The trip home.

After a short overnight at Les Schwab again for a new axle, and then to an RV place to have trailer brakes installed (it had old hydraulic brakes which don't work with new ABS braking systems) we were ready for the 700 miles down I-5 to home.  It weighed in at 4100 lbs on the truck scales, and our car was rated for being able to haul up to 10,000 lbs, so no problems there.  It hauled very well and the single axle makes turning and backing up easy.  I could feel when the big rigs were coming up behind me, and so will order a sway bar and install that for the future, just to be on the safe side.

The only minor issues we discovered once home were that one of the glass ceiling light covers had come loose and fallen and broken and sadly, the perfect porcelain toilet lid had wiggled loose of its screwdown and bounced off and miraculously only chipped two front edges.  The 2 chips were laying there, so were glued back on.  We found an identical light cover, so all is well, but we learned a valuable lesson....take down all glass ceiling fixtures, take off the toilet lid (and be sure to drain all the water out of the toilet bowl and tank...it holds 3 gallons).

Once home, we got on the internet and began looking for products and items to replace/fix/restore on the list we had made up:
1.  exterior thin window gaskets
2.  remove peeling plasti-coat from aluminum siding
3.  re-plumb...including new water heater.
4.  order awning (couldn't find the original in the barn)
5.  order hubcabs (one was missing, one was too rusted to use)
6.  deal with oxidized areas on exterior siding

Fortunately, the web is full of vintage trailer sites, Boles Aero sites and so it just took time to sift through all of it.  The big question, was to polish out or not polish out the aluminum.  Because a mirror finish is not what we want, as it was not like that originally, we are trying to find products to minimize the white blobs of oxidation, and so far, none have worked.  We don't want to acid wash the siding, as the whitish tone you are left with doesn't look right (we saw one done this way at a trailer rally).  That issue is on hold for now.

Vintage Trailer Supply had the gaskets, the plasti-coat remover, the awning and other fun goodies.  Hubcab Mike in the city of Orange, CA. has a million hubs and so that was easy.  Our plumber worked with me and we re-did the toilet tank innards, put in a 6 gal. water heater (bought at Lowes) and put ABS underneath.  I opted not to add a holding tank, we will just have to look for RV parks with a sewer connection.

I took apart the Duo-Therm diesel furnance, cleaned out the old gas/oil that had turned to sludge, scrubbed out all the mouse yuk and re-assembled.  Added new diesel, fired it up....worked great.  I even had the original booklet from the company for the furnace that came with the trailer, which was a big help.  The company is STILL IN BUSINESS.  Called them, but a big joke trying to talk to anyone there who knew a thing about one of their products from the 50's.  Ha Ha.

Meanwhile...back at the ranch-------

Lori was working on some interior issues.  The first was sanding, sealing and varnishing the interior of the mouse damaged cabinets and drawers.  Thank goodness we own a powerful air hose.  I'll let her tell the story:

Just when I thought I had found every last nook, crevice and cranny that had mouse poop or old wheat packed into it, I would still smell "mouse".  So the hunt was on.  After, what I thought was a job finished, namely, the upper kitchen cabinets, I discovered a whole cache of more poop and wheat behind the back bottom 1x1 in the cabinets.  The air hose came in for the job.  There would have been NO way to get that out without a blast of air.  Plus, the mice had packed the kitchen drain and pipes under the sink with nests and the interior of the toilet bowl that you can't get to. I had to run a hose down the bowl to help get to it all.

My biggest challenge was the 2 dinette couches.  The original upholstery was in perfect condition, but the mice had pulled out quite a bit of the old cotton batting that was used back then, plus had nested underneath and urinated on the burlap cover over the springs.  Because these couches are free standing, moveable and have hinges that allow them to lay flat to make another bed, we took them outside and I had to manipulate them  (and me) to get my arms through the springs and vacuum and cut away the burlap.  The air hose was my best friend, as was my grandmother's old rug beater.  It was beat, beat, beat, vac, vac, and shoot with air from underneath.  Clouds of dust would poof out, and I would continue the drill until it was clean.  I used a foam type upholstery cleaner on the fabric.  I restuffed the underneath with poly batting (boy was that a job!  Working my hands in and around the springs was no fun)  and re-stapled fabric to cover up the springs.  I won't tell you how many dead mouse carcasses I found in there.
The original drapes and sheer curtains had been removed in 1974 and stored in a box in the trailer, but smelled of mice.  Hardly any mice damage to them.  I didn't think they'd survive the dry cleaners, so I washed them in cold water, in Woolite in the hand wash cycle IN MY WASHER, hung out to dry, pressed them and voila....clean drapes and curtains....no shrinkage, no damage, no fading.  Gotta love it!  They all went back up on the windows and look just great, as you will see in future pix posts.
The rest of the interior was just standard housecleaning type work, a quick floor finish on the perfect asbestos tile (12x12 squares, not sheet goods) and presto, the interior is back to 1955 perfection.