E-Rock's Airstream

Silver inside

2010-03-07T13:36:00.001-08:00

This afternoon I started with the rear lights. I took the lights apart, but kept them attached to the trailer. To remove the cast aluminum assemblies you must remove the interior skin to get to the blind rivits. To prep the aluminum I just sanded them with 150 grit and cleaned them out. On one side I just pulled the cans out and tried my best to paint around them. On the other side I cut the wires and it was much easier to paint. Not sure if it was worth it because it took me a long time just to re-attach the wires. I have new gaskets and new red monarch lenses. I also have a red reflector that is on the side. The only light that is not new is the small rectangle marker lights. They are no longer manufactured and I could not buy a new one. On the inside I decided to try and paint the front tambour cabinets that are in the endcap. I took that assembly completely apart and sprayed it with a silver paint. It matches the window screens pretty good and I think it lookds pretty good. I also started to re-install the window screens and all the outlet covers.

Color on the inside

2010-02-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

The interior is starting to get some color. I decided to paint the ceiling tan and the walls a rust color. After I had the walls and ceiling painted it looked like to much rust, so I changed my mind about the front end cap and painted it the same tan color as the ceiling. I'm pretty happy with the results at this point. The pictures make it look pretty orange, but it is more of a warm color. I hung a window screen up against the front curbside window to see what it looks like against the wall and I love it. The small window below this window has some aluminum trim that will also be sanded or painted silver and will match the screen. I think I might change the color of the valances above the window and paint them tan just to give it more of a contrast. I'm starting to get there. Soon I can get some flooring and start the cabinets.

Primed for an adventure

2010-02-13T08:15:00.000-08:00

I primed the interior walls today. I thoroughly cleaned the walls with Simple Green cleaner. I did this a few times to get rid of the sticky feeling that had built up over the years. I did a bunch of research about how to prep the walls for paint. In the end I purchased some adhesion primer from Sherwin Williams. This stuff will stick to anything. They had a sample in the store that they had painted on a piece of shinny tile.

An electrifiying condition

2010-02-06T13:32:00.000-08:00

I spent some time tonight replacing all of the outlets in the trailer. The process was fairly simple. I purchased some shallow boxes from Home Depot. The electrical outlets that were in the trailer did not look safe. The wires were just pushed into the outlet and in my opinion it looked unsafe. The hole in the wall from the original outlests is smaller than a standard size outlet. I needed to enlarge the holes. After the hole was enlarged, I stripped the wire and screwed the box to the wall. Not much else to say about this. I also replaced the outside outlet.

Worked in the trailer

2010-01-30T12:20:00.000-08:00

Today I put the screen material back into the frames. It was so cold in the warehouse that I moved my sawhorses and work surface into the Airstream. The Airstream now has heat and I was glad that it was working. It was a nice 65 degrees in the camper and a cool 25 degrees in the warehouse. I chose the black fiberglass screen. I like the look of it and it makes the windows look tinted. I'm almost ready to prime the interior walls.

Fill the holes

2010-01-22T18:36:00.000-08:00

Today I tore down the upper cabinet that was above the sink and contains the systems computer. As it turns out, the computer is not part of the upper cabinet. I secured it with a strap to the ceiling and drilled out all the rivets that held up the only remaining upper cabinet. I then removed the 2 plastic cabinets that were attached to the wall near the window, and the plastic spice rack that was next to it. I am close to paint, so I need to prep the interior. I have a bunch of holes in the ceiling and walls where the old cabinets were riveted to the interior skin. At first I was going to bondo the holes and then decided to just put a rivet in each hole. The interior skin has a bunch of rivets, so I figure that I would just put some more in. They look fine and after I paint, they will almost disappear and look perfectly normal in an Airstream. After I ran out of rivets I took out all the old window screens. The screen material is a tan color that looks old and crappy. I already replaced the screen material on the door. I took the screen material off and spray painted the frame with some aluminum color spray paint. When it dried, I thought it looked pretty good. I then took all the screens to the paint booth. I tried to clean the 2nd screen with lacquer thinner and it took off the tan paint. I then sanded the frame and it turned the same color as the painted screen. At this point, I deceided to sand all the paint off the frames and will leave the frames raw aluminum.

Honey I "almost" blew up my boys!

2010-01-02T17:50:00.000-08:00

I tried, but was unsuccessful. Maybe next time. Here is the story. First of all, if you are reading this blog, you probably know how cheap I am. I need a furnace for the cold days. First of all I need one this winter so I can work on the interior. I plumbed the system with propane and after I had the old furnace hooked up with gas and electric, I tried to fire it up. No luck. I could not get it to fire up. I then looked to the internet to give me some clues as to how to try and fix the furnace. Most people say to just scrap it and buy a new one. Since I don't expect to use the furnace very often I really dont want to spend much money to get it back in operation. I was told to pull the burner out and hacksaw the slots in the top open and that should fix my problem. I did just that, and put it back together and hooked it up. Guess what? It worked. It lit right up and I thought, "great I just saved myself $600" As you can see in the following picture you can see the blue flame. This is great! I decided to let the thing run for awhile so that it can get up to full tempeture. It shut off after about 5 minutes. I go over to the thermostat and shut it off and turn it back on. I then hear the furnace go "pop". I figure, that was interesting. I shut it off and do it again. I hear "POP". (that means a little louder) I do it again. "POP". The fourth time, it goes bang, and my ear start ringing. After I check myself for schrapnel, I decided not to try again. As you can see from the picture, the furnace blew out the sides of the burn chamber. I dedided at that point it was worth it to purchase a new furncace. I called Palamano RV in Florida and purchased a new one for around $350. If I knew that it was going to be around that price, I would not have hesitated and would have saved myself from death. I got the new one 2 days later and hooked it up. It works perfectly and now I have heat in the Airstream.

Shower goes in

2009-12-18T17:37:00.000-08:00

Today I put the shower in. It has been painted for quite some time now, but I just did not have a chance to rivet it back in. I had to attach the pluming first. I bought a new shower valve from Home Depot and then used pex to secure the fittings in the back of the shower. I'm not sure how you would replace the shower valve if the tub was attached and the shower wall was riveted to the Airstream. Lets hope that it never needs to be replaced, or worse that it leaks on my new floor. I made the pex extra long so that I can hook it into the water system in the next week or so. I will finish the fresh water system before I put the tub in, because I can still get to the valve and all the fittings at this point. I don't want to button it up before I have a chance to pressure test the system.

Driver side started but I was froze out

2009-11-24T17:08:00.000-08:00

I ran out of the F7 polish, so I had to buy some more. I decided to try the G6 polish in addition to the F7. The G6 is definitely more aggressive. I like it! It cuts much faster. I guess you live and learn. The G6 leaves a tremendous amount of swirl marks. They don't show up until you shine a light on it at an angle. I am now polishing in the warehouse because outside it is too cold and it gets dark too fast. The swirl marks come out easy with the F7 and the cyclo. I have about 3/4 of the street side compounded and one small section cycloed. It is getting too cold to polish at this point. It just is taking too long to get the metal up to temperature. What I have discovered is that you need to actually heat the metal up at some degree to get the metal to "melt" and bring out the shine. Here are some pictures of the swirl marks. See if you can find what section was cyloed. I'm done with polishing in 2009. I will have to wait till the spring to continue and finish up the shine.

One side is close

2009-11-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

I got to spend the day outside this Saturday. I think this will be the last time this year that the old Aluminum money pit will see the light of day till next spring. It was in the upper 50's and it felt even warmer in the sun. I finished polishing the curb side with the F7 Nuvite. It is now compounded and cycloed. I will finish with the final polish in the spring when it warms up a little.

Still Polishing

2009-11-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

Today I spend about 5 hours polishing. I have compounded and cycloed with F7. I now have about 1/4 of the trailer polished to F7. I have not cycloed wtih the S, but it still looks pretty good.

Painted rear endcap

2009-11-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight I finished the rear endcap. I painted it white just like the tub and sink. I pulled it into the ware house, turned on the fantastic vent to blow in and opened the rear window for ventilation. Feel pretty good about the look of the endcap.

Learned how to polish

2009-10-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

I had a breakthrough on Wednesday. I have put in at least about 15-20 hours of polishing at this point and I finally figured out what I was supposed to be doing. I had been polishing but not getting the results that I had seen on the web. What I had been doing was using too much polish, not using enough pressure, and moving too fast. When I slowed down, applied more pressure and made a few more passes over each section, I got the mirror finish that I was looking for. I have included 2 pictures that shows the difference. If you look close at the aluminum in the hazy picture it looks like there is some white specks underneath the shinny aluminum. When I hit the same section over again the white parts dissapeared and the mirror fihish started comming out. When I was done compounding there were a bunch of swirrl marks. I then hit it with the cyclo and the same F7 Nuvite and the swirils dissapeared and the shine came out. I still have not cycloed with the final Nuvite S.

Last of clear coat

2009-10-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

Today I stripped the rest of the clear coat off the trailer. I put the stripper on in the morning and then proceeded to prime the rear endcap.

I've got gas.

2009-09-28T18:30:00.000-07:00

A truer statement has never been made. I always have gas, but now my Airstream has gas. I plumbed the new copper lines from front to back tonight for the Liquid Propane. I saved all the old fittings, but used all new lines. I could not find new fittings that had the same configurations, so I reused the old ones. Not to mention, new propane fittings are extremely expensive. The old shutoff valves are about $30+ each. I chose to scrap them and use new ball valves. I have a 5/8 line that runs from the two 40lb tanks in front to just behind the door. At this point, it splits off to 3/8" lines that go to the appliances. I will need gas for the furnace, fridge, water heater and stove. I needed to purchase a new flaring tool to make all the connections. The larger lines have a single flare, and all the smaller lines I used a double flare to make up the connections. I also polished up the panel next to the water heater so I could install the new Marinco Stainless Steel power inlet.

Shitters full!`

2009-09-26T16:19:00.000-07:00

I had one goal since last year. It was to have the Airstream done by our annual camping trip to Huston Woods for the Halloween camping weekend. Well, the summer filled up fast, and the fall filled up even faster. I am now coaching 2 soccer teams for each of my kids. With 2 teams and multiple practices for each, I have not had time to even take a dump. So to get the Airstream to Huston Woods, the boss told me we could take it if it had a working toilet. I finished the toilet installation and now we can go camping. It was not as easy as screwing down the toilet to the floor. I had to have a floor for the bathroom installed first. I purchased a floating vinyl floor from Home Depot. It is a speckled brown color. It is actually marketed as a garage floor vinyl. It was easy to install. All I had to do was to cut out the holes for the dump valves and the toilet. The other thing I needed to do was to install the water pump and some plumbing to get water to the toilet. Everything worked and we finally went on our first of many camping trips with the Airstream.

Time to paint the tub.

2009-09-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

I pulled the bathroom out of the camper so long ago that I forgot what it even looks like. After much research, I decided to use a 2 part urethane primer and a top coat. It is the same stuff that is used on car bumpers. I chose a gloss white color to match the porcelain toilet. The toughest part of this paint job was removing the stupid brown flower stick on things that give you traction in the tub . Since the tub is ABS, I could not use lacquer thinner to remove the stickers and adhesive. I ended up sanding the things down to the plastic to get rid of the stickers. The primer and paint went down pretty smooth. I ended up getting a small run in the paint in the sink, but I it not very noticeable and I think I am just going to leave it. All of the pieces look brand new and clean. I cant wait to see them installed. I still need to paint the endcap the same color.

No more APB!

2009-08-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

Airstream Pattern Baldness - A.P.B. I just could not wait any longer. A few months ago Vintage Trailer Supply had a sale on the dual Cyclo and the supplies that I would need to polish the Airstream. I was in the process of changing the running lights over to new LED's and I thought this would be a perfect time to test the Nuvite polishing compound and my new Cyclo. I have not stripped the trailer of the clear coat that was installed in 78. Most of the clear coat was gone on the endcaps already, so I just used some lacquer thinner to get rid of the rest of it. It takes some time to get used to the process, but it really was not as bad as I had envisioned. It took a few hours to do 80% of the front Endcap. I will admit that I did not do a very good job, but dont really care. This is just a trial and I will have to go back later and do a proper job. It makes a world of difference. I can't wait to have the whole thing shiny.

New Plumbing and valves

2009-08-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight I stayed late and hooked up the plumbing for the grey and black water tanks. Not too difficult here. I purchased new Valterra valves and all new 3" PVC piping. The old Thetford valves were glued to the pipes and I figured that it was just as easy to make all new fittings. It is just a matter of putting the parts together. I dry fitted the parts first then glued the PVC fittings. It all seems pretty good. I am hoping that I will not have any leaks. I will have to pull the Airstream out of the warehouse to get it to a location where I have water. Cross your fingers!

It was a Fan-Tastic night

2009-08-12T05:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight I decided to put one of the two new Fantastic fans in the roof. When I purchased the Airstream it has a leak in the roof vent at the front of the trailer. Originally there was a plastic insert on the lid that allowed light to come in the trailer. A branch fell on it, cracked it, and allowed water to get into the trailer. This resulted in me replacing the floor near the door and having to weld 4 new outriggers to the frame near the door. Since the old fan vent was broken and when you turned the fan on it was noisy, I decided long ago to replace it with a new fan. It seems that the fantastic vent fan is a top choice. The model I chose was the 6000. It has a powered lifter, rain sensor and temperature gauge. What I like about it, is that I can tow the Airstream down the road with the vents open and if it starts to rain, they will automatically shut. Another thing is that if we are camping and it starts to rain the they will shut and no water will pour through the roof. I purchased mine from Vintage Trailer Supply. It was a few dollars more, but the housing above the roof is grey to match the trailer and the interior trim piece is curved to match the curved roof in my trailer. The installation was fairly simple. On the inside, I had to remove the light cover, the light assembly and drill out 4 rivets that attached the ceiling to the vent. I took a putty knife and a hammer to the roof and sheered the rivet heads off with the putty knife. I cleaned up the old Vulkum with lacquer thinner and then enlarged the opening with some tin snips. The opening for the old fan was square, but had rounded corners. The Fantastic vent had square corners. I squared off the corners and fitted the fan in place. I then moved inside and squared off the opening in the ceiling for the interior trim piece. The old vent had 2 sets of 12v wires running to it. One set was for the lighting and the other set was for the electric fan. I used the blue fan wire and wired it to my new fan. Everything worked. I then went back up to the roof and attached the fan. It comes with a closed cell Styrofoam gasket. I then screwed the unit to the roof with the provided screws. After it was screwed down. I ran a bead of Vulkum around the edge and put a dab of vulkum on the top of each screw head. I still need to attach the the interior trim piece, but I am going to wait until the interior is painted. I also moved the 12v lighting wires to a new hole in the ceiling so I can put new lights in the future. As a side note, I used my forklift at work to get on top of the trailer. I put a skid on the forklift to give me a platform to sit on. It worked out great. Much easier than hanging onto a ladder and trying not to put pressure on the top of the aluminum skin.

I've got gas

2009-08-10T06:02:00.000-07:00

I think we all know that I have gas, but what I meant to say was that I now got a new gasket on both the exterior door and the interior door. The old gasket on the exterior door did not come off very easy. Lacquer thinner does a good job of dissolving the old glue, but it took a lot of effort to get the gasket material and glue off. Since I could not remove the door and lay it horizontally, the thinner would just run down the door and not soak into the old glue and gasket. The windows were much easier, since I could remove them and lay them flat. After the door was cleaned up. I just had to put the new gasket on. This gasket, purchased from Out of doors Mart, had a peal and stick glue. I pulled off the red strip and ran the gasket all around the door. I trimmed it at the bottom and was done. This was much easier than the gasket on the windows because for them, I had to put glue on both the window and the gasket, wait 10 min and then install. I next turned to the foam gasket that goes around the screen door. Same process here. Cleaned up the old glue and used a peel and stick foam gasket to attach the new seal around the screen door. After this I decided to put some new screen material in the door. The old one was very worn and discollored. Fairly easy process here. Pulled out the cord that attached the screen to the door. One problem that I ran into was that the channel that the cord pushed into was smaller than the roller installation tool that I had. The door looks much better with the new screen material. I used the standard black plastic screen. I think it looks better and makes the windows look tinted.

Window Gaskets

2009-07-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

The gasket on my windows was old, hard and did not give a proper seal. I purchased all new gasket material for all the windows and went to work. The windows on my 78' are extremely easily to remove. Open the window a little. Remove the screw at the base of each arm that is attached to the frame, and slide the arm out of the channel in the window frame. Now that the window is free to rotate around the top of the window, you lift the window up so that it is almost perpendicular to the trailer and the window will just come right out. Installation is just the opposite. The window has an extruded channel at the top that "hooks" into the channel on the window frame. After the window was out, I put it on the workbench and removed the old gasket. I used a putty knife and a bunch of lacquer thinner to remove the old gasket and glue. It takes a while to get the frame clean of all the old glue. After it is clean, I applied a 3M gasket adhesive to both the frame and the gasket. I cleaned both with lacquer thinner first to remove any contaminates. I used an old tooth brush to apply the glue. It works like a contact cement. You must put it on both surfaces and let it dry to the touch. After 10 minutes or so you can start to re-attach the gasket to the window. Fairly simple process, but with (6) side windows and a front and rear window it took 2 evenings after work to complete the work. I feel pretty good that all the windows have new rubber and will not cause me further trouble with leaks.

Dam bathroom

2009-03-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

Well the Airstream project was put on hold for the past few months. One Saturday I deceided to replace a tile in our master bath. I got all my supplies ready to replace the tile, went upstairs, and started to remove a few loose tiles. One tile turned into 2, that turned into 4, to 8, to 16... after 20 minutes it was determined that I needed to replace all the tile. I was not planning on a bathroom remodel, but that is what happened. It started out with a tile replacement, then moved to "I'll just re-tile the shower, to "lets do the whole bathroom", to "lets re-design the bathroom", to "lets tear down a few walls, re-locate the toilet, move the sink, put in a master closet, rewire the whole bathrrom, install a new subfloor, new tile floor, new tiled shower, new drywall, new insulation, new window, new plumbing, new waste lines, new vanity, new sink, new... " Needless to say 4 months later I have a usable master bath.

Shocking

2009-02-20T18:39:00.000-08:00

Today I changed the 12v panel system to an updated one that has blade type fuses. The old one had the glass fuses and the terminals were rusty. I replaced one part of the system with a standard 12v fuse block that I bought at an auto store. This one controls the lights, brakes, and reverse lights. The other panel controls the current from the 12v converter, the 12v battery and the charge line from the truck. Right now I just hooked up the standard wiring. I need to run (3) new 12v lines. My newer refrigerator needs to have 12v to run the circuit board. I also need to have a 12v line run to my new water heater. The old water heater needed to be lit by hand, the new one has electronic ignition and all I have to do is flip a switch. The 3rd new 12v line will run the the electro-hydraulic pump. This is the pump that operates the hydraulic disc brakes.

Clean up and rivet

2009-02-17T05:57:00.000-08:00

Tonight after work I finished attaching the interior walls to the C-channel. When this was done, I started to clean out the interior. I took everything I could out of the camper, so I could get ready to clean all the wall and do some painting. I even took out the old fridge. It was only attached to the camper with 6 small screws. Getting it out by myself was a challenge. I moved it to the door and got my floor jack to help me lower it to the ground. After it was out, I swept up and took my leaf blower and blew all the dust out the rear access compartment. That is why the first picture is so cloudy. When the dust settled, I took apart the cabinet work under the front window, so I would have easier access to the12v compartment. I purchased a 12v fuse block and a 12v panel. The fuse block is just for the the connection of truck to the Airstream. It controls the trailer lights and turn signals. The old one was rusty and I had trouble getting the brake lights to work because of the bad connections. Once again I ran out of time and will finish the 12v panel the next time I get to work on this money pit. As you can see from the pictures, I am almost to the point where I thought I would have been about 6 months ago ... ready to install the interior.

Finish the Floor

2009-02-15T05:23:00.000-08:00

Today I finished the floor. The rear floor had been installed but needed to be bolted down. I ran out of the closet bolts that I bought, so I found some different ones that I had at my plant. They are black and have an allen key, but were similar in size. The Airsteam bolts were self tapping and my new bolts were not, so I had to drill the floor and then tap each hole before with a 1/4-20 tap, so I could secure the bolts to the floor. It did not take as much time as I expected. I also added some thread lock to the bolts before I screwed them down. I had a small section of floor in the front of the trailer (24"x 35"), that still needed to be filled. I was able to do this in a short amount of time. It was cut to size and bolted to the new frame members and to the C-channel in the wall. It is nice to be able to walk in the trailer and not fall through to the ground. With all of the floor in, I was able to start to re-attach the interior walls. I had a purchased a hydraulic rivet gun from Harbor Freight. The dam thing will do a bout 100 rivets and then I need to re-fill it with more hydraulic fluid. Needless to say, every time I pull the trigger it sprays a nice mist of fluid all over the place. I have taken the dam thing apart, but can not figure out what seal is bad. I'm close to being done, so I may just deal with it. I had to finish the day a little early because I had to get to a Xavier basketball game.

Steppin' it up

2009-01-24T13:56:00.000-08:00

Today I spent some time screwing the floor to frame. I also bolted the outside c-channel to the floor and the stringers. I spent a bunch of time searching around the plant looking for bolts and nylon locking nuts for this application. I bought some floor bolts from Out of Doors mart when I purchased all the gasketing for the windows and doors. I only bought 20 bolts and was surprised how fast I used them up. I guess I will be ordering some more. After the floor was completely bolted down and secure, I started on the steps. The original stringers were toast and I was not exactly sure how the steps were supposed to operate, but I downloaded a drawing showing how it goes together. I cleaned the steps up as best I could before I installed them. I took a scotchbrite pad to the bare aluminum and it shined them up pretty good. When I got my parts from ODMRV I ordered some small springs that keep the step holder tight against the steps when they are in the up position. The springs are fairly small and were almost non-existent when I took the steps off the Airstream. Everything worked beautifully. It is so nice to have steps to get in and out of the RV. When I bought new axles, I ordered them at a 45 degree down angle so I would have more ground clearance. It now is quite a jump to get into the Airstream. The steps are awesome, and they are solid.

Floorin it

2009-01-22T06:01:00.000-08:00

Last night I started putting the floor back in the Airstream. All my welding, painting and frame work are now done. It's time to start putting the darn thing back together. I decided to start with the floor near the front door because I thought it would be easier to fit. Not exactly easy but by the end of the night, it was in place. I took some measurements from the side wall to the main beam in locations where I knew it had not moved. I then cut a piece of 1/2" plywood to 35-3/4 x 8'. I used this measurement because it would hit on the center of a support and I could bolt it to the frame. The wall close to the door was not supported and could be moved at least an inch inward and an 1" away from the trailer. Since my plywood was cut at a constant distance and my cut in the original floor was cut perpendicular to the trailer frame, I should be straight when it all gets bolted back together. One thing I remembered the next morning was that I did not install the aluminum shield that goes above the steps and under the floor. The aluminum protects the underside of the plywood floor because in the step location it is not insulated or sealed from the weather. I am hoping that I can just lift the plywood up and wedge it above the step stringers and I do not have to completely remove the floor.

Paint it Black

2009-01-10T16:57:00.000-08:00

Today I bought another quart of POR-15, to the tune of $50. I bought the black paint this time because that was the only color that the dealer had. My first quart was grey. I painted up all the welding that Jeff and I did earlier in the week. I installed the step, just to confirm that I welded up the supports in the right place.... I did. The steps will be a nice addition when I get everything back together. The other thing I got done today was to fabricate up the rear floor. I saved the floor that I removed a few months ago so I could use it as a template. One problem was that most of the edges of the floor were gone. I made a template from some cardboard that I have been using as a mat for the past few weeks. After that I used my jig saw to cut it out. I sure hope I can slide this whole sheet in from the rear (thats what she said).

Its welding time

2009-01-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

My buddie Jeff and I welded up the missing parts tonight. Jeff was not able to show up at my work until around 6:15. He had to stop by a gun dealer to buy a slightly illegal AK47. (I can't make this stuff up) Anyway while he was working his way to the plant, I moved the Airstream from deep in the warehouse to my other warehouse. I do not have a 50 amp circuit available in its usual location for Jeff's welder. This was the first time we used this particular welder. Jeff's old company moved locations and he was able to pick up this $4,000 Lincoln electric mig welder for a few hundred bucks. You could say he stole it, but that's not how he sees it. I temporally hooked up the welder to the electric panel and I was ready. The first piece we attached was the rear cross member that had the holes for the black and grey tanks. It went in fairly easy. I re-attached the rear bumper so that the main beams would be in the correct location. Next we moved inside the trailer to attach the 2 supports to the rear cross-member and to attach the middle stringer. I had a local fab shop make up these parts. I drew up the parts on AutoCad and emailed the drawings over to the shop. They fabed the parts out of galvanized steel. I don't plan on ever having to replace these parts. We also attached a outrigger that was rusted out under the tub. I bought all the outriggers and the step outriggers from out of doors mart. Great company to work with! When we finished the rear of the Airstream it was about 8:00, Jeff asked what was next and I said that we were only halfway done. The front involved welding up 2 stair outriggers, a single outrigger and 8 feet of 1-1/2 angle iron. The bottom of the main beam was rusted out in a few locations, so I decided to weld up some angle iron to beef up the beam. Not my original idea but I have seen a few people on the forums do the same thing. I notched the outriggers to accept the angle iron. The welding in the front went much faster. We finished up the 12 pack of Miller and started to clean up. I left the plant around 11:00 at night on a Tuesday. A picture that I see a lot on the web is the one with the crazy owner of the Airstream standing on the ground in the rear of of his unit. So heres mine. A friend pointed out that I only have one glove on... I was going for Michael Jackson look. I am so glad that all my welding is done. Now its time to put this money pit back together.

Just a little rust

2008-11-12T06:12:00.000-08:00

I dropped the black and grey tanks so I could get a good look at my frame situation. It was not good! Just a little rust! The rear cross member was completely rusted out. The center support that ran between the grey and black tanks was almost gone. I took some measurements and drew up what I needed with AutoCad and had a local shop make me some replacements. As it turned out they made my new brackets out of galvanized sheet and I am hoping that I will never have to replace them again.

I'm infamous

2008-09-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

I'm now In-Famous, that's more than Famous (quote from the Three Amigos). I made the VAP! Vintage Airstream Podcast. This is a Podcast that comes out every 2 weeks. It consists of a host Tim Sheppard and 2 panel professionals Rob Baker and Colin Hyde. The podcast covers all things Airstream. From total restorations to traveling across the country to Airstream ralleys. They had been looking for people to call-in and talk about their year of Airstreams for a couple of episodes, but no one was calling. They wanted people from each year to call in on the episode that matched their year. I called in on the 78th episode because I had a 78' Airstream Soviergn. If you have 56 minutes to kill, 26megs of hard-drive space, and want to hear everything about Airstreams go and download it. 78th episode Rob Baker pretends to dislike everything about the 70's Airstreams, so that's why I'm hassling him on the podcast. You think I'm nuts about my airstream... Rob and Colin at any one time may own upwards of 5 to 10 each!

Kitchen removal

2008-04-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

I had the Airstream cleaned out from the door forward, now it was time to remove the kitchen and the bedroom. It took me a few days to get all the stuff out. I'm not sure how many rivets I drilled out, but it must have been hundreds. All of the upper cabinets were riveted to the shell of the Airstream. At this point everything was removed except the bathroom. I took out over 500 lbs of material.

It's axle time

2007-09-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

It's axle time. I knew that when I bought the Airstream I was going to have to put on some axles. Airstream uses an axle that is called a torsion axle. It has 4 rubber rods inside that compress to provide the suspension. Over time the rubber deteriorates and the axle sags. The other issue that I had was that the brakes on the Airstream were a Vac-Assist hydraulic disk brake system. My truck is a diesel and it does not create the vacuum that I needed to run the brakes. I scrapped the whole system and bought all new axles and disc brakes. Originally the axles were manufactured by a company called Henschen. There is only one authorized dealer in the country for these axles and he can charge whatever he wants. Needless to say, I was not paying the outrageous price. I purchase my axles from Dexter Manufacturing. I got new axles with disc brakes and a electro-hydraulic pump for about $100 more than electric brakes from Henschen. Dexter is the largest manufacturer of torsion axles and if I need parts, I can pick them up anywhere in the country.

The axles are only held to the Airstream with 4 bolts per axle. Mine were rusted so I had to use my sawzall to cut the bolts off. I backed one of the axles of the Airstream up on some 2x6's. The other axle was hanging in the air. I left the truck attached to Airstream so that I was not in danger of the thing falling off the jacks and crushing me, not to mention killing me. I cut the four bolts off and the axle just dropped right out. I used a floor jack to lower them to the ground. The old axle tubes are only 1-1/2 square. My new axles are are 1-5/8 square. I will post all the specs for the axle in another post. I had to cut the frame of the Airstream a little larger so that it would accept the larger axle. I cut it with a jig saw. It took about 2 minutes per side. After that, I sanded up all the metal and sprayed it with some flat black paint. When the paint dried, I put the new axles back in. I installed them by myself. It would have been much easier if I had someone to help, but I had to make due. The axles are pretty heavy. I think around 200+lbs. I balanced them on the floor jack and jacked them up into the enlarged openings. One of the holes in the frame lines up perfectly with the new axle. The other one needs to be enlarged by about an 1/8 of an inch. After that, just bolt them in place. After I had one of the axles bolted in, I needed to put the wheels on so that I could change out the other axle. This is where I ran into trouble. I grabbed the wheel and tried to put it back on the axle. IT DID NOT FIT. What I did not know was that the Dexter axles that I had specified had much larger disc brakes than were originally on the Airstream. Bottom line was that I could not use my current rims and tires. I freaked out. I had spent $400 on new rubber for these 15" rims and was concerned that I was not going to be able to find new rims to fit my new rubber. Well I put out a question on the forums and within a few hours I had my answer. New rims It looked like new rims were were going to set me back another $400. With every problem comes a solution. I ebayed my original Airstream rims and got $400 bucks for them. I put the rims back on the axle and repeated the axle install on the other axle. I now had both of the axles on, but had no idea if the brakes worked. As I stated earlier, I purchased hydraulic disc brakes. The way they operate, is that an electric pump is installed in the Airstream and it pushes hydraulic fluid through the tubes and activated the disc brakes. I have a controller in the truck that regulates how much electricity is sent to the pump. If the truck stops quicker, the controller sends more electricity to the pump and the Airstream stops quicker. I installed the pump in the front the Airstream under the front window and hooked up the hydraulic lines. I bought a kit from distributor and I had all of the lines that I needed to complete the project. I am not sure if the pump will remain at this location or if I will move it to another location, but it is hooked up now and it works. The whole project cost about $1000 more than the electric brake option, but I figure that if I have to stop quickly, I want to have the full stopping power of disc brakes. If I stop in an emergency and fail to stop in time, I will know that I have done all that I can. It's my family's safety that counts.

2007-04-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

Well it's now time to start on the project. My first attack was to get rid of the interior. I'm not the kind of person that likes the 70's shag and gold furniture. The first thing I did was to start with the carpet. It was a brown shag. I just ripped it out along with a bunch of smell. Then I started at the front and started tearing out the furniture. The front gaucho and folding tables came out with little trouble. They were just screwed to the floor and I dont think I removed a single rivet to get them out. As I took all the stuff out, I put it all on a skid and weighed everything that I removed. My goal is to make sure that when I build the new interior, I stay close to the weight that I removed. On the first day of removal, I got all the carpet and removed everything back to the front door.

2007-03-24T16:56:00.000-07:00

Here's the story. My brother Mark told me about a person in his community that had an old Airstream and she was interested in selling. We both went over in November of 2006 and looked at the Airstream. It was in pretty bad shape. The old lady took us on a tour and told us that she and her husband used to use it all the time. It was in pretty tough shape and I did not know enough about the restoration process, so I did not make her an offer. In the spring, after a bunch of research, I asked my brother if the lady was interested in selling. He said that she passed away a few weeks prior and I then contacted the executor of her estate. It was her cousin and when I contacted him, he was more than willing to sell it to me. It was sitting on 4 flat tires under a tree and had not budged an inch since 92'. After re-inspecting the trailer and assessing what I thought it would need, I made him an offer that I thought was a fair offer for both of us. We shook on it and I then started the process. The first thing I needed to do was to get the thing out of the yard. I went over there with a few floor jacks, jack stands and an air compressor. The tires were shot. 15 years being exposed to weather and UV is too much to ask for tires. I then pulled all 4 tires and threw the rims in the truck and bought 4 new Carlisle trailer tires. A few days later I put the tires back on the trailer and hooked it up to my truck. I had downloaded the wiring diagram for the trailer and made up the connection to the truck. The brake lights did not work, so I went inside the trailer and started to work on the fuse panel. I eventually got the brake lights to work, so I started to pull it out of the yard.

March 24, 2007
My first destination was about 10 miles over to my parents house. I called them to ask if I could drop the trailer in their driveway. They were not home, so I just unhooked it and left the green slime covered crappy trailer in their driveway. Needless to say, my mother was not pleased when she got home. The next day I went over and started the cleaning process. I got the power washer out and started blasting.

Before Cleaning:
This is what it looked like after sitting under a tree for 15 years. It was a nasty green slime. It was a fairly simple process. I power washed the whole trailer and the grime just blasted off and looked great. I took care to power wash over the seams, so as not to disturb the seals between the panels. After I got the trailer power washed, I have to admit that I thought it looked pretty good. Sadly it does not look as good as the picture. You will see later that I have much more work left to do.

First Blog entry

2007-03-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

Well its November of 08' and I'm finally going to blog my Airstream makeover. In the next few weeks I plan on documenting all of the work that I have done up to this point. After that, hopefully I can document the completion of this project.

I guess you ask.. "Why would E-Rock start a project like this?" Well, I guess I have to say that its for the family. When I was growing up our family went camping. We never went on fancy vacations to Disney or overseas. We were not rich or poor but my father worked for P&G. Have you ever met someone that worked there that was not cheep? My dad would take 2 weeks every summer to take the family camping. We went camping! Not in a fancy RV, but tent camping! Dad and Mom always said that if you had an RV, Popups or campers, you were not really camping. Jump to the future.

In 97' I was purchasing some equipment for my company and noticed that the dealer had a pop-up camper in the lot. My brother Mark was with me and we both decided on the spot to purchase the used pop-up. It was re-po'ed and we got a serious deal. We both figured that if our wives did not like camping, we could just sell it and still make a few bucks. As it turns out, both of our families like to go camping. My 2 boys can't get enough of camping. They love it. I like the pop-up a lot, but wanted something more. I have always liked the Airstreams. They are considered by everyone in the RV industry to be the best of the best. I like to have the best, so the search started for an Airstream. A new 31' Airstream starts around 80K. I love camping, but I'm not exaclty in a finincial position to spend that kind of money on something that we will use a handful of times a year. So that left me with the possibility of rehabing a used one.

My intention was to buy one, put in a new interior and use it. It has become a bigger project than I had ever imagined. I tear one thing out, just to find newer and bigger problems. Well at this point I'm completely gutted and the belly pan down. Not much more to tear apart. If I get some time, not likely with 2 young boys, I will update my progress as I go.