deconstructing decomp

[60Crown]

Now that Halloween fun has subsided with stinky hearse, gutting before cold weather became a priority. How often have hearses turned up for sale missing tables, right? Beginning to wonder if they all had bodies that decomposed on them.

Intent is to strip and rid all permeated materials from rear compartment, then assess remaining before progressing forth. Coach is a '95 Superior Crown (hey, there's no limit how many Crowns one can own - ha) with an optional extend table:



Heavy leakage occurred down the passenger side, saturating everything and thus creating the challenge. Actual smell has already decreased down to 30% of what it initially was after several months of airing out.



Off to a good start - one side panel removed.



Without too much effort, we were able to remove the top wooden portion of the sliding table that contained all of the rollers, bier tracts, runners, etc. Inner fender panel fought to the death however.



In the spare tire recess (which was previously inaccessible with table in place), an area that needs attention became apparent. More on that later.

Table top itself weighs close to 200 pounds. 1" cabinet grade plywood isn't light.



See the darkened stained portions of the underside? Nasty. Now gothlings know what shade of wood is needed to achieve that perfect 'corpse juice' look.



Equally detrimental (and luckily there was very little found anywhere) is the white fuzzy mold associated with death - that can make the living ill when caught in spore stage. Here's a close up. This isn't lime that was spread around up top...



Rollers, bier tracks, runners, and bier pin holders are actually in nice shape. After removing and soaking in a 5 gallon bucket of bleach solution, they should be fine for someone to use without even a hint of former tragedy remaining. I'm not rebuilding a table as this will become a parts hauler/tow vehicle.

[60Crown]

Moved on to subfloor compartment doors. (Yes, there's one on either side.) Needed to see how to remove more of the floor and this was the next logical step. Took about 20 screws per piano hinge. Interestingly, some portions of the build were high quality while others were skimped on. These screws for instance alternated lengths from 2" to 1" with every screw.



Both subfloor door removed. Both side panels off. Trying to determine the best course of action for getting the grimiest portions removed without wearing any of that crap.



Hearse driver Joker was keeping a watchful eye from a distance.



Success removing passenger inner fender panel! More wood saturation evident on lower backside. These are the portions holding smell, which did not permeate much else - shockingly. The more that came out, the less decomp odor remained.



Learned a valuable lesson firsthand at this point. Did you know that decomp rusts metal? I didn't. Makes sense, just never thought about it before! Ate paint right off top of inner fender.



Gearing up the might-makes-right mentality, saturated wood besides slide out portions were muscled out.



But wait! It gets worse. The gag-inducing main offender reveals itself. Look at the underside:



Once this piece was out, 80% of the remaining odor went with it. No shit.

[60Crown]

Hydraulic floor jack, sledges, and sawzalls were used to start taking out the front portion of the wood floor. There was no easy short cut. The floor was attached through the 'partition' from the front compartment before the leather power seats were installed. I wasn't about to remove those. Too much effort.

Another build shortcut revealed itself. There actually is no partition in the classic sense. Nope. There are a couple pieces of glass (and some 1" square tube bracing at floor level) sandwiched by fiberglass panels, fore and aft, covered in upholstery. Follow that? This equated to not being able to use much force without literally destroying the partition.

Many cuts later>>>>>>>>



Starting on the front proved fruitful. Took 3 or 4 metal blades with Sawzall #1 to remove the remaining supporting structure. Sliding portion of extend table was another 200+/- pounds alone.



Note driver's side has additional bracing down inner fender. Although the rear loading door swings out wide, this coach was equipped with a power option feature that doesn't appear to have ever been fully installed. (Hydraulics not hooked up, although present.) With the hinge on same side, my assumption is that the door would not have opened as widely, thus giving extra strength for a casket to turn from the direction pall bearers would most likely rotate in from.

So with all corpse juice saturated pieces now removed, little decomp odor remained. We're down under 10% now. Remember the floor pan mention..? Time to get back to that.

Corpse juice pooled under the subfloor in the rear. Wouldn't quite use the word amazing but it was an experience to see. Just like Arby's roast beef starts as a gel that solidifies into meat - well, this must have been a similar process.



That isn't mud. For lack of a better description, it is re-coagulated biohazzard being scrubbed with a bleach solution. The passenger inner quarter panel was a solid 4-5" thick with the gunk Darryl aptly described as "clot curdled greatness".



All gone now after rinsing multiple times. Lower quarter actually had drain holes. Once unplugged, the process went fairly quickly.

Smell is all but gone before rest of the interior has even been cleaned. Can hardly believe it. This bodes well for reusing much of the rear compartment fabric. Even my friend's dogs were comfortable in the Crown at this point.



Side panels (removed), door panels, partition, and headliner have no stench even with nose pressed into fabric. Still, they've each been saturated in Fabreze for good measure. May not even need use of an ozone generator after all! Quite content knowing that there isn't much I'll need to design and build - inner fender panels and rear floor from axle hump back mostly. Still much grinding and metal finishing to do.

By the time all the metal framework and wood was gutted, conservatively 700-750 pounds were shed, Darryl thinks maybe upwards of 1000 pounds. Not bad to light those tires up more easily>>>>>>>



Now the yard just stinks instead.

That sliding table frame was kept intact if someone can utilize it. No, it doesn't smell and slides smoothly. Figure that it would only take one *heavy* casket used in a hearse to throw one of those in service out of whack, so it may stick around for awhile.

Forgot to take a picture of one really shoddy part of construction and will add that tomorrow.

[pyro]

Some cool pics, and what a mess thaty dead guy made.

[60Crown]

37 year old woman Russ. My mental image of her living is horrific alone.

[hotroddwayne]

Excellent thread Atti! Neat to see how everything comes apart with some persuasion and a cast-iron stomach. Was this a weekend project? Wondering how long it took to strip it all out and clean out the floorpan & rear quarter panel wells. Knowing the stench of "death juices" I can only imagine what you've been through with this thing dude, Awesome you did it right and dug so deep right from the start.

[60Crown]

Took longer to upload 20 pics and write the how-to here.

I started about 11:45am yesterday. Darryl lent a hand around noon. We'd finished everything shown just after 2pm. Might have been quicker if the dogs weren't constantly between our legs.

[LMS]

clot curdled greatness

I think we have the winning phrase of the week.

[60Crown]

Here's the decrepit (no pun intended) construction portion mentioned yesterday. These supports are located behind rear side doors, approximately where D pillars would be. They're both load bearng and serve as mounting points for sail panels.

Driver's side:



Are you friggin' kidding me..? Let's look closer @ those bends.



Yeesh! No strength whatsoever. Passenger side matches:



No excuse for not having them notched and braced/gusseted. Side impact or rollover would result in monumental failure as is.



Can you believe this was factory done??? Purely asinine.

[LMS]

So is the whole rear body fiber glass then? Just sitting on a rigged up framework?

[60Crown]

Front clip and side doors (to waistline) are steel. Side doors above waistline, quarters, entire roof, and rear loading door are fiberglass. No wonder that LT1 delivers decent mpg and can seriously boogie when hammered down.

[Satanic Mechanic]

It's really cool to see how it's put together. Those custom bends almost look like they put them against a wall and used a car to bend them. how's the smell now?

[Boogeyman Con Carne]

Looking really good there Atti! Looking forward to that first long road trip without the rebreather?

[60Crown]

Does a 3+ hour drive count before it was gutted? No breathing apparatus.

Front compartment was never 'bad' per se, carrying only a tinge of smell with partition closed that was probably more mental than anything. Burned a candle up front using the mid-seat stash box as base (with lid open) a couple consecutive nights. No aging rock bands showed up but doing so removed remote decomp trace smells.

Driving at night in the rain glares are *really* bad off partition glass. So yes - I am looking forward to sliding half of that partition glass open now!

[60Crown]

I've taken two longer roadtrips of 850 and 900 miles respectively. On this past one, I visited married friends who happened to have a large ozone generator (purchased/used to remove their pet dander). Had already removed interior panels (again) for this trip as plans called to bungee/strap larger items to bracing. So said panels were slid back in coach loose, wanting to take full advantage of odor removal...



Keep in mind the smell has been well under 10%, maybe as low as 5% strength of what it once was. That little lingering portion I have become somewhat accustomed to was the target.

It only took 20 minutes closed up! Completely *gone* w/o a trace. Was told that using a machine so powerful in tight quarters would probably start pulling dye out of fabric after 30 minutes...



Then took a solid 45 minutes of airing out w/ doors open before air was breathable again, after being depleted of oxygen.

Many quirks/small issues remain and I am most pleased decomp stench is no longer one of them. Now to solve 'increase mpg' game...