Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Rear End Cap Out!

Work is under way on May at her new winter home. She has been there all of November, but this coming weekend will be the first weekend that I get to work on her. All work to date has been done over a few week day nights. I convalesced from oral surgery one weekend, we had an 11" snowstorm the next weekend, and last weekend I was in New York City with my son. Even so, the picture above shows the rear end cap has been dropped. Underneath the insulation and mouse droppings were nasty! Yuk! Also found a surprise, one end cap panel has been replaced. I had no idea, but now that I look at the rivets from the outside, I can tell they are not buck rivets.
The rivets on the replaced panel appear to be pop rivets. They are shaved on the outside (no picture). Of course they are leaking. I will of course buck these.

I want to get all the buck riveting for the running lights and the replacement panel completed. Then I will insulate, and put the end cap back up. Buddy Brad is going to Europe for 10 days, so I will work on some other projects while he is gone, ready to start bucking upon his return. It sure is nice to be making progress again! Until next time!






4 comments:

  1. Sounds like you have been experiencing some life! Good that you got any airstream time in during all that. You never know what hides under the skin? It should be pretty easy to replace those leaking rivets when Brad gets back. Is your floor in good shape?
    Have a good Thanksgiving
    Doug

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  2. Happy Thanksgiving to you too Doug! My floor is in horrible shape. I will not replace the bottom interior skins as I work from back to front. Then I will be ready for a shell off. Goal this winter is to take care of all the exterior issues thus resolving water leaks. Then I will be ready to tackle the floor, tanks, belly pan, frame, you know the drill. Cheers! -Tim

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  3. Interesting, the 64 Sovereign I am working on has the same replacement using the same rivets. They have a sort of tube around the center shaft right? I think these are an early type of Olympic rivets. I have as much faith in them as you do. Is by chance an Ohio trailer?

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  4. Yes Frank, same type of rivets. Actually mine is California built. Clearly they are now leaking, so I will replace them, as I am sure you are doing on the Sovereign as well.

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