Saturday, July 25th, actually started out with the letters “A.D.D.” as we weren’t really sure which way to jump first! I need to make some sort of curtain “band” (not really a tie-back) so that I can gather each panel when we have the curtains open, but I haven’t decided on the best way (okay, the *quickest* way) to do this. Ribbons with spots of Velcro might be the solution…
Being indecisive about the curtain bands, I decided to turn my attention to the badly rusted bolts that stick out from the back of the trailer on which the spare tire will be mounted. The nuts were absolutely rust-fused to the bolts, and previous (repeated) uses of WD-40 hadn’t done a thing.
The sun was up high and it was HOT on that end of the trailer when I started on this project, so there I was–with my bandanna and hat and hacksaw and chisel–bent on creative destruction…
But lo and behold, it worked! Between sawing, spraying with WD-40 and a little light tapping with a chisel, they finally came off.
Next I taped around each bolt and then taped plastic bags to the end of the trailer to use a different and more powerful “rust buster” product. After spraying that on, letting it work for a while and then using a wire brush, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to get a spare tired mounted and secured to the bolts. Yay!
In the meantime, Wayne had made two cross pieces of wood to connect the walls of the “bathroom” for extra support. Ultimately all of the things that are built will be connected, back to front. My job was to stain the pieces before he put them in place:
The main project over the last several days, however, has been the bed extension. Wayne has done a lot of creative engineering to figure out the best way to do this, so that it offers plenty of strength and support, while still allowing access to the storage areas underneath:
It’s exciting to see how much progress he’s made!
By 2:00 pm on Sunday, however, it was 90 degrees in the trailer and definitely time to take a break. We thought about going to Lowes (to get more materials for the bed extension project) and to Michael’s (to check about ribbon for the curtain bands). But then we also thought about the kayaks that we’d loaded onto the 4Runner early in the day…. Hmmm…..
Decision made, we spent the rest of the hot, summer afternoon paddling around beautiful Beaver Creek Reservoir Park 🙂
Making good progress! Can’t wait to see it finished! Our bolts I just replaced…much easier than fiddling with rust busters. 🙂 keep up the good work!
Yeah, in retrospect we probably should have replaced the bolts. Wouldn’t have been awful, since we just had the insulation in the back of the trailer. Now that we’ve got insulation, hull liner fabric AND a permanent bed, it would be a much bigger deal! We bought some new nuts and lug nuts today and I’ll make sure that I can get them on. If not, I guess I’ll be doing some more spraying and wire brushing! :-/