Our 1957-58 Overlander

[57Vintage]

Installed the first front panel on the banquette. The boss kept hinting to see one done! It's cut from some architectural aluminum panels I bought off a tiny house builder. The material has a tough clear plastic layer over the top so it should hold up to abuse from shoes, etc. They're riveted on, except for the other side. It will be bolted on for access to fresh water mechanical/hot water heater.



Hittensthiel's post reminded me I hadn't posted a photo of the metal wall cabs. The boss wanted these to make a statement against the light yellow wall panels. Walls and cabs were shot will two part epoxy primer, color coat and clear coat after being stripped.



Laminate just arrived for new table top and kitchen counter top. Will start on those in a couple days. Our one mid century modern touch to go with the original wood cabinets. The boomerangs are teal to go with the cabs and brown to go with the Marmoleum Click flooring.

[dbj216]

Very nice indeed. You are making great progress. Your boss ought to be very pleased.

David

[islandtrader]

I mean this as a compliment ...it reminds me of the "ice cream/soda joints" we use to have in another era. Good job...I like it!

[Dingo Girl]

I absolutely love your dinette!

[57Vintage]

Lots of little details to finish up but needed a break. Going down to the Rockabilly Rally in Hollister, CA. Wanted to see the gold banded 57 Airstream that was recently restored.

Gave me a chance to really test our original Krefft frig that I converted to 12/120 volt with the kit from Isotherm. It worked great. Turned it on last night to setting 6 (1-7) on shore power. Disconnected about 2 hours before we left and let it run off batteries/solar. Had a nice sunny day (high 70s to low 80s) traveling through Oregon to the CA border. Checked the frig after setting up and pre-frozen ice cubes were still hard and everything was nice and cool.



Having 400 watts on the roof paid off. Checked batteries on arrival and still at 100% on color cg. Although I left the original insulation in the body, I did replace the with rock wool in the door. I also added foil backed rigid insulation around the available cabinet space on the sides 1", top 1", bottom 2". I haven't enclosed the compressor assy yet and it sits above the frig in the cabinet storage space (with no door yet, waiting on hinges to come back from chrome plating) it is really quiet.

[Bubba L]

Thanks Harold, I’m glad it’s working so well for you. It was through your thread and advice that we chose the Isotherm for our Dometic M16. It has worked flawlessly. Thanks again and have fun at the rally.

[57Vintage]

Back in post 19 (page 2) I demonstrated our table pedestal that allows you to slide side to side, back and forth, and rotate. The photos were with a small piece of plywood attached. They didn't really demonstrate the movement available. Here's the final shape of the table and demo of the movement available. (sort of practical, but lots of fun to demonstrate).

slid back


slid forwar


slid sideways


rotated

[57Vintage]

One of the projects I've been putting off is rebuilding our door. It needs a new outer skin, adding a dead bolt and alignment. The door is in medium rough shape. The lower portion has prior damage and a partial skin replacement.



The door latch assy was replaced at some point with a newer style and they butchered the door frame and door surround.



The alignment of the door is also out. Its too far back in the opening and tighter to the outer skin at the top than the bottom. The first thing I'm going to tackle is getting the door frame centered in the opening. To get that started I took some measurements. I placed some tape down the hinge side of the door opening. Standing perpendicular to the door skin edge I marked lines by both hinges to start measuring how far the door needed to move forward.



At those same points I measured the door opening and the width of the door frame (not the door skin). With that I knew what the gap should be at the front and rear of the door opening. Measuring the distance from my vertical lines to the door opening and comparing that to the distance from the edge of the door skin to the door frame allowed me to see how far the door had to move. (door skin to door frame) minus (vertical line to door opening) = (current gap between door opening and door frame) I needed to move the door about 3/16". Measured off my vertical lines and drew a new line as the target (shown in photos above, red is current position, green is desired position).

Part of the movement was gained with the door on and tapping just behind the eyelet to move the eyelet forward.

Next I looked at the hinges themselves, comparing the gap between the body hinge half and the door hinge half. (forgot to take a before photo) The two sides were touching (along the blue line). Also look at the hinge eyelets in comparison to the hinge surface (yellow lines) Note the body side eyelet is fairly centered and the door side eyelet is offset to the left. Moving that eyelet can give you some small changes. Also look at the attached side of the hinge to the body (red line). On mine you can see a slight curve out at the right side. I took a piece of plywood and a bfh to tap on that portion to try and straighten, to no avail. There is too much give in the body to be successful (don't go crazy with your hits, the body is not as strong as the hinge itself). To 'bend' the portion of the hinge next to eyelet a crescent wrench works well, you can tighten it to the thickness of the hinge. I wouldn't recommend placing on the eyelet itself, work the flat portions.



Also look at the eyelets, while the pin may not be loose enough to wiggle, the eyelet may be misshapen due to old damage/wear.



After getting a preliminary realignment of the door in the opening I went back to work on the hinges. Like most hinges that are 60+ years old the eyelets are a little oblong. Not a big deal but I wanted to relieve any continued wear. Door comes off and start looking at the body side hinges as a single unit. Taking a long piece of 1/4" round rod I tried to slide it through the upper and lower hinge. More tweaking to get that accomplished.



Now the same alignment process with the door side hinges to achieve the same alignment between the hinges. I was fortunate putting the door back on and checking the centering of the door it was good front & back gaps. If it had moved a little I'd go back to the beginning steps and adjust accordingly.

Same process will be done on the inner screen door once I replace the rivets on the door side.

The door is not quite in alignment top to bottom regarding door skin gap to shell skin. (wider gap towards the bottom than I want. Top half OK. Probably related to poorly repaired lower damage shown in photos. I'll tackle that when the new outer skin is done and I have better access to the door frame. Probably need to patch door frame where butchered for current latch. I have a Bargman H20 to install.

Hope this makes sense and possibly helps you get a better fit.

[dbj216]

Very cool. It will make entry into the U dinette easier.

The pedestal we used just goes up and down as well as rotates. Hey, two of six axis is better than one.

The completed dinette is extraordinary. I've not seen anything like it.

David

[islandtrader]

Originally Posted by 57Vintage

One of the projects I've been putting off is rebuilding our door. It needs a new outer skin, adding a dead bolt and alignment. I have a Bargman H20 to install.

Hope this makes sense and possibly helps you get a better fit.

I am at the same point on my project. I have spent over 10 hours trying to make my H20 work and still no go. Oh well Thomas Edison once said "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

[dbj216]

Airstream doors are one of the more complex aspects of the whole trailer. Your analysis and approach to repairing your door and lockset is very good.

My old Trade Wind had a one piece hinge that was well worn. I read Aerowood "line bored" the hinge hole and installed a slightly larger hinge pin to tighten the thing up again. I did repair the Bargman L100 lockset in my Trade Wind and also the son's 69 Globetrotter. Locksets are interesting to work on. My Overlander has the KT lock set that seems pretty robust, still working anyway.

David

[57Vintage]

I had reinstalled the original kitchen sinks and counter top as a short term solution. When we went down to the Rockabilly Rally for a shake down trip, the boss talked to a number of people about their remodeled kitchens. The consensus was a single basin was more efficient than the two small basins that came with the trailer. So the hunt was on for a new sink that would fit the original cabinet.

I found that searching for a 'utility' sink was more useful than using ' kitchen' sink. The issue was my counter top was too narrow to accommodate the depth of a standard kitchen sink. Found one that was only 21" deep including faucet mounting flange. Time to cut new counter top, laminate and install.



I also enlarged the counter top cut out for the oven vent. Before it was just open for the direct vent from the oven on the right half. The stove opening on the left just vents heat off the back of the stove. Still need to add the second piece of trim to enclose the stove top.



We did lose some height for storage under the sink, but it should work OK since a gallon jug still fits. The furnace is located under this cabinet. That's why the 'grill' covers the lower area.



We also found that lighting lacking around the sink so I added an led fixture to the bottom of the wall cabinet. The unit will rotate along its length so you can aim the illumination.

[57Vintage]

Now that we had our cabinet hardware back from chrome plating, it was time to install cab doors. We were fortunate the original Oddie hinges and latches were still there and functioning. They just needed to be re-plated. The Oddie latches were a bit of a hassle for the wardrobe and heater door. These are overlapping doors and the latch catch (female side) has to be spaced out to the depth of the door offset. The original spacers were some type of softwood (balsa?) and were pin nailed to the cabinets. These fell apart when removing the hardware to refinish the cabs. I finally decided to replace with a piece of aluminum shaped to match the original shape.



You're making up for the height difference between the door surface and the cabinet front.



On double doors, such as the kitchen sink cab, the two mounting surfaces are in line so no spacer is required.



The latch side (male side) can be disassembled. There is a clip that holds the latch rod in the mounting plate. With that off the interior spring and latch rod can be removed.

[Hittenstiehl]

57 very nice write up for the door knob and spacers as we have the same.

Now to remember where all this good info is some day. If time permitted I should copy paste all the hints and tips that pertain to us in a word doc with a reminder of where it came from.

[57Vintage]

I did a Word doc when I started my research in AirForums to do the trailer. Over the years I've lost too many internet bookmarks to computer failures. It also allows me to go in and review all those items and delete, revise, marked done, etc.

Did the same now that I've started a punch list based on use of the trailer and prioritizing.

What it really boils down to, is I'm old enough to prefer a piece of paper for this type of thing.

[dbj216]

Very nice work 57vintage: We have that small double sink in our 75 Overlander and in our 86 Limited. I guess folks like a wash and rinse sink back than. Many modern trailer nowadays have a single sink.

The old cabinet door latches look very robust. My 75 Overlander has plastic ones which have lasted well these last 44 years.

David

[66Overlander]

It all comes down to personal preference. We prefer the two smaller sinks in our vintage Airstreams the the single large, behemoth sink in our 2016 Classic. I looked to see if there was a smaller double that was a direct replacement, but couldn't find anything, so we wash dishes in a small plastic basin inside the oversized sink.

[57Vintage]

I've had this project in the back of my mind for quite a while, but it just wasn't a priority.

We have a Coleman Mach 8 (15K) AC with the heating element (6K), which requires the Control Package for the heating element and that also allows the use of a wall mounted thermostat. This allows me to use the Quiet Duct Cover on the AC (no controls). I wanted the wall mounted thermostat that could be hidden with the other controls behind the old panel heater cover.



I got this up and running early on as AC is really nice to have while working on the interior and for camping in the summer. The heating element is sort of a joke, it can warm the kitchen/bedroom up about 10 degrees max.

So now we're into fall and heating becomes more of a priority. We have a Suburban Quiet Duct Furnace (25K) that is ducted into the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and front banquette.

I wanted to use a Coleman heat pump thermostat to control all of these as it has a separate setting for electric heat (AC heater) and gas heat (furnace). This black one replaces the white AC thermostat in the upper right corner. The black will hide better behind the perforated grill.



Electrical has never been my strong suit, but I felt it was worth a try. Fortunately, the AC and electric heat wiring was the same as before. I just has to see if I could tie in the Suburban gas furnace to the Coleman thermostat. Seems simple enough, only 4 wires off the furnace (+ & -) for power to the furnace and two wires to the thermostat. Suburban's electrical instructions leave much to be desired. The 2 relay wires to the thermostat (blue & blue w/ stripe) are not color coded for 12 v lead to thermostat and return line to the relay. The instructions tell you to wire power to the unit and then test the 2 blue wires. Whichever one is hot is power to the thermostat while the other is the return to the relay. Can't believe they aren't wired/specified by color code!!!

Since I already had power to the thermostat from the 12 v circuit from the furnace circuit breaker, I tested the leads and the negative (no power) became the relay lead for the thermostat's "gas heat" circuit. So the furnace power lead for the thermostat is not used.

It's working and I'm still amazed it was easy to work out. I had been concerned about mixing units from different manufacturers. If I had thought about it logically and remembered all the house thermostats I've installed over the years, that weren't made by the furnace manufacturer, I would have aced this a long time ago.

[57Vintage]

Finally finished up the detail work on the counter top/stove cover. The cover itself is not anything new, just plywood with laminate on both sides to match the sink counter top. I did a few details a bit differently to solve some concerns I had.



I wanted a stronger aluminum piano hinge than I'd seen so far. I found one that is made from extruded aluminum and is 'geared'.



I was also concerned with attaching the counter top with wood screws to the hinge so I added some reinforcement so the plywood is clamped between the hinge and the aluminum tube. I refer to this as edge rail so things can't slide off the counter top when the stove is covered. You can see it in the first photo on the right edge of the cover. A piece of channel, with rivnuts, sits inside the square tubing. I think I’ll add some plastic covers to the ends to finish it up.



I also added an edge (right side and back edge) to the opposite side of the counter top so when it's open things shouldn't slide off the side or back. This is just a taller piece of the metal edging I used on the counter top.



A piece of aluminum angle rests on the edge of the sink counter top so the stove cover doesn't come down on the burner grates. The taller metal edge is mentioned above is sandwiched behind it.



The cover support is the original with a notch cut at the back to clear the square tubing. The support latch is the one sold by VTS. It's a little heftier than the original.

[truckasaurus]

Re purposing the heater cover for all the controls and electrical is a great idea, even warning lights would shine through. think I have two stashed somewhere so I'm set :-)