Little Girl Refurb 1972

[wcronin4]

Kay

Thanks for info on flooring. I’m grateful that you and Chris are so willing to share your knowledge. Not sure what will use, but I find the use of cork intriguing,

OUCH - on the dents. It is amazing the tools available for dent pulling these days. I’m hoping Chris makes easy work if it.

[TouringDan]

Originally Posted by wcronin4

Kay



Thanks for info on flooring. I’m grateful that you and Chris are so willing to share your knowledge. Not sure what will use, but I find the use of cork intriguing,

We also used cork flooring and have been very happy with it. It has been down 8 years. It has held up well except for the time the water pump connection was leaking and the cork got wet from below. The wet pieces swelled up and had to be replaced. Fortunately we had some leftover from the initial installation.

For details go to my project thread- Dan’s 66 Tradewind Improvements and look at posts 3-7.

Dan

[Minno]

Here are two before and after pictures of the stone guard we damaged last year on the way to International. I found replacement beltline molding that matches the rest of the trailer, and I replaced it on both stone guards. We have since painted the molding blue to match.

Chris

[Minno]

Here's the dent I put in her last Fall.



By the time I took this picture, I had sort of straightened the bumper with a big pipe wrench. It was bent backwards at a 90 degree angle at first. Got it to this point that morning (in the rain) before we took off for the Fall Rally.



In December, I repaired the bumper in my workshop. Bought a bench press to straighten it out - getting it about 98% of the way there. Then brazed aluminum into the cracks and holes followed by sanding. I still need to finish sanding the rest of the bumper and then re-install it in the spring.

Kay is right - I do want to try and pull the dent myself. I bought the dent puller at Harbor Freight. It was about $80 on sale. My plan is to give it a try in warm weather with the sun shining on the trailer to warm up the metal. First back-up plan is to remove the panel completely, roll the dent out from the back and then re-install the panel. Further back-up plan is to hire Luke to pull it at International. I will make that decision within the first one two attempts to try and pull it myself so I don't make it any worse. Not replacing the panel as the patina would be wrong.

Chris

[HiHoAgRV]

Originally Posted by Minno

Here's the dent I put in her last Fall...Not replacing the panel as the patina would be wrong.

Chris

That dent may pop out with the shop vac/inner tube trick. I helped a pal un-dent an end cap after a bird strike. His had much worse creases.

[Minno]

Originally Posted by HiHoAgRV

That dent may pop out with the shop vac/inner tube trick. I helped a pal un-dent an end cap after a bird strike. His had much worse creases.

Haven't heard of this! Could you explain?

Chris

[HiHoAgRV]

Originally Posted by Minno

Haven't heard of this! Could you explain?

Chris

https://www.airforums.com/forums/f4/...ap-153091.html

[learthman]

I'm about to do the same thing to our 72 sovereign wing windows and I'm terrified!!

[Minno]

Originally Posted by learthman

I'm about to do the same thing to our 72 sovereign wing windows and I'm terrified!!

Do you mean removing the wing windows and repairing them? Not terribly difficult, just take your time. The spline that holds them to the center window came off much easier than I thought it would.

Chris

[Minno]

Installed our Christmas Present last weekend. Bought through Luke Bernander in Colorado





Discovered at the International Rally last year that a rear awning would have been really nice to have.

Ran into a concern with the running lights though. They are less than 2 inches above the rear window frame, and the instructions say to install the top of the awning rail 2 3/4 inches above the window. Luke suggested installing it below the running lights instead of moving them, so we did. (Did a trial fit first.) Worked out quite well - window opens ok with the awning rolled up or or deployed.


Chris

[dbj216]

Luke Bernander in Ft. Collins Colorado knows his vintage Airstreams. He is a super nice guy and very helpful. I have purchased two sets of axles from him with no problems. Not this year, but he participates in the Colorado Airstream Club "maintenance rally" each year which is great fun and informative.

David

[Bauxter]

Originally Posted by HiHoAgRV

That dent may pop out with the shop vac/inner tube trick. I helped a pal un-dent an end cap after a bird strike. His had much worse creases.

Chris/Kay,
Condolences on the dent.
Curious if you tried the vaccuum and inner tube thing, would love to see pictures of that. I know Chris would take pictures of that, even if it was completely dark outside, like he did for the shot of the storage compartment


The awnings look awesome!

All the best!
Mike

[Minno]

Yes, we love Luke! Very sad we won't get to see him this summer at International.
We haven't tried the dent yet. I think he's going to go for the pneumatic dent puller already bought along with gently heating the dent area. We've been waiting for warmer weather which we finally have.
A little more info on the rear awning: ZipDee sent us the wrong fabric on it, but sent correct fabric when we discovered it. They were very good to work with, as was Luke. Awning took us 2 hours to install. The rail sticks out proud of the trailer about an inch on each side. Conforming it to the trailer would not work because it would tighten up the awning when we roll it out too much, we think. It's not noticeable unless you're looking for it.
Now, if we can just go camping so we can try it out....

Kay

[Minno]

Forgot to post this when we pulled the dent out a few weeks ago. It was pretty anti-climatic actually. We removed the trim strips, set up the compressor, hooked up the pneumatic dent puller, suctioned it onto the middle of the dent, and did a trial pull on the dent puller to see how hard this was going to be. The dent immediately popped right out!


I used the dent puller to try and get some of the leftover creases out with some success. Overall, this went a heck of a lot better than we were expecting.


Here's what's left of the dent. Still slight creases, but we happy with the results.


Here's the trim re-installed. We took this opportunity to put new blue vinyl in the trim. Painted the rivets blue to match.

So, what we thought was going to be a several hour process turned out to be about a 10 minute process, with much more time setting up than actually pulling on the dent.

Chris

[Minno]

And then there's the floor: we noticed a soft spot in the rear bathroom in front of the bathtub on our first outing earlier in June. Finally investigated last week and found an area of floor that is very punky. We originally thought it was a very small area, but when we really started pulling out the vinyl and deconstructing the rear bath yesterday, we discovered it runs about 4 feet side to side across the rear of the trailer and approximately 2 feet depth. Bummer! We're still working on taking stuff out so we can fully evaluate it, but there's no doubt we'll be replacing some of the subfloor back there. Only question is how much right now. We had 2 areas of water intrusion: a small area in the rear bumper that didn't get sealed fully (missed it when sealing), and toilet seal. SO, we have some work ahead of us. We plan on replacing the subfloor with marine grade plywood already bought, sealed with penetrating epoxy. We'll definitely reflash and seal the rear bumper area.
We also decided on a "while we're at it" side project of adding a flush port to the black tank since we'll most likely be dropping the rear belly pan anyway during the repairs. We're currently working on deconstruction and will post pictures as we take them (none yet).

Kay

[dbj216]

Good job on pulling the dent out. She looks as good as new.

Hate to hear that about the bath floor. My old 66 Trade Wind had a leaky toilet seal causing rot under the toilet. And of course my 75 Overlander had rear end separation due to floor rot and a rusted out rear cross member. The rear end of Airstreams seems to be a real weak spot.

Well with the pandemic curtailing travel adventures (at least for us), you will have a fun and challenging project. Keep us posted on the cause and the repair process. Soon, she will be as good as new.

David

[Minno]

Working on the AS is always fun and challenging. Right now, we're just trying to remember how we put this together so we can take it all apart again! I like to think that we discovered this now because of the pandemic. Otherwise we had a very busy summer planned and wouldn't have had to time to deal with it adequately. Now we're just waiting for supplies we've ordered to arrive so we can fix her again. We've determined we'll have to drop the belly pan and black tank. It's very hot here right now, so we're waiting he heat out before we go that far.

Kay

[wcronin4]

Kay/Chris

Sorry to hear about your floor. Rear bath repairs are challenging. But my money is on you two. You’ll have it ship shape in no time.Kay, you mentioned that you had vinyl flooring in the bath. Did you choose not to put cork flooring in the bath?

[cole3444]

Hate to hear your issue also. I pulled my vinyl click and lock floor up due to separating and found dampness in my rear bath pulled the commode and my tank had filled from rain water over time and had seeped up under my vinyl and plywood. I am glad I listened to you and others about renovating and sealing the plywood and I coated it with epoxy top and bottom $$$ no rot just moisture. I now have a vent cap on my drain. Good luck and I know your Airstream will be better than ever. My daughter is taking my 31' out on it's maiden voyage in two weeks

[Minno]

Been working on deconstructing the bathroom and rear belly pan for about a week now off and on. Heat and humidity has been really bad the last week or so. Tuesday was the "cool" day, so I took the afternoon off and we dropped the black tank. Almost as bad as the original belly pan removal, but there are some good things we learned as well.


This is the floor after we pulled up the vinyl. Kinda punky in the last 18 inches of the trailer or so, especially in the middle and around the toilet.


Here's the rear frame that holds up the black tank. By this time, we had removed the belly pan under the bumper and black tank, so we had access to see how bad things might be.


Here's the worst of it. The metal box I built to replace the original metal box around the black tank is pretty much gone across the bottom. In hindsight, rebuilding and using the metal box was a mistake as it trapped water and prevented it from draining once water got in (more on that later). Drain holes certainly would have helped, but our plan going forward is to support the black tank the same way I did the gray tanks with plywood that will allow water to escape if it gets in.


Here's most of the issue. About 4 years ago, we had a closet bolt break. We discovered it at the Peace Garden rally. We think the broken bolt also cracked the toilet flange, which we did not discover until we removed the toilet last week. So, we've had 4 years of the toilet leaking into the black tank box, and no way for the water to drain out until it rusted through.

We also discovered, as Kay mentioned, a seam we missed sealing inside the bumper compartment, which allowed water to wick into the rear edge of the plywood, adding to the rotting of the floor.


Our helper.

Today we removed the bad section of plywood. I will post more pics tomorrow.

The good news is that the frame itself is ok. We only have the one angle iron support to replace, as well as install a new toilet flange on the black tank. Need to re-connect the vent and bathroom sink drain as well as the dump drain.

More pics to come.

Chris