Surfside 1980 complete rebuild, my first

[Jay H]

What a great rebuild Rolf!
A trailer reno often becomes a much bigger project than first imagined but your trailer looks amazing, love the kitchen.
Good luck with the headliner, it is doable but can be tricky - although it looks like you are more than capable!

[Seacap10]

That was my first FRP trailer a 1979 SS I loved that thing took it off the frame did a rebuild on it (Not as nice as yours) but I did use the boat liner 3M interior and it turned out great I dragged that thing all over and it never let me down.
Rewired, upgraded interior, put a Bomar boat hatch and an aluminum framed Daylighter RV Skylight in the roof as it was sagging slightly, so the aluminum frame fixed that, plus it looked like a 20' foot trailer inside after as the ceiling and daylight both made it seem so much bigger inside. Put a bow locker on the front "A" frame for battery and LPG etc.
Great little trailers!

[Rolf Arnold]

It has been a busy few months working on the trailer, but man it is so much fun!!
After the new cushions arrived I cobbled together the remaining cabinet work and the bunk bed and off camping we went. We have used it 5 times already and everything works perfect.
There is still some outstanding work like the gas lines from the tongue box to the furnace and stove, the water tank installation, a few cabinet doors, the marine liner installation plus a permanent rock guard. But I will leave some work for the next looooong Canadian winter.

What I have done since the last post:
-Wired up the solar panels, chargers and battery
-Install a ShadyBoy Awning
-Install custom cut black out roller shades from Blinds.ca
-Install kitchen backsplash, sink and tap, stove
-Finish the bunk bed, finish the dining table.
-Install a Wizard screen door.
-Install the tongue box that hold one gas bottle.

[WaltP]

Looks really good Rolf. Love that sink, and the awning site is a good one to know.
I hope I get to see it sometime.
Now to work on the kink in my neck. LOL

Walt

[Rolf Arnold]

I got the logos done at a local print shop in Calgary. Now it is clear what kind of trailer it is again. Does not look much like a Surfiside anymore, more like a newer Trillium but without the cool Trillium logo. ;-)

Thank you to all the people that commented on my work and gave me tips!

[Rolf Arnold]

After some contemplating which way to go for a rock guard, I decided to try to make my own fiberglass one. I found this awesome video series on youtube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNw4...CB5wsrHySRMKpP

and I thought to myself: How hard can it be to do what this guy is doing?
Turns out, not that hard. I pretty much followed the videos and it turned out pretty good. I used some left over ply wood I had from the renovation to make the mould. I had to buy a paint gun for the PVA mould release agent but other than that, it was pretty cost effective.
I still have to trim it, paint it and mount it but here are some first impressions:

[FRED SMAILES]

Excellent! Good on ya!
Fiberglass is a rather simple, although can be messy proposition.
Get the knowledge, create the work space, practice and procede.
Fred

[Khalm]

How did you remove the boards in the inside for the door I need to do that.

[Rolf Arnold]

I have seen this trailer for sale on kijiji! Congrats on the purchase! I had all the interior insulation removed and then I was able to pry it out from the inside. It was not easy, involved some cutting of fiberglass and hard prying on the door frame.

I see you have four hinges on there!

[Khalm]

Yes that’s how it can but starting to sag a little
I also installed a latch to the underside of trailer and bottom of door to take some stress off when driving.

I would like to get at the wood inside the door to replace. I’m sure it’s rotten or close to. Do you have a pic of how much Fiberglass you cut out on the door to get at the wood.
My ceiling carpet is in excellent condition. It was redone before I bought. Just a little bit of updating and adding some storage above sink

[Khalm]

Isn’t the wood piece just in the door? Was hoping not to fiddle with the interior insulation

[Mark in Vancouver]

I've been doing some work on a 1980 Surf-side bought a month ago. Paid too much. Exploratory surgery revealed a couple of soft spots in the floor so I ended up completely gutting it, replacing sections of the floor and rebuilding cabinets and benches-much as you have done. You have some good ideas that I wished I had incorporated. Your closet is very nice. I don't have a table saw, so I'm struggling a little to do the finishing carpentry that you seem very good at. I had no kitchen to start with, so I've just built a temporary cabinet/countertop for a sink, cooler and stove. I just want to use it this summer and I'll carry on with the window frames etc. next year. I need to put a torsion axle on there. It currently has leaf springs and sits way too high. One thing you start to realize is that there isn't a whole lot of mechanical linkage of the internals to the fiberglass shell. A few spots of construction adhesive to the fiberglass a few wood screws and compression between the floor and roof. I'm afraid things will come apart on a rough logging road! Not fun trying to be square and plumb in something that has no straight lines, sagging springs, sagging roof, and floors that are arched. I tried not to replicate a couple of mistakes from the factory. Anyway, you do beautiful work! If you see this in the next few days, what angle did you use on the trailing torsion axle? I've seen someone mention 10 up and someone else use zero. That's my next expenditure. I may be out of luck getting one by June, but maybe a Dexter. Yeah, this project is costing quite a bit more than I thought, and taking 3 times the time anticipated. Kind of like everything I take on! Maybe those Outback Trilliums aren't so expensive after all! It's a cool trailer though - unique.

[Rolf Arnold]

Hi Mark,

thank you for your comments. Yes it does take 3 times longer as anticipated, and in my case, it also cost 3 times more. But do it right once and it will last for a long time! ...knock on wood.

I did order a 2000lbs Flexiride torsion axle from City Springs in Edmonton. I ordered it 0 deg, but the beauty is that you can adjust the angle afterwards which I did. I am probably now between -10 to-20 deg, I did not measure. After finishing the interior with all the weight on, the Flexiride at 0 deg compressed quite a bit so I changed it to give me more clearance.
I would highly recommend to order a Flexiride for those reasons.

I hope you will start a thread here as well and document your work!
Rolf

[Mark in Vancouver]

Thanks for the reply Rolf! I think that's the way I will go too. I fantasize about lowering it enough to get into my heated garage. Getting a little tired of working in sub 4 degree torrential rains....but that would be tropical for Alberta I suppose. There is a place here in Langley that has Flexirides apparently. Looks like my trailer has a plate with bolt holes welded vertically at the transition in frame rails. Would be amazing if the Flexiride just bolted in the existing holes.

I was taking a look today at the leaf spring set up that exists on my trailer. 21 inches between bottom of trailer and ground - 10 inches between top of tire and exterior arch of wheel well. She's tall! It has the 4 bolt x 4 inch mounting flange for e-brakes. It seems that Dexter is the only one supplying 7 x 1.25 inch drum/hub and brake assemblies. As far as I can tell, the e-brake drum and assembly can be bolted to any 4 bolt x 4 inch flange including Flexiride (I think). Due to time and $ constraints I am just going to use the existing leaf spring axle and lower it with a 3 inch spacer and new U-bolts for now. Next year I will get the Flexiride and swap over the drum brake assemblies. I'm trying to get this thing usable by June to haul my mom on a trip to Sask, maybe Ontario and back to Vancouver. I'll sleep in truck, she can have the heater and porta-potty. Heaters, converters, meters, CO alarms, brake controllers etc. are depleting my bank account quickly! I think you buy the axle separately from the brake assemblies anyway and the swap over should work. Do you happen to know if the axle profiles are the same on a torsion and leaf spring axles? I can't seem to find this info, but from previous trailer work, it seems that there are pretty standardized bearing sizes, clearances and offsets. Just would hate to rely on the Dexter set up and find the hub profile was different than my leaf spring axle.

Yeah, I am taking a few pictures and video clips as I go and maybe I'll put something on Youtube at some point (or here). I don't have the time to learn what software to use and how to do it quite yet....although I do know iMovie which is probably fine. Do you happen to know if Dexter is the only show in town for these 7 inch assemblies? Was hoping Princess Auto had them, but their assemblies seem to be 10 inch for the 3500 lb axles. If I put 10 inch drums on there, I'd bet there would be clearance issues with 13 inch rims. Was toying with the idea of not bothering with brakes, but I have a 4runner and 1940 lbs would be the max I could tow legally without brakes (I think this trailer will be over 2000 lbs loaded. Since 4runners are "under-braked" to start with, I'm sure that having trailer brakes on the Rogers Pass will be comforting! Thanks again Rolf.

[Rolf Arnold]

Hey Mark,

sorry for not getting back to you but I honestly don't know the answers to your axle questions.

I finished painting and installing the rock guard. The only thing left is two small tie downs. Here some impressions:
(Sorry the pictures are upside down, but when you click on them the magically rotate to the correct orientation...)

[Mark in Vancouver]

Looks great! I was going to create a mold and make one as well, but ended up getting a sheet of that gel coated white fibreglass board that you can get from home depot. I got several feet of 1/2 inch aluminum C channel (also from HD) and pop riveted a frame support behind it. Not quite as custom as yours, but better than the rotting plywood there before. Hey, Flexiride torsion axles are not available for months according to the only show in town here in Vancouver. So, I'm just going to use the leaf springs this year. Installed 10 inch brakes yesterday and wired up much of the 12 v and 110 v circuits inside. Thought I'd have that thing wired in a few hours.....whole day. When I do get the flexiride, apparently they can downgrade a 3500 lb axle rubber to something like 2300 lb so I can swap over the brakes (10 inch drums fit in 13 inch rims, parts are cheaper and more available). The fantastic fan is now connected (it has been sitting there with no juice for many years I suspect). Probably most people already know there isn't enough rigidity in the ceiling to support that weight....so I will have to reinforce it with resin encapsulated wood at some point in the future. It's sort of like rebuilding the stringers in my old boat - should be ok. I also have to do the same closing of the heater and fridge vents that you did. Keep up the amazing work. Very inspiring!

[Rolf Arnold]

Hey there, it's been a while. But back in April I finished installing the marine liner.
This was probably the most challenging work I did on this trailer, holy smokes!
Anyway here some details and info:
I used 3M90 high strength adhesive spray. I needed 5 cans of it to finish the job.
For the marine liner I used the following product ordered from JTS Outdoor Fabric in Ontario:
FAB17-1001 Sea Galley Hull Liner-Opal Plain, 35 CAD/yard.
I needed 10 yard in total.
(This is btw the same fabric the Trillium Outback guys use for their trailers)

This fabric is quite stretchy, so you can stretch and deform it to make all the round corners. But it is still not easy to do, but it turned out pretty good actually.
I did not use anything for the seams, just made sure they are straight cuts glued close together.
Initially I made some templates with brown construction paper but that did not work so great, so later on I just cut pieces to the approximate size, glued them in and then trimmed the edges.
Below some picture for you to judge. ;-)

This is pretty much the end of this renovation story. All I can say is that it was exciting, fun for most of the time, cost way more money than expected and I do not regret doing this! But would I do it again...? hmmm...
The only thing left is finishing the water system (tank, pump, plumbing to the sink, etc)

Happy Camping everybody!!

[SteveHoy]

Hi great job. What did you use for the weather stripping around the door and where did you get it? thanx for any help!

[Rolf Arnold]

Hi Steve, thank you!
I got the door weather stripping from Outback Trillium here in Calgary. Sorry I don't know what product they use.

[BigMountainB]

OMG. I was pretty impressed with some stuff you did, but the cabinets got me big time. This looks great. Solid work! And now I had to edit because of the fiberglass window protector. You are talented, Rolf!

Can you tell me about that grey and leather folding pouch? I like it.