Anyone tried rebuild of frame rails only?

[pcorbin]

We have a 1997 187TD. We've only had it for a few months, so I'm still getting things squared away so it can be used more often. We've camped in it twice, but during the second use, we had a cable snap. I'd looked at the cables before and saw no rust or fraying, but at the time had not seen the posts here about checking at the top pulley area for rust - mistake on my part.

We purchased new cables, loose ended, from J & R (nice folks there, thank you Rob) along with new seal material to fix that at the same time.

When I went to loosen the bolt under the top from the broken cable, the inside structure fell apart - that wood is rotted out. There was a little bit of a sag on that wall prior to all this, so I sorta saw it coming - but still a revoltin' development

Here's my proposed solution and question - I'm going to jack the top up past the bottom top edge, and brace it with 2x4's laid across the bottom to hold it up. I'll angle them a bit so they are not under the rail in question and allow me to tear it apart. This way I "may" be able to just fix the bottom rail, depending on what I find in my exploratory surgery.

Any thoughts, opinions, experiences trying it this way?

Thanks!

By the way - Hello! This is my first post.

 

[sam-HILO]

Rebuilding towlite

pcorbin,welcome to the forum. From your description it seems you will have to rebuild your wall,guide rail and replace the cable. Many owners have had to replace these items in a Towlite. This post will help you. 3-3-2010 cable replacement in my 1998 HiLo 24TD. Keep us posted as we are here to answer any questions you may have. You won't know the extent of repairs until you rip it apart. Seems like you are handy and can do the needed repairs.