Silver Bullet

Here's what I found today after taking off the rest of the belly skin. It's a fatigue crack just aft of the forward axle. Don't know the exact cause of why it happened, but going to take a guess and say it was from bad axles.






The frame is also bent just below the crack, too








The crack travels up about half way through the frame. I'm going to jack up the trailer tomorrow (maybe) and probably take off the front axle to see if the crack is as bad on the other side.









Here's another look at the crack. There is also another crack on the opposite side of this cross member, but smaller than this one. Still a problem that I'm going to have to fix.

Got the last two sections of floor out. As you can see, another grainery on top of the grey water tank. Ended up finding one dead rat and 3 dead mice in the last two sections. They must have eaten the rat poison that was in there. It felt like a little justice has been done :)







Here's a look at the top of the grey water tank.








And here's where the rodents were coming in.








Both tanks out and as you can see, the black water was leaking at the valve. The galvanized steel case is practically gone on the rear, so will have to make a new one.

It feels pretty good that the floors are out and I can finally switch gears and actually begin the restoration/sealing of the frame. I figure that I may be able to paint the frame beginning tomorrow and start looking for someone to do some welding on the frame. Only a couple of the outriggers need replacing and one crossmember. I might be able to hit my mark of having her road worthy by April :)

Had some bubbling in the POR-15 paint. Still trying to determine the cause. Likely user error :)

I'll have to wet sand and reapply a third coat.