Grumman - Load bearing walls or support needed?

[Paul]

Hi all.

These 2 images show, more or less, the shape the interior is in, in my Grumman.

I know a few of you have done fairly extensive restorations and I was hoping to get some input.

As you can see the roof is not supported except by the walls forward of the bathroom.

In fact the bathroom wall is just attached to wood strips screwed to the side of the fiberglassed wood (?) ribs that run across the roof. These panels or walls do not appear to support the roof at all.

So the big question is....

Are the walls load bearing or do I need to add some support? The roof is clearly very very heavy.

I am eventually trying to make the layout as open plan as possible.

The other thing is it would appear that the channels at the wall bottom where it meets the floor was designed to take a 2 by and be used to frame the wall up.

The previous owner told me he removed no framing and that's just how it was made. Yikes!

Under the window you see there were two vertical pieces of wood joining the two horizontal ones that I replaced due to rot BUT there was no wood that reached either the floor of the ceiling.

I am planning on framing these walls but the big question is whether the roof needs support or if the walls are designed as is to do that?

Thanks in advance for the help!!

PS the window in the 2nd picture is covered and has a small fridge under it and a blue tote lid.

[Kirk C Hoffman]

Hi Paul,

     Any luck on your gas tank problem? Haven't been on here much the past couple weeks, busy trying to get ready for Winter! I started taking the old Krager RV apart yesterday. Need to get it gone! That thing has a wooden structure covered with fiberglass sheeting. Needless to say the wood is all rotten. Every time I touched the sides more wood fell out the bottom! Not very sturdy anymore, LOL.

    It must be our Monsoon season today and tomorrow, raining like mad out there right now. So, I think I'll get out in the shed and sort out junk to get rid of! I need to make room to park my other 3 Ariens tractors in there! 

     I hope all is well with you, and the weather is co-operating. Have a good one, Kirk

[Paul]

Hey Kirk.
No. Life got in the way. I'm already to drop it but need to make the time.
Hopefully in the next two weeks it'll get done and I'll post an update!
Take care

[Paul]

Hi Kirk.
It's been a crazy couple of weeks.
Did you manage to get the Krager all stripped down yet?
I decided to buy an old 1967 Sunbeam Alpine. It was an ebay classified. Sat at a coparts in PA. Long story but very frustrating from beginning to end. If all goes well ( knock on wood ) I'll get the tag and title on Thursday. I paid for the car 3 weeks ago.
I need to order a new intake manifold , carbs and linkages to get it to run and seatbelts and new tires to make it safe and legal. Of course non of this was mentioned in the listing. Ugh! It was described as good running condition.
It's a good car other than needing carbs and tires and seat belts.
So while I'm waiting on that stuff I'll get a chance to drop that tank on the Grumman and also take the carb to a carb shop to have them go over it cause I guess my rebuild wasnt the best. Lol.
Tomorrow I need sleep. Thursday we are due rain for the first time in ages so maybe I'll get working on it this coming weekend.

[Kirk C Hoffman]

Hi Paul,

      Haven't done much with the old Krager, I've been working on putting together a big air compressor to run my blasting cabinet. I got a piece of 12" channel iron and had to mount the compressor head and motor on it, so some hole drilling and slots to slide the motor for belt adjustment. the slots were interesting, this piece is bigger than the bed on my milling machine so figuring out how to anchor it to the bed was a bit of a challenge. Once I got that done I mounted that piece on some wheels and a swivel caster so I can move it around. This thing must be about 600 LBS with the head and 5 HP motor, so rolling it will be a lot easier than dragging it!

     That Sunbeam will be a nice ride once its finished! British cars are interesting to work on! I almost got into a project a few years back that would have made any mechanic pull his hair out. A pair of '60 Jaguar 120's that were both  in boxes. the owner had taken them apart and started to restore  them.  I didn't think I wanted to try to figure all that out! I wouldn't have known what went where with which car! All the terminology is different with those cars. That Alpine will be a great learning experience!  

     I had the electric clutch on my Airens GT-19 go out, so had to tear into that. The starter was acting strange too, and I found out the bendix is slipping, I'm not sure how it ever started it. So, in the Ariens the engine has to come out to get to the starter, and since I had to get that far into it, I thought it would be a good idea to dig all the dirt and grass out of the cooling fins. Now I see why that one always seemed to run hot!  I have never seen a more plugged up dirty motor than that was! I put a new bearing in the clutch and re-assembled it, only to discover the pulley on the clutch is bent! I don't know if it was like that before or if I bent it pressing the bearing out, so, Now I get to fix that too! I was just going to install a different pulley, only to discover the shaft on the19 is 1 1/4 instead of 1 1/8 so that didn't work. Always something. 

    Are you going to put a sealing liner in the tank? I wish I had done mine when I had it washed out! That would have prevented the rust that's in there now! Let me know how that goes! Talk to you soon, take care.  Kirk

[Paul]

Hey Kirk,

I hope you had a good Christmas, and the New Year is treating you well!