Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I will be mounting my 1/2" flooring directly to the painted steel frame with 1/2" carriage bolts. Does anyone use anything special when attaching wood to steel to prevent it from loosening or collecting water. I was thinking construction adhesive would work. Is a rubber membrane worth anything here?

Your thoughts?

I used fender washers on the carriage bolts to spread the load and keep them from pulling through the wood. On the bottom there are two nuts locked together to keep it tight.

Denny

I used elevator bolts instead of carriage bolts because they have larger "heads" and less likely to pull thru the wood. In addition to lock washers, I used Locktite on the bolts to keep the nuts in place. The bottom of the wood was coated with roofing seal before it was installed on the frame to keep water from damaging it.

Also consider rust/leak proofing those nuts and bolts after installation as a rusting bolt will quickly ruin that carefully sealed floor and carefully painted frame. I use stainless screws for most exterior items even though more expensive and paint or undercoat those frame mount bolts.

ALAN GEDDES wrote:Also consider rust/leak proofing those nuts and bolts after installation as a rusting bolt will quickly ruin that carefully sealed floor and carefully painted frame. I use stainless screws for most exterior items even though more expensive and paint or undercoat those frame mount bolts.

I used stainless hardware with ny-loc nuts. I found a sealing washer at the home center. It's a laminated washer with a soft rubber glued to a fender washer. These were used on the roadside of the frame/body bolts, to seal the hole through the tube frame. Trying to stop water from entering the frame. Any other holes got a dab of urethane sealant under the fastener before locking it down.

fornesto wrote:I was thinking construction adhesive would work.

I used construction adhesive on my trailer. I've been using this stuff for more than 20 years. A lot when I was a carpenter and for many projects since. IMHO, it's highly, highly underrated. It's not glamourous, it's not expensive, it's not tricky to apply and it's been around FOREVER. I guess for these reasons it's become the ugly stepchild of the glue industry but MAN does it ever work! It's absolutely some of my favorite stuff. On my teardrop I simply ran a bead of construction adhesive down the frame and bolted the wood down. There was enough squeeze out to seal the bolts and I feel perfectly comfortable with the thought that my tear will NEVER come apart. If that isn't enough, here is a link to a local trailer builder right here in middle Tennessee that uses construction adhesive as their exclusive glue. They do it exactly the same way I did - squirt the glue on, slam the wood down and bolt it all up - finished.

http://wildsidellc.com/GooseNeckTrailers.html

These guys carry the best reputation in the racecar, raceteam industry and I figure if it's good enough for them, it's fine for me. If you go to their site and click around, you'll find the trailer they built for the Suzuki raceteam. I was there one day when they were building this thing and I saw how they did it. I was amazed that it was no more complicated than I just described above.

There is also a deep maroon red Kenworth that was in the next stall the day I was there. They were just only a little way into the build. Believe it or not, once they get the frame built and the sides/roof all dryed in, the first piece that goes in is the shower stall. They use a regular fiberglass stall from like Home Depot or a supply house and then build the bathroom to fit the shower stall. After that, the rest of the coach's interior is built to fit.

David Grason wrote:

fornesto wrote:I was thinking construction adhesive would work.

I used construction adhesive on my trailer. I've been using this stuff for more than 20 years. A lot when I was a carpenter and for many projects since. IMHO, it's highly, highly underrated. It's not glamourous, it's not expensive, it's not tricky to apply and it's been around FOREVER. I guess for these reasons it's become the ugly stepchild of the glue industry but MAN does it ever work! It's absolutely some of my favorite stuff. On my teardrop I simply ran a bead of construction adhesive down the frame and bolted the wood down. ...

By "construction adhesive" you mean Liquid nails???

Yup, that's the stuff.

Another brand is PL400.

David Grason wrote:Yup, that's the stuff.

Another brand is PL400.

Never heard of PL-400. Is it better or the same?
Available at Lowes or Home Depot? I got 2 tubes of liguid nails from Wal-Mart. I got the "Heavy Duty" version. Also have a lil gorilla glue. Nice stuff there!

I am putting down a big, thick, bead of silicon gel between the painted frame and the ply wood which will be bolted to the frame. bye

Eric Adams wrote:Never heard of PL-400. Is it better or the same?

It's the same, just a different label on the tube. I suppose that if you were to take each brand and strength test them, one might prove to be better than the other and maybe not. But it's for certain, any construction adhesive is way better than anything we'll demand from it in teardrop construction. And the stuff is just NOT expensive compared to other glues. You can practically buy a case of it for what Gorilla Glue costs.

TDThinker, I would do more than just the silicon. Silicon does not have ANY adhesive properties to speak of and therefore, you'll be relying on your bolts to hold the floor/sides to the frame. With Liquid Nails (contruction adhesive), you'll not only get adhesion, you'll get sealing as well. The adhesion is good enough that the bolts only need hold as long as it takes for the construction adhesive to cure - about 24 hours. Over a period of time, as you use your teardrop, your bolts will work loose if you use only silicon between the wood and the frame, but the construction adhesive will NEVER come loose. I'd rethink the silicon only idea.

Hey, I gotta tell ya this true story. I had a particular tool box when I was trimming houses and building staircases. I always used construction adhesive to glue step treads down to the risers before nailing them into place. This prevented the step treads from ever squeaking. I was locally famous for building many squeak free stair cases. Anyway, I was slathering on some construction adhesive and a glob of it fell into my tool box. I didn't see it go in or I would have cleaned it out immediately. You can clean up wet const. adhesive with acetone but once it's dry, forget about it. Anyway, then I bumped my tool box with my foot and a wrench slid over into the wet glob of glue. I didn't find it until the next day and by then it was too late. For the next 12 years, that wrench stayed fastened to the bottom of my tool box until the box itself got so old and rickety that I finally threw it out. I believe that, to this day, somewhere in a landfill that wrench is still glued to what's left of that tool box. But all the time I had it, I couldn't get the wrench removed without tearing up the box.

I do have quite a bit of liquid nails laying around, thanks. bye