Lipstick on a Pig.

I decided that I wanted to see what Wally looks liks a bit polished up. The interior still needs a ton of work, the brakes need new wiring, and there is a slight leak coming from somewhere. Instead of taking care of the important things thay actually allow me to use the camper, why not do some cosmetic stuff and see if I can get Wally shinny.

The camper is actually between 1947 -1950 something, so I just assume there is about 65-70 years worth of oxidation on the skin. Its never been polished to my knowledge and its never been garage kept until recently.

So how the hell do you polish a turd? Well, its gonna be messy and your hands are gonna be covered in stuff that smells bad. I tried 3 different products to get Wally shiny. I started with mothers buffing compound, didn't do a damn thing. Then I tried  mothers metal polish, works decent but way too expensive for how much I need. Then my brother gave me a liter bottle of Wicked Metal polish, apparently they use it for semi truck chrome and fuel tanks, this stuff works great even when polishing by hand. A few hours later and I rubbed off the majority of the aluminum oxide. I just got an electric polisher to finish off the rest of the job.

Before,

After a few hours.

Its not perfect but I think after a few passes it'll look better than ever.

I guess I have to remove the aluminum skin.

So I was hoping I could keep the skin on the outside. Well, that didn't work out. The outside frame beams that are curved and run  front to back were rotted. The were not even attached to the floor anymore, the front and back halfs of the trailer were just loose and dangling. I could lighly jump in the trailer and the floor would bow and huges gaps would appear between the floor and front and rear halves allowing light to pour in. At least the rotted frame sections were curved and made of polar that had been bent with steam and heat.

1955 or 1956 Trotwood Cub 16'

I started to tear into the Cub camper I affectionately named Wally. Wally was a piece of crap, I made a mistake buying this turd. I puled off the interior skin on the front side where the dinning set should have been. Wood frame pieces literally fell off without me touching them. There was so much water damage the once hardy douglas fur felt like Styrofoam. So as you can see i pretty much gutted the inside of the camper. All thats left is the floor, wood frame, and aluminum skin. The vapor barrier sheet wasn't even usable... anywhere.

Orginal Camper, rough shape

I bought this camper for about $800, in retrospec wayyyy to much for its condition. I didnt realize the extent of the wood frame rot and floor damage until I started peeling off interior skin. The interior was trashed. Nothing worked, no power, or water or gas, somone had tried to "renovate" the camper.