Yup, it was worse than we thought. At some point the seals between the camper body walls and roof had given up the will to live and had let in water. It's been properly fixed with a very nice fibreglass repair, but the extent of the damage was not evident until we had pulled the roof and wall boards away from the joists.
Old campers and caravans were built in a very similar fashion to timber-framed houses, and the water had spread to many of the joists, and then worked its way down the walls. End of wood.
5 days of stripping wood you could put your finger through, bench-sawing, cutting, grinding, shaping, filling, glueing... it's not difficult, but takes days of work. We also discovered that one of the shower walls was so rotten, the slightest slip would have sent you through a splintering, rotten, horribly-papered wall of gangrene nastiness. Solution - hit with hammer until wall is no more. Replace.
We don't have the time to do this properly and there are still areas which are not great. The real solution is to strip the interior completely and start again with everything from scratch - new cupboards, units, everything, but this will last another 10 years. I hope !
Front brakes still don't work properly either...
More photos to come when I'm back from a tough week on an Indian beach. We work hard you know....
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2007-11-18 @ 12:03