Original Condition

So this is the original condition the trailer was in. It was pulled out of my parents back yard where it was sitting for roughly 10 years.



(my cute little girl!)








I'm not sure what this once said. Any ideas?


In this pic you can see how loaded this trailer was. It was FULL. Sadly, a hole the size of a nickle is in the roof that leaked onto everything in the back half. It was very very very moldy in there.
(the cutie in another pic)

01 - Teardown

Ok. Here is day 1. I knew there was going to be a bit of water damage but I wasn't exactly sure just yet of how much. The first thing I did was tear off the sheet metal. It is put together in sections so I just undid everything holding it on... uh huh...
1. Unscrew water catch thing - no problem
2. Pull very small very rusty nails from sheet metal / woodwork
3. Pull small staples from sheet metal / woodwork
4. Work way from bottom up
Ya... it was a bit rougher than I thought but it wasn't that big of a deal.

Here is everything pulled off for the day. By the looks of the damage, I will be replacing almost all wood in the trailer. As far as I can tell, the floor seems to be in good shape so I don't have any plans yet to replace that.


Here is the passenger side front. You can see how it is put together in many pieces and then held together with a type of staple... no thank you. I plan to replace all of this with one sheet to help with the integrity of the trailer.


This only looks so nice because my amazing wife cleaned it up real well. Its one of the few things I plan on leaving in place throughout this whole thing.


This is the back drivers side. Like I said, it all needs replaced....

A Shasta on Craigslist

I wanted to put this here because I have not found very much information yet on these trailers. So, with the mindset of not loosing the info when the Craigslist ad expires, here it is:

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1974 SHASTA SIESTA 16' TRAVEL TRAILER, EVERYTHING WORKS, SLEEPS 4 TO 5 , 1 QUEEN SIZE PULL OUT BED AND 1 FULL SIZE PULL OUT BED, LOTS OF STORAGE, STOVE, OVEN, SINK

02 - Sheet Metal Off

Today almost all the sheet metal came off. I left this curb-side section on to hold the back end together. I don't have any pics from the day with the back off though. As soon as I separated the rear from the side, it came crumbling down. Basically, at this point the whole rear end is gone... very gone.





At least the roof looks ok. We are changing the inside color scheme though so I am going to redo it anyway. :)

03 - Gone ... Just Gone

So today was a very productive day. As you can see in the pic below, I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get the roof off without me inside it to hold it up. Then the next problem of how will I not get squished if it all caves in on me. Well, I actually let the trailer do the work for me.



As you can see in this pic, the front end is gone. Just gone. It was quite simple now that I look back at it. All I did was tear out the kitchen cabinet and because of a few screws attached to the wall, the whole front drivers side came with it! The passenger side wall still had the full height cabinet so it was holding up the rest of the roof.





The next part was quite easy too. I grabbed some of the wood that was still good on the drivers side, then a few good tugs and the entire thing came toppling down! Yeah! All this will make a trip to the dump. Sorry dad for any future flat tires.



I just have to show you this. It is a few pieces of scrabble from some point in this trailers history. I wonder if it would be possible to create some sort of accent/etc. out of scrabble pieces? It would be a kind of reminder of the history of this trailer.



Wait a second! Where did the trailer go?!



There it is! Now that I have it to almost bare minimum, it has been moved under some shade. This should make it nice to work on as I finish it. :)

04 - The Frame

After I got the trailer put under its new home, my loving wife came out and said "if your going to all the work replacing everything, you may as well replace the floor". She made a good point. Now, the floor is gone and we are down to the frame.

The floor in the center was in good shape but the outsides were looking like they might need replaced in about a year. I ended up taking a pick-axe (thanks dad!) to pry on the boards. That same method worked for ripping the boards off the bolts. :) For the sections that were a little more tough, I used a combination skill saw / reciprocating saw to cut out small sections. I would then break them off and move onto the next section.