Rebuilding the Amerigo–Haven’t we been here before?

[RedneckExpress]

Sunday, June 12, 2016




Rebuilding the Amerigoâ€"Haven’t we been here before?


Having had to put the cabover on the back burner to get the floor done, which required finishing the demolition of the cabinets on the driver side, I seem to have come back to where I started, with the rear of the camper opened up and another wing rotted, and a 2x4 the consistency of florists foam. 

Hrm…. something seems to be missing here….. can’t quite put my finger on it…..

All the beam you see missing? I pulled that with my fingers.  I’m amazed that wall hadn’t buckled.   The 2x6 pieces running above the 2x4 were probably the only thing holding it together, and I pulled those out by hand as well….

Yup, just a bit of water intrusion….   The electrical cord connector came through here…

There we go, that’s better .  And no, the top beam is quite solid, that’s just surface staining. 

Much, much better…..

What’s the 2x6 for?  To run 5 1/2” lag bolts into to tie the front edge of the jack bracket into, naturally .   Unlike the passenger side, where I literally could only tie in from one side due to the lack of space to over lap the corner, on this side, the jack doubles as the seal on the corner material.   

Since it’s going to be taking the twisting action of the jack there, and no door in the way, I added a 2x6 beam in to spread the anchoring load into and help tie it all together a bit better.
Added in the missing 2x2s along the edge as well.  Those go a long way into stiffening up those tail fins.
With this side open, I was able to confirm that I have in fact, run out of dry rot, minus any discoveries in the floor, which from what I could see where the cut through for the drain pipes was, were in fine shape.