Hmm, I've been very neglectful of this thread, probably out of shame at my incredibly slow progress. Actually I spent a lot of the last year driving to LA all the time and then rearranging our house after my girlfriend moved up from LA, so I have some excuse for my lackadaisical attitude. I've been working on it again lately although full weekends have been hard to come by...
But let's see: I patched the big hole left where I removed the original water heater:
Not a bad job if I do say so myself. Getting it all to stay flat and sealed was a bit of a chore but I got it there in the end.
I replaced the door drip rail finally after patching the big crack in the skin over the door:
The patch also wound up needing a couple of fake rivets because I drilled the holes too close to the door frame. You can see them here:
They're glued in place. Worked fine, nobody will ever know (except you all - oh well!), and the patch is quite firmly secured by all the other rivets. You can see there that I had to grind off one rivet that wound up being in the path of the drip rail, too.
I also (rather messily but effectively) replaced the door seal with the one from V.T.S., which needed a bit of squashing & trimming to get it to close, and needed weatherstrip adhesive because the original self-adhesive backing wasn't up to the job, but has sealed admirably well once it got into shape - closing the door requires a bit of a slam, but I can accept that if I get a good seal out of the deal.
I covered a few things I hadn't finished patching with aluminum tape and I was pleased to find no leaks at all during the winter, when we did have quite a bit of rain. I may have found one since then, but I have yet to pin down where it is - I suspect it's from a loose rivet in the roof somewhere, and when I get up there I'll look around for it.
I still haven't finished fixing the front cabinet frame but here was a test fit when I was trying to see how it'll all look in the end:
Ah, nobody likes my taste in green, but that's okay, I like it and if some future owner doesn't, they know where to buy their own paint...
One of my cats visited briefly;
He was not impressed but then, he's a cat, what does he know?
I bought two Fantastic Fans to replace the (original) roof vents, after visiting a few other trailers at Burning Man in 2007 and finding that the only one that wasn't stiflingly hot inside was the one with a Fantastic Fan installed. Haven't put mine in yet though and time is ticking away, but I'm sure it won't take too long... I'll also have two working original fans if anyone wants them.
I did some plumbing - this is the water heater, water pump, and kitchen faucet:
This is the city water inlet, pressure regulator, water filter, and tank fill area:
And here's the area under the bathtub and the bathroom sink:
I did a leak test - yep, it leaks - and still need to fix the one or two places where I found leaks, but most of the joints were fine including everything around the water heater and pump.
Still no tanks though! For Burning Man this year I will probably use a water barrel connected to the water pump and a portable grey tank, or a big container with a sump pump to dump it into our shared grey-water barrel. I'd like to have onboard tanks, but I have a lot of other things to do too...
And I'm working on the kitchen. I decided in the end to use cut-up Ikea kitchen cabinets for this, even though they're heavy because they use a lot of 3/4" particleboard. However, the weight is reduced a lot by cutting them up to fit, and given my fine-finish cabinetmaking skills - that is, my total lack of them - I thought it was the best approach given my constraints of time, money, and skills...
Here's an overview - not quite up to date, but the most recent photo I have on hand:
You can see here how the cabinets that go over the water heater and water pump are cut down:
The vertical piece in front of the heater is fixed, but the valves are still accessible; the shelf is removable. When I have the time, all the particleboard shelves will be replaced with lighter plywood, and there are various other weight-saving changes, but for now it's fine.
The cabinets are not nearly as heavy as you might think - somewhat heavier than the originals, but not all that much. I think it's going to be fine.
It's perhaps not clear from the earlier photos just how much water damage there was to the original cabinets. Virtually everything made of plywood in the interior was unusable because it was falling apart, warped, stained, or some combination of the above. It looked okay as long as you didn't look too close. Some of the hardwood frames are going to be re-usable - for instance for the overhead cabinets - but most of the panels need replacing, and for the kitchen cabinets there was pretty much nothing left that was usable.
I've done more since those photos, and in fact most of the kitchen is ready to be permanently installed as soon as the bathtub is fixed in place. There's a floor-to-ceiling cabinet I need to cut down for next to the bathtub - replacing the original wardrobe cabinet - which is a tricky job, but I have the patterns copied from the original cabinet side panels and so I should be able to get it to work.
Then I have drain plumbing which I'm also working on, but again that's fairly straightforward...
One of the jobs I've been putting off because I hate working with smelly chemicals was using the penetrating floor sealer on the places where there was some floor rot but not bad enough to actually replace it. It seemed to work pretty well, especially in the places where I was basically pouring it onto the floor in a thick layer to soak in - it does seem to have penetrated somewhat, and if nothing else it'll serve to keep water out from above and to hold the floor together structurally. Worth the effort, I think.
I painted the corner wall section above the bathtub with orange two-part POR-15 waterproof paint - I rather like it, but of course, millions wouldn't. The bathtub and kitchen sink I think I am going to have professionally refinished in white to match the toilet - and hopefully I can have all that stuff done in the next two months.
I put in a new circuit breaker box with all combination AFCI/GFCI breakers:
That will of course be inside a cabinet.
And I'm getting ready to do the propane plumbing. My plan so far is to use the pre-assembled, pre-tested propane hoses sold by West Marine for boats - after the regulator, one short hose will go to a manifold and set of shutoff valves near the front of the trailer, and then each appliance will have its own long hose running underneath the trailer and up through the floor. This way there is no copper plumbing or flaring needed. The other alternative I looked at was coated stainless steel flex, but I would need a professional to install it and the West Marine hoses ought to be just as good for this application.
The cost will be higher than copper pipe, but not unreasonable - under $300 for the hoses, manifold, and valves for three appliances - the water heater, cooker, and fridge. I'm pretty eager to test the fridge on propane before committing to installing it - I'd rather not have to buy a $1,000 replacement, even though the old one is pretty worn...
I have a plan for the floor - I'm going to use Marmoleum Click planks (in marbled black, the only colour that didn't clash horribly) which I think is appropriate (since the original had vinyl tiles) and will be fairly waterproof and very resilient. But that's going to happen after the cabinets are fixed, since I won't be installing it underneath them.
Anyway, things are coming along albeit somewhat slowly, and I'm sure some (or most!) of this offends the restoration purists out there, but like I say the original interior was really pretty trashed even though it superficially looked okay.
Oh, and most all of the cheap-looking birch-effect melamine at least outside the cabiets will be covered with thin panels of a nicer plywood, probably red oak to match the original woodwork. The countertop is a beech butcherblock again from Ikea, quite inexpensive, although I'll have to join two sections of it together to make the full countertop run.
I will have a few cabinets and maybe other parts that will be surplus after this, and will try to post a list and some photos.
Thanks for the detailed update, Jacob. I read your entire thread a couple of months ago, and when the updates stopped I wondered what had become of you and your restoration. Life does get in the way, doesn't it?
I don't know how far along you are with the installation of your Ikea cabinetry back in the trailer, but if you're looking for further ways to decrease weight, you could check out Sergei's thread for the "contemporization" of his Argosy. He, too, installed Ikea cabinets, and took some extensive measures to reduce their weight:
Thanks! I think his thread was the one that got me thinking about using them in the first place... I don't think I'm going to take such extensive measures to swiss-cheese mine because I like having the interior sides of the cabinets be solid and the overall weight is really not that much, although I think in a couple of places I will cut out most of the panel and glue a thin fiberboard/melamine sheet over it. The fiberboard can be cut from the back panels of the Ikea cabinets, because I'm not using it for the top half of the tall cabinets and even on the base cabinets it doesn't go all the way down because of the cut-outs for the wheel wells.
I like having the back panel in there at least for the lower cabinets though - covers up the water pipes, the wall, and the wheel-well boxes, and stops things falling down the back of the cabinets. I'm going to space them about 4" off the ground (unlike the originals which went right to the floor) with legs so you don't want to lose stuff down there. I may use the space underneath for heating ducts once I get a furnace.
Oh yes, another thing to note - I also glued my cabinets when assembling with polyurethane glue - the Ikea knock-down fasteners are pretty strong but I didn't trust them to survive unlimited road vibrations. Mind you one of the nice things about the Ikea cabinets, doors, and fittings is that they have an almost idiot-proof alignment system and so it's very easy to get everything square - and the glue will keep it that way.
I'm not totally sold on the grey Formica/birch doors either. I bought them with the idea that I might refinish them with another colour Formica but I have yet to try that out - I am going to relaminate the table with new Formica as well, so I'll probably try one door at the same time as an experiment. Luckily Ikea offers lots of different door materials - though nothing that matches red oak - and I haven't spent that much on these yet.
For the legs, I am using (or attempting to use) these from Ikea:
The piece at the bottom is supposed to be screwed to the floor, and then the legs lock into it. Well, that's the idea, in practice I've had some difficulty with it because of the design of the leg and bolt. Some modifications may be required to get it to work but I think it'll do the trick. I have yet to decide if I should attach the back half of the cut-down cabinets to the wheel-well boxes or just depend on their attachment to the wall just below countertop level.
For the latter I've also attached some horizontal strips of (painted) oak to the wall to spread the load of the cabinet attachments - the wall metal is so brittle from age that sheet metal screws don't hold at all well in it except when they can be put into a rib, so I've used a lot of rivets to hold the oak strips on in between the ribs, and then the cabinets can be screwed to the strips. In the original kitchen the countertops, decaying cabinets, and insecurely-mounted cooker had pulled pretty much all of the sheet-metal screws out of the wall in the kitchen, which is the situation I'd like to avoid repeating.
Hey Zep, hopefully Jacob will chime in, but until then, I've installed Ikea cabinetry in my home and I can tell you that I believe the drawer glides come as part of the drawer assembly rather than as part of the cabinet assembly. If you understand the modular nature of the Ikea cabinet systems, that should make sense. I'm not sure if the glides can be sold separately or not, but you could definitely call Ikea and I'm sure they can help you.
One nice thing about the Ikea drawer systems is that they are spring-loaded to pull the drawer closed the last few inches. You can also buy dampeners (sold separately) to soften this effect, otherwise they snap closed pretty hard. Depending on the weight of items inside the drawer, this spring-loading MIGHT be enough to keep the drawers closed during trailer transit, but just to be sure I'd probably go ahead and use additional force like the rare earth magnets that I believe you and others on the board have used in the past. Or, obviously, you could install some kind of external closure mechanism as many people do, but that probably wouldn't maintain the clean look of the cabinetry.
Certainly not trying to speak for Jacob, just telling what I know.
The Ikea drawers and rails are pretty much indivisible as far as I can tell - the drawers have metal sides and a particleboard bottom panel and fit right into the rails. One of the nice things about the Ikea stuff is that it's auto-aligning for the most part and very few fine adjustments need to be made (although they are possible if you need to).
The drawers come in two types, one that attaches to a cosmetic drawer front and one that goes behind a cabinet door. They don't run the full 24" but leave about 3.5" at the back, which is convenient for me for plumbing and electrics, etc.
The drawers do have dampers that hold them closed, but I don't trust them e.g. on a long corner with a drawer full of cutlery. I like things that lock positively. Of course this means when you stop and start you need to unlock or lock whichever cabinets you use - I think that's okay though. An alternative for the doors would be to use the original knobs/catches that lock whenever you close them and twist to unlock, but I'm not sure if I could make those work with this setup.
Yesterday I bolted in the first four cabinets on the curb (kitchen) side - two more there, the countertop, doors, cooktop and sink to install, and then I have the fridge cabinet to do, and then I think I'll be focusing on the bed & bathroom plumbing...
A few cabinet photos here. Here's one of the reinforcing strip on the wall used to keep the cabinets from tearing out of the sheet aluminum:
Here's the water heater and water pump that will be under the sink & cooktop:
So I bolted in 5 of the 6 cabinets I've done so far. Here's an overview photo:
The one that's not installed is the closest to the camera, where I somehow misaligned it by about 1/2". I can fix that, I just didn't yet.
The other five are: 24" cooktop cabinet with water heater underneath, 24" sink cabinet with water pump underneath, a 30" cabinet, a 15" cabinet, then a 30" wide tall cabinet.
The fit of the tall cabinet is not perfect but I can fix it with trim, I think. And part of it will be covered by the overhead cabinets once they're back in.
The kitchen cabinets are very securely fastened - bolted to fittings that are then either bolted to the floor, screwed into a crossmember, or glued directly to the floor in a couple of cases. Then they're screwed into the wall too, although the floor fitting keeps them very rigid anyway. Then they're also bolted to each other at top and bottom at the front to hold them in alignment. All in all it works pretty well and I managed to get everything square and level pretty easily.
The grey tank will be just behind the wheels, so the sink plumbing had to run back (to the right in these photos) through the next two cabinets, and then down and towards the middle of the trailer to get it over the frame rail. Here's the trickiest part:
That's the drain coming in from the left, dropping off, under the shelf it turns towards the camera and then drops through the floor, and a vent pipe goes up and into the wardrobe to the right and eventually through the roof.
You can also see that I had to route the water pipes through the cabinets too.
I tested the drain plumbing and it seems to work - doesn't leak, water comes out the right place underneath, so that's good... it would be better if it were going into, say, a tank, but that's another whole task.
So the next job is to fix the last cabinet and join the two pieces of countertop and install them, then put in the sink, cooktop, and finish up the plumbing here. Hopefully I'll be able to do a full test of the sink soon which is pretty exciting (in a boring way) since I never actually used the original sink (owing to the huge leaks everywhere in the original water system).
I fixed/simplified another piece of plumbing going from the water inlet to the sediment filter, here:
PEX bends. Useful to remember that! The valve here will connect to the freshwater tank fill pipe which will eventually be here too, so that it should be easy to fill the tank with filtered water when hooked up to city water with the hose inlet. In fact I doubt I'll ever use the fill inlet itself.
After the kitchen, the bathroom, the bed, and the fridge all demand attention. Not exactly sure which one will get it first, though.
Hello, I think this is my first forum post here, although I've been mining for information for a while...
I just bought a 1964 Overlander having wanted an Airstream for 10 or 15 years now, even before I moved to the US from England about 7 years ago - they're pretty famous there too. I'm very happy to have it, and of course it needs some work, so here we go.
Unfortunately, your axles are shot, as they are or will be on most all pre 1969 Airstreams.
The first project, unless you will have the trailer stored inside, is to make the exterior completely waterproof.
Gaskets, etc, are a must.
Ahhh, it's too early in the morning. I did not see the date of your original post.
Heh. It's watertight now - but it wasn't for a long time during the winter of '06. But then, it was also indoors at the time.
I know the axles need replacement, yeah. It'll be a while before I get to that - they're adequate for the demanding task of sitting in my driveway, and they did fine in the 1400 miles I towed it from Texas, although very likely they contributed to vibration damage before I owned it. Well, that and the large rotted sections of floor. Not to mention the hail damage to the roof in Texas - you can't see it unless pointed out, but the roofline is wavy where the hailstones must have dented it between the ribs. The damage to the air conditioner shroud is much more apparent - big, big holes smashed in it... another thing that needs replacement, but not urgently given that Northern California weather rarely calls for A/C. And hopefully the new fans will cover most situations anyway - I'm mostly happy even at much higher ambient temperatures, it's just when enclosed spaces turn into ovens from trapped heat that there's a problem.
You can see that I took off the black plastic foot exposing a 12mm bolt, and used stacks of washers to level them - they come with a nut that's supposed to be used for that, but I found it unusable except when the rise needed was more than an inch or so. They also have square sleeves that drop down over the feet which I didn't bother using because I'll be putting a kick panel over them in front, and a side panel that goes to the floor on the end.
The hole in the bottom used to attach it to the floor is just about right for a 1/4" bolt, or one of the self-tapping floor screws sold by V.T.S. for screwing into steel crossmembers.
The cabinets are their standard kitchen cabinets, the Akurum line. The doors are Sorbo and selected mostly for their, uh, inexpensiveness. I'm still not sure I'm happy with them, but they sure are cheap. And I may try relaminating them. I do like the Ulriksdal ridged oak doors but they're very expensive...
Summer use - I do plan to take it to Burning Man this year although I still don't have a truck. But this is a great time to buy a truck! I think I'm going to look for a used F250 diesel... the price premium over an F150 is not that much and too much truck seems like just enough, you know? An F150 would be fine, but...
Anyway, not much time before then! Obviously not much will be finished by then but I'm hoping to be able to use the kitchen and shower and maybe the bed. I have the previous water tank I can just throw in the back and run a hose from, and will probably use a portable greywater tank for wastewater, then carry it home in the truck and dump there. And you know, it looks pretty good from the outside so who has to know that it lacks a lot of important things on the inside? It's a big metal tent!
So, over the weekend I worked moderately hard, fixed the last cabinet with a lot of swearing and wrestling and still couldn't get it precisely aligned with the one next to it, but it's less than an 1/8th of an inch and only at the bottom, and I think I can adjust the doors to conceal it. I also cut and joined the countertop pieces, which went surprisingly well. Here's the join:
Here's a few photos of the whole kitchen - yes, I do know that the drawer handles are misaligned, the result of some measurement stupidity of course - I'll fix them or replace the drawer fronts...
I like the more open kitchen with the countertop running right back to the wardrobe better than the original with a divider there:
Of course, the overhead cabinets need to go back in as well.
And here's a photo of my cat in a bowl demonstrating that my liking for strange greens is not limited to just the Airstream:
OK, that was really just an excuse to post that photo. He's a funny cat.
I attached the countertop firmly to the cabinets and installed the sink and cooktop; the sink is fully plumbed in now, the cooktop doesn't have propane yet (neither does anythng else); obviously there will be a shelf in this cabinet once I've cut the slot for the tailpiece and water lines:
I poured a few pints of water down the sink; nothing leaks and the water drains successfully out where the grey tank will be, under the floor. I used silicone on all the strainer, tailpiece & P-trap joints because of its combination of flexibility and adhesive qualities.
Here's the cooktop cabinet interior - the only thing running inside this will be the gas line to the cooker:
Underneath that is the water heater and a bunch of plumbing bits. The shelf removes for access to those. I plan on putting a couple of bars across the shallow part of the cabinet at the bottom so bottles and other small vertical stuff can be stored there without falling out.
Here's the one place where I worked at weight-saving, in the bottom of the drawer cabinet:
I screwed that panel of thin laminated fiberboard down over the hole and it looks fine, not that anyone will see it anyway.
So, more doors, a couple more shelves and stuff for the wardrobe cabinet (and a hanger rail), a toekick, sanding and oiling the countertop, and then I am done for now with that side. Obviously later I will want to trim all the countertop/wall connections, put a side panel on the last cabinet, and so on, but I need to move on to other tasks. I'm pretty pleased with the whole thing actually.
I also worked a little on the cabinet above the front window; this is just a face panel, really, with the cabinet box itself being formed from the fiberglass of the inside end cap. The frame was solid enough but all the panels - like pretty much all the original plywood - was rotted and delaminating. So, I set to copying the rounded panels with a router and a copying bit, and glued one of them back in place so far:
The doors will also be replaced. I also sanded the red oak frame a little and under the very dark lacquer or varnish the wood was much lighter and more cheerful, so I intend to sand and refinish all the solid wood parts as I go. I used birch for the front panel, which I think looks okay, although I may stain it a shade or two darker.
I'll have to do the same for all the other overhead cabinets, and for those I'll also have to replace the bottom and side panels, which were 1/4" plywood. Shouldn't be too hard though.
Finally, I added a new lamp underneath the front cabinet, a 110V-only 5-spot halogen fixture that uses the sealed GU10 bulbs - there are other 12V lights but this one will be useful when on outside power. Hopefully it won't be right at head level when you're sitting on the couch...:
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