Three sides off and not too much damage. We moved on to the street side, which had the additional steps of removing the water and electric hookups. They had just about cemented themselves in place with rust, and it took some extra elbow grease to get them off, especially the water hookup.
The AC outlet put up a fight.
We expected the worst of the damage to the frame to be on the street side, since that’s where the tree came down on the roof and it’s the side that got the worst of the weather, and we were more right than we had wanted to be.
These long boards were in rough shape.
The rear corner was almost completely rotted away. This included the two angled boards on the very back, the vertical support board, the roof board that runs the entire length of the vehicle, and some of the additional supporting boards. When we removed the skin, the rear corner shifted out since it was no longer held in place. The interior veneer started to pull apart, and we could see daylight thought the wall.
The upper turn signal wire ran through two of the rotted boards.
Around the large window, the side board was crumbling and the top and bottom had some damage. The plywood around the wheel well was worse than the curb side, and would need to be replaced.
These stapled plywood corners will need to be replaced.
The front was mostly in good shape, although the angled board on the very front would need to be at least partially replaced.
Here’s where the roof meets the rear vertical board. Yikes.
If we could take comfort in one thing, it was the fact that at least some of the boards would not need to be replaced. The back corner would be quite a challenge, since all of the support was gone.
There was some visible damage to the roof beams, but we didn’t yet know how much.
There would be more rotted wood in the roof to uncover, and we already had enough unexpected water damage to dampen our spirits. Why did we decide do this again?
1972 Shasta 1400 