1965 Aloha Project

John do you happen to know if new axles are the same way?

Thanks John. I hate having to do a job twice because I didn't know something. 

After priming it was time for paint. I painted the underside of the frame first, then flipped it over and painted the topside. I lost count how many times I flipped the frame over but this was the last time.

















I had painted the chain loops black and masked them off to paint the color, reasoning that they will be the first to wear and rust so touching them up with black would be easier than with the color. They will eventually be ground off and replaced as John Palmer pointed out that the muffler U-bolts the welder used are not strong enough for this purpose.





Overall I am satisfied with how it turned out. I didn’t try to remove all the imperfections in the metal. With the welds, holes and rust pits it was too rough to do much with. The paint has a medium metallic in it which didn’t blend as evenly as I would have liked in a few areas. It doesn’t look bad at all, and this was my first time spraying metallic so I shouldn’t complain. One nice thing is that the darker pigments in the paint seemed to pool in the metal breaks of the siding, accentuating the diamond pattern.

Looks good.

The metallic colors are not as easy as solid colors to spray. I'm not sure I could get the painted panels all back on the trailer without damage, I'd paint them, or have them painted after installed. I think what your photos show, is that anyone can achieve "professional results", as long as you read the directions, take your time with prep, and talk with your supplier for advice.

Thanks for the encouragement, lots more to come. This thread is about 6-weeks behind my actual progress. Hopefully it will be current before finishing so you all can help keep me from making any disastrous mistakes.

I am posting in the exact sequence that this build has progressed, doing what seems the next best step and trying not to overreach too far, as in pre-painting the siding panels. We'll see how re-installing them goes. So far so good.

Installing the plywood sub-floor with the axle removed would be much easier, so that’s the way it went. 1-1/8” underlayment plywood was used as it would provide a very solid floor and is close to the original floor thickness. The belly pan and fiberboard were omitted for reasons explained earlier. From my measurements off the original floor I cut the panels to width, but 1/8” narrower. Except for the roof, I hope to re-use the original aluminum skins. The sill plates at the bottom of the walls will be replaced, and things tend to grow as you stack them together, so this 1/8” will provide a little wiggle room when re-fitting the skins. The front leading edge of the plywood was cut at a bevel to match the angle of the front wall that will join to it. Interior paneling will be attached from the outside to this edge at the front and rear, so the angle needs to match up with the walls.

Underlayment plywood is tongue and groove. Not knowing how tight it would join, I pre-fit the plywood together then measured and marked the overall length before cutting the rear edge. Since there was room to do so, the joint locations of the plywood were also re-located. Originally there was a joint about 4” behind the rear wheel well cutout. The plywood cantilevers off the main frame at this location without being supported by an outrigger. Having a joint here would be inherently weak, plus it would receive a lot of road spray from the tires which the joint could easily trap, leading to moisture problems. I calculated the plywood layout and moved the joint about 6” forward of the rear wheel well cutout.

The underside of the plywood would be coated, but first I wanted to pre-fit it to the frame. The two main frame rails were nowhere near parallel to each other, so a string was stretched down the center of the frame from the coupler to the center of the rear bumper. The center of the plywood was marked, and the front piece laid out with the leading edge matched up to where I had indexed it. I then marked the original front two deck to frame bolt hole locations on the underside of the plywood, pulled it off and drilled the holes.









The front piece of plywood was then re-positioned and bolted to the front of the frame. Since the plywood joint locations were changed, except for at the rear edge, I needed to drill new bolt holes through the frame. As each piece of plywood was fitted, bolt holes were drilled far enough through the plywood to score the frame for drilling later. After pre-fitting the plywood, it was pulled up again, the underside was coated with asphalt emulsion and the new bolt holes drilled through the frame.







This trailer has two 1-1/2” x 3” wood floor joists running lengthwise between the frame rails. Originally these joists rested on top of the frame angle iron cross ties, unattached to the frame and nailed to the plywood with 10d ring shank nails. After 50 years, the old joists were still in perfect condition. I considered re-using them but it wouldn’t have been worth the effort. New Douglas Fir 2x4’s were purchased, ripped to width, cut to length, then coated with asphalt emulsion and positioned before the final floor installation. Because they had done so well as originally installed, I saw no reason attach the new joists to the frame but I did use #10 x 2-1/2” screws instead of nails to fasten them to the plywood. The plywood was fastened to the frame the same as was originally done, with two galvanized 3/8” carriage bolts in front, and galvanized ¼” carriage bolts for the rest. There are 18 bolts in total. This is all that connects the body to the frame. I considered using larger bolts but this held very well for the first 50 years. I saw no good reason to mess with success here either.