Dale and Terry get a '66 Tradewind

[Atomic_13]

Dale - I’m curious how the door hinge connects to the trailer? On my ‘68, the hinge was bolted to the door frame and the door itself, which allowed for an adjustment.

Also, be sure your trailer is level prior to making any adjustments.

[ALUMINUMINUM]

One of the “improvements” listed for the 1968 Airstream, is the door hinge. The external appearance of the '68 is smooth and thicker, perhaps to accommodate the threaded stud mounts instead of rivets.


Who knows if they are interchangeable, as the cast frames for the door and jamb could be different in order to accommodate the “improved” stud mounts of the '68??


Maybe the “improvement” cracks the cast door frame differently when the wind suicides it, instead of tearing the skin rivets.


May have been better to abandon this design than "improve" it.

...

[Slats]

One side of the hinge is riveted to the door jamb and the other to the door frame. The part of the hinge riveted to the jamb has pop rivets and the part riveted to the door frame has buck rivets. If you look closely at the picture of the hinge, you can see that the part riveted to the door is not very precisely aligned with the edge of the door, accounting for the gap between the door and the jamb in the upper left and the 1/16" overlap on the upper right.

Closer inspection yesterday revealed a previous repair to the door frame. The door had obviously opened while headed down the highway and banged back, cracking the door frame above and below the hinge. The repair involved bending a 1/4" steel strap to confirm to the interior side of the door frame and riveting the strap to the frame.

The plan now is to drill out the rivets in the door half of the hinge and realign the hinge on the door in order to straighten the whole mess out. It seems a pain in the butt to use rivets and I am thinking of alternatives, such as heavy duty self-tapping screws or nuts and bolts.

Thanks, Brian, for the tip on making sure the trailer is level before reinstalling the door.

So it looks like things are back to using the old Da Vinci design, functionality be damned. The unanticipated problems and work-arounds in rebuilding one of these old trailers can be, I guess, part of the fun. I was reminded of tearing out the walls of my first house and finding the charred studs from an old fire.

[ALUMINUMINUM]

Would Da Vinci approve of stainless steel carriage bolts??

[ALUMINUMINUM]

Looks like the '65-'68 cast door frame is the same. Mine was broken-repaired-broken at the same place as yours.

If you are going to weld the cracks, I'd at least remove the rivets that attach the skin to door-frame alongside the hinge. Better to remove the entire door-skin, then re-buck after welding.

I didn't, and the consequence was rippled skin between buck rivets from the cast frame shrinking so much from weld heat. I may have got it too hot because I re-enforced the welds with aluminum triangle plates.

Welding the cast frame might reshape your door, so maybe weld before you re-fit it for seam allowance.

I made a full-length curvature jig and clamped firmly, door didn't bend, but did shrink.

[Slats]

Thanks for the advice.

Actually, I'm not planning on doing any welding at all. That steel strap the previous owner formed and riveted to the inside of the door frame may not be pretty, but it is structurally sound. So I'm going to leave it as is, reinstall the interior skin and dismiss it all as being out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

After I drill out the hinge rivets in the door I plan to clamp the door firmly in place, drill new holes through the hinge and into the door frame and then fasten them.

I'm not at all sure what Da Vinci would have to say about stainless steel bolts, but that is what I'm leaning toward.

[TouringDan]

Sounds like you have a good handle on how you are going to fix your door/hinge problem. Here’s hoping that I don’t have to deal with this problem on my Tradewind. I always travel with my simple but effective wood door keeper to make sure it doesn’t open while going down the road.

Dan

[ttbikes]

"So it looks like things are back to using the old Da Vinci design, functionality be damned. The unanticipated problems and work-arounds in rebuilding one of these old trailers can be, I guess, part of the fun. I was reminded of tearing out the walls of my first house and finding the charred studs from an old fire."

For me, a big part renovating something old, is letting some of the old scars remain. The thing has had a life and I want to preserve that life. Of course a knee replacement is sometimes a good thing.

[dbj216]

The folks participating in this thread are like me. Function over form. I doubt of any of us have sewed decorative hearts and flower patches on our shop coveralls.

My former 66 Trade Wind also had a cracked cast door frame, but on the forward edge where the previous owner pulled it into a brick bbq fire pit. He also repaired it with a steel strap and fasteners. If you squint or put cheater glasses on, maybe you can see the repair in this photo. It seemed strong to me. I did replace the patch under the window. I think the old one was an old road sign.

Again, function over form.

David

[Slats]

Well, I have wrestled the door off the hinge. It took some persistent drilling of the rivets. Drilling them from the bucked side is much easier. You can better center a nail punch on that side and the rivet removal tool from VTS, although it works well on shell rivets, doesn't center so well on the domed hinge rivets.

Reassembling the door latch mechanism after it fell apart on removal was a bit of a challenge, but it is back in working order, ready for reinstallation. Now on to re-riveting the hinge in its new position to eliminate the gap between the door and the frame.

On a bit of a side issue - what to get for a bathroom sink - I was struck by the one in our room at the Gage Hotel in Marathon, Texas, where we were last month, pictured below. I'm trying to get the folks there to tell me where I can order one. I think it would look cool in the Tradewind. Thoughts?

[dbj216]

Hi Slats: That vanity sink is pretty. You can be a "glamper". This sink may lead to gold plated Phillips window operators and a granite countertop.

II put a $20 plastic sink in my Trade Wind. I did splurge and get the larger of the two plastic sinks I saw on an RV site.

As they say here on the Forums: "your trailer, your rules".

David

[Atomic_13]

Dale - I like it. Everyone needs a bit of pizzazz in the loo.

[Slats]

Yeah, Brian, I thought it might appeal to your flair for a western fly-fishing motif.

Well, last Saturday I pulled the trigger and took to the door hinge and frame with my drill to see if I could get the door to hang a little straighter. So far so good.

First, I drilled out all the hinge rivets except for the bottom of the more prominent ones, which I left in place to hold the door at the right height in the frame and to use a the pivot point to move the top of the door to the left. After pivoting the door slightly to the left and eye-balling the squareness of its fit, I drilled a new hole through the hinge and the door frame just to the left of the third rivet down from the top, using an 11/64" bit. I then ran a #10 stainless steel bolt through the hinge and the frame, fastening it with a star lock washer and nut on the frame side. This made for a good tight fit with no wiggle room whatever for the bolt in the hole. I then drilled out the pivot rivet and re-drilled that hole out to 11/64" and rant a #10 bolt through it for a very snug fit. After that I drilled all the other hinge/frame holes to 11/64". Even though the hinge holes didn't line up exactly with the holes in the frame after pivoting the door slightly to the left, because I was drilling 1/8" holes out to 11/64", the remaining bolts still fit snugly enough.

I was left with the unused rivet hole at the top of the hinge, but I think I'll either fill it and sand it or just epoxy a rivet into it and ignore it the best I can, answering any discerning observers' questions with a yet-to-be-thought-up wise crack.

Next I will apply Reflectix and Roxul to the inside of the door and rivet the newly-power washed interior panel back on, ready for painting, all in practice for doing the same throughout the interior. What brand and thickness of thermal tape should I use on the door frame and ribs?

[Atomic_13]

Good job, Dale.

Regarding tape I used 72 linear yards of this (3/4” x 1/32 thick):

https://www.findtape.com/Scapa-SR532...20Double-Sided

I’d suggest up sizing to 1/16” thickness. I left the backing on the tape so I wouldn’t adhere the inside panels to the ribs.

[dbj216]

Great job realigning that sagging door! David

[Slats]

I forgot to mention that once I got the door to fit square in the frame, I taped it above and below the hinge with strips of aluminum tape to hold it in place while I drilled the holes through the hinge and the frame.

[Slats]

After rehanging the door I installed Reflectix and Roxul as a kind of practice run for doing the rest of the trailer. My crude jig for slicing the 3" thick Roxul bats in half involved parallel 2x4s screwed on their sides to a piece of the old subfloor. Because the 2 of a 2x4 is really only 1 1/2 inches, it was the perfect width. Although the Harbor Freight serrated machete worked well enough for slicing the bat in half, it left the sliced side a bit rough. I found that a plain old carpenter saw worked better.

When I pop riveted the lower interior panel back on I realized that the rough cut from the serrated machete left the Roxul too thick, resulting in a slight outward bulge of the panel. After considering drilling the rivets back out and redoing the insulation (a process that took about 3 seconds) I went with my close-enough-for-Bluegrass philosophy and left it alone.

It was a nice day last Tuesday and I pulled the Tradewind out out of the shed to work on sealing up the interior. It seemed like another couple of progress pics were warranted.

[Slats]

Crap. Sideways attachments strike again😜

[dbj216]

Sideways pictures. That's okay. Good enough for us bluegrass philosophy folks.

I was going to mention the photos show the door mounted horizontal instead of vertical until you said the pics were sideways.

Nice that spring is coming.

David

[TouringDan]

Slats

Outstanding job of rehanging the door and insulating it. Not an easy task.

Dan