A Rare Victory with Alzheimers Today

Alzheimers doesn't give you many victories.  Pam has been in a nearly ten year long descent with it and there's really not a lot of her left.  My only goal for her is that she is happy and thankfully, we're generally successful in that.  It would be so much harder if she were depressed.

We can no longer communicate verbally as she no longer even understands yes or no.  But, we can still communicate as her life is pretty simple now and very structured.  For years, she's been able to play solitaire on her computer and that has kept her occupied.  Unfortunately, about a month ago, she lost the ability to play.  She's not had much to do and has been pretty anxious on the boat, pacing back and forth.  We've pretty well solved that for now by going over to the shop each day, and working for a little while on the kayak and a little while on the Airstream.  That takes up a couple hours each day and she's really content watching me work or "talking" to that girl she sees in the rear view mirror of the car.  Ice cream from the grocery store usually follows the shop time.

Today was one of those little victories.  I've been really tired lately and I just wasn't up for more ripping apart work on the trailer today.  I laid on varnish coat number four on the kayak and was going to call it a day.  Got in the car and started to head out the gate, but Pam had other ideas.  The routine is for some time on the kayak and some time on the trailer and that's what she wanted as she kept pointing at Island Girl as I started to drive away.  She wanted me to stick with the routine.

Still didn't feel like attacking the wheel wells, so I decided to replace the marker lights that I picked up on sale at Vintage Trailer Supply last month.  Got the compounder out and polished the area around the light mounts while they were off to make overall polishing easier later.  I'd earlier done one light, but today got the other three installed with Olympic rivets.

And Pam got to see that girl she's been "talking" to in the car mirror again:  this time with the girl in the shiny reflection on the trailer.

Good day for us.

I See Grass Instead of a Floor

Lots of little stuff still to do in the destruction phase:  break off all the old elevator bolts with vise grips, get the wheel wells out, use a wire brush in my drill to knock the rust off the frame, and remove some of the last bits of subfloor.  But, I am nearly to the end of the take apart part and I'll be glad to see it end.  I love the creative part of planning ahead and thinking of changes and how I want the whole thing to fit together, but there's nothing really creative about ripping all the stuff out of the trailer.

Since I'm parked in the grass, I left the belly pan on so I could clean out all the garbage from the top:  old insulation, mouse condos, dirt (lots of that).  My C channel holding the shell to the floor is in good shape, so I didn't really want to drill out all those rivets to drop the pan.  I left about a foot of it from the rivet line and cut it off from there, in effect leaving a border I can use to reattach it later.  Lots of damage under the bath area, including a really super patch made from an aluminum can, but most of the old pan looks to be reusable.

Bought a new tool for the job, Dewalt Electric Metal Shears, and they made short work of cutting off the belly pan.  Lots of money, but they'll also get lots of use ahead on the project.

The grey water tank arrived too.  It's a 33 gallon ABS plastic tank from Icon Technologies and measures 48" x 33" x 8".  Definitely have to move at least one crossmember to install it, but the size will be nice to have.  Kudos to Icon Technologies for the packing they did on the tank:  full cardboard box that was extremely well padded inside.  Shipped quickly too, but it did spend a couple of days clearing customs.

Haven't heard on the axle from Colin, but that's fine as there's still plenty to do.  Really want to get my lights squared away for the trip to the welder.  Lots of elevator bolts to break and remove.

Since I live on a boat, I'll still need a boat when I someday go to fulltiming on Island Girl.  My kayak project, a Pygmy Golden Eye Hi, is nearly done.  Mostly just needs a killer varnish job on the deck.

Tanks and Axle

With the old subfloor nearly up, I've been working on tanks and a new axle.  Once the floor is completely up and cleaned out, I'll drop the belly pan, probably by cutting it and leaving a 12 inch border.  Before I can tackle new floor, I need to get my tanks in, get some welding done, and replace my axle.

Tanks are hard to find in stock sizes that fit my frame, but custom tanks are more expensive.  The other thing that makes it hard, at least for me, is that while I basically know what I want for tank sizes and placement, I don't really know where I'll want fittings yet--I can't think that far ahead.  My black tank will be above the floor, so it's no problem now, but the grey and fresh go in the frame.  I decided to get ABS tanks for both largely because I can easily weld in fittings later with ABS cement.  Bought two 24 gallon Valterra fresh tanks that measure 8" x 16" x 48".  That's more capacity than I need, but gives me flexibility.  The ABS Grey tank came from Icon Technologies in Canada, measures 8" x 33" x 48" and holds 33 gallons.  I'll have to get some crossmembers in the frame moved, but they'll fit easily in the 51" I have inside the main frame rails.

Colin Hyde in New York has been running one of the premiere Airstream restoration facilities .  I emailed him about some axle decisions and happened to time it just as he is busy setting up a new company on his own.  I know he's busy and he's got a lot on his mind right now, but even so he probably spent nearly an hour on the phone with me going over options for my installation.  Cannot thank Colin enough.  He's the best.  He'll be ordering me a new torsion axle from Axis, replacing my old spring axle setup.  It'll be a 5000 pound axle derated to 4200, which should give me quite a bit of latitude in the way I setup and load the trailer.  It'll get shipped to my welder, so axle and tanks can all go in at the same time.  Big steps forward!

Started stripping my rear endcap, too.  The old Zolatone is coming off, but this is not going to be one of my favorite jobs.  Kicking around the idea of having polished aluminum on the upper inside and baltic birch replacing the lower inside aluminum.  Not sure yet, just thinking.

She is empty

Haven't posted in a month, but I have been busy.  Island Girl is empty as I've removed all the cabinetry, lower inside skin panels, and am now in the process of pulling up the old plywood subfloor.

I've read stories of great difficulty removing the bathroom, but mine came out very easily.  Nice and shiny behind the interior panels and nearly all of the old insulation was clean and dry.

The C channel holding the floor to the frame and shell is in very good shape and most of it can be reused.  Hard for me to believe that what I'm seeing is a 52 year old trailer.

Since the plywood is in really poor shape on both ends, I made a cardboard template to allow me to cut the end pieces of new plywood to shape.

Surprising to me that the elevator bolts holding the plywood down are installed at the joint between two pieces of plywood, really just acting as a clamp.  I think I'll likely make my plywood joints away from the crossmembers and use a strip of ply underneath as a doubler.

All along, I've wondered what kind of shape my frame was in.  It's hard to see without dropping the belly pan, so I've been concerned until today when the first sections of old subfloor came up.  For the most part, I've got a frame that is still painted and showing just some minor surface rust, much of it from the original floor insulation sandwiched between the frame and the plywood.  A little more serious rust in the rear streetside, but even it doesn't look too bad.