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ankornuta · 08-20-2006, 12:53 PM

Yesterday I was only able to finish getting the floor attached and begin to roll the frame under body. The wheel wells were off when I pulled the fram out though, and the body was about 8" too low to put the fram under, now with the wheel wells attached. I had to go take care of some other business, so I tabled the lift until today.

So today I went out with my two jacks and started to lift the front of the body higher. This was nervewracking, as you can see from the pictures, the body was precariously perched atop 4x4s supported by saw horses with NINE pieces of 2x4 and 2x6 cribbing supporting it. I felt that this was totally unsafe, but I had to get it done and amazingly, I did!

Once I cleared the wheel wells I finished rolling the frame under the body and got a pretty close fit. I then braced the frame with the jack stands and started to lower the body back down so that it is now off of the saw horses and just on three pieces of 2x4 cribbing at each corner. The body is actually back on the frame, although in a temporary fashion still. I've got a very close fit now and best of all, after something like seven months I am off the saw horses and pretty damn close to having the body attached.

Next steps:
- Attach the U-channel
- Attach the belly pan perimeter
- Button her back up!

Then she'll be ready to move to the new house and start on the wiring and insulation, plus opening up the floor to bring the drain lines in.

Most exciting of all today is that I actually got to stand on the new floor with the body over me. She's actually starting to look like an Airstream again.

Attached are some pictures.

Ken J · 08-20-2006, 08:18 PM

Cool - lookin great - - - - - you'll be there before you know it.....

You have the same TV antenna mount as I - was your antenna attached when you got your trailer - would like to see it if so....

Ken

NorCal Bambi · 08-20-2006, 10:24 PM

Ankornuta,congratulation I sure remember being in that same spot. It sure felt better though knowing that things would fit. One question did you allow for the thickness of the belly ban. The thickness exists on both sides and ends,etc. If you trailer is like mine the belly pan raps around the the plywood and then around the C channel. This doesn't seem like much at the time. But it does matter. Again congrats, It's a mile stone. It sure feels good.
Don

ankornuta · 08-21-2006, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken J

Cool - lookin great - - - - - you'll be there before you know it.....

You have the same TV antenna mount as I - was your antenna attached when you got your trailer - would like to see it if so....

Ken

The trailer didn't have the antenna attached when I got it so I don't have pics, but all the hardware is there on the outside and on the inside for cranking it up into position.

I've seen pictures of these old aerials and I think they look very cool. I found a guy who restores trailers who says he'll sell me one, since he doesn't leave them on the trailers that he restores. I've held off on ordering it from him thus far because I'm obviously a little far from the point in the project where I start concerning myself with exterior accessories!

Should I see if he can get two?

ankornuta · 08-21-2006, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NorCal Bambi

Ankornuta,congratulation I sure remember being in that same spot. It sure felt better though knowing that things would fit. One question did you allow for the thickness of the belly ban. The thickness exists on both sides and ends,etc. If you trailer is like mine the belly pan raps around the the plywood and then around the C channel. This doesn't seem like much at the time. But it does matter. Again congrats, It's a mile stone. It sure feels good.
Don

Don, I haven't attached the C-channel yet, but since I have the body hovering over the floor, I can do that now while allowing for the thickness of the belly pan (which goes on right after attaching the C-channel to the floor). That is my sub-project for next weekend.

I've been trying to think of how I'm going to lower the body down and be able to move it left/right, forward/backward with the way I have supported right now. I think I will get it as low as possible on the cribbing and then line up the front first to that plate up there. Then I'll do one back corner at a time. The wheel wells sticking up help to keep things lined up as well. I should be able to move the body around a little at a time by whacking the cribbing with a large mallet.

Next time I am DEFINITELY going to do this in the barn, with a hoist so that I can pick the body straight up. Soooo many lessons learned on this one.

NorCal Bambi · 08-21-2006, 02:23 PM

I was able to move my shell around for alignment by using the cross members that were attached to the shell. Once the shell is lowered just above the floor use a large wooden block and a 2x3 as a level. My 2x4 was about 5 feet long. lets say you were starting at the front. Place the block just behind the front shell brace, say about 6". Then slide the 2x4 in under the cross brace and pry the shell up a few inches. By swinging the end of the 2x4 that is farthest from the block, you should be able to move the shell side to side a few inches. I used my wife on the outside of the trailer to place support block in or out as needed. I even found that I could move the shell forward and back using this method. I'm not sure if this makes sense. If I need to try and make a better explanation with some diagrams, let me know.
Don

ankornuta · 08-29-2006, 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NorCal Bambi

I was able to move my shell around for alignment by using the cross members that were attached to the shell. Once the shell is lowered just above the floor use a large wooden block and a 2x3 as a level. My 2x4 was about 5 feet long. lets say you were starting at the front. Place the block just behind the front shell brace, say about 6". Then slide the 2x4 in under the cross brace and pry the shell up a few inches. By swinging the end of the 2x4 that is farthest from the block, you should be able to move the shell side to side a few inches. I used my wife on the outside of the trailer to place support block in or out as needed. I even found that I could move the shell forward and back using this method. I'm not sure if this makes sense. If I need to try and make a better explanation with some diagrams, let me know.
Don

Don, I think your explanation makes sense, but what I wound up doing is just picking up the trailer body by the wooden cross members I had installed to brace it and literally just pushed and pulled it into place. The good old brute force method

It worked like a charm. That body isn't very heavy.

ankornuta · 08-29-2006, 09:03 AM

This weekend I didn't get much done, but the work that I did get done was significant.

I finished lining the body up just right and reduced the amount of cribbing even further so that I will have just enough clearance between the bottom of the shell and the top of the u-channel to wrap the belly pan.

I had POR-15'ed the curving pieces of U-channel and cleaned them up very nicely. It's cool how much extra stiffness the POR-15 added to these pieces. I attached the corner pieces. I was going to attach the other U-channel pieces as well, but then realized that they were corroded and bent all to hell. I wasn't very careful when I removed them, plus they are made of flimsier aluminum than the corner pieces, so I decided to have some new ones fabricated. I dropped all that info off on Monday at the sheet metal shop where I had my wheel well covers made (Jachowski Sheet Metal in Scottsdale, AZ - VERY helpful and good work).

Also, I had developed some nasty bowing in a piece of my floor; the third piece back from the front, the edge between the front door and the wheel well. I sanded the wood a bit to remove the sealant, then draped a wet towel over it and set a five gallon bucket full of water on top. This works like a charm to remove warps in plywood. I think I'm going to screw a piece of 2x4 under the floor in this spot just to make sure the bow doesn't come back.

So this upcoming labor day weekend I'm going to be attaching the body. I need to order some Olympic rivets and vulkem for that.

ankornuta · 08-29-2006, 10:46 AM

Based on what I saw when I took my trailer apart, the belly pan is wrapped over the U-channel, the body sets against the outside of that wrap, then is rivetted all together (body, belly, u-channel). This whole assembly is sealed from the inside with some kind of sealant (vulkem?) which is spread over the interior seam where the clamshell meets.

Is this how you others who have finished this step have done it as well? Do you put sealant in each rivet hole?

Thanks!
-Andrew

ankornuta · 09-01-2006, 03:46 PM

This is the big weekend! Attaching the body tomorrow

Safari Tim · 09-01-2006, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ankornuta

This is the big weekend! Attaching the body tomorrow

Good luck and be safe!

ankornuta · 09-03-2006, 12:22 PM

I've got the body back on now and I've removed all of the wood bracing from the shell. The body isn't fully attached yet, just rivetted in a few places in order to keep it in place. I don't have a pneumatic rivetter, I'm just using a hand held squeeze type pop rivet gun w/ Olympic rivets, so it's a little slow-going on that front.

Wrapping the belly pan was easy, but it certainly did get my fingers and forearms sore from bending all those aluminum tabs! Getting the body to line up just right took some coaxing ("coaxing" is slang for crowbar and hammer) for the rear corners, but it's all nice and tight now. I also put the rear door back on. I need to adjust it though, because it's closing a little too far to the left and it's hitting the eyebrow above it. I had forgotten how beautiful this trailer looks when it's all put together.

Tomorrow I'll be finishing the rivets, putting the front door back on and loading all of the interior parts into the trailer to get ready for the move to the new house in a few weeks.

Putting the first rivet back into that body felt like such a momentuous occaision!

flyfshr · 09-03-2006, 12:35 PM

Congrats on that monumentous occassion. We all forgot too what a great trailer this when its together. Where's the pix?

How did it survive last night's downpour?

Brad
FF

ankornuta · 09-03-2006, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flyfshr

Congrats on that monumentous occassion. We all forgot too what a great trailer this when its together. Where's the pix?

How did it survive last night's downpour?

Brad
FF

The camera's at the cabin in Springerville right now, as soon as I get it back here I'll post pictures.

The trailer's always been really watertight, so it did fine with last night's rain. The front door is off, so the floor near there got a little wet, but that wasn't bad. I was at the weiner dog races last night at the dog track and thought they were gonna get rained out, but they kept them running. It was hilarious

flyfshr · 09-03-2006, 10:11 PM

Weiner dog waces in the wain. A Saturday night just can't get much better unless you're watching them from the door of your vintage Airstream. Or in your case "doors."

Brad
FF

NorCal Bambi · 09-03-2006, 11:23 PM

Ankornuta, congratulation on getting the shell back on. I remember how good that felt when the shell went back on the Bambi. Keep us all posted on the interior progress.
Don

ankornuta · 09-04-2006, 06:59 PM

So I spent about seven hours this morning putting rivets in. Drill hole, apply vulkem to rivet, insert rivet, squeeze rivet gun, repeat, ad nauseum. I got from the front curb side curve all the way around the street side (the wheel well was a pain) to the rear curb side curve and then ran out of rivets! I can't find any shops around here that carry Olympic rivets or anything similiar so I'm going to have to place another order with the Vintage Trailer supply place and wait to finish riveting. That's frustrating.

Even more frustrating is that I re-mounted my rear door before taking the body off of the wood bracing and it and it didn't line up just right. Now the body is attached and it still doesn't line up right. The door is a little too close to the jamb at the top and about a 1/2" away from it at the bottom. I'm *hoping* that this can be corrected by either drilling new holes for the hinges or by slightly bending the hinges. I'm really hoping that this is not the result of lining up the body badly because it appears to be lined up perfectly.

All in all the project is going pretty well, but these two set-backs are pretty frustrating. Especially because I want to try re-mounting the door now, but don't have any rivets to do it! I'll post pics soon.

ankornuta · 09-04-2006, 08:11 PM

The thought that I might have tweaked my body was really stressing me out so I went back outside with a tape measure and checked both door opening widths at the bottom and at the top (before it starts curving) and they're the same distance at both ends. Yes! So I removed the rear door, re-aligned and re-hung it using some standard 5/32" pop rivets just to test my theory. It opens and closes and latches nicely now. I went ahead and did the front door too. These rivets are just temporary because they're not the "bulb type" and can't be shaved and won't look good with that hole in the middle. However, it looks like there's some rain coming so I'm happy to have closing doors now!

All you people with one door are lucky; it's half the work!

ankornuta · 09-07-2006, 11:26 AM

I finally got the camera back... here's some pics of the progress. The rivets haven't been shaved yet, so it makes the trailer look like it has a 5 o'clock shadow.