1977 Safari restoration

[Zeppelinium]

Malcolm, it will be about three weeks before I start the tank. The materials arrive pretty quickly after the order, but it's a trip up to Ft Collins to get it and I'm going to combine that with getting some 0.032 2024, which won't be available until then. I will certainly post all the details. Welding the fresh tank and especially getting the tab to weld on made me think I could actually do a tank myself. But we all know welding a small tab versus getting a perfect weld along some 80" of seam are quite different stories.

OK, today it got really cold, so I'm going to pursue some side projects. First one is replacing the worn out battery boxes. The doors are cast aluminum and are in exellent shape, plus the two holes in the shell motivate me to see if I can replace the boxes. The doors are sturdy, a have a bottom edge thta matches the trim belt, and have a convenient flange on their inside face that are perfect for riveting a sheet metal box to the frame:



I checked at Wally Mart and they have an $8 plastic battery case that will fit snugly inside such a box. With the ten rectangular box sides in the drawing and some 3/4" aluminum angle from HD, I think the box can be riveted up pretty quickly. The case will contain any spills and can slide in and out. There will be enough clearance over the top to allow for sufficient slack wire.



Zep

[malconium]

Zep,

It occurs to me to wonder if it is possible to bend the poly material - perhaps aided by a low setting on your hot air welding tool. Have you been thinking of doing something like that to reduce the actual amount of joints where welding is required? It sounds like you might have been given the number of inches of weld you mentioned.

Your battery box idea looks like a good solution. Your battery door is entirely different than what I have on my '73 though. My door is about half below the beltline and half above with the hinges actually underneath and inboard by maybe 8" or 10". I checked my photos and found that the only one I have at the moment is not a very good one. It is a very small part of the photo I took on the day that I picked up my unit from the previous owner. Note the grass growing up around the bottom of the trailer in the attached photo.

Malcolm

[Zeppelinium]

Originally Posted by malconium

...It occurs to me to wonder if it is possible to bend the poly material - perhaps aided by a low setting on your hot air welding tool. Have you been thinking of doing something like that to reduce the actual amount of joints where welding is required? It sounds like you might have been given the number of inches of weld you mentioned.

No, I've got lots of folds in my preliminary plans. The total weld length depends on whether I make the tank as a rectangle with just one channel in the top to allow for the frame member, or whether the tank is "L" shaped for a little more volume. At a minimum you have a weld along three edges of the top and the four vertical corners. The good news is that the pattern for a totally folded tank will fit on a 4x8 sheet of poly. (More drawings to come.)

Originally Posted by malconium

Your battery box idea looks like a good solution. Your battery door is entirely different than what I have on my '73 though. My door is about half below the beltline and half above with the hinges actually underneath and inboard by maybe 8" or 10". I checked my photos and found that the only one I have at the moment is not a very good one. It is a very small part of the photo I took on the day that I picked up my unit from the previous owner. Note the grass growing up around the bottom of the trailer in the attached photo. Malcolm

My Sovereign and Overlander have the same battery box/door as yours. I've mentioned elsewhere that this door has a piano hinge at the bottom which is under a good bit of stress. When the pop rivets fail, the door completely unlatches and it's goodbye battery. If you're lucky the door's steel support cables will retain the door and all you need is a new battery. The rivets in this hinge ought to be checked every year. I've seen at least one post in the last six months where a member lost the door, too.

The PO of my Overlander added a second battery in a box that looks very much like these Safari battery boxes. But after taking the Safari apart, it appears that these are factory originals in the Safari.

Zep

[Zeppelinium]

I think my marbles have rolled off into a dark corner, I would have sworn I posted these tank ideas...

The space in the Safarai for a a gray tank is quite big--the simplest tank with no provision for the 1-1/2x1-/14 frame stringers would still hold about 18 gallons, twice the size of the stock tank. If you pushed the envelope you could get more than 30 gallons and still have room for a maintainable dump valve installation. My preliminary design ideas are:

--Max: about 28 gallons
--Basic: about 23 gallons (only 38" long, rather than the diagram's 42")
--Sloped: about 21 gallons (ditto, but the sloped bottom gets the crud out)
--Simple: about 18 gallons (no drawing yet, but it has no channel in the top)







Zep

[Aerowood]

Originally Posted by Zeppelinium

Malcolm, it will be about three weeks before I start the tank. The materials arrive pretty quickly after the order, but it's a trip up to Ft Collins to get it and I'm going to combine that with getting some 0.032 2024, which won't be available until then. I will certainly post all the details. Welding the fresh tank and especially getting the tab to weld on made me think I could actually do a tank myself. But we all know welding a small tab versus getting a perfect weld along some 80" of seam are quite different stories.

OK, today it got really cold, so I'm going to pursue some side projects. First one is replacing the worn out battery boxes. The doors are cast aluminum and are in exellent shape, plus the two holes in the shell motivate me to see if I can replace the boxes. The doors are sturdy, a have a bottom edge thta matches the trim belt, and have a convenient flange on their inside face that are perfect for riveting a sheet metal box to the frame:

Attachment 54160Attachment 54161

I checked at Wally Mart and they have an $8 plastic battery case that will fit snugly inside such a box. With the ten rectangular box sides in the drawing and some 3/4" aluminum angle from HD, I think the box can be riveted up pretty quickly. The case will contain any spills and can slide in and out. There will be enough clearance over the top to allow for sufficient slack wire.

Attachment 54162

Zep

Zep do you need me to bend those boxes up for you? If you can get a door up to me I can make you up a kit, you'll just have to rivet them together.

[Zeppelinium]

Kip, thanks so much for the offer. I was going to entice you with an offer of a wing window! I still will.

I think the panels ought to be something like 0.070. If we used some non-annealed materiel maybe we could bend a few flanges on the edges.

Zep

[Zeppelinium]

Warm day here today! Yay (that's yiddish for Yea or maybe Yeah).

Got the skirt taped to the shell for keeping the underbelly warm in preparation for POR-15. I noticed on the Metal Ready instructions that the phosphate likes to be 70+ degrees. I'd also like to get two coats of POR on in one day, so I'll provide heat with a propane construction heater blowing under the belly. It was right toastie today in the test.



In other news, got up on top and got the middle vent out (1 hour) and then one wing window out (1 hour: 30 minutes for rivets, 20 minutes for the slider/joint, 10 minutes to push against the white goop). The Wings are going bye bye, since the bed will be up front and they are a pain to drape, leak, and are next to impossible to fix. With one square window up front the Safari will look sorta 60s and sorta odd--hope this works out.

I'm thinking about the vents. Using modern vents with the larger throats and a Fantastic Fan, I don't see a need for three vents in a trailer this size. The forward vent would be right over the bed, risking a wet bed if the vent is inadvertently left open and the rain comes. Maybe a vent in the middle and a Fantastic Fan aft (sucks the odors in the right direction) would be sufficient? As an example, my Sovereign now has two Fantastic Fans and no middle vent (patched that sucker over) and that seemed to work fine last year.

Zep

[malconium]

Zep,

I see in your drawing that some of your fittings are slip fit and some are not. Have you found a source for weld on tank fittings?

Malcolm

[Zeppelinium]

Inland Andy says he has them, but they are not in his online listing. When I get a little closer to the task, I'll chat him up.

I doubt that I can get the slip fittings--they are part of the rotation molding process. I might cut them off of the old gray tank. The alternative is to use threaded fittings and either rubber couplers or screw-type coupler fittings. with the new tank there is room for either.

Zep

[AirstreamGypsy]

Number 1500...

[malconium]

Originally Posted by Zeppelinium

Inland Andy says he has them, but they are not in his online listing. When I get a little closer to the task, I'll chat him up.

I doubt that I can get the slip fittings--they are part of the rotation molding process. I might cut them off of the old gray tank. The alternative is to use threaded fittings and either rubber couplers or screw-type coupler fittings. with the new tank there is room for either.

Zep

These folks have slip fittings:

Holding Tank Accessories

- RV PARTS OUTLET

I kind of like the idea of weld on fittings though.

Malcolm

[timmy67]

Hi Zep. First off I'm blown away by all the work you are doing and how quickly things seem to get done. I have a questions about this project and I don't want to hyjack this thread but what are going to do with the trailer when it's finished? Or, is this a project for someone else?

Tim

[Zeppelinium]

Tim, thanks for the kind words but I'm spending way too much time in front of the computer and looking out the window at the snow... I ought to be out in the shop a lot more!

The Safari is for me. I did the Overlander first because I was living in it on a job in Nevada. Then came the Caravel as a more thoughtful and higher quality job. But the Safari is the gem. After 100,000 miles of towing the first two, I decided I wanted a two axle trailer, as short as possible. I have a Sovereign half-done, but I've decided that although the midbath is super desirable, it's a bit big and will be consigned to a friend's place near Reno so I can more easily take it to Burning Man.

Maybe next year I can get a 60s Tradewind...

Zep

[tkendall]

Zep is a good man. He deserves the time to sit and look at the snow. Now that was enough, back to work! Many of us use you as inspiration. Don't let us down!

I can get you the fittings also if you want. If you are using a new tank, I can get the friction weld fittings and the bits for them also. Let me know if your interested. One of my distributors has it all. Just no for an Airstream.

Enjoy the snow.

[Zeppelinium]

hopeful exuberance here in Zeppelinium land today!

I cut a panel to approximate the wing window size from 2024-T3. As noted above, the full sheet wouldn't even come close to curving into the shape of the shell. I was thinking maybe the smaller piece would do better. Before I could try it out, Aerowood loaned me his roller tool and suggested I give it a try on a shot bag. Not having a shot bag, I settled on a piece of my firm rubber floor mat.

Viola! In about 10 minutes of rolling and a few more minutes running in and out to the Overlander to see if I was getting and effective compound curve, it looks like it's working. I won't be able to fit it to the Safari until Wednesday.



The technique is to put your full weight on the roller and move it rapidly (maybe speed has nothing to do with it) back and forth along the lines shown in the photo. Actually, there was a fair amount of orthogonal rolling cross ways and length way, too. The objective was to get the sheet to deform outward [very slightly] approximately where the gray lines converge. This would force the upper outside corner to bend inward the 1/2" that was required.

From the photo it may appear that the panel is only single curved, but even though it's curved more in the lengthwise direction, it's also curved cross-wise, just not as much. Once I can put the panel against the shell I'll see how much more rolling is needed, if any.

The green lines show where the panel edges conformed to the shell without any rolling at all. As you can see, the area of curvature is quite limited.

Zep

[Jim & Susan]

Looking good, Zep.

[2333]

...caught up on your thread today. Impressed with how your tackling complex problems; welding tanks, battery boxes, and now compound curves? wow.

[Zeppelinium]

Unbelievable, but the panel fits almost exactly. Normal spring type clecos were sufficient to pull the panel tight to the shell. Kip, my hat's off to you for your tool and your suggestion--I didn' tthink it was possible. Here is the untrimmed panel (1/4 to 1/2 inch extra on three sides) installed with clecos:



Not wanting to get back to [ugh] sanding the frame, I took some time to admire the panel--sorta ick. I am now thinking that maybe it would be a great esthetic to cut the panel in half along the line shown below (with suitable overlap, etc.) and to extend it at the corners to look more like an original panel than a window cover. The rivet line would be a natural extension of the existing dome joint and might attrack the eye in a positive way. It's no Buck Rogers helmet, a la a Wee Wind, but it borrows from that tradition. What thinks the peanut gallery?



Zep

[Aerowood]

I kinda like the one piece better

[fotochop]

yeah, I vote for one piece too. cleaner. K.I.S.S. etc etc

props, dude. nice work. you and Kip can tour the west as Butch and Sundance. Have rivet gun will travel. all Coloradoans should be proud ;-)

now I gotta go do some ick myself and sand a frame...