A New Challenge-1963 Overlander rehab project

[vhord]

Originally Posted by 62overlander

Vernon, we had so much fun camping that we all called in sick on monday morning

Yea, yea, yea...I would have gone camping this weekend but I had to stay home and change the air in my tires. I kept putting it off but it just needed to get done.

[Frank's Trailer Works]

I have been meaning to change the air in my tires too....

You know Vernon, next year you will be camping and Marcus will be loosing 50 pounds sweating in the hot Austin sun.

[utee94]

Originally Posted by 62overlander

I have been meaning to change the air in my tires too....

You know Vernon, next year you will be camping and Marcus will be loosing 50 pounds sweating in the hot Austin sun.

You know, I could stand to lose a few-- I put on some sympathy baby weight when my wife was pregnant, and it seems that a diet of beer, margaritas, BBQ, and Tex-Mex was not made for rapid weight loss...

[utee94]

So the camera got wet during all the rain and I had to dry it out, but now I'm going to post a couple of pics. We really didn't take many because of all of the rain.

My Airstream and me:



The reason I bought an Airstream to begin with:



She loved sleeping in her pack 'n' play up in the front lounge.

The family:


As I said before, only a coule of mishaps. The first is that the top awning bracket popped off just as I was trying to deploy it, so I plan to repair that today.

Second, there is a very small leak somewhere in the Astradome. I haven't been able to find it, and it's possible I just didn't have the cover down symmetrically, so I'm looking into that again as well.

Hopefully I'll have a full set of awning repair photos to post this evening.

[Jim & Susan]

That middle picture is priceless! That is one cute kiddo!

Jim

[Overlander & Sea]

I'm glad your first trip went so well. Nice pictures.

[overlander63]

Marcus, when you open the front rockguard, you will notice a series of holes in the slotted tracks that it rests on when open. These are to put pins in so the guard won't come slamming down after a few minutes of being open. It happened once to us at 3 am. The next morning I drilled the holes and pinned the guard open. No more middle-of-the-night rumble rumble WHACK! sounds waking us up...

[A-Merry-Can]

The trailer looks great, man! (so does the fam!)

I've been thinking about taking the rock guard off mine for a while now. It seems like it's more of a pain than its worth, plus it would be nice to be able to see through the trailer on trips to see who's behind me!

JP

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by A-Merry-Can

The trailer looks great, man! (so does the fam!)

I've been thinking about taking the rock guard off mine for a while now. It seems like it's more of a pain than its worth, plus it would be nice to be able to see through the trailer on trips to see who's behind me!

JP

There's a couple of reasons, and it could be used in both arguments.
1-The front window of the older trailers is plain glass, so it's pretty inexpensive to replace when it breaks while not using a rock guard.
2-The front window of the older trailers is plain glass, so it can break very easily, and you will have shards of glass all over the front of the trailer. Add to that if it rains while towing with the broken window, things will get very wet very fast.

[overlander64]

Another possibility would be to substitute Lexan for glass in the front window -- this is what I did with my '64 Overlander when the glass cracked in the front window. I didn't have the rock guard on mine, but wouldn't it be possible to substitue clear Lexan for the opaque fiberglass?

Kevin

[utee94]

JP-- thanks, I just caught up on your work from this week too, absolutely beautiful.

Terry-- Yes, I noticed those holes, very clever solution. I actually thought it was factory-made that way.

Kevn-- That's not a bad idea, although I like the idea of keeping it as original as possible.

One thought I've had is to replace the fiberglass portion of the rock guard with either lexan, or perforated aluminum. The lexan would be see-through, the perf'd aluminum not so much.

Today I will start on creating an exterior patch to mount the awning bracket onto, and then putting the awning back together.

[overlander63]

Maybe smoke-colored Lexan in place of the corrugated green fiberglass rockguard insert. It would certainly look better than what's there.
Here's a pic of another forum member's 1960's vintage smoke Lexan rock guard:

[utee94]

Thanks Terry, that's a good idea and it looks really cool, my wife just looked at it and said she likes the simplicity.

The other thing I'm considering has also been done by another forum member, Jacob D, on his 64 Overlander:

[A-Merry-Can]

I like the aluminum approach best. I bet you will be able to see more through it than you think. certainly more than the original !

and thanks for the compliment!

JP

[utee94]

Originally Posted by A-Merry-Can

I like the aluminum approach best. I bet you will be able to see more through it than you think. certainly more than the original !

and thanks for the compliment!

JP

I dig the aluminum screen as well, but I think my wife is leaning toward the smoked lexan. Both are cool, and I think it will look good either way, but I'm a little ways off from worrying about it anyway.

I'm currently working on my roll-out awning, since the bracket popped off the last time I was out camping.

I didn't get a chance to work on it yesterday, but today I've stripped off all of the old sealer and cleaned up the opening. There were some old rivets that I drilled out, and then I put a 4" x 5" patch over the whole thing. I used .050 2024 T3, which is thicker than the existing panel, but I wanted something really solid to anchor the bracket onto. I used 20 rivets and a load of vulkem to hold the patch on, so hopefully it will be both firm, and leak-free. I also dipped each rivet in vulkem before fastening in place. It might be overkill, but if it is, I'm okay with that.

I'm letting all of that set up tonight, then tomorrow I'll go back through and trim the Olympics, and fasten the bracket onto the patched skin using heavy sheet-metal screws and a ton more vulkem. After getting the hardware finshed up in good shape, I need to replace the awning fabric, since the old fabric is finally starting to come apart now. The really good news is that Terry and Marie had already purchased some very nice awning fabric for it, and Cat passed that on to me since she never had a chance to install it.

It's going to look fantastic when I'm done. I'll post pictures of my progress so far, probably tomorrow.

-Marcus

[Frank's Trailer Works]

I am going to give my two cents on the rock guard.... Loose it all together. Go for the look all the way through as you tow method. The chances of having a rock break your window while towing is so slight.Even if you break it you can just get a new piece at Lowes. I like that I can look right through my trailer as I am under way. That is just my opinion.

[Overlander & Sea]

Originally Posted by 62overlander

I am going to give my two cents on the rock guard.... Loose it all together. Go for the look all the way through as you tow method. The chances of having a rock break your window while towing is so slight.Even if you break it you can just get a new piece at Lowes. I like that I can look right through my trailer as I am under way. That is just my opinion.

I agree that it is nice to be able to see through your AS while towing. I had a solid aluminum guard made after I broke my window on a camping trip by tripping and putting my hand through 45 year old plate glass. I did not get hurt and I used duct tape (it matched-almost looked good) to tape over the screen for the ride home. Maybe I only need the rock guard while I'm set up in camp, and not towing.

[Aage]

Wow, thanks to all of you for this thread! I have read any number of threads on here and it's always a great learning experience for the day when I will inevitably have my own rig, and this one was no exception.

But while it's a lot of fun and real interesting to read about how a TT gets s-l-o-w-l-y re-done, to have it change hands twice (and therefore to include three owners)?

Priceless!

Again, thanks.

[utee94]

Originally Posted by Aage

Wow, thanks to all of you for this thread! I have read any number of threads on here and it's always a great learning experience for the day when I will inevitably have my own rig, and this one was no exception.

But while it's a lot of fun and real interesting to read about how a TT gets s-l-o-w-l-y re-done, to have it change hands twice (and therefore to include three owners)?

Priceless!

Again, thanks.

Hi there Aage, I'm glad you have enjoyed this thread. I did too when I first joined the Forums about 7 months ago-- I never dreamed that I'd eventually become a part of it.

Terry is obviously very well-known and well-respected on these Boards, and it's great to be able to continue with the Legacy that he and Marie began. I'm just glad that they have a new trailer that they are obviously enjoying, otherwise I'd have some pretty mixed emotions about owning Goliath.

And Cat and her husband were very gracious and kind, and I feel for them that they were forced to sell, when they were so obviously enjoying the trailer. But given Cat's bubbling enthusiasm for the trailer, I have no doubt that they will own another Airstream in the near future.

As for me, I have some big plans for this fine rig. As soon as we get a couple more outings wedged in this Fall, I will begin some major work on the rear end of the trailer. There is some floor rot under the tub, and some corresponding frame rot beneath that, both of which are quite common for trailers of this age, and of this particular era. It will require a full floor replacement for at least the rear 4' of the trailer, and I'll need to cut out the rusted cross-member and weld in a new piece. At the same time, I'll go ahead and redo some of the cabinetry in the rear end of the trailer where it has aged a bit, and I also plan to redo the plumbing at that time, and make some modifications in the bedroom area as well.

That will be it for this Winter, and then I'll be camping again as soon as possible. Then more plans for the galley and front lounge, but those will most likely have to wait until the Winter of 2009/2010.

So please feel free to stick around, I'll update this thread and my blog as often as possible, although I expect I won't have much to report until the Fall starts winding down a bit.

-Marcus

[vhord]

Originally Posted by utee94

As soon as we get a couple more outings wedged in this Fall, I will begin some major work on the rear end of the trailer.

Marcus

Don't wait too long. February will be here before you know it.