Dale and Terry get a '66 Tradewind

[Slats]

Hi David -
No worries about the Dickinson heater suffocating or poisoning me. It both exhausts to, and draws its oxygen from, the outside. While "outside" is still within the metal shed, the big overhead door to the shed is always open. As for the slope of my tub drain line, I put a level on it and it appears to have sufficient slope, although it wouldn't hurt to have a little more. I may shorten the legs of the tees that connect to the grey tanks by 1/4" or so to give the line a bit more slope, however. And although I don't anticipate needing any kind of valve on the drain line (tee-hee), I will tee into it just aft of the Hepvo valve to run a vent line back to the tub, up through the hole in the tub rim and thence out the roof, where the original vent line ran.

[Bubba L]

Slats, your description of the shower drain vent line brings back headaches. On our 66 Safari we had a plastic bowl in the plywood subfloor below the shower drain that housed a “P” trap. We eliminated that and added the Hepvo. The vent was the same as yours. Good luck

[coloradoup]

Great work Slats,
It sure is nice to see someone post. Seems like everyone has taken the last couple of years off. Ever forward!
Mike.

[Slats]

Well, Mike, when I see Tradewind posts thinning out I just brew a cup of tea, sit down and revisit Brian's old posts. Come to think of it, given the quality of his posts, one might conclude that he said it all and there is not much to add.

[TouringDan]

Nice plumbing work Dale. Your tub looks brand new. Did you paint it? If so did you use epoxy paint?

Bet you are looking forward to taking a shower in it to see how well your drain lines and vents work. Ours is completely stock and it drains fine.

Dan

[Atomic_13]

Great to see the headway you are making Dale. Keep up the great work.

[Slats]

Originally Posted by TouringDan

Nice plumbing work Dale. Your tub looks brand new. Did you paint it? If so did you use epoxy paint?

Bet you are looking forward to taking a shower in it to see how well your drain lines and vents work. Ours is completely stock and it drains fine.

Dan

Dan - I took to a body shop and had the cracks repaired and the tub painted, so I don't think it is epoxy paint. I was told it is Chevrolet pickup truck white.


Brian - Thanks for the kind words of encouragement.

[Slats]

By the way, when I ran out of flooring in the curbside rear corner, I cut a piece of 3/16" plywood to fill in that space, as it would not be seen. The other day I thought better of that shortcut and decided to cover it over with some leftover truck bed liner from the earlier project in coating 12 inches of the new outer subfloor to ward of water rot evident on the old subfloor. Now, do qualify for the run-on sentence award?

[dbj216]

Long sentence? Very likely. You might win. David

[Slats]

All along the way in this never-ending project there has been a cloud lurking on the horizon, even though progress was being made. A low register voice emanating from the cloud would, from time to time, softly ask, "What are you going to do when you have to deal with that place where the tub meets the shower wall? And why didn't you take a picture of how it fit together before you rent them asunder in the haste of those early days?"

In answer, my old friend Serendipity came through the other day, supplying a solution right on time and on the money.

After positioning the tub, I had sat down to think things through, concluding to cut a square out of the bottom section of my already constructed shower wall / bedroom partition (laminated with Formica on the shower side) so I could have access the shower drain and related plumbing. I then screwed a 2"x2" scab on the side of the substructure beneath the point where the tub butts up to the shower wall. I then screwed a horizontal piece of aluminum c channel on top of the scab, aligning it to meet and form an L with the vertical c channel on the trailer's curbside interior wall, into which the partition fits.

Then, after placing the partition in this L-shaped c channel arrangement, I noticed that the piece I had cut out fitted neatly in place to hide the gap between the tub and the shower wall when I dry-fitted it in place. Now I only have to complete the finishing touches on the piece and fabricate the vent pipe cover to make it all appear as if it were planned. I'm looking forward to finishing out the shower in keeping with my mahogany/aluminum theme that seems to have developed organically as things have gone along, which is a big part of the fun. I may in some subconscious way not want to finish this project.

[dbj216]

I had forgotten your 66 Trade Wind was an "International" upgraded trim level. Very cool. It doesn't matter now as you have made many, many upgrades during your renovation build. It is a Super International now.

You're going to enjoy this Trade Wind very much. Especially operating all those valves you installed.

David

[Slats]

Tops on my list of valves is the one that switches to gray water to flush the toilet, allowing me to save the fresh water for making coffee.

[dbj216]

Ya but: The more coffee, the more flushes requiring more grey water. You're going to have to do dishes more often so you don't run out of grey water.

The original owner of my 66 Trade Wind had estimated the water used per flush and since the black tank was only about 10 gallons, he only allowed 2 flushes a day for him and 2 for his wife. He had written so in the owner's manual. You may need to be restricted on your flushes per day.

David

[Slats]

One matter I have been putting off for some time is door repair. Sometime in its life, our Tradewind's door suffered some sort of trauma that resulted in a cracked frame. The owner at the time sort of repaired it by attaching a vertical length of angle iron to each side of the frame. Of course, because the angle iron was straight to a fault, it did not mate well with the otherwise curved door frame, resulting in the top of the door coming out a bit too far from the curved shell. While I suppose I could just stuff the gap with a couple layers of door gasket material, my anal retentive side augurs against this. So here is my question: Does anyone know where I can get my hands on a used door?

[Aerowood]

Post a pic of your door, does it have a cast frame or extruded?

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[dbj216]

It is most likely cast based on my experience with my 66 Trade Wind. My cast door frame was fractured also due to a towing error by the previous owner. The cast door frames are tough to bend back to shape. I've seen it done by folks on these Forums.

David

[Slats]

Here is the best shot I have of it, taken before I reattached the interior skin. I have circled in blue the location of the cracks in the cast frame and outlined in yellow the 1/8" angle iron used to sort of repair it. The rigid, straight, angle extends above and below the circled cracks a foot or so, thus defeating the curvature.

[Aerowood]

So let me get this straight, it's the repair of the frame that is riveted to the body that is causing the door to not comform to the body contour?

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[ALUMINUMINUM]

I can speak to this.



My 68GT came to me with a typically broken cast door. It might be a long wait to find a replacement door, and it could be already stressed, “work hardened” and ready to break. Like the final breaking bend of a wire coat-hanger.


This hinge first appeared in 1965 and was “improved” in 1968. I think the improvement was thru-bolting the door-side of the hinge instead of rivets. It went into the early seventies, but should have been jettisoned along with the Corning-Philips windows. So, a ‘65-’67 replacement would work for sure. A 1968 door might work, but I think the casting in the hinge-mount area might be different enough that you’ll need some of the 1968 hinge to go with it. A 1969 door is is different shape and won’t fit the jamb.


I think you’ll save time and $$ if you repair your door to better than new. I’m not going to say it’s easy, but a man of your Airstream skills isn’t intimidated by the challenges of mere mortals.


Start by removing both in and out skins. There’s no work-around to this. If you want to really fix your broken casting. You have to get to both sides of the crack, and the “pot” quality aluminum is a welder’s nightmare. When heated, the cast aluminum shrinks like George Costanza’s “scared turtle”. This will wave your outside door-skin if you leave it in place. You may have to re-drill some rivet holes to get the original skin to lay down.



There’s enough material in a 1x8 to make an accurate scribe of your jamb contour. Two 1”x8”x8’s is enough wood to make a jig to cradle the door-frame. I ripped some plywood for the jig.


The “better than new” is that you can weld in gussets so the next time the door attempts suicide, it may not succeed. In this image, you can see the broken weld from a previous repair. You need gussets.


Sorry I can’t find my pictures of how the repair gussets weld in, but it’s a self-explain when you get there.



And don’t forget your intervention wedge...

[Aerowood]

The door frame on my 71 was broken in several places. After deskinning I had a welder friend weld it up. I think it was either cracked or completely broken in 7 places. It was quite the project. I also replaced the KT lock. I then completely re-skinned it inside and out. I had to do the outside skin with the frame attached to the trailer to ensure the contour. I have pictures in my 71 Globetrotter Full Monte thread.