1948 LINER - A 70 Year Journey

[MrRivet]

Thanks Bubba! We will keep an eye out for any Liners in our neck of the woods and let you know. You never know when and where they may pop up as we found with this one.

Safe Travels!!

[dbj216]

That's called "over easy" on the breakfast menu. A dicey job rotating an awkward piece that way. Don't wanna break the yoke. Now you have a perfectly useless flatbed trailer.

Interesting article in the latest Airstream Life about a very early 47 Liner 22'. You might enjoy taking a look. It was written by Fred Coldwell.

David

[KellySLC49]

Originally Posted by Bubba L

Major milestone as the excitement continues. Looks solid. If you have any extra Liners laying around, please let me know. Keep up the good work and progress. Take care

It's a '48 Trailwind, not a Liner, and obviously in need of a complete redo, but she's a rare one.

https://www.airstreamclassifieds.com...19-utah-357927

[streamquest]

Originally Posted by MrRivet

Thanks Bubba! We will keep an eye out for any Liners in our neck of the woods and let you know. You never know when and where they may pop up as we found with this one.

Safe Travels!!

The work you're doing is the best I could even imagine. Truly magnificent!
It makes it clear to me that I'll never find the time to get around to properly finishing my own Liner projects. I have a '47, and a '48 if anyone is interested. Both in need of frames.

[TouringDan]

Originally Posted by streamquest

The work you're doing is the best I could even imagine. Truly magnificent!

It makes it clear to me that I'll never find the time to get around to properly finishing my own Liner projects. I have a '47, and a '48 if anyone is interested. Both in need of frames.

I completely agree. My compliments to Mr & Mrs Rivet.

Dan

[Landshark]

Serious congratulations! What a milestone! If you don't quite qualify yet for the parting wish "keep the shiny side up," you are getting very close!

Vivian

[MsRivet]

During this time of year everything is weather permitting. Of course all of the rivets were drilled out today and an ugly storm reared its head just north of us. Then we put all the tools away and covered everything up (tight like little a burrito) anticipating the storm. After it was all over with only a few drops of rain appeared here!



Clecos have their grasps on things until we can do the final lift off! And of course when it rains it pours. My first two jobs in over three months will take place over the next week. The anticipation will have to table itself until next weekend. I know! I’m even more excited than y’all!!! Ugh.

[Bubba L]

When you finally lift it, and if you don’t see the chassis on the ground, you missed a few rivets. When we were in the drilling stage and later the bucking stage, we spray painted all the different sized bits to correspond with the correct sized rivet hole. It helped me not to make mistakes on the size rivet hole I drilled. The anticipation of a shell off is almost as gratifying as the lift. Looking forward to the separation. Take care and be careful.

[MsRivet]

And a successful landing!



Yesterday we did it! A HUGE MILESTONE!! It took about an hour to do the lift off of the shell from the old frame. There were of course those HIDDEN rivets all by the door frame that slowed us down a bit. Our golf cart again came in so handy moving both the old and new frames around.



MrRivet and I then took a break before spending a few more hours getting the shell to fit the new frame. We used lots of scraps for shoehorns. Did some tugging and determined the catch points.



Time began to run out on us due to attending the VAC virtual Zoom rally. Which was fun by the way! It was probably a good thing to stop at this point.



Today we will get back out there with a fresh start and finish the fit. It’s definitely a tight one. The back of the shell still needs to come down a few inches.



I do have a time lapse that I will edit and post in a few days. Not sure if I can post that video on here? If not I will do a link to it.

And here she sits, with a few shoehorns sticking out, waiting for us to get back out there. Woo-hoo and a yiiipppee ki-yay!!!

[Bubba L]

Congrats. Now the real fun begins. Good luck

[MsRivet]

And here ya go! The long awaited video of the shell transfer from yesterday ...

https://youtu.be/dN4MEjluhoY

MrRivet will chime in later this evening or tomorrow to add to the details of our progress and to answer any questions!

Cheers!!🦩

[dbj216]

Congratulations! I can only imagine all the inspecting, measuring, and praying that the new frame and subfloor would fit under the old shell. It is a huge milestone indeed.

David

[Landshark]

Wow! Great work! I always wanted to do what you are doing: I am so envious! Congratulations many times over...

Vivian

[MrRivet]

Thanks everyone for your complements and support! It truly is a huge milestone and motivator to do the shell transfer. It now has the feel of working on a 1948 Liner and not a flat bed trailer. We have been able to work in a few days this week massaging the shell into its final securing position. The Liner has had a hard life and has suffered from a distant past bad floor replacement where the subfloor was not completely placed underneath the C-channel and a break in the main pipe of the frame assembly. This allowed the shell to be stretched and twisted in multiple directions. As you can see from the attached picture, once the shell was detached and lifted, the frame behind the axle carriage collapsed to the ground once the support was removed. It has taken a bit of work shifting everything back into place. Once we have everything secured we will be moving on to replacing several exterior skin panels due to heavy corrosion.
Great idea Bubba on the color coordinating bits for the hole sizes. I think I’ll use that tip! My eyes aren’t quite what they used to be.

Thanks again everyone for the support!

Safe Travels!!

[dbj216]

Now that is what I'd call serious rear end sag. And I thought 70s trailers were prone to this.

Your wrestling with a "distorted" shell is also something that happens when a 70s trailer becomes separated from the shell at the rear. I was oblivious to this and simply jacked our frame level, replaced rusted outriggers and bolted those back to the shell, and then tightened up the rear of the shell to the frame.

Suddenly the entry door closed better. But we developed a significant gap between a couple of bathroom plastic parts The shell certainly did move around some.

David

[MrRivet]

We decided to take the week off from the 98-100* Florida heat and I worked on fine tuning the bead roller to form the edges of the end segment panels that are damaged and need replacing. After several trips to a local machine shop to have a new forming die turned and working on my technique I think I’m close to nailing it.

[57Vintage]

Looks great. What shape die did you end up with to get the correct shape. I need to do the same when I re-skin my door.

[MrRivet]

I have an Eastwood brand bead roller that I used a custom turned 1/4” female die in conjunction with the Eastwood 1/4” male die. If you look close at the original Airstream bead, you will see scratch lines that were left by the female die when it was formed. These lines are approximately 1/4” apart. When I started working on this I tried using the labeled 1/4” die set that came with the bead roller but the die set leaves scratch lines that are 5/16” apart so I had the custom female die turned with the groove width dimension of 1/4” so it would leave the same scratch line as on the original panel. With the profile of the bead being more of a raised edge and not a true bead I was able to utilize the male die that came with the bead roller and save the expense of having a second die turned to match. This combination of course wouldn’t work if you were trying to form a full bead on a panel. When forming the bead on the panel it only takes light pressure on the roller. I used 1 full turn on the adjusting bolt after surface contact to get the final bead. I set the bead roller guide fence to a 1” setback from the edge of the new panel when forming and then used pneumatic shears to cut to the desired finished edge line at the edge of the formed bead. A light polish on the resulting visible scratch line and it’s pretty close to a match. I tried this on aluminum sheets with and without the temporary plastic film and ended up running it without the plastic. If your not trying to match the original scratch lines the film protected panel gives a cleaner result without the scratch lines. You can see from the attached picture that the die profiles don’t match but the combination works for me.
Safe Travels!!
Tim

[57Vintage]

Thanks, I don't think I'll go to the lengths you did. I don't have any beaded panels adjacent to the door.

In experimenting with my dies (Woodward Fab probably the same as yours) I found the .032 Alclad 2024T will actually be cut by the female die if I try to get the same depth of profile as the original, too brittle. What material were you using?

I'm going to try rounding the corners on the female die and try that before I think about new dies.

thanks again

[dbj216]

I'm the dummy here. What is the purpose of the bead formed along the edge of the aluminum panel? Strength? I don't think my 66, 75 or 86 trailers have such a bead line, or maybe I'm missing something.

David