I was able to finish stripping the old roof off the trailer tonight with a little hard labour. Surprisingly, there is a relatively decent structure to the roof, but still, it wasn’t enough to survive 30+ years. With the roof off, I’ll be able to bring the metal base that holds the canvas to the roof down and get it back together and start taking measurements.

I do plan to make the roof just a shade deeper to allow for thicker foam on the bunk ends. I was also able to save the original roof vent from the old roof, it’s not in bad shape and will save me some cash. I’ve got a quote of about $375 for the EPDM rubber and adhesive but I am still shopping around and looking at the various options. I’m also looking at the option of using some steel studs instead of wood for a few cross braces in the roof to save some weight, but we’ll see.

Here’s a quick video of the current status of the trailer. Note the one sideboard I was able to keep for measurements. I also have the front side as well. Both boards are very rotten, but enough to get measurements from. The other two sides disintegrated.

I finally had a chance to bleed the brakes and take the trailer out for a quick test drive last weekend. All functioned just fine so now it’s on to the roof rebuild project. Unfortunately it’s now May 1 and camping season is almost upon us. This project may take the trailer out of commission for this summer. Time will tell.

I’ve started ripping into the roof and found a heck of a lot more dry rot than I originally suspected was there. This is no big deal as I intend to build a new roof from scratch anyways. Here’s a few shots: