1984 Airstream 345 owner (Newbie) need advice!

[Keyair]

Got most of the bodyside moulding off...
Pictures of what is hiding behind...





Front too...



Looking better, I feel!




Cant help feeling those tail lamps could look better...
Triple pod LED trailer lamps, behind a smooth red cover...
That blink like the new Mustang units...
Dreaming....

[Keyair]

Took a break from studying to try to get a couple of areas finished...

Front roof is a MESS.
At least 3 big soft dents and what looks like hail damage too...
Its amazing what that horrible dull oxidized finish was hiding...
I will have to pull the interior trim out and massage it back from the inside in the future.

I got most of it rough cut quickly, but stuggled with the combo of silicon and other sealants around the top of windshield seal... trying to get it off without damaging the seal, or the aluminum was a pain!
Needed a scraper I have at home, so gave up.

Anyway... here is the ugliness... lucky its not so visble from the ground!

[Keyair]

Spent the rest of my limited time on the areas where the waist trim was..
I like the smooth look!
Wiped off the crud, then carefully scrapped off the sealant tape and glue, then compounded with coarse paste, the went over the whole thing with the HF DA buffer with coarse paste on a wool pad..
It works good!

There are still some deep scratches along where the trim was... I suspect that original faux wood decal was trimmed in position with a knife...

Front...




Rear.

[Keyair]

Also removed the lower trim on the rear corner so I can begine to figure out the repair on the ABS trim.
I think the bumper will need to come off, whicg is fine because it needs welding and refinishing.



Forgot to post this before...
Grabbed a couple of Chevy badges form the Junkyard last time I was there...

Trying to decide between this Blue one...
The center is cracked, so thought I could replace it with a new piece of perspex and back light it...


Or a simple traditional Gold/Chrome one..

[crazeevw]

Steve,
Now you've done it! I've been looking ath the trim on my motorhome and kept wondering how it would look without. At first, from your photos, I didn't know if I cared for the look, but once it was all cleaned up and polished, WOW! What a difference. Nice outside here in Florida, guess I should get outside and play in the Airstream!
Thanks, Derek

[Keyair]

Well, here is something to think about...
I like the clean aircraft look...
But, On the bodyside there is the riveted joint line...
Now the trim is gone on the front, I will need to take a good hard look at it with the badges back on and see if I am happy with it.
It may look better with the upper trim only, or maybe a pinstripe or something..

One thing I didcovered yesterday...
I pulled off the Banks Power badge...
Big old dent behind it... LOL, serves me right!
Maybe a Banks badge along with the 454 badges on the side will add 50HP!

[PeterH-Airstreamer]

Originally Posted by Keyair

Also removed the lower trim on the rear corner so I can begine to figure out the repair on the ABS trim.
I think the bumper will need to come off, whicg is fine because it needs welding and refinishing.

Steve, just for your info, I got 11 ++ years out of using just fiberglass and matting after stripping the old paint leaving the ABS rough for the fiberglass to hold on to. And that is in the Texas sun...

[Keyair]

Thanks for the feedback and pics Pete.
Looks great!

This side is just cracked and brittle, but all the pieces line up with a little help. I was thinking about removing the whole thing, but it looks like a bigger job than I hoped, so will try to fix it in place.
The plan was to get it all lined up and glass it as you suggested, but use the MEK/ABS slurry as a glue and wetting agent as it will melt into the surface. The curbside has a large hole in it, so that will be fun!
The rear bumper will have to come off first and I had limited time, so will do it another day.

[Keyair]

We had a pipe burst in the kitchen...
Good news is that part of the restoration involves them replacing the whole of the downstars Pergo flooring, so maybe we can salvage some for the Mh.
Last week, walked over to look at the old storage... the land is being regraded ready for the 2800 homes, and they are using whats is left to stage the earthmovers..




Not feeling good this week, so no progress, but some benchwork.
I am a little baffled by the non-start of the Kohler genset...

The Facet fuel pump filter was removed and found to be ok...



Still would not flow fuel.
On the bench, and it was working, but it refused to pull fuel up when remounted. assuming the worst, I swapped in another pump I had, and strangly, that would not pull fuel from the can either.

What I am looking at is the power feed to the pump, which upon reading the Kohler manual, is fed 12V from the + side of the coil.
Something odd is going on, as I am only getting 7v at the terminal upon cranking it..
Need to test further when feeling better.

[bkahler]

Steve, talk about coincidence, I worked on the 310 Kohler generator today due to fuse blowing issues.

Originally Posted by Keyair

We had a pipe burst in the kitchen...
Good news is that part of the restoration involves them replacing the whole of the downstars Pergo flooring, so maybe we can salvage some for the Mh.
Last week, walked over to look at the old storage... the land is being regraded ready for the 2800 homes, and they are using whats is left to stage the earthmovers..

Isn't progress wonderful

Not feeling good this week, so no progress, but some benchwork.
I am a little baffled by the non-start of the Kohler genset...

Still would not flow fuel.
On the bench, and it was working, but it refused to pull fuel up when remounted. assuming the worst, I swapped in another pump I had, and strangly, that would not pull fuel from the can either.

Are you pulling from a gas can or the main tank? If gas can then you definitely shouldn't have any problems.

What I am looking at is the power feed to the pump, which upon reading the Kohler manual, is fed 12V from the + side of the coil.
Something odd is going on, as I am only getting 7v at the terminal upon cranking it..
Need to test further when feeling better.

Several things. Before cranking what is the voltage on the main starter solenoid on the lower right corner where the power feed from the battery connects?

Check your ground connections real good. A lot of times poor grounds will drop the voltage significantly. Also if the starter is going bad it can really pull the battery voltage down.

Are you by chance blowing the 10 amp fuse that is inside the start control module?

When I was testing my pump I hot wired it directly, bypassing everything else just to make sure it was flowing fuel. I would also suggest disconnecting the shutdown solenoid that is just below the coil and has orange and black wires connected to it.

As for our Kohler genset, I was having problems with the 10 amp fuse blowing. I could start the generator and it would start just fine (well not exactly but that's a different problem!). I would then stop the generator and try to restart it and it wouldn't start. What was happening is the generator would start but as soon as I pressed the stop button the 10 amp fuse would blow! I did change the fuse holder from the glass tube style to the ATC style because I was having a hard time finding 10 amp glass fuses

Anyway in troubleshooting I found that if I disconnected the shutdown solenoid the fuse wouldn't blow. The shutdown solenoid is supposed to stop any "dieseling" when the generator is being shut down. The manual says you can disconnect it but may experience dieseling.

I removed the solenoid and it appears to have melted some of the Bakelite. Tomorrow I'm going to test the solenoid by applying 12 volts and see if it pulls the plunger in. The strange thing is the solenoid is powered anytime the coil is powered so why it would blow the fuse when removing power has me baffled.

Supposedly the solenoid has been discontinued but I did find a place on line that listed them with a price of $163 plus s/h so I ordered it. We'll see if it actually shows up.

The only problem I'm having now is it appears the choke is not functioning correctly. It was about 25 degrees when I was working on it so having a functional choke is real important

Brad

[Keyair]

Thanks Brad,
Yes, I had the gas in a tank, and even lifted it above the pump level with both pumps... no flow.
I did test the voltage at the lower rh solenoid, and had solid battery voltage.
I also hot wired the pump by using the output for the PP3, but no go...
Hope to figure it out next week sometime if I feel better.

You getting to know your new Powerprobe toys yet?

[bkahler]

Originally Posted by Keyair

Thanks Brad,
Yes, I had the gas in a tank, and even lifted it above the pump level with both pumps... no flow.
I did test the voltage at the lower rh solenoid, and had solid battery voltage.
I also hot wired the pump by using the output for the PP3, but no go...
Hope to figure it out next week sometime if I feel better.

You getting to know your new Powerprobe toys yet?

You might try just using a jumper from the main power terminal on the starter solenoid straight to the pump. That's what I did anyway.

When you say "no go" do you mean even with good voltage at the pump you got no flow? If it doesn't flow with a known good 12 volts at the pump then you have a suction line problem.

I had a similar problem on the spitfire race car. It ran great loading on the trailer when I pulled it out of the warm shop. But the next morning at the track with the temperature in the high 30s it wouldn't start. Turned out there was a pin hole in the suction side that expanded (shrank?) when it got cold and it was sucking air. For me it was hard to find because the previous owner of the car had used one of those fancy braided sheaths that slid over the rubber hose. Looked real but worthless in functionality.

Brad

[Keyair]

Yeah, with a full 12v at the pump, there was no suction.
In fact it almost felt like it was pushing back...
I ran out of time to inverstigate further.

[bkahler]

Originally Posted by Keyair

You getting to know your new Powerprobe toys yet?

Almost forgot. In short, no haven't had a spare moment. With the nice weather we have been having I wanted to get as much outside work done as possible. Today the temperatures dropped from being in the mid 60s to just being above freeeeeezing so my tasks will be moving indoors.

I've been researching the wiring in the mid 70s airstream trailers hoping to use them as a guide in tracking down the wiring in the Argosy. The Powerprobe will make sort work of finding each point in the chain. Unfortunately it will likely be a couple of weeks before I can actually test it

Brad