The Paint Job - Part 4

Good news...the top keder rail did not have butyl tape between the rail and the trim so it was a lot easier to deal with -- screw it off, paint, and screw it back on again. I don't know why that was only featured on the bottom rail, but I am grateful.  The top rail is really long and cleaning that up would have been a shore. There were a couple of places where the trim was cracked, but I patched that up with a bit of JB Weld.

There were so. Many. Screws. All that screwdriver work above my shoulders was a killer. But things are looking decent.

Now on to the tongue box, which I am dreading for reasons I will detail below. First, the propane and battery come out.

The two horizontal bars are the support for both the battery and the propane tank; remove the four screws at each end to remove it.  Or, in my case, three because there was one missing. That certainly explains why it rattled so much.  The screws themselves, large self-tapping sheet metal screws, are all pretty rusted so I will probably replace them with new ones.

Once the bracket is out, an additional six sheet metal screws need to be removed.

Everything's off.

I knew the tongue box was cracked, but I didn't realize it was this bad until I removed it.  Not only is there a chunk missing, but a 6 inch long crack extends from the break to the metal post.  It's going to be a real challenge to repair this in a way that is sustainable.

More bad news. The metal bracket is attached to the plastic via rivets.  So I have a choice -- mask the metal frame for painting, or dremel off the rivets and replace them with nuts and bolts later on.

Same story with the lid -- the metal trim is riveted on.  This, plus the damage to the plastic, is going to make this the most complicated bit on the entire trailer to paint.

It doesn't look half bad with no tongue box at all. If I decide painting is too much work, I might just leave it off permanently. This also means there would be enough room to mount the spare tire up there. Or I might replace it with a generic diamond plate box.