1957 Westerner Deluxe restoration

Finally some major progress has been made on Lil' Bit. We have been working on stuff that we took out of her like the appliances, the eyebrows, two windows (once she finally made it safe to uncle's place) and trying to find things we need to work on her. I am having such a time finding out what gaskets etc. the front window needs, I hope that now that it is here at the house I can get online and find it.

Hubby spent all day yesterday at Uncle's working on tearing her apart. It is 1 1/2 hr drive there and back so no reason to go unless you can spend all day working on her, which is hard when he works nights and really only has Tuesday available to do that since he can sleep Monday, work Tuesday, futz around home Wednesday morning and sleep rest of day until 6 when he has to get up and start the week all over again. That is if he doesn't get called in at 3 a.m. to empty the dump truck like he did Tuesday morning. Oh, well he doesn't complain (much).

So he has all the windows out, the door and trim out, and all of the skin off the bottom half of the trailer. Those pieces are now in the garage so we can work on them. We have decided we are going to do take her all the way down to bare trailer frame and have 4 additional cross members and outriggers added along with a brace down the middle from front to back. I really want to make sure she is well supported and doesn't bend up like teachndad's (Dan's) did. We will rebuild the leaf springs and brakes at the same time, then we will have to wire the brakes since they aren't wired now.

I was really surprised by the fact there isn't as much rot in the sides and front as I had thought there would be. There is some delamination of the inside paneling and I thought we were really in for it, but surprise, the worst part besides the back end is the curbing (ick, that won't be fun). We will go ahead and replace any wood that is discolored as it is on it's way to rotting out and of course add more framing. The side walls will come off and come back home where they will be rebuilt in the garage (which means my van has to go elsewhere for a while cause with all our kids still at home there is no more parking available around the house) but I don't drive much anymore right now anyhow, not until I can get off the narcotics for my severe back pain, which means I have multiple surgeries ahead before that so it's not a big deal where the van is.


I have over 40 new pictures of the progress we are making on the rebuild if you would like to see what we have been up to. Here's the link to my photobucket album with the work in progress:

'57 Westerner WIP

So for now until hubby can get back out to Uncle's we have plenty of work around here to keep us occupied. And hubby can get more work done with the stuff here since he gets off work about 5 a.m. and usually stays up until 11 or so he can work in the garage or out back on the patio which is where we are doing the window work.

Thanks all for your comments and help, this board has really been a big help and I have bunches of notes to follow as we go along. Doesn't mean I won't still have questions, but you guys make it so easy to get them answered I really appreciate it. I hope one day to be helpful too
 

Howdy hoody all, long time no speak. Sorry I haven't been around for a while, but my life has been absolutely insane for quite a while. I won't bore you all with my troubles, just know they are finally starting to ease up and my hubby and I can once again work on our trailer. We haven't had any room at all to work in since we had kids and grandkid move in, we only have daughter and grandkid for about three more months which will give me my work space again.
For now I have some free time again and thought I'd let you know I was still alive. And I'll be a bit more active again, so watch out cause I'm coming back. 😀😝