Frankie's Butt Lift Begins

One of the major concerns that we had about the Shasta is that her back end shows a lot of water damage.  We discovered how bad the interior was after we brought her home and poked at her with a screwdriver.  The screwdriver went through the paneling into nothingness.  Eeek.  Can't be a good sign, right?

So, part of this renovation will be devoted to fixing her back end properly.  We planned to remove the aluminum skin from the window down to the skirt and replace the interior paneling and the framing.

One of the things that made me very angry about this camper is that a PO covered the windows with plastic and used roofing nails to secure it.  They drove the nails through the interior birch, the window trim, and the nails poked through the trailer in lots of places around the windows.  This caused not only immediate damage, but also allowed water to penetrate and destroy the paneling and the interior of the trailer.  Ugh.  Here's a good shot of the nail poking through the back skin by the window. 

left side of the rear window.  Nice nailhead poking through, covered by paint.

We removed the rear window, then hubby got to work removing all the screws from the eyebrow and the lower edge of the rear panel.   When we started this project, hubby bought a few new tools (gotta have new tools for a new project, right?)  He got a multi tool.  It's pretty cool and now I want one, too!  The screws on the exterior had rusted, using a screwdriver was impossible.  He used the multitool to cut a new straight slot in the phillips screws, then he was able to just unscrew them.  Smart guy....you'd never know he takes stuff apart for a living, right?

On the interior, the nightstand and the boxed-in area for long pole storage was removed.  I'm not sure if all of the 62-64 SC's had this box or not, but I haven't seen it on earlier SC's.  We discussed not replacing it when we're finished, but came to the conclusion that it would really be handy to have a 7' long storage area for bunk poles or other long items.  We'll replace it when we're done.  It's accessible through the side storage door that opens beneath the gaucho.  It ran across the entire back end and terminated behind the black water tank.  We removed the tank, but hubby will build a box in the potty closet to sit the portapottie on, so it will run the back length again.