what became of the broken arches.....

What do you do with those rusted wheel arches on your vintage trailer?

The simple answer is use them as templates and remake them on a like for like basis only this time seal the cut edges to avoid corrosion kicking in prematurely  -

Ohio Overlanders in tandem

 This week and for the next few months we will be working on two Ohio Overlanders, a 1957 double axle and a 1955 single. 

Below, new chassis for  57 being fabricated -

On this one we have switched from the 4x2 box to a 5 inch parallel flange Channel to provide extra strength -

New axles, we have ditched the leaf springs and favour of torsion arm to accommodate motor movers  -

Torsion suspension was around long before this trailer was built, double click below -

Both the hitch and coupling are German engineered -

Below an award winning composting toilet which eliminates the need for a black tank or cassette. In theory it should never need to be emptied and will discharge into a grey tank. This was kindly leant to us by Airstream and Co  -

Then we turn our attention to the 55/26 single -

Below she is getting a first cut prior to lifting the frame -

The first cut reveals a few old etchings -

Inside, the gap between the kitchen and the single beds always seems to turn up something -

Old paper mask -

Old post card from 1960 -

And the joker with a quarter -

Insides carefully taken out for reuse -

 First cut reveals good, clean and unpitted aluminium -

Week ending 11th March

Has been a busy week on the road and in the barn/workshop.

On the rental side we had two days with Red Bull's film crew in London and two days with Sainbury's finance 

Day 1 

Red bull Central London film studios 

Day 2

Red Bull filming around london

Tower Bridge -

London Eye -

Day 3 

Sainsbury's Finance St Albans

Day 4

Sainsbury's finance - Teddington 

hollywood glamour - east london style

Photo shoot location : MC Motors -

Inside : Rooms filled with props run by Castle Gibson   -

Outside storage -

Shoot with News International (The Sun) gets under way with my Airstream Caravanner 

-

I take the opportunity to look around Dalston -

 Turkish cake shop -

Italian  -

The Rio Cinema below, a gem, I watched Schindler's list here many years ago -

Back inside I notice a prop that I had seen out on location last year -

Feb 12 London

Oct 11 Kent

carroll county md........

I purchased this Overlander from the original owners up in Ohio where it had peacefully spent the last 55 years. 

Above : The Jones family with their trailer in mid fifties. 

Sadly the transportation to the port went wrong. The transport guy turned out to be operating unlicensed and uninsured, and the trailer got stranded in Carroll county MD.

Above : Trailer in Carroll county MD, awaiting transport to port by a bonafide company

I was having difficulty getting possession of the trailer from the transport guy and had to call in the help of the chief of police in Tanneytown. They sent a couple of officers down and within a 24 hours the trailer was safely moved to opposite the Carroll county Sheriffs office  for safe keeping (see below).

At first I thought the best thing would be to sell the trailer in the states. But  decided to fly over and personally arrange for safe transport to port

Carroll county turns to be have been founded by an Irish guy  Charles (O') Carroll and I was given the VIP treatment -

A

Above : Dated mattress tag, Sept 1955. 

 Above : nice single bunk layout

By the end of day  one I had trailer loaded on the way to Howard County for an overnight stay before going to port the next morning - 

Below trailer heading out of Carroll and into Howard county -

It happened to be groundhog day, was six more weeks of winter -

So with trailer at port I jumped on the the next flight home to the UK, via a seat at Harrys bar with a very cool Washington Duluth airport terminal -

All in a days work.......