Had Two Ideas...

Had two ideas today, oddly enough while sitting in church!  The first idea is how to make a 'locking' window hatch.  See the image below:

Notice the pin that is on the bottom of the window.  If I were to put a rod like this (except make it go all the way to the 'top' of the screen where it would 'snap' into a bracket) this would effectively 'bar' the hatch from the inside.  Theoretically, I could even add a steel pin through the rod which would give added security.  This would be a relatively strong lock on the window hatch.  Also, the longer rod would allow the hatch to open to a much greater angle.

The second idea is also from the image above too.  The designer of the teardrop above seems to have 'covered' the door in a sheet of plywood.  If I plan my interior effectively, I think I will be able to add a piece of 1" foam (adhering with a strong adhesive) On top of this would then be a thin sheet of plywood.  This could then either be varnished or painted, depending on the rest of the interior.

It's neat how your mind keeps 'thinking' when you step away from a project.

It's Easter.  My hands are sore, bandaged and tired.  I'm taking the day off.  Had really hoped to have the cabin water tight before I went back to school.  However, that's not going to happen.  I'll do my best to get out in the garage this week after school.  

Nearly Watertight

I spent the entire day yesterday working on the tiny parts that make up the door frame inside the cabin.  These tiny parts had to be cut, sanded, pre-drilled, primed, painted, dried and then finally installed.  This, along with a multitude of trips to the hardware store for the proper stainless steel bolts, washers and nuts took up the greater part of my day.  I decided to spray paint all of the wooden pieces to seal them from moisture.  I also painted the interior surface of the door; I chose a soft gray, which looks an awful lot like the original aluminum color. 

Erica took some photos of me installing the interior door frame trim; fun to see me inside the teardrop!

 While I had all of the bolts out, I used CLR, Brillo Pads, soap, and elbow grease to remove the rust from the hardware that had been in place for 60+ years.  My goal was not to polish, but to simply remove the rust.  However, in doing so, there were a few patches that shone so brightly that it made me smile to think about how shiny this thing will be when I finish with all the interior restorations and can properly clean and polish the exterior!

I learned how to use my rivet tool.  I was able to re-install the window hatch. The earlier owner decided to cut the hatch on the passenger side to make more room for a hinge.  I installed new hinges and was able to cover the old holes using my rivet tool.  Not perfect, but functional and pretty nice.

Both doors were painted in preparation for the screen windows.  I love how the grey looks!  I applied the seal to the door frame.  I'll need to play with the fixture that opens the hatch.  It's a pretty simple, but ingenious design.  It is nothing more than a metal rod that is used to 'push' open the hatch.  When not open, it folds back onto the frame and 'locks' the hatch.  For now I'll re-install the fixture and live with it a while before designing anything different.

Once I finish both doors, I plan on spray painting the interior of the cabin, installing bulkhead doors and flooring in the storage area, and then re-installing the tail light wiring semi-permanently.  That will basically complete the interior until I am ready to begin installing the 12v/120v electrical system and start thinking about how to insulate the cabin.

The next big project will be removing and then installing a new hatch hinge.  I've decided to take George's, from The Teardrop Fix It Shop, advice and replace the hinge.  We'll use a block of wood to 'hold' the hinge in place and to give the hatch some heft.  This should be a permanent solution.  Then I can dismantle the galley and begin renovating it.   It will be fun to start planning the design in the meantime.

Today is Easter.  I have things I have to finish to be ready for the end of the semester at NLU and to prepare to go back to school tomorrow.  I don't know if I'll be able to do any work on the teardrop today. 

Making Windows

I'm amazed at how little I 'accomplished' today.  I have created wooden door and screen assemblies.  The hardest part was getting the plywood to not 'splinter' or fray.  I later realized that I needed a much 'finer' toothed blade.  Wish I had learned this before because it would have saved me a lot of time sanding.  The screen window is two parts.  One part is 1/2" plywood and the other is 1/4".  I have to give myself credit for keeping one assembly in place so that as I worked on the replacement I could keep referring to it. 

 Above you can see one portion of the window being 'traced' as best as I could.  The old window was so brittle it broke with the slightest touch.

Here you can see the old screen window and the new one above it.  I am going to paint and seal the individual pieces before I sandwich the screen and install the new window.  

 You can see the way the screen window fits in the door.  There is a gap where foam rubber is applied to allow the window to seal when the hatch is pulled down.  I'm not terribly thrilled about the way the hatch is raised, but I haven't figured out a better system yet.  That might have to come from experimentation.

Tomorrow I'll seal and paint everything and try to get things installed.  After adding the foam insulation, the windows and doors should be water tight. 

Ordering Parts

Today was a day of ordering a lot of parts.

I explored two excellent resources, Lil' Bear Tag-Alongs and the Teardrop Fix-it Shop.

Both were phenomenal to deal with.  Both called me back to confirm my needs and walked me through the process of choosing the right materials.

I ended up ordering six lengths of five foot aluminum for the bottom of the trailer and the wheel wells.  That will give me enough to experiment with forms, etc. when I'm trying to bend it to fit my trailer.  I also ordered new door handles (inside and out) a hatch handle and lock mechanism that will lock and secure the galley lid.  I haven't seen the dome light that George offers anywhere else, so I went ahead and ordered that too.  It has a neat feature that allows you to choose between a white light or a red light.  This would allow you to 'see' without affecting your night vision.  Now that I think about it, I might order one more for the galley.

After some conversation with George at the Teardrop Fix-it Shop, I decided to investigate replacing the hinge.  After sharing the idea with Larry, I am not quite sure what I am going to do about.  He brought up a great point.  If I took the old hinge off and put a new on, the I'm going to be adding a lot more holes in the hatch.  That will decrease the strength of the hatch and could jeopardize the integrity of the hatch.  If I'm drilling out all those rivets, I'm thinking I might just go ahead and add a new seal.  It must have worked pretty well on the original right?

I ventured up to Racine today to take a look inside a Harbor Freight Store.  Having never actually been inside one of their stores, it was a little like a kid in a candy shop!  I purchased a few supplies for working on the teardrop.  One tool I'll surely need is a rivet tool.  There were about five different kinds.  It seemed the only difference was the heaviness of the steel that the tools were made from.

 Getting ahead of myself, but one of these sander/buffers and lots of these pads are going to be in my future.  The cost of the tools at Harbor Freight are ridiculous!  So inexpensive.

 These two trailer tongue boxes were attractive.  I think I like the much more sturdy heavier steel version for the cost.  I would like to integrate a cargo rack with grates

 I think this is gorgeous!  The above is from So Cal Teardrops and they know how to outfit a teardrop.  My goal, at least at this moment, is to add the diamond plate on the base of the trailer like they have done and then add something similar on the tongue as a way to carry our chairs, etc.

Tomorrow my job is to rebuild the window on the passenger side.  If things go well, I'll be able to use my template for the other side too.  It should be pretty basic; but those are some famous last words. 

That's all for tonight!

Taking Stock

The past couple of days have been a chance for me to take stock of where things stand with the teardrop.  The first thing I did was clean the interior.  I went through about 10 buckets of hot soapy water cleaning the aluminum.  It was really dirty inside.  However, there were no signs of critters living in the inside.  The hatch had a boatload of caulking from various applications over the decades.  I applied a chemical that broke down the bond of the caulk and helped it peel away.

The windows were a nightmare.  The wood frames were rotten and the screen was completely rusted.  (You can see the sagging seal and the rusted screen in the image below. )  The aluminum 'cover' of the window is supposed to be hinged.  This one was completely missing, (we later found it in the cabin.)  The one on the other side had been caulked in place.  I removed all of the rotten seals as well.  I took one window frame out and left one in for reference as I begin to rebuild the wooden frame.  I will treat the 'new' frame with polyurethane to help it last a few more decades.  I considered buying a plastic framed window, but unfortunately, they are a unique size and will probably need to be specially made.  I have a window company that I would like to at least have an estimate from so that I can make an informed decision.  If it's not too terribly expensive, I think it would be worth it to have a sliding screen window.  I'd like to be able to have the light inside the cabin from windows. 

Later today, I was able to remove all of the trim along the bottom of the trailer.  I plan to replace this badly worn and broken trim with a slightly larger trim piece.  I'm looking forward to learning how to use a rivet tool.  It was a lot easier than I thought it would be to drill out the old rivets. 

You can see in this picture the old wood frame and the larger wooden frame that is used to seat the door.  I plan on rebuilding these pieces soon. 

This is the naked door with all the wood and hardware removed.

You can see by my wooden mallet all of the hardware that I removed today.  Each of those are going to be replaced by replica hardware that I've been able to find online.  It's time to start shopping for all those replacement parts!

Teardrop Pick Up Journal

The trip south to pick up the teardrop was a crazy blur of a couple of days.

I started heading south at 6:00 a.m. and met my good friend and wingman, Jim Tingey near Highland Park, IL.  As we made our way south, the weather slowly degraded.  Just outside of Chicago, the snow started.  It got progressively worse as we got closer to Indianapolis.

  At one point, we saw a State Trooper turned the opposite direction to oncoming traffic with his lights flashing. 

Moments later, we came over a hill and saw traffic stopped for as far as we could see.  We wisely pulled off and found a back route around Indianapolis.  We joined back up with Interstate 65 on the south side of Indianapolis and continued on our way.  We later found out that the whole interstate had been shut down on that small stretch due to a very bad crash.  We had successfully dodged a bullet!  The weather continued to get worse; at one point it was snowing so hard I could barely see the yellow line.

We traversed the entire state of Indiana, a small section of Kentucky and finally Tennessee.  I made a questionable call and took a 'back' route to Cookeville rather than taking the interstate.  We got to see some picturesque parts of Tennessee and arrived at Hans' at around 6:00 p.m.

After catching up with the Beans, we headed over to the garage and got our first official look at the teardrop.

Some things were pleasant surprises while others were more sobering.

The teardrop was smaller than I had imagined.  The skin of the trailer was in pretty good condition.  The tires were going to be a big problem.  They 'rubbed' on the aluminum skin when the trailer was moved.  We tested lots of theories:  the axle must be too big; the tires are too big for the frame and others.  We wouldn't know for sure until we took it to a tire place and they examined it.  The three of us enjoyed some Wild Turkey and had a terrific conversation about all manner of things.  We all turned in about 11:00 with plans to get started early in the morning.

The first thing we did was pull the trailer over to Wal Mart. 

We needed to pick up some items.  We purchased a safety chain and connectors, a temporary light kit, some cleaning pads, duck tape, and WD40.  While we were there, we took a look at the trailer tires.  They would be perfect; if they fit.  They were about 1/3 narrower than the automotive tires that were installed on the trailer.  With excitement, we purchased three of them (one for a spare) and asked the installers to put them on the trailer.  This would have been awesome because we would be almost ready to leave.  Turns out the bolt pattern didn't match.

We were going to have to try a tire specialist.

On to our second stop.  They thought that they could sell us a narrower profile tire that would fit the rim that was on the trailer.  They installed them and then it was pretty obvious, they were too thick.  They rubbed on the aluminum skin. 



The installer was awesome.  He tried all sorts of things to see if we could 'make' them work.  There was a lot of pounding with a sledge hammer and hammering.  In the end, we realized that this was not going to work.  







 So, I had an idea.  The 'spindle' or the 'hub' seemed to be the problem.  The hub we had on the axle was an automotive hub, not a trailer hub.  For this reason we would not find a tire that would fit the bolt pattern that would be the width we needed.  My idea was to remove the hub and replace it with a 'trailer' hub.

They directed us to a trailer specialty store.  We headed to New Era Trailer about 15 minutes away.  They were just the ticket.  They had the wheels, the hubs and even the lighting package we needed.  We purchased all of it and took it back to the tire specialists.  Their installer was tremendous.  He had the new hubs and tires installed in less than ten minutes.  We were nearly road ready. 

We pulled the trailer back to Hans' house and started working on the lights.  The snow had decided to come back and our hands were cold and we were slowly getting soaked by the snow/slush/rain that was falling pretty heavily.














Finally, we had the lights installed.  We were ready to hit the road.

We said our goodbyes, checked on directions and hit it!

Notice the snow!

We made it about two miles when I noticed the hatch.  It was acting like an air foil.  It was lifting up as we hit about 50 miles per hour.

We stopped.  Pulled out a bungee cord, that thankfully was left inside the cabin, and strapped the hatch down.  We knew it was missing the hatch handle and striker, I don't know why we didn't anticipate the problem.

We were on our way, again.  We made it less than a mile when we realized that it was still lifting up.  We stopped in the snow/sleet/rain and decided we needed to purchase some straps to hold the hatch down.  Jim and I went to an Auto Zone and bought some straps.  We asked for a cardboard box or two to use to keep our bodies somewhat dry as we crawled under the trailer to attach the straps.  After twenty minutes or so of fumbling with the straps, we figured out a system that seemed to work pretty well.  We started off again, it was about three o'clock in the afternoon.  The snow and rain was still coming down.  Jim followed behind me and gave me regular updates on how things were looking from behind.  We parted ways in Nashville and I was on my way north, without my wingman.

The snow did not let up until I reached Illinois.  I stopped once just north of Indianapolis.  I always love seeing the windmills in the giant wind farm there.  The night was clear and I could see hundreds of little red blinking lights that are found on the top of the windmill.  After a restroom break and another large soda, I was ready to make it the rest of the way home. Unfortunately I did not get to stop in Ohio to meet my friend Larry.  Things just did not work out for that visit, but I'm planning to meet with him this summer at some point.

I pulled into our driveway at about 1:15 in the morning.  In the past 48 hours, I had spent 22 of them on the road.  I took a shower and crashed.

Making Your Bed

Larry, my friend in Ohio who is also a 1947 Teardrop owner, sent me a drawing of the 'floor.'  I have been thinking about how I was going to 'fit' my mattress into the teardrop.  I have two mattresses to choose from.

One is from our 'old' futon and the other is from our 'old' couch.  I don't think either of them are going to be 'perfect,' but I'm hoping to be able to fit one of them into it for the trip home.  I might end up having to 'carve' out a custom mattress.  I heard that Wal Mart has a mattress that might be able to 'customized.' My hope is to be able to spend one night on the way home somewhere.  The kids have been kidding me that I'll be sleeping in it out on the back porch.  Depending on how the mattress 'fits' and how well things 'seal,' I might choose to 'camp' somewhere.  I might bring it home, fix it up a bit and then go out for a night or two.

The Title is Missing

Funny, I've never given much thought to titles.  I guess it is my fault for not thinking about the title/registration issues sooner.  I had plenty of time to do it; I just never got around to 'thinking' about it.  To tell the truth, it's Wednesday and I am planning to drive down to TN to pick it up in four days and realized I might need some kind of license plate on the teardrop.  Gave Hans a call and found out there isn't a 'real' bill of sale.  So, we 'created' a new one and Hans is going to have it notarized for me.  Hans' suggestion was to just 'drive it north.'  With my luck, I would get a ticket in every statae between TN and WI.  Once we have the bill of sale notarized, I'm going to have to visit the TN DMV and get myself a temporary license plate.  That should get me safely home; ticket free.

 

Would love to get a 1947 license plate for my baby.

Planning the Trip!

Well, now that the basement is essentially completed, I can begin fixating on the trip south and beginning to repair The Carpe Diem and make her my own.

Plans are to leave Sunday morning.  It's about ten hours no matter how I plan to get there.  My trip home will be a little longer because I plan to stop in Lewisburg to see my friend Larry and his 1947 Tourette.

Spring is Here...

Spring is almost officially here.  It's 'here' in the sense that we just re-set our clocks and today is my daughter's 15th birthday.  That harkens spring to me.  It's been a while since I made an entry.  In the meantime, I have completely finished one half of our basement.  We've turned it in to a cozy family room where we will be able to enjoy movies and more.  This past weekend we put in our new sofa and the room looks great!  Here is a panoramic image of the space before we put in the carpet, sofa and a few other touches.

 I'm starting to get my plans in order for the trip down south to pick up the trailer.  My good friend Jim is going to meet me there to help me perform any maintenance and repair on the trailer.  I know for sure we'll have to repair the lights and possibly the bearings and tires.  I know nothing about this stuff and Jim is an old pro at boats, trailers and vehicles in general.  I am planning to visit my fellow teardrop owner, Larry, on the way home too.  He lives just north of Dayton, which is conveniently about half way home for me.

I plan on spending at least one night in the trailer during that week.  Once I get her home and have the chance to start working on her in the garage or on the concrete patio, I might slip out there to see how it sleeps too.  I'm grateful that my brother-in-law has kept The Carpe Diem in a garage.  I'm not sure how water tight she actually is.  I know the door seals will need to be replaced straight away.  I'm actually planning to buy them before I go down so that I can replace those right away.

That's all for now.  I'll start planning my route and preparing my tools soon.