Utopia Found

December 2013

While my Utopia is in Missouri I'm not sure Missouri is utopia. Utopia is a 17 foot travel trailer made in 1970. Utopia is the brand name and it was made by a company in Elkhart, IN that went out of business in 1971. It is serial No. 35. I bought it as a project to see if I could fix it up.  It certainly could be money pit so finding a balance will be a challenge.  As I get started I'll add updates to this blog entry.

For the most part the outside shell is in good shape.

Taking it home.

The roof will need some fixing.

February 2014 Update: Dumb Ass Award

The weather has begun to improve so I've been able to get started on the trailer.  First order of business is to get the trailer water tight and road ready.  I started inspecting the outside closer and noticed that while the tires had lots of good tread on them they were dry rotted and in very bad condition.  Often on cars and trailers that don't get a lot of milage the rubber in the tires drys out before they wear down.

So I decided to get new tires and set off to get the old ones off.  I started on the drivers side and rusted is what I found.  The first bolt was tight and finally broke off.  Expecting that they hadn't been removed in a very long time I worked hard at breaking the rest of the bolts off.

All four bolts broken!

I was able to get the drum off and went over to the other side.  Expecting them to be just as tight but with not much trouble they all came out without breaking.  Now a little puzzled I started looking a little closer.  Notice anything on the end of the broken bolts below?

I didn't at first and thought the "L" was some old size or strength notation.  I checked the the passenger side bolts and they all had "R".  Here is where the dumb-ass award comes in.  The "L" is for "left".  As in left treaded.  The bolts were reversed threaded on the drivers side!  A check of the Internet confirmed that in the 70"s they thought it was necessary to have the left side reversed so the bolts wouldn't come loose from the rotation of the wheel on the road.

After driving around to the local RV shop, marine repair and auto parts store with no luck finding replacement bolts I got luck.  Another RV trailer dealer had bought out the stock of an old business and had the bolts.  I went to pick them up they had 2 coffee cans full of them.  Strange thing is they only had LEFTS. No rights.  I'm guessing I'm not the only one to not know and break them off.  In the end I bought new tires and the wheels are ready to roll.

On to the roof.

The roof is made of galvanized metal and seemed together.  It had been coated but was dried out and failing.  The previous owners said it had leaked.  It took a hour or so and I got it cleaned up.

Roof cleaned and scraped.

Three layers sealant and waterproofing should make a difference.  The white top coat should help to keep it cooler this summer.

Roof after being coated. 

 The trailer light wiring was in messed up shape.  Someone along the way had put on new tail lights but  ran new wires and hacked up the old.  The trailer does have electric breaks but the wires to one side was broken and for some reason they were wired to a regular house plug.  It took a good afternoon to trace all the wires but eventually I installed a new 7 pin plug and got the breaks working.

Crazy mess of wires.

All the lights work!

Trailer hitch painted and rewired.  Ready to roll.

Before paint.

After Paint!

It's made a good difference getting a little paint on it.  With the outside cleaned up and it ready and safe to roll on the road next it's time to get started on the inside.