Ripping Her Apart!

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Wa_mermayd

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Joined
Jul 22, 2011
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Tucson Arizona
Hi All - we used to be on here all the time but took a four year hiatus from fulltime RV living. Now that we are going fulltime again, we are starting with a full remodel. The walls and ceiling are coming off. Everything out! Our goals are to extend the living space by 3', raise the ceiling about 5" and more.

I am specifically looking for any news you have putting in tile - I did find one article so am excited about that someone has done it before. I am going to be tiling the shower.

Also - if you know of someone that has extended their rig - please post a link! Our Winnie is one of the rare diesel 28' rigs. We want to extend to 31'. We know Winnebago made 31' Minnie Winnie's on our frame and know how we want to do it - just wondering what you have done.

Here is the latest pic of our breakdown! I am looking forward to your comments.
Thanks!
 

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For the extension... look up the wheel base of those models. The cab (engine, trans, etc.) might have been the same. But did they have the rear wheels moved to keep the whole thing balanced?

From a mechanics perspective on extending the frame, don't just weld 3' of beams to what is there. For structural safety, remove the frame extensions they welded on and replace with C or I beams 3' longer. Use 1/4" minimum plates to sandwich the joint. Do NOT skimp on the welding job!! This is the foundation of your house! If the beams bend or welds crack you lose everything!
 
Stephen S. said:
For the extension... look up the wheel base of those models. The cab (engine, trans, etc.) might have been the same. But did they have the rear wheels moved to keep the whole thing balanced?

From a mechanics perspective on extending the frame, don't just weld 3' of beams to what is there. For structural safety, remove the frame extensions they welded on and replace with C or I beams 3' longer. Use 1/4" minimum plates to sandwich the joint. Do NOT skimp on the welding job!! This is the foundation of your house! If the beams bend or welds crack you lose everything!

Yay! This is why I love RVForum! Thank you for your comment.

OK. Husband and I have been reviewing your comment - here is what he says. "There is an added a tow package to the frame that is super beefy. The tow tongue weight capacity is 500lbs. Included in that installation that must have been done by Ford when building out the steel frame, is a frame extension that concludes with two C beams back-to-back that are close to 8' long. We are removing the hitch receptors and will simply build the extra 3' onto that extension. We have a foot of the 3' that has a strong steel frame member under it so we will only be going out the extra 2'."  Of course we will loose the ability to tow but - we've never used that function of our rig so aren't worried about it.  Daniel is saying we will weld some angle irons to support the additional 2'.

Daniel has a question - by taking advantage of the tow capacity and using that as our extension (which isn't going to weight anything close to 500lbs) should we need to be doing anything else to support the extension? We are loosing the hitch bar which must weight at least 50lbs+ which should work in our favor as well.

Separate question - aren't those reinforced C beams there to conduct the strength all the way to the back where the hitch is? So if we loose the hitch and use that structure instead for our small extension, shouldn't we be ok?
 
Any competent lawyer would have me throw this in here: I am not giving certified mechanical advice. What I'm saying is worth every penny you are paying for it.($0.00)  ;)

From my three decades of shade-tree mechanicking. <-(new word there) As long as you don't put any of the tanks, bathroom fixtures, gun safe, or any other heavy junk in the very back, (new 3 feet) it should work just fine. I'm hearing that you basically want 3 more feet of room for the bed area?? Did I get that right?

The structure of the floor will determine the stiffness of the back end. Edge beams and floor joists will carry a lot of the wall load. How you connect the walls to the floor will determine if the walls help with the floor being stiffened or leave it springy.

Watching videos of factory builds, you see that they make a flatbed on the chassis, then put walls up on top of that. If you integrate the walls and floor a bit better so that it is a true box, instead of walls stapled to a floor, you can get better strength and less flex.
 
Stephen S. said:
Any competent lawyer would have me throw this in here: I am not giving certified mechanical advice. What I'm saying is worth every penny you are paying for it.($0.00)  ;)

LOL!  Understood!  :)

Stephen S. said:
From my three decades of shade-tree mechanicking. <-(new word there) As long as you don't put any of the tanks, bathroom fixtures, gun safe, or any other heavy junk in the very back, (new 3 feet) it should work just fine. I'm hearing that you basically want 3 more feet of room for the bed area?? Did I get that right?

The extra 3' of space will be my husband office space. No tanks will be back there. There will be a floor to ceiling cabinet on half the original floor and half on the new 3' for our linens and misc.

We are going to have to replace the sub-subfloor and most likely the aluminum sheet they put beneath it as we are finding a lot of aluminum dust. We will definitely be connecting walls to the floor.

Thank you again!  :)
 
We are having some fun with the RV as we continue the deconstruction process. LOL. We opened up the cabover and WOW did we find rot. Old dry crumbling rot. Turns out the seam from the side of the cabover to the front was leaking and of course the front window where most cabovers leak.  The place where we thought the leak was also rotted out. It's a miracle we didn't fall through. Thank heavens Daniel reinforced the cabover from the interior!

Pictures of the rot are on our blog at https://randallgypsycaravan.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/rot-one-word-you-never-want-to-hear/
 

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Kevin Means said:
You know, it's probably not too late to re-think this project. :D

Kev

Hey Kev, your comment has been plaguing me - LOL! Unfortunately, this is our home. We have a temporary place we are staying while we are doing this work but this is all we have. Winnie has to be rebuilt. We can't afford a new rig and since we are doing all the construction ourselves, we can keep the costs down to materials which is the only way we can afford this. Winnie has been well loved her whole life and has seen some rough travel - much of it before we got her. Now we have to make sure she will safely withstand the next 10 years at least. So, we are ripping her apart, treating all the metal with rust guard, fixing what we find, replacing what we must and making our home. This work has to be done. The cabover was so wet I am shocked it never started to sag. The bottom compartments were breaking and threatening to fall off the rig. The roof was so damaged by it's 20+ years, it was absolutely necessary to fix in its entirety. Now we have the opportunity to make it better and stronger.

LOL - we have to do this stuff - its the only home we have. :)
 
Hey All - I updated our blog with current pics. I have to resize them to post here which is a pain so if for some reason you can't see them on the blog, let me know and I will edit one or two to post here.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Today we will be talking to another RV repair shop about our ideas and will show them the existing 'C' bracket extension that is on the RV and see what they say about that 3'. Keep your fingers crossed. Also need to find a welder and the metal for the repairs/reinforcement of the frame. Really hoping we don't need to replace the sheet aluminum at the very base of everything.

Thanks!

https://randallgypsycaravan.wordpress.com/2017/07/17/deconstruction-almost-complete/
 
Wa_mermayd said:
Hey All - I updated our blog with current pics. I have to resize them to post here which is a pain so if for some reason you can't see them on the blog, let me know and I will edit one or two to post here.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Today we will be talking to another RV repair shop about our ideas and will show them the existing 'C' bracket extension that is on the RV and see what they say about that 3'. Keep your fingers crossed. Also need to find a welder and the metal for the repairs/reinforcement of the frame. Really hoping we don't need to replace the sheet aluminum at the very base of everything.

Thanks!
Hello, download photo shrink from the app store. It is really easy and it shrinks photos to the perfect size for posting here, just a couple of steps?


https://randallgypsycaravan.wordpress.com/2017/07/17/deconstruction-almost-complete/
 
Wa_mermayd,

Here are some pics your requested.
Click on the picture.
Love your pet bears. Where are you located that you have bears helping with your project?
Tom,
 

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tombillbob said:
Wa_mermayd,

Here are some pics your requested.
Click on the picture.
Love your pet bears. Where are you located that you have bears helping with your project?
Tom,

Thank you so much for the pics! I love the framing. We are somewhat shocked at the lack of framing our rig has. We will be changing that. We are doing the work just outside of Spokane, WA where my friends are. Thus far we have not seen any bears in person but my husband has a lot of fun with photoshopping tools.  LOL!  :)
 
My trailer '' with aluminum framing'' was the same.  I had read the sales info on my unit and it lead you to believe there were actually framing in the walls. My trailer had 2 studs one on each side of the door. The only aluminum was around the perimeter profile just like your RV. Great job with photo shopping in the bears. My wife and I both thought it was real and she teaches Adobe Photoshop! Please keep us all informed on your interesting project.

Tom,
 
You need to look at the tongue weight rating to see what weight you can actually carry.  The 5000 Lb. towing capacity is the weight of the trailer which a lot of is carried on the trailer tires.  I am guessing the tongue weight rating is only about 500 or 600 lbs.
 
boatbuilder said:
You need to look at the tongue weight rating to see what weight you can actually carry.  The 5000 Lb. towing capacity is the weight of the trailer which a lot of is carried on the trailer tires.  I am guessing the tongue weight rating is only about 500 or 600 lbs.

Hi Charlie - yes, the tongue weight is only 500lbs. We removed the tow bar since we won't be using that. In this 3' will be my husbands office space. His desk will be integrated into the body in the corner behind the shower. He has his computer and monitors setup as a single unit that he can pick-up and move if necessary - they only weight about 40lbs all together. His office chair - standard rolly thing and him. The weight of the construction will be minimal, especially since we are not just tacking this on the end of the rig. The floor, walls and ceiling are all being built as part of the overall construction. Now that we have more ripped out, we discovered at least a good foot of the 3' we are adding has direct support from the chassis. Only thing 'floating' will be the 2'. We have been visiting RV repair/custom shop after shop to make sure we aren't insane but right now, it looks like we should be fine. No tanks will be back there, nothing heavy re: furniture or belongings - just space.

Thank you! Keep the recommendations, observations and comments coming!
Paula :)
 
Believe me Wa_mermayd, I have nothing but admiration for those who can take on a project of this magnitude and end up with a better RV. I will definitely be following along.

Kev
 
I agree with Kevin's suggestion of rethinking this. From the pics you posted and the information provided, it would be best to take the entire house off and junk everything but cabinets and reusable hardware. To do anything less would be putting cash into something that has a negative value. If the walls were rebuilt and a new roof put on, (all new stuff except the aluminum framing) you might have something to show for all of your hard work and $$.

JMO and good luck
 

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