Thank you for the help all!
The front end separation issues seems to be something that needs to be remedied or my trailer will rattle itself apart going down the road
. good thing I was already planning on stripping out the interior.
Looks like I will be reaching out to Colin for some professional advice:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colin H
Hi Dave,
I have done this repair numerous times on 34'ers, some 32's & 31's. The longer trailers have huge rear overhangs, putting a lot of stress on the front area when attached to the tow vehicle. This is a design flaw in my opinion, however Airstream decided to omit the front hold down plate on all of their production after the very early 80's. This plate is welded to the front crossmember & extends up between the C channel & the inside of the exterior skin. It is "buck" riveted to the front skin with a double or triple horizontal row of rivets. The floor is repaired at the same time along with the C channel that extends around the floor of the front end cap. Another tell tale symptom is a 4" diagonal crack coming from the upper RH corner of the main entrance door frame. This should be patched after the front end repairs are completed. This front end problem is very common, however many like to ignore it until it becomes almost catastrophic. It is not really noticeable unless you look for it, or it becomes really bad. I've seen the beginnings of this issue on trailers that were only several years old……………very sad really. This virtually never happens on 70's & earlier trailers that have this "hold down" plate installed during production, except if the floor is really rotted out & the trailer has had a tough life.
Colin
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From this thread:
http://www.airforums.com/forums/f36/...on-118134.html
Peter, thank you very much for that insight!
-Will (Ella's Proud Owner).