Another '74 Tradewind Under Restoration

[Alumineer]

Pic attached... progress to come.

[hippiechick]

Good luck. keep us posted and lots of pictures.

[cameront120]

Good luck! Look forward to seeing your progress. Looks like you'll need a new window (I think Out-of-Doors Mart still sells a replacement)!

[Alumineer]

Originally Posted by cameront120

Looks like you'll need a new window

Good eye. The left side was raked by something (a dump truck?) while a previous owner had it in storage, or something, and put a 10 foot long gouge along the side, and also took out the left lower window. I initially was going to use the right side window as a template but I broke it (doing a Dumb Thing) and so I had the glass shop (Crystal Glass in Cochrane) make up two replacements.

I mail-ordered Tremco Polyshim tape from All Glass Parts in Edmonton, in 1/8 and 3/16 inch, and then used that along with a new acrylic inner window (Home Depot sheet) to rebuild the right side. I haven't done the left yet, I'm waiting with that until I finish straightening out the frame for that side and decide how to patch the panels there.

This trailer is not going to be a beauty queen... we'd have to replace all the panels for that because the PO evidently parked by Braille. The goal is to build a comfortable interior with all-new electrical and plumbing, as well as new appliances, and we will never have to worry about getting a first ding on the exterior because it's going to start out with a couple hundred of those, even after we nudge out the worst ones.

[Alumineer]

More pictures and back story...
We came across this Airstream in our local classifieds (Kijiji), in July of 2015. The trailer had been bought at auction from an insurance salvage yard - it had been written off due to the rake along its side. The couple that bought it were more into Bolers and so they decided to move this Tradewind along... although they were optimistic that a person could likely enjoy this trailer with just a bit of minor fixup to take care of some little details.

Having now stripped most of the interior and some of the holding tank plumbing, I am sure that any camping trip with this thing would have quickly escalated into some pretty serious trouble...

Trailer hookup #1: Check out the Marr connectors "adapting" the old to the new. When we towed it home, the brake / signal light on one side (the left) didn't work. As it happened, we only had to make one right turn on the entire trip so that was relatively minor... We also didn't have trailer brakes on the tow home.

Having gotten it home, I dug into the taillight situation some with my 15 year old son. We found that the brake/turn/taillight bulbs were mounted as shown in the picture, complete with twisted strand connections. They had actually taped that up with some electrical tape but that was the only concession to longevity. Then we discovered that at least a couple of the trailer to tow vehicle wires had been swapped around and that was the other reason for the left light not working.

Last picture: The floor after we peeled up the first pieces of the carpet and underlay. The flooring was brown pile carpet except where it was green shag carpet. Nice! Clearly there had been some water infiltration over the years. The trailer had a somewhat musty smell inside, but not too bad, and in the closets it was overpowered by the mothballs that the owners had left in there. During the cleanout we found not too much mouse poop so the mothballs did have at least that positive effect.