I'm about to haul a free rat-infested camper from the 60s into my yard and attempt to hollow it out with no experience
How fricked am I?
I'm about to haul a free rat-infested camper from the 60s into my yard and attempt to hollow it out with no experience
I'm about to ask a moronic question that I should be able to answer myself. How much of a homosexual am I?
on some old campers the support structure is made out of wood
the furniture is often also structural
you will either have to remove 95% or you are fricked
>source: fixed a camper trailer myself and ended up gutting it down to the frame
>and it only had a leaking window but all the insulation was rotten and moldy
>just like the wooden structure around it
Well, you're going to have a rat problem on your property for one thing.
get an A. Richard flat bar, the red one. And an estwing or vaughan wonderbar. Those will be doing 90% of the work and you will frustrate yourself using the inferior options. They aren't much more expensive than the cheaper versions either.
Just take your time and expect a few trips to Lowes despot
Do you have a time machine? Seems to be the only way to bring it from the 60's...
For what purpose? Not that it matters, there's 95% chance it sits partly dismantled in your yard for several years until another boob hauls it off for his abortion of a project.
Consider it good experience which it is, and don't hesitate to scrap everything but the frame then use that for a small trailer if it's suitable. Everyone should demolish a trailer or an RV to learn their mysteries. Just never pay anything for them.
Find out what kind of frame it has first, if it's the thin little channel iron it's not worth it
If it's tubing or I-beam it can make a decent utility trailer
True, but OP is getting the thing anyway and can scrap it. It won't be for profit necessarily but for knowledge and the thin shit can be good enough for a yard cart.
It's also worth disassembling scrap engines, electric motors and other free junk just to see how they work. I've been wrenching so long I sometimes forget how I began. As a pre-teen my father (not mechanically inclined but a good fellow) got me various parts to learn from and tearing them down was highly instructive. Today we have video but the tactile experience is irreplaceable.
Tear down junk mower engines, transmissions etc, whatever you can get your hands on. Download manuals and take them apart properly or as close as you can manage. This will accelerate your learning and when you make mistakes it won't matter because it's scrap.
Post make, model, year and number of rats.
How rusted is the frame?
That camper's not free. It's gonna cost a lot of time and effort. That thing probably has every rat-borne disease known to man. Look up the guidelines for cleaning up a rat nest and follow them. You need a respirator and gloves bare minimum. A $13 tyvek suit makes it all a lot easier. Everything needs to be doused in a bleach water solution before you start cleaning it up. Rats piss and shit everywhere and all the time, too. The excrement dries up mixes with dust, which carries disease. You breathe it in once it's kicked up in the air; that's generally how the unsuspecting get sick. Rat-borne disease generally takes at least 2 weeks to show symptoms, sometimes a lot longer. Hanta is the thing that will kill you outright, but you won't know you have it until you're almost dead. Don't be an idiot and ignore the safety precautions like most people. Just treat that thing like a rat nest. I've had to clean up 3 terrible rat nests on a property before. Rats had been pooping and peeing in/on them for damn near 2 decades. I got sick from one of them. I wouldn't touch that camper, but you seem ignorant of the main issue here. Unless the rat nest really isn't that bad. Your best tools are gonna be some thick nitrile gloves (like what plumbers use), a respirator (not just a dust mask, an actual respirator), a tyvek suit, a gallon of bleach, a chemical pump sprayer and a propane torch for anything that can handle the heat. Do yourself a favor and pass on it. If it's got rats, it's probably got ants, too. If not, good luck OP. Send pics when you get it, tho.
Forgot to say. Bleach solution is 1.5 cups of bleach to one gallon water. You're also gonna need something like Nature's Miracle for the rat smell.
It would have been easier to buy a Harbor Freight trailer, reinforce it, and then duct tape a tent to it then to park this burned out shit heap on your lawn. I hope your neighbors let their children shit on your lawn you incipient troglodyte.