This is an interesting project. The new owners of this 1964 Shasta Deluxe 20 bought
this trailer as a restored trailer. It had been professionally restored by another
shop in 2010, and while it looked good it had some issues, mostly in the area of
water leaks. After an encounter in a hailstorm recently they decided to bring it
to us for a re-
Not good... once the skin was off we discovered in this case beauty was only skin deep. It has serious structural damage that had an attempted repair and new panels installed from the inside. It did not work, the trailer just simply continued to deteriorate. This is why we always recommend pulling the skin, the only proper way to restore a trailer. The previous shop had not done this, they only "patched" it up from the inside, a waste of time and money.
It's simply just not that hard to do it right. We replaced the front and rear panels that had been scabbed over the damaged wood, built new framing lumber including all new "bender", the curved wood that make up the corners. This is one of the most critical areas of repair as this is where the roof/front/rear skin overlaps the sides and then gets the corner ("J") moldings attached. It has to be solid wood or it will develop leaks. Another critical area we replaced is the framing along the entire lower edge of the body and around the wheel wells. This is what holds the body to the floor and therefore the chassis.
After some minor wiring upgrades we insulated it and installed the new skin. Notice
we did not replace the silver band. The owners wanted to go with the traditional
Shasta design, it will soon get the zig-
1964 Shasta Deluxe
While it was in the shop we added an AC unit and one of our custom retro Frigidaire refrigerators. With a traditional Shasta style paint job and decals, (along with some custom graphics the owners designed), and new wheels with baby moon caps, it's looking good and ready for the road again, this time not waiting to fall apart!