Full teardown and rebuild, in a barn built for the job.
As found — February 2021#
The floor is rotten front and back. Full floor replacement, then a complete rebuild.
A building first — 2024 to 2025#
The trailer needed a roof over it before the real work could start. I dug out a level pad and put up a pole barn heavy enough to lift a shell and keep the job out of the weather. After final inspection the center of the pad came back up for the main power line, then foam and PEX went down — I was shooting for four inches of slab and averaged closer to five — and the slab was poured over a radiant floor. Water, power and data are all in.
Interior out — May and June 2026#
The interior came out slowly and carefully, bagged and stored for reinstallation. The previous owner was not a riveter — screws turned up throughout where rivets belong. The galley is out and will not go back; its tambour is gone and the fridge could not have come out without it. Teardown stopped at the closets and the bathroom door, which are sound and stay.
The walls are out. The small angled closet wall probably will not return, and the sink will move to the curb side and out of the shower, like the 1966–68 Caravel. The water heater is out; the floor under it is not rotten, it is simply gone. The wheel wells came out too.
Exterior stripped — June 2026#
The Carefree awning came off, then the exterior trim. The battery door is going: it sits where the awning should be, costs the awning a foot, and breaks the rub-rail line, so it gets a bucked-in patch and the batteries move inside. The front antenna is off, another patch. The street-side Land Yacht emblem had been put back with steel screws. The frozen propane hold-down came free with a MAPP torch, Kroil and a pair of ten-inch pipes. Pulling the expired Missouri plate turned up an older Alaska tag underneath.
Underneath — June 2026#
The grey tank is sound, though how the shower drain ties into it took some tracing. The black tank’s drain valve sits outside the outrigger — I think that is factory — next to an add-on grey tank and a three-inch frame extension. The black tank came out and went straight to the trash, the rear floor material was hauled off, and the Univolt came out heavier than anything that size has a right to be.
Shower pan and the rot report — June 2026#
The shower drain had twenty-year-old plumber’s putty holding it. A heat gun and two large T-handle allen wrenches through the holes in the metal drain turned it loose. The front lip was nailed down with flat-head nails under the plastic, so I sheared the heads off with a putty knife into the old marine plywood and got it up nearly whole.
Both rear corners are basically gone. The area under the shower pan is better than expected and will hold my weight; the corner by the drain hole will not.
A parts trailer — July 2026#
A gutted Sovereign came home as a parts trailer. Its rub rail is a different style but there is enough good long stock in it to make up the split at the Globe Trotter’s battery door. It carries the third street-side window I wanted, 1950s Safari style, and the skin to patch both fridge vents once the Globe Trotter goes to a DC fridge — with a small window going in where that vent was. Long term I will take it apart and save the endcap segments.
Insulation out — August 2026#
Most of the insulation is out. Pulling the AC is next, and that means building structure on the roof, twenty-one feet in the air.
