name: Gary
Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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So, today I thought I'd try to get the major pieces aligned and fastened together that I cut out yesterday. Took a while, but didn't go too bad. I fastened several scraps of plywood & 1 1x4 to the inside surface, to hold things in line... figuring I'd repair the inside-the-wall side first, and try to work around any fasteners I put through the fiberglass... when that side's patches are all set-up, I should be able to remove these wooden bits to do the finish work to the inside surface.

I started with the 1x4 across the seat-front... several breaks & cracks that made the whole assembly loose & wobbly, so I wanted to gain strength there first... plus, I had the front of that area being relatively flat, to help align the 1x4 to as I drilled the bolt-holes.
Then I measured the window opening in the outer shell and drew the outline of it on the plywood, so I could flex those upper parts of the shell to meet the opening lines. With that screwed in place, the whole assembly held together much better. And then, added a couple more plywood bits to span bad breaks.

I'm thinking now that I should add a pair of braces from the window-opening plywood to the front of the seating area, so that they stay parallel to each other... don't want to add the patches and make everything solid-but-skewed.

Sometimes the breaks in the fiberglass "meshed" back together nicely, and sometimes not. If the 2 sides wouldn't come together cleanly, I ran the Dremel tool down the break line to cut away the interfering fibers. I included a photo of the Dremel bit... not sure what to call it, as I bought it years ago for a whole different purpose, but never used it.
Also included a photo from the back side... it was interesting to me how much more the breaks/cracks showed from the back, as pale streaks against the age-darkened resin.

All for now. Happy Fathers Day, to anyone that fits. Gary
Attached Thumbnails
15-0620-01.jpg   15-0620-04a.jpg  

15-0620-03.jpg   15-0620-02.jpg  

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Old 06-20-2015, 05:02 PM   #43
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Looking good Gary but kind of wondering. Are you going to be able to get the interior part back inside with it in one piece again?
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Old 06-20-2015, 06:26 PM   #44
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Name: Gary
Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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Dave,

Good question. I actually think I could... but I don't need to... there's a bolt-together flange right up the middle of the "seat" portion of this assembly. I just wanted it all jigged up in one piece at this point so that as I made repairs, the whole assembly would [hopefully] stay lined up nice. It'll be a lot easier, too, to set it in place and glue together the flanges at the back-glass & the cut-lines I made if I do it one half at a time.

Went out after supper and knocked together a pair of braces which should keep the area just above the floor--and the surface where this liner meets the outer shell at the rear window--vertical, and parallel with each other.
I realized when I looked at the picture I just took of that bracing and all, that this all looks 'really' cobbled-together. But I just used whatever scrap wood came to hand... I really did measure and fuss a fair amount. [I think it's actually going to work.]

At any rate... 'bout ready to start actually mending the tears now. More news as it happens................. Gary
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Old 06-20-2015, 07:59 PM   #45
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Hey, it doesn't matter what the bracing looks like as long as it works. Looks fine to me.
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Old 06-24-2015, 08:49 PM   #46
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WOW! just read this thread. Magnificent! Thank you for sharing your time and talents.
You're a true craftsman, Gary!
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Old 06-25-2015, 07:51 PM   #47
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Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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Thankyou, Melissa, for the kind words. [you'll have to imagine me blushing and shuffling my feet]

I've worked a little more on the patching, the last few days. Getting sort of a system down. First I balanced the assembly on a stand, "face down", so that quite a few of the cracks are more-or-less horizontal. Then [with gloves, hat, and mask on, and wall-mounted exhaust fan running] I beveled the cracks I intended to target with a 3" 24-grit Rolloc disc in an air grinder, and blew the dust off when done. I cut off lengths of 6" wide f/g mat to match lengths of the cracks I was about to deal with [ie: 8" long crack... 8" or so long piece of mat... etc], and then cut the 6"w pieces into 3 strips--1"w, 2"w and 3"w. So far, I've wet the beveled area with resin, placed the 1"w strip down and wetted it... then the 2", etc. 'Working the resin in, and the air out, with a cheap paint brush with half the bristles cut off.

Off to one side, I treated a planter-box tray with mold release, and layered 4 layers into that--to use for the missing pieces in that rear "seat" area. After that set up overnight, I ran it through the table saw--splitting it in two length-wise, and trimming the edges to a uniform height. Used about 1/4 of that material today. By casting the 4 layers in a horizontal tray, I could slather on more resin, and ended up with about 3/16" thick material--quite stiff. I hope to rebuild the rest of the back seat area with that tomorrow.

To align broken edges, I used a couple layers of good masking tape, with spring clamps and wooden paint-stirring-sticks where needed. Seems to have worked pretty well. [also put wide masking tape on the underside of the repair areas to catch resin that might have drooled through]

Hopefully, the attached pics make sense of that description.... Gary
Attached Thumbnails
15-0625-01.jpg   15-0625-02.jpg  

15-0625-02a.jpg   15-0625-03.jpg  

15-0625-03a.jpg   15-0625-03b.jpg  

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Old 06-25-2015, 07:59 PM   #48
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New York
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I was just thinking (after wiring a 7-prong trailer plug today) there is a pin for backup lights... You could have one of the few FG trailers with that feature working. Just a thought.


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Old 06-25-2015, 08:15 PM   #49
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Name: Gary
Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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Samuel,

Thanks for that encouragement. I do intend to wire things up so that the backup lights work... though I hope I don't have much occasion to need them. And since the pickup assemblies had them built in, it seems a shame not to wire them up... I can imagine there not being much call to add them to a camper that didn't have them, but now mine does!
And, I pretty much need to rewire/re-plumb/re-glaze the little rascal fairly soon anyway, so I just need the right harness kit, and away we go.......... Gary

Just checked... not hard to get 5-wire loom instead of more-common 4-wire... I'm thinking that's all the fancier I'd need to go.
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Old 06-26-2015, 08:06 PM   #50
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Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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Didn't end up with time to do a morning session AND and evening session on the camper, but did just come in from the after-supper round, which went pretty well. [This morning, my wife's Corolla got new front brake pads... probably a good thing, priority-wise.]

Tonight I wanted to reinforce the breaks where back wall flexed forward in last year's accident--right where the inner back wall meets the seat area on the passenger side, and through the driver's side horizontal piece above the battery area. And get at least one more chunk of the passenger-side storage-bin surround rebuilt--one of the missing-in-action bits.

All went pretty well... getting a better feel for how many ounces of resin does how many patches, and how many drops of catalyst to add to it.

Hopefully, the pictures tell the story.......... Gary
Attached Thumbnails
15-0626-01.jpg   15-0626-01a.jpg  

15-0626-02.jpg   15-0626-03.jpg  

15-0626-03a.jpg   15-0626-04.jpg  

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Old 06-28-2015, 06:35 PM   #51
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Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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Finished gluing last of back-side patches yesterday evening. Tonight, I removed the various "form boards" that I'd used to hold pieces in alignment, peeled off masking tape and put the shell "back on its feet". [Viewed now from the gelcoat/interior side, the cracks are more obvious.]

Very good to have this whole interior shell feeling firm again. I'll just need to finesse a few areas before beveling & filling the inside of the patches. [1] At the back of the seating surface, where it meets the back panel--just couldn't get at this real handily before. [2] Need to fine-tune the shape of the passenger-side bin opening, where I spliced in new bits for missing pieces.
[3] Where the seat area blends into the lower portion that heads forward. This spot I didn't get aligned well enough--I think I'll have to cut a slit in it and crank the lower portion around a little. Still, small project compared to all the cracks repaired so far.

Nice to have it light-weight again, too, compared to how cumbersome it was to handle with all the plywood bracing fastened to it!.......... Gary
Attached Thumbnails
15-0628-01.jpg   15-0628-02a.jpg  

15-0628-02b.jpg  
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Old 06-28-2015, 08:37 PM   #52
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Gary,
That is some repair work you are doing.
I appreciate your pictures and narrative. Looking better each post.
Thank you.
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Old 07-04-2015, 07:01 PM   #53
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Name: Gary
Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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Well... had to shuffle things around in the shop for a few days, so hasn't been handy to sprawl and get fiberglass dust n fibers everywhere.

So, I turned to contemplating the back bumper I got [new 49 Chevy pickup front bumper--painted vs chrome], and pondering where to mount my spare.
Today, I started mocking that up, by making some wooden stands to hold the bumper in the position I think I want it to be. In the 3 pics attached, it's bottom edge is about even with the top edge of the tubular frame on the U-Haul... it's narrower by quite a bit than the stock bumper, with it's outside edges about 1" inboard from the outside of the tires... and I've mocked it up with about 4.5" of space between it and the back shell of the camper, at the center-point.

Sorry that doesn't show very dramatically, with the black primer on the bumper and all.
Why the change? Well, my back bumper--and the supports for it--were bent pretty bad in the accident a year ago, so I'm having to start from scratch, and I thought it was overly massive, visually. [My opinion, I know... I figure U-Haul went with a large bumper because they were renting them out to a lot of amateur trailer-drivers, and wanted all the protection they could get.]
I know I'm giving up some protection for those rear-corner, tail-lamp projections. A trade-off, in my mind... more the look I want, but less margin for error when in use.

Spare mount? On mine, before I got it, the spare was mounted on a stout column, which was in turn mounted to the back bumper. In the rear-end collision, the bumper rotated--knifing spare & mount right through the back panel. I'd like to avoid that.
I toyed with the idea of mounting it underneath--no room, really. Or making a rectangular "sleeve" for it to slide horizontally under the passenger side of the back seat--not enough forward room for that, either. So now I'm figuring to cast a big shallow bowl--just a bit larger diameter than the spare itself... stand it upright... and build it into the back wall. Sort of a "continental kit"... open to the rear. Probably build a curved bottom support for the spare, so it only needs to be "stabilized" in its upright position... not suspended there.
I'll hope to have some pics of the spare work in-progress by next weekend, but first need to make the bumper supports.

For what it's worth, I might not do this "oddball" spare tire mount if I didn't have to re-build the back wall anyway. It'd be somewhat more intimidating to slice up a perfectly good back-panel.
All for now,
Gary
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15-0704-bumper01.jpg   15-0704-bumper02.jpg  

15-0704-bumper03.jpg  
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Old 07-04-2015, 07:33 PM   #54
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Very impressive. I don't know how many know the work involved in this project (I do). Great work
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Old 07-04-2015, 07:44 PM   #55
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I really don't know about the work involved.. have never done anything close to this. BUT, my jaw continues to drop when I see what you've done
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Old 07-05-2015, 06:05 AM   #56
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Name: Gary
Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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Thanks, Ian & Donna, for the encouraging words.

Sometimes it's a bit daunting--all that remains to do. But retirement IS getting closer... I hear that can help with the time needed. [Though I guess even that is not a 'given'.]

Ian--I just went and read the first 2 pages of your own re-build. Whoa! That, sir, is some incredible work! [Kind of feel like I'm just playing around, by comparison.] Look forward to reading more of your build as the days go along.

Another thing that keeps me encouraged, as my project sometimes drags, is that my wife and I've been camping now for 25 years, almost always in a tent... and only recently in a fairly roomy tent... with set-up and take-down in all weathers, and few good options space-wise when the weather goes rainy or cold. Even with a few rough edges, this little trailer is a definite upgrade.

More news as it happens...........
Gary

p.s. Photo attached of my-wife-the-trooper... camping at a central IA state park in January, a few years ago. [teardrop trailer from back 1/2 of car... more craziness]
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Old 07-11-2015, 04:20 PM   #57
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Name: Gary
Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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Back on task again. Got the bumper brackets welded up & fitted, between yesterday & today. The pics that follow should pretty well explain. Used about 6' of 1.5" square tubing to make the bulk of the brackets, with 2 straps on the outboard sides to bolt to the frame--as the original brackets did. Added a 1" square tube between the two brackets, after mounting them and finding a lot more "flex" in them than I wanted.... also added a spacer of dense polypropylene between top of bracket and frame, and a bolt. [I didn't notice, when originally planning the bracket, that the bottom of the frame slopes up as it approaches the rear of the camper. The spacer pretty much levels the bracket out. Oy!!]

Used the trusty Sawzall on a piece of 2x2 steel tubing to make tapering channels for the bumper to mount to... then notched the top of the brackets slightly where I wanted the bumper mounts to go, clamped bumper-with-mounts-attached to the brackets, and tack-welded them in place. Then removed bumper to finish welding.

After re-mounting the bumper, it all feels good and solid. [at least, when you bang your knee into it] Now, to start the spare tire holder.... [might be a couple weeks before any more news--off to CO soon for some cool, dry mountain air] Gary
Attached Thumbnails
15-0711-bumper01.jpg   15-0711-bumper02.jpg  

15-0711-bumper03.jpg   15-0711-bumper04.jpg  

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Old 07-12-2015, 05:33 PM   #58
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Name: Gary
Trailer: UHaul CT13
Iowa
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I guess I lied about giving things a break for a while. I went ahead and made a "form" for the casting of my vertical spare tire well yesterday afternoon. 'Set the spare on a scrap of plywood... wrapped a band of 1/4" thick polystyrene around it [for wiggle-room in-use]... and then stretched a sheet of plastic over the whole thing--stapling it to the plywood base. 'Wrapped it with masking tape to smooth out the pleats n wrinkles in the plastic. And then wiped it all with mold release.

This afternoon, with my wife's help mixing and spreading resin, we put 3 layers of matte on it... took a 2-hr break... and then came back and did an additional 3 layers, with the early work now firm but definitely still "tacky" to the touch.

Now, to wait patiently till tomorrow sometime, to see if I can pop it off of this makeshift "form" without too much trouble. [I think it'll work.] I DID notice that the plastic on the top sagged down against the wheel somewhat, compared to being fairly taut before applying the matt & resin. I assume that was due to solvent in the resin... and it didn't sag enough to be a problem--just a curiosity.

Pics below. Cheers............... Gary
Attached Thumbnails
IMG_0137-spare cover-01.JPG   IMG_0138-spare cover-01a.JPG  

IMG_0138-spare cover-02.JPG  
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Old 07-12-2015, 05:40 PM   #59
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As they say on Facebook.. following
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Old 07-12-2015, 10:28 PM   #60
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Really ingenious how you do that! Also looking forward to your results.
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