Monday, March 5, 2007

Eureka!!!!

Lots of working not much posting but here are some new pics. The current excavating has revealed an interesting piece of information. At the bottom of the pic below is a small plate whose secrets no manner of light or digitaly enhanced image could reveal , I came to the conclusion that it must be a patch covering a hole
So I removed it to see what damage it might be hiding and much to my suprise,,,,
I now know where my little trailer came from. Anyone know anything about Moorhead? Do you reckon it was sold new there or tagged for a resale? Interesting never the less and my most favorite discovery so far
I think this trailer was mfg in 1947, at least thats what the hand written bill of sale says, and I think that that means it was assembled in California (correct me if I'm wrong) so did Kit alread have dealers in Minn at that time or could it be that someone moved from Ca to Mn and sold it to Pierce?
Is there somewhere that reproduces these

I believe this may be the original tail light
as well as this marker light on the rear right corner, the only marking says VP 67 anybody know anything about itor where I can get some more?
but the lights on the side had obviously been replaced, anyone know what the original light may have looked like? Will check under the rear light soon
The original panel color below, will be very close to whats going to replace all this. One of my least favorite discoveries is that Kit MFG built the trailer from the inside out. From my observations they must have built the frame then paneled the roof then the walls, then built the cabinets inside this before the skin went on. I base this on the fact that the cabinets are nailed and screwed to the frame/panels from the back, and the roof paneling was installed before the wall panels. I have no idea why that may be, seems backwards but the again it lasted 60 years with only about 50 extra screws and a little bracing being added.
I really liked this and was going to try and save itbut at some point it had burned a hole in the wall so it will be retired to my collection of old stuff and replaced with an updated breaker box.


I have decided to update the appliances lighting wireing etc. while keeping the original feel with new birch paneling steel countertop/sink, I will be building new dinette seats and covering the original table,,, well the one that was in it at any rate, adding a porta-potty ,,,,

I have pulled out the original dinette and the rusty but rebuildable ice chest (see earlier post) as well as two original lamps with one lamp shade and will be removing the original (or at least very old) steel water tank that seems to be in good condition, not sure about the inside yet, was considering storing these in case I sold the trailer to someone bent on returning it to original condition but will consider selling these if anyone is interested. Not trying to finance the rebuild just appreciate that some purist may be interested in 60 year old original parts. Leave comment if interested.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, so many updates!! Everything looks crazy, but I'm sure things are going well! :) That's all...

cafe45 said...

You guys are really doing a great job. I just ran across this and would like to see more pictures of the progress.