Maude Update - Lifting Her Top Off

I know it's been a while since I've posted a Maude update - sorry 'bout that! We knew we were going to need a big chunk of time to get her shell lifted off, so we waited until our holiday vacation to do it.  In the meantime, we were still doing little piddly things to get ready, but I didn't think a whole blog post of me vacuuming would be that exciting ;)

Note: This is the first of two posts about what took place during the holiday break, so stay tuned next week for the follow up :)

Reminder: last update, we had gotten the scaffolding completed on the inside of Maude. Oooooh, Ahhhhhh!

Next came the piddly stuff.  One weekend I vacuumed out any remaining crud - I know the picture is of Mike, but I swear I did most of it!! ;)  Trying to muscle the shopvac in and around the "jungle gym" was NOT easy!  On that day, Mike went around and made sure that any remaining hidden rivets holding on the belly pan were popped loose so that the lifting of her shell would go more smoothly.  Another weekend, we got cinder blocks to make posts for the lifted trailer to rest on.  We sure got our work outs in on those days!  

See, those two pictures do NOT make a blog post ;)

​Finally, the holidays rolled around and it was time to get Maude's top lifted off! We borrowed a floor jack and jack stands from our neighbor - Thanks, David!!

We broke off any bolts that were holding the shell to the floor.  Most of them were already rusted out, so this wasn't too tough of a job ;)

We placed the jack stands at each of the 4 corners and got her lifted enough to let the belly pan loose.  Daylight!!

It's the last of the nasty mouse bits!!!  SOO glad to get this far!  Note: I know that looks like a freaked out rat in the picture below.  It's not.  Maybe it's a GHOST?!

We only had the one floor jack, so we would start on one end, lift up the trailer a couple of inches, raise the jack stands, set it back down on the jack stands, then move to the other end - rinse and repeat!  It was a pretty terrifying balancing act! Pretty sure all of the curse words were uttered ;)

Once we got Maude lifted up high enough, we were able to slide 4"x6" beams under each end to set her back down on.  Then we could remove the jack stands, allowing us to pull the steel trailer frame out to have it worked on! After this, we were able to breathe again ;)

WE DID IT!!!  This was the biggest obstacle to getting Maude done!  We were the most nervous about this part and ensuring that her shell was kept stable so that it didn't crumple and we did it!

​I love how the next picture looks like an exploded diagram :)

All in all, the lifting took us about 4 hours.  We had really expected it to take longer, so that's a WIN!

Next week, I'll get you all caught up on Maude's Holiday Vacation! ;)

<3 Becca