This was actually simpler than I had envisioned. The water heater consists of the control/heating part and the tank. On the old Bowen, the pilot and controls etc are on the outside of the trailer, while the tank is on the inside. The water heater, as a unit, sticks through a hole in the side of the trailer. That may be obvious to you, but it was a revelation to me.
I started by unscrewing the front of the water heater from the trailer. Not really all that hard, once I got past the concept that when I removed the water heater I would be left with an unfinished hole in the side of my trailer. Yes, all the surround, flange and shaped aluminum had to come out. Yes, I really did have to unscrew it all, pry away the 40+ year old sealant and carefully disassemble the beautiful cover. Lets just say I took, notes, labeled everything and took pictures. Even then it was nerve-wracking.
Other than the emotional distresss, the only real tricky part came when Chris and I tried to actually pull the heater out of the trailer. Let me state, with absolute certainty, that the heater comes out by pulling from the outside/pushing from the inside, it is not removed by pulling it into the trailer.
(Pause, consider the lively discussion, resume)
The heater tank was held in place by a single bolt head in the bottom of the tank that slips into a metal slot attached to the trailer floor. This kept the tank from moving around from side to side. The tricky part for the removal was that the bolt head caught on the metal frame as we tried to tug it out. It really did not seem like the heater came out that way, but it did. Sliding a scrap piece of aluminum under the heater tank and on top of the threshold made a ramp and did the trick.
When we removed the heater it looked like this:
Like I said, big hole in the side of the trailer. Whoopee! Now we get to cut another one in the other side!
