New to me Overlander

[Northlander]

Just pulled the trigger on a 1975 Overlander International. My wife and I have been thinking Airstream for a while. We restored a 1975 Boler, and enjoyed it for three years, but always admired the Airstreams. While getting the Boler ready to store for the winter, we decided to put it on the market. We sold it to the first person that came and looked at it. For full asking price. The search began for a replacement. Looked at a few Airstreams, and found this Overlander. Got it or a good price (I think), and looking forward to getting it home. Many questions and searches to come, I'm sure.

Carry on,

JJ

[loudruff]

Welcome! This is a great place to research your "new to you" Airstream. Lots of people with experience and knowledge to get you going. We have made so many friends here.
And by the way, there are lots of Airstreamers in Ontario!
Good luck with your journey!

[Max Well]

Congratulations on your "new" Overlander! You are gonna love it here! Lots and lots of experienced people who love to help hang out here. Welcome!

[Northlander]

So we got the airstream home. Going over things and I have a few questions.
Where is the inverter/dc power supply thing. I think it is behind the tub? Also, with the trailer plugged in to shore power, with no battery will the dc lights and stuff work? The catalytic heater, I can get it to light by holding the pilot light thing, but when I let go, and wait like it says, no go. Bad thermo coupler?
The awning is a "care free" and it's rotten. The mechanical bits seem fine, but there is no cover over it when it's rolled up, no wonder it is rotten. I guess we just replace the material. One of the jacks is broken, looks like someone drove away with it down, easily replaced? Lots more to come.

[Kevin245]

Congrats on getting her home. My Carefree awnings didn't come with a hard cover like ZipDee. The fabric near the attachment rail was doubled with a (somewhat) weather protective material. Awning fabrics are readily available as are replacement stabilizer jacks.

[Northlander]

Winter is on us hard, so not much work getting done. I have removed all the copper, and replaced with pex. All fittings are not in, but, the pex is there.
Some questions.
On the street side of the trailer is a fitting that looks like a coax fitting for cable tv? Or is it for a radio antenna, because the original am/fm radio can only get very local stations.
I have replaced the old charger/converter. Are fuses still available for the dc fuse panel?
Some of them are bigger than a standard auto type glass fuse.

That's all for now.
Carry on,

[WineStream]

I'm assuming that stuff in your '75 is pretty close to my '74.

I think you've located the Univolt (battery charger) and seemingly replaced it? I can't speak to the usage of the 12V stuff on shore power but with no battery...never tried it.

Kinda the same story for the heater. When we bought ours, the cat. heater was no longer there. Just a furnace for us.

We have Carefree awnings on ours, too. Perhaps Carefree never put protectors on their awnings as none of ours have the nice covers, either. All of ours awnings just needed a good cleaning and they were good to go. We store our Airstream in a barn, so the awnings are protected from water, snow, etc. when not being camped in. If I ever replace them, I will seek out something with the metal covers.

I've lost a stabilizer during travel (not from leaving it down) and had to replace it. In my case, it was pretty clear that the fasteners and mating holes were corroded from time. So, when I replaced it I had to get creative with new mounting. How easy yours will be to replace will be depending on how torn up or corroded things are down there on yours. There's a thread elsewhere on the forum about J bolts for attaching the jacks. I looked at the local hardware store and couldn't find them. I ended up making them myself out of some all-thread.

I have removed the radio antenna from mine, but it was on the street side, front corner; more than half way up the body. Do you have an antenna there or a patch-plate for what was once an antenna? Anything co-ax I too would assume to be TV. Maybe if you have cable available at home you can plug in to a TV signal and see off all of a sudden you've got a bunch of channels in the trailer?

Didn't you say you replaced the battery charger / converter? Did you retain the fuse panel? I did it this way, so it can be done. Fuses are still available. The smaller ones are available almost anywhere (Walmart, auto parts stores, etc). The larger ones are available at auto parts stores. I carry a spare or two as I have found that is SUCKS when the ground fuse (50A DC) gets old and decides to quit and all 12V in the trailer is gone. Cheap insurance at a few $ per fuse and considering you can't easily get to an open auto parts store when you're camping and it's dark.

Keep up the questions, we're willing to share the knowledge here.

[Northlander]

Winestream, thanks for the answers. I think I've some pics of your Airstream while I was looking through the pictures on here. I did keep the fuse panel, I will look for a couple spare 50 amp fuses. The awning is rotten, so will replace the material from carefree. The bolts were ripped right out when the jack was left down. Overall I think it' in pretty good shape, I have pulled back the carpet wherever I could to check the floor, no rotten spots. There rear bumper area where the power cord, sewer hose live is pretty rusty. It looks as if it is lined with aluminum, but the frame parts are pretty bad. Like I said, winter is here, so now I'm collecting replacement parts for the spring. I did remove the clock/ thermometer and found that the battery in the clock had froze and leaked all over the thermometer, I cleaned up the clock and got it working, but I'm afraid the thermometer is ruined. Too bad.

[WineStream]

Lucky you on the clock. We put a battery in ours, but it didn't work. I have not removed it from the overhead locker to try additional repairs. With phones easily at hand, finding the time usually isn't an issue. Ours either didn't have a thermometer from the factory or else someone removed it and replaced it with a nice piece of blue paper. The front bezel and clear plastic is there in the lower position, just nothing behind it but blue.

[Northlander]

So it was a tv hook up. Now I have a nice hole in the side of the airstream. The antenna for the original 8 track, amfm radio, I can see the black cable going out the back of the radio, where does it go? or is just laid out inside somewhere? I'm thinking I could put a radio antenna where the hole is, but fishing the wire might be a chore. The hole is plugged with a dowel wrapped in electrical tape for now.

[WineStream]

Can't tell you for sure where all the radio antenna wire goes. When I removed my antenna, I left the wire just lay rather than pulling it out. Sometime in the next year or two, I have plans to tear out the interior of the whole front end and that includes removal of the original radio. In a way it's kinda neat to have the original sound system in-tact, but our Overlander is "modernized" enough that plugging our phone (smartphone with streaming radio) into a Bose radio is a better option.