69 Tradewind Full Monte Renovation in MN

[GoToasterGo]

Originally Posted by TennTex

GTG,

Nice work; thanks for sharing your progress.

Thought I'd add a few "FWIW's":

-For all you entomologically curious types, that little critter pictured is a shield bug, commonly called a stink bug for its particular mode of defense. They like to overwinter indoors...

-As you probably already know, those "joists" you referred to are cleats that are glued and fastened to the plywood joints to make the subfloor solid. The frame crossmembers are lower in those spots to accept the thickness of the cleats. I only mention it since they are a point of some discussion on other redo threads.

-You mentioned the degree of rot in the rear bath area. This is due to the design of the bumper plate that runs under the subfloor across the back (you can see it still attached with the rear hold-down plate on top of it in one of your frame pics). This causes water to funnel into the plywood subfloor. You will want to rework this design as you get to that part of your rebuild. Several forum members have posted their methods, a few of which can be seen here: http://www.airforums.com/forums/f4/s...-a-119687.html

-I also used 0.025 for my belly pan and had trouble with wavy, gapped edges and some rivet pull-out. I thought 0.032 might be better, but I would like to know if others had this problem. David's cross-wise pattern might minimize the wavy edge issue.

Looking forward to seeing your progress; just remember to have fun...

Alan

Thanks Alan! The "FWIW's" are exactly what I am looking for. I'd much prefer to not make the same mistakes others have made in the past. I'm a firm believer in doing it right the first time....or at least trying to.

-Ahh the STINK bug! Good to know!
- Cleats, eh? I have never heard that term before thanks for the education. I am planning on using those again. Along with 3/4" ACX plywood with at least the edges sealed with...something?
-My girlfriends dad is a mechanical engineer at a metal shop, I've been discussing much of the metal work with him and am going to dig into a few issues this weekend. One of which is the rear end rot problem, I had read about prior to purchasing and knew I had it when I bought it. He's also going to help me with some grey tank support, touching up the step, and making some roll your own compartment doors!
- I am strongly considering the 0.032", but I am also curious if anyone has run into issues there.

[dbj216]

Good Morning Toaster: TennTex mentions wavy install using the thinner .025 material. Yep, he is right, especially working on your back. I went side to side as I didn't have a way to hold big sheets of floppy aluminum in place. I rigged a six foot long 2x4, my jackstands, and some tapered wedges that I used to hold the aluminum sheet tight against a cross member. I hung the sheets from the centerline of the trailer, that is where my first rivet would go.

032 material is harder to work with. The belly pan adds no strength to the trailer like the exterior skins do. It's there as a "splash shield" to keep the insulation dry (ha ha), and to keep drain plumbing and tanks cleaner. I would consider the .032 if I wasn't working on my back.

David

[dbj216]

You have a very realistic appraisal of the cost of your Airstream renovation into the trailer you want. My Trade Wind was appraised at $18,500 for "agreed value" insurance coverage. Why? Because I kept my receipts and showed them to the appraiser. Selling such a renovated trailer is what the market will bear of course. The ads I see would lead me to believe I can get about that much for it, maybe more. If a professional shop did the work for you, they would want paid for their labor of course. $50,000 would not surprise.

I saw an absolutely beautiful 1975 Trade Wind that the Airstream factory "renovated" for fun one winter. It was expertly done as you can imagine. No wavy belly pans on this baby. Asking price was $65,000. I have no idea what it sold for.

David

[Slats]

Originally Posted by TouringDan

GoToasterGo

I need to throw a plug in here for www.airpartsinc.com. They are great to do business with. I ordered new belly pan material, twice now, and it is on my front porch in 3 days!

Another great reason to live in Kansas City is that I'm just a few miles away from Airparts. They are extremely helpful and friendly folks.

[dbj216]

Hi Slats: been a while. I have family in KC since 71. It seems like home to me. It is a very nice city. Airparts has been a great aluminum supplier for me too.

gotoastergo: Slats is being modest. He has done a complete renovation on a Trade Wind. And I'll bet more than willing to give you some possible solutions to any problem that might arise in your project. He has a project thread here on AirForums that I've followed since he started. You can find it by user name. Stay up late tonight and read through it.

David

[markdoane]

I don't know if this idea will work for your graytank, but it's worked out great for me.
I had two 12ga plates cut to fit the space between two crossmembers to stiffen the frame , and also to protect the graytank from any nails, screws, or other hardware that I might put into the floor when I re-installed the floor and cabinetry.

The first photo shows the plates welded to the frame just ahead of the axle. The second is with the tank installed.

[GoToasterGo]

A little update as I haven't posted in a few days.

Belly Pan - At this point my plan is to go with the .032 material. It doesn't look like airparts carries that. Does anyone have a good supplier? If not, it's not a big deal I have a few local contacts that should be able to help me out.

Slats - I just started looking at your reno thread. Looks awesome, I'll be reading through the rest of that tonight.

Markdoane - That's a cool idea! I am going to weld a few straps on the bottom of the cross members to hold the tanks in place. Then add some additional foam to fully secure them. I like the idea of protecting the top, not sure I'll go through with it though. By the way, is that center beam original in your pic. I'm referring to the one that runs down the middle parallel to your two main frame rails in the front to back direction.

I've spent the past few days doing some planning and buying materials and parts. A short list off the top of my head is:

• Water Heater
• Fresh Tank
• Black Tank
• Furnace
• Fantastic Fans
• BAL stabilizers
• Axles
• gasket samples for doors and windows
• LED exterior marker lights
• exterior marker light covers to replace broken ones
• abs wheel wells
• ACX plywood for the subfloor
• water pump

Up next for me is to get some welding done on the frame which is happening this Saturday(pics to follow), plan out my plumbing and order grey tanks, decide on a sealant for the subfloor(suggestions?), and what insulation(suggestions?) I am going to use between the sub floor and belly pan.

PS. It's great reading all the responses and discussion on here. I'm glad to have so many experienced members reading through my build.

[duncans]

Hi GoToasterGo,

As mentioned previously you have a stink bug----or thousands of Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs, an invasive bug that has spread across the US from China, Japan, N/S Korea region. They are a true pest to agriculture, as they damage fruit and veggies and do not have a lasting control. They can have up to 6 generations in warm climates in a single year. BMSB's just love to cozy up in warm spaces in the Fall---like your house or trailer. They poop out golden brown spots that are water soluable and clean up pretty easily. (gross anyway) They produce a noxious odor as a defense mechanism and just a couple can stink up your vacuum or kitchen garbage pail.
Best human defense: put up a good wall: that is, seal your Airstream up tight. That includes every little opening you can find. Make fine mesh screens to fill in all gaps. Believe me, I speak from experience. See our thread "Check Out My Smoking Hot Deal" detail our resuscitation of a fire damaged trailer. In the latter pages my husband has pics of some of the screens he made to block the oddest spots you'd never expect bugs (or slightly bigger annoyances) to get into your Airstream.
Good luck with your Airstream adventure---yes, your journey has already begun!

Susan

[TouringDan]

GTG

I am also thinking about new insulation between the floor and belly pan. I think I am going to put 3/4" hard foam sheeting (r=3.8) next to the belly pan and either fiberglass batts or Roxul ComfortBatts next to the floor. It will be hard to change from fiberglass as my 51 year old insulation was completely dry except for under the black/gray tank due to a leaking fitting. The Roxul is firmer than fiberglass and is rot resistant, but the fiberglass may be rot resistant also. The disadvantage is that it is about 3 times heavier. I figure 100 sq ft of Roxul at 60 lbs and for fiberglass only 20 lbs. I just learned about Roxul in my last visit to Lowes. Anybody had any experience or opinions about Roxul?

Dan

[GoToasterGo]

Touring Dan - I have also been thinking about using Roxul. Although that's only because my Dad won't stop mentioning how awesome it is.

[dbj216]

I've used the rigid foam insulation with good success. I like the fact that it doesn't hold water. It is harder to install as there are a lot of cavities in our Airstream frames.

David

[Minno]

We painted the interior of our trailer prior to starting to build out the interior: Bonz primer and 2 coats of latex exterior paint. It's held up well so far with occasional touch ups. We left the wallpaper in place as it was/is in good shape and painted over it. Used aluminum "patches" riveted to the walls to cover holes, or installed something else there. It's amazing what you can cover up with cabinetry!
There are some good software programs out there for designing your interior, but nothing beats cardboard mockups and blue painters tape in my book. Then, you can actually SEE how it's going to work and adjust placement and size of things in your trailer. And it's a work in progress as you build to adjust and add things. We still are, 5 years after we got our trailer back on the road.
Our trailer build is "Little Girl Refurb" in the '70s section of the forums. There are many others that have been helpful to us also.
If you need help, PM us - we are in Twin Cities area.

Kay

[GoToasterGo]

Minno - thanks for the advice! Especially, using cardboard mock ups that will come in handy.

[GoToasterGo]

Progress is inching forward.

Hooked the trailer frame up to the truck to bring her to the welders.



The plan was to re weld all but 2 outriggers on the curb side and rebuild the step area. Also weld in some new pieces for the rear area where all the rot occurred around the black tank. Currently I'm rebuilding it in a very similar manner to the original but I do have plans to prevent water getting again.

I'm also going to have some straps made up for the grey tanks.

Finally I was going to move one outrigger over 1/2" so that the new ABS wheel wells will line up better.

Here's my welder doing what he does best on one of the outriggers.




And here's the rear area where the black tank will sit. I used larger angle iron so the tank box had more to grip onto. PS I'll show a pic of the new box later when it's done being fab'd.



I also removed the smashed out stack window. The process is really pretty simple.

1. Drill out rivers (basically step 1 for everything)
2. Cut and peel the window frame away from the sealer.
3. Pull the glass filled glazing out and promptly throw out.
4. Split the window.
5. Get a new piece of glass made and reverse steps 4 to 1.

[utahredrock]

Great progress! It may not be the right time to ask this, but have you considered a composting toilet? I am seriously considering one.

I just finished watching this video as I am learning about these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CdnVZkCKXU

Here's a shorter video by the same couple:

https://youtu.be/_E2xOoNov9s

[GoToasterGo]

Originally Posted by utahredrock

Great progress! It may not be the right time to ask this, but have you considered a composting toilet? I am seriously considering one.

If it were up to me I would be getting one. Unfortunately, I will not be winning that argument with my other half any time soon.

[dbj216]

I'm with your other half, or may I add better half. I always considered a composting toilet a litter box for humans. Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Looks like you're going to have a good frame foundation for your rebuild.

David

[GoToasterGo]

I haven't given an update in a couple of weeks mostly because I've just been doing a lot of little things as well as researching, planning and purchasing.

With that being said here is what has been happening. We have taken all of the hinged windows off of the shell and then took the frames completely apart. This is because both the weather stripping gasket and the inner glazing strip were well worn and needed to be replaced. We also had a little bit of what looked like algae growing on our windows... gross! At the same time I also took the latches and all other window hardware out to give them a good clean or replace parts as necessary.


Here's a pic of me cleaning up some of the striker plates and lift arms. You can see the huge difference between old and new. I'll also be having these dipped in zinc before putting them back on. Here's a bunch of the latch parts too, I used a lot of PB blaster to get some of these fasteners loose.


Unfortunately, I don't have any pics on my phone of the windows coming apart but my girlfriend does so if anyone is interested just remind me and I'll post them. Right now glass out of all of the windows.

After getting all my welding work done I dropped off the frame at a sandblaster where it will be sandblasted, epoxied and painted. Hoping to have it back early next week so I can start putting this thing back together. Here's the sad axle-less frame sitting at the sandblaster. The axles were surprisingly easy to take off, but I also spent a couple weeks spraying them down with PB blaster daily. Also if you look closely you can see the rebuilt step. It looks and functions just like the original, just a lot shinier now.


I also picked up some ACX plywood and cut it out using the old floor pieces as templates. I'll be sealing the outside 12 inches and edges with CPES as soon as I can dry fit the pieces on the frame.


I'm getting anxious to start working on the frame and underbelly once the frame comes back. Stay tuned.

As always questions, comments or suggestion are always appreciated! I always like hearing from the forum members.

[dbj216]

Thanks for the update. Keep the project going. My son has a 69 Globetrotter. I wonder if 69 was the first year of the funny top hing and the awkward opening levers. I find the window hard to open to the first catch. They move easier as you swing them more open.

And I noticed the infamous square bottom corner wing windows on the front of your shell. 69 is the only year Airstream did this. The 70s trailers had radii at the top and at the bottom of the front wing windows. These babies are hard to find glass for. One of ours shattered by itself sitting in the driveway. Rats. The son made a Lexan "temp" for it until we decide what to do. I'm a bunch tempted to replace it with a 70s style wing window as it would be cheaper, but alter the look of the 69 trailer, and require a "patch" to fill the area between the square corner and the round radius. His trailer is no beauty queen for sure, so what does another patch matter?

Interesting how your frame is rusty from the bumper in, but the rest of it looks nice and black. It clearly shows the weather seal design problem. Even mid 2000s trailers had the infamous rear bumper seal leak problem. Maybe the best fix is to keep your trailer out of the rain.

David

[TouringDan]

Originally Posted by GoToasterGo

Touring Dan - I have also been thinking about using Roxul. Although that's only because my Dad won't stop mentioning how awesome it is.

I ended up using R15 Roxul along with 1" of Dow Corning Foamular (R5) for a total of R20. I have installed 1" aluminum angle next to the floor joists to hold up the cellular insulation and to rivet the belly pan to. It should be much easier than blindly locating the 1/2" floor joists.