This Montana Life

Or I could have titled this post “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” which gave me good motivation to rent a “heated” shop in which to tear down and build back up my newest addition. Although I originally called her Toast, she earned a new name during the tearing down period. Once we pulled off all the windows and the door we found that originally the aluminum strip down the middle was gold!

How Goldie got her name

Of course this meant that I had to rename her. Goldie made perfect sense–the appliances are gold as will be the outside stripe — soon.

We towed Goldie to the shop in Tracy to start the restoration process. Neither of us have ever undertaken such a project before so there was lots of trepidation as we started taking out the windows and gutter rails. The good news is we found very little rotten wood under her skin. Replacement wood will be required at each lower corner of the rear window, at each back side corner, as well as both lower boards fore and aft. Not bad for a 1972 Shasta.

So this is how it comes apart..

Small amount of rot lower front

Under the skin at rear window

Side rear rot - lower

Front side damage

Minor wood damage under roof vent

We managed to take out all the windows and vents, remove the placards and emblems, steel wool the entire outside in preparation for painting, and assess the minor damage. In addition, we checked out the water supply system (check ok!) and checked out the stove top and furnace. Stove top works grand but the furnace pilot light kept going out. Definitely something to check out before we head south to AZ next month.

We made hay while the weather was above 37 degrees for a few days but then harsh cold arrived. With the forecast temperatures at fifteen below we cleaned up and headed for the warm house.

All ready for the next phase...