Sorry to have been off-message for so long - work (a lot of it Stateside, which has allowed a few orders from Vintage Trailer Supplies to be brought home in my luggage) has just got in the way.
Gentle work with a rubber hammer and the very occasional use of a metal hammer & dolly. The risk always is to use too much force & stretch the aluminium - as in SO much of life; less is more !
Before we re-fit the floor, time to remove the front end-cap and look at that DING.
Mainly pop-rivets to drill out. But where the end-cap joins the front window they've used self-tapping screws.
Maybe to pull the end-cap tight into the window frame. Once those screws are released it pops back against the outer skin.
A bit of a fiddle to get the end-cap out as its riveted in place before the ceiling panels are put in. But with a bit of devious drilling those rivets can be popped & the end-cap will drop down leaving the ceiling panels in place.
Lots of tar and rockwool...
... and the inner bulge of the outer end-cap DING (not sure if DING is a word you use Stateside but here in Blighty it means a bit of an error parking up !).
Gentle work with a rubber hammer and the very occasional use of a metal hammer & dolly. The risk always is to use too much force & stretch the aluminium - as in SO much of life; less is more !
A few curbside scrapes are also teased out. Its a lot easier to get your arms to both sides while the body is in thin air !
The end-cap is in good shape, though interestingly there is one panel with the ALCLAD print lettering on the inside.
The end-cap removed is both naturally strong in one axis, though the curves of aluminium but also fragile in the other, so I think we'll brace her to stop any accidents while she's out.
