“Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand and I will move the Earth” Remodeling the Vardo, Part 4

Taking the Biggest Step of All; Transferring the old vardo to the new trailer.

Now that I was confident that the box was going to hold up under the stress of the transfer I was ready to slip the trailer under the body.  It was a whole lot less dramatic than I was afraid it would be, and that was a good thing.

With the vardo teetering on it’s blocks we prepared to slide the trailer under it. For safety sake, we did this by hand to decrease the chance of bumping the structure or blocks.  Because of the layout of the tail light assembly and fenders we couldn’t just suspend the entire body and make the transfer in one run.

I used the Hi-Lift jack to easily support the body while we shifted the blocks around.  I wanted to get the trailer as far under as possible to ease the final move.

I was feeling pretty accomplished at this point and we were nearly ready for the final push.

Since there were only two of us, we greased the rails under the vardo body to limit the friction while pushing.  This made a huge difference and allowed us to slide it into place with relative ease.

You can see that everything possible was stripped off the body to lighten the weight including the metal roof, stove-pipe, and door.  Bolts were used to secure the body to the frame but I’ll likely add a couple more steel straps as we near completion.

I intend to make the addition look as seamless as possible and to keep the same aesthetic in the addition.  For me, it’s a modern living accommodation informed and inspired by the late Nineteenth Century caravans and Sheepherder wagons.  They were ultra-modern in their time but had a certain warmth, comfort, and hand-made quality that most modern day RVs lack.  Even on a small budget, a solid, warm, and safe home can be built by nearly anyone.

If you are looking for Part 1 of the rebuild/addition then CLICK HERE.

Onward to Part 5!