Is GSM doing the full Monty?

That was the question a good friend asked me yesterday and the answer is no. I'm having GSM do some very specific work that will help me jump stat this restoration process. Colin and crew are doing the "heavy lift and load" portion of the restoration and then I will focus in on the remainder of the less heavy work.

Here's an update on my frame, it's not as bad as it looks. The rear two feet is gone and the A frame will need to be rebuilt with a new coupler. In one of the pictures, the wheel well looked pretty bad and it is, but the rust did not eat the main frame rail or outrigger. The rest is in solid shape, which makes me a little more at ease since I had worried about it being much, much worse.

Here's a summary of the work, I'm having done:

Frame
- Mend & Rehab frame. Sand, Seal, and Paint w/ POR15
-Replace last two feet of frame and associated cross members.
- Replace front A-Frame and install new 2" coupler & safety chains.
- Re-use existing bumper (sand, sealed, and painted to match).
- Install inner frame rails front to back.
- Craft rear receiver for future bike rack. Rack to be purchased & installed by owner.
- Craft underneath tire carrier.
- Strengthen rear to accommodate above floor black tank. Estimated capacity 20 gal.
- Craft custom stainless grey tanks w/ baffles.
- Estimated capacity at 30 gallons (5'x3'x4").
- Inlet under galley sink cabinet with vent in closet.
- Outlet plumbed directly rear.
- Install power tongue jack, supplied by owner.
- Rehab wheel wells.

Axle, Springs, Brakes
- Rebuild/replace as needed.
- Wire in new 7 pin round, include brake/signal, and marker lights.

Floor
- Marine Grade Plywood Floor. Sealed with exterior or marine grade preservative
- Interior cover and secure with 8mm plastic sheeting. To be used as protection during future construction work.

Belly Skin
- Wrap outriggers to main frame rails.
- Insulate with reflective bubble and ridgid foam insulation all areas covered by belly skin.
* Bubble insulation applied first followed by 2" rigid pink foam insulation. Secure with Screwnails and adhesive.
- Cut to shape remaining belly skin components, but do not assemble. Leave middle open for future work by owner.


Vents
- Reseal with Vulkem weather tight.

Door
- Install new bargman door knob & lock assembly.
- Install new deadbolt assembly.
- Craft new hatch with port hole.

Made it to GSM

So the trip to Plattsburgh, albeit LONNNNNG, was more or less uneventul. I left at 4AM Sunday morning and shot out the Mass Pike and turned north on 87. For those of you considering the trip to Colin's, eat a lake George... there isn't much north of there until you hit Plattsburgh. Beutiful country but empty. I mentioned this to Colin and he suggested that if I had crashed the rig, that I should grab the plate and the ssn number and run.

I took my boxer Gimmie on the ride, but had forgotten his breakfast on the table. So feeling pretty bad about this I treated him to bacon and eggs at McDonalds. He enjoyed it but afterwards I did have to vent the cabin on a regular basis. Eggs and boxers make methane, as I found out. I've figured out why his little gumdrop tail wags so fast, it's an air methane distribution system. Good thing I didn't get him sausage ;)


So the to do list for my rig at Colin's sounds as if it is shorter than other peoples. Effectively, I am having his shop jump start my process by doing the heavy lift and load work, as well as some finer work around the hatch and potentially new stainless grey water tanks built into the frame. As I have written before, I would like to make the 2008 season with the rig and avoid becoming one of the vintage restoration casualties.

I recently read a thread on airstreamforums about a fella out west working on a cruiser who just ran out of steam and life presented him with other priorities. I think he was mulling over the option of selling it, which I hope he does not. A good friend of mine, who is from Connecticut and redid his 59, posted some good words of advice, which was keep the project and on occassion go sit and think in it. I personally believe this is the best advice and that when you reach the valley of depair or just run out of funds, put the rig aside and work on it later. The one thing I am very much enjoying is the visualization and planning process that is going into this trailer. For me it's like a playing a puzzle and exercising that part of my brain, which my job has ceased to do. I would like to do this rig right and make changes to it that complements the past while preserving it for another 50 years. Taking a little extra time to figure out all the details will pay off over the long haul. I will have to remind myself to read this post in another 8 months.



Here are a couple updated pictures.

Zolatone, Holy Crap This Stuff is Hard

My prep work is done for towing the Carvanner to GSM, but I like to keep busy after the kids go to bed. Last night I took the overhead cabinets outside to start sanding them down. The plan is to reface the upper cabinets with 1/8 birch, which is what they were built out of originally. I intend to use west epoxy to adhere the new birch to the old cabinets. Anyways, I started with a 60 grit random orbital sander and that did not do very good. I switched to the belt sander and was very surprised how difficult it was to remove the zolatone coating. Now I know why they used this to coat the interior... the stuff is as tuff as nails.

Hold the phone, one more project!

I had the opportunity to chat with Rich Luhr at the last unit Rally in Vermont and during the campfire one night, Rich spun his tale of tires and lugs. Now for all of us with trailers, especially single axles, this was a scary story. You're tooling down a steep and twisty hill and you here *ping* and in the rear view see your tire shoot off into the distant.... Aparently his lugs were over torqued and busted off during the trip.

Having that in the back of my mind and chatting with my wife last night, who insisted that I repair the lugs before the trip, I decided to learn how to do this job. I got out this morning at 6:30AM and took off the wheel and hub. Went back into the shop and examined it closely to see that they studs are just held in place via grooves. A couple good whacks with a heavy hammer and out they came. 8:00AM I was down to the local Car Quest store and Steve sorted out which ones I needed. 8:30AM I was back in the shop and pounded the new studs in place. Done. After work tonight, I'll put it all back together.

What an easy job! I might just have to carry some spares with me for the future.

The carquest part number was DOR 610-096 for the stud and DOR 611-014 for the nut.

Ready To Roll

Sunday night and I feel like I'm ready to roll to Colin's shop. I completed all my tasks I set out to do this weekend, which included: Greasing both barrings, replacing the tires, finish removing the lower interior panels, trashing the old insulation, wiring the rear lights, installing a new hand jack, and torquing all the lugs.


Crikey, isn't she a beauty!


The jack was a good find at Lowes. $26 for a nice Reese jack, much cheaper than camping world or my local supply store (RH Scales & Company).



Nothing in the front.....



Nothing in the rear..... errrrr


MY own invention for piece of mind, since the PO who replaced the floor never slid it under the C channel. Gotta hold it together.

Slow down, read the lug....

So here I am all excited that I just greased a barring and did a good job. So I moved onto the curb side to start the same process on the other tire. Put the wrench on the lug nuts and humph... no go. Go again, nothing. Damn these are tight.. Okay move to the next lug over, tried that.. *POP* off comes the nut with the stud. The Darn Threads were LEFT hand threads not RIGHT. 100% one of those moments where if I did not have a lug wrench in my hand, I would have whacked myself in the forehead for not reading the obvious! So now I have five lugs/studs versus six.

What is a guy supposed to do, try to replace it before I haul it to Colins or let it ride..... I'm inclined to let it ride and let Colin fix it when it gets to his shop. With my luck, I'll bust something else.

In any event, I'm off to Lowes/Home Depot this morning to buy a good torque wrench. To many recent stories of things popping off on the road.

Cheers,

Doug

One Man, One Drill, and a Light

Over the last couple evenings after dinner, I've gone out to the rig and started taking apart the interior panels. Before I could do this I had to remove the upper cabinets and that brings up my first tangent, quality.

It's funny to read on airstream forums the discussions about new model quality and of course some vintage snob chiming in that quality was SO much better on the older units. HA, I say! Quality on the old units was shell deep and that's it. The interior components were not high quality. A good example are the cabinets, hardwood veneer, hardwood faces and pine frames. The funny part is that most of the cabinets were never sanded, except for the face frame. The dovetails used for the drawers look like a high school student tried his hand at dovetailing. You might ask, well are they original? Yes they are, all the components were stamped with the serial number of the rig, so I know they all match up.

Going back to the original theme of this post, it's not very hard to remove the interior panels. Just a good drill and a sharp bit. For me the worst part was removing the insulation, which I have some allegy to. It might be the dried mouse shit/pee and dust that sets me off but after working in there, I can feel my chest squeeze.....

This weekend will be spent regreasing the barrings and getting the rig ready to tow to Plattsburgh, NY in two weeks.



Ancient Airsream Hyrogliffs

GSM Bound

Time. It's something that I seem to have little of these days and with the days getting shorter I made the decision that in order to make the 2008 season for camping, I needed to get a jump start on this project. Some people will not agree with me that this is the right decision, but rather than spending next summer working on my 56's frame and then rushing to put the interior back in I am sending it to Colin's shop to do the frame work over the winter. Plus the rig will be out of my yard for the snowy months.

I'm going to stick with my original frame and rehab it as needed. After seeing Steve's frame work done, I think mine is usable going forward.

So now I need to rush to get the interior panels labelled and removed. Install new wheels/tires, grease the barrings, and install a new electric jack (since I had to remove the other POS when I moved it). I am also hoping to time the trip to Colin's shop so to catch up with Rob and Steve, when Rob drops off the Steve's parts trailer.

Doug

The 12 Step Program

I'm getting this feeling that Airstream restoration is like twelve step program, but the problem is no one tells you what those steps are!

So I have this job that is as boring as toast, but it never used to be this way. It pays the bills and gives me time to doodle on my notepad about interior designs, research items of interest (ala precisiontemp), and generally let my mind wonder about restoring the caravanner. The problem is that this is turning into a bit of an obsession and most of my waking time is spent considering different options for the rig...... help me!

My most recent foray into restoration was to take the cabinets into my shop and see what condition they're in and if they are reusable. All of the cabinets have some type of water damage on the bottom. The kitchen sink/stove cabinet are the worse and the panels on either end have dry rot. SO now comes the second step in the program, keep the original parts, scab on new pieces, and pray for a stain match or use the orig as a template and make new. I'm pretty good at cabinet making, so I'm leaning towards making new. The big design challen won't be coming up with a usable floor plan, but rather coming up with cabinets that look and feel the age of the trailer. One of the things these older units have is charm and I don't want to loose it all together.

The other good part about new projects is new tools! If you start a new project, you just have to go out and buy a new tool. Don't know what it will be, but I have my eye on a new router ;)

TTYL,

Doug