I started the day out with more interior demo. I got the upper kitchen cabinet out fairly easily. The old paneling came apart pretty easily with a little coaxing from my hammer. I also took out the street side dinette seat framing. Once that was done, I peeled up some of the old vinyl flooring. This stuff is peeled at the edges but stuck down pretty good in the middle. I planned on taking up all of the floor but using a putty knife is pretty hard work so I only took up a little. I am thinking about getting a multi tool to take up the rest. Anyway after a little flooring was out I decided to see why the ceiling was sagging over the dinette. It was very soft and I knew there was bad wood above it. I used a putty knife and simply cut into the white vinyl ceiling at the front cabinets. Once I completed the cut the ceiling fell in.
Pretty messy huh? This took a while to clean up. After lunch I started removing the exterior aluminum edge trim. I've seen videos online showing how easy it is to do this and every time the trim is screwed in. Of course this little lady was put together with nails. These were a pain to remove. I had to use a small flat head and a hammer to get under the nail heads to pry them loose. Then I used a small nail remover pry bar to pull them out. This process was pretty time consuming. Once all the nails were out I used my putty knife under the trim to pry it loose. The aluminum is soft and you have to make sure to remove it gently because it will bend out of shape pretty easily. Here is a picture with the trim removed. I had expected to see that the roof skins would be bent over the wall skins to help prevent water leaks. This was not the case. The skins simply butted up against each other. The edge trim and putty is the only thing that keeps the water out. I plan on improving that when I put her back together.
Once that was done, I had to remove all of the trim on the bottom edge of the camper. Here is a PRO TIP for anyone removing the skins. Drill a small hole at every joint to make it easier to match the aluminum panels back up. I have to credit
Jennies Garage with this idea.
The skin is held in place with many staples however, most were loose because the wood underneath was rotten. The ones that were not loose were rusted and I had to use a screwdriver to pry them loose. I built a wood frame so that I could mount the aluminum pieces and store them vertically in my small garage space.
With the skins off you can really see the water damage. Keep in mind that this is the good side of the camper. I know the other side is much worse.
It was a very good day and I made a lot of progress taking Lucy apart. One thing I wanted to note here is how she was originally constructed. All of the videos I have seen on youtube about camper framing has showed some form of stick framing with a thin plywood interior wall. The Scotty is not built that way. Her side walls are simply 1/2" plywood. There was a super thin layer of fiberglass insulation between the skin and the wood too.
Replacement should be straight forward. I plan to use a sawzall to cut all the staples between the roof framing and the wall so I can pull it out in one piece. This way I can trace the old wall onto new plywood. When I rebuild the wall, I am going to make it stronger. I plan to laminate 2 layers of 1/2" plywood to make a 1" thick wall. This will provide a lot more strength and not too much extra weight. At the bottom where it connects to the base it will still be 1/2" so that the camper does not get any wider.
Cheers!
