Here goes nothing! Our first Airstream: '65 Overlander Int'l

[Gene]

Originally Posted by KristinS

It's a big task thinking of everything in advance!

Yes. And even more so with the small space of a trailer compared to a house. It is harder or just about impossible to get into the walls in an Airstream compared to a house. We just made an offer on another house that will require lots of remodeling, so we can't stop. Now that I'm a septuangenrian, I'll probably die with a nail gun in my hand.

Gene

[gomez1965]

i did same thing i hope you pulled it off the fram and laid the new floor underneath it, i didn't and now going to redue it wasted lot of time and cash on 7 sheets of plywood ,good luck have fun and injoy, love our 65 Over lander,international,

[KristinS]

Originally Posted by gomez1965

i did same thing i hope you pulled it off the fram and laid the new floor underneath it

Thanks, Gomez. Yeah, we didn't have room to do a shell-off renovation, but jacked the shell up off the frame a few inches to be able to get the new flooring between the two. It was a little terrifying watching our shell teetering around in the air, but she's safely back down on the floor and frame now and we'll have everything bolted down again soon. I've never been happier to lay on a hard floor!









We also started patching exterior holes with new aluminum. Having the big water heater, furnace and back hatch openings was actually really helpful in positioning the new floor pieces! I'm glad we waited to patch them. While installing the back end piece of floor, we had one person in the trailer pushing, two with their heads in the back hatch and arms under the frame guiding it into the c-channel, and one in the water heater cutout watching for proper alignment. It was rather comical.

We also had our first experience with buck riveting today after borrowing tools from my husband's uncle, who was an Air Force Master Chief, worked on Air Force One, and built his own airplane from scratch. We're pretty good at it! I was surprised that it was pretty intuitive. We were so thankful not to have to buy all the pneumatic tools ourselves, and will just keep a hand riveter in our trailer for emergencies.

He also gave us several buckets of assorted rivets, which we've been sorting by size using our chip 'n' dip bowl! We sort rivets while watching TV in the evenings. I like to joke about having "yet another riveting night at home."

[KristinS]

Decided to get rid of our leaky back hatch. We moved our bedroom to the back where the bath used to be, so we did an aluminum patch. We were only able to rivet on three sides since there was only a narrow overlap at the top, but we did a healthy dose of caulk along the top seam and it also slid in under the piece of aluminum shell above it. Hopefully that'll keep water out.

Riveting sure is instant gratification compared to the demo, grinding and frame painting of the last few months! And it's something we'll actually see every day!

[ALANSD]

looking good. If you have it ready we have at least two mid 60s Overlanders that will be at Falluminum in Hiawassee GA in October. Our Sping thing Springstream us April 12 maybe too soon for you, though we have had aluminum "tents" before.
Anyway hope you all can make it sometime the Overlanders are the best!

[KristinS]

I would LOVE to camp in April but that's probably too soon, considering we haven't even ordered axles yet. :-( October is a real possibility though! Thanks for the invite, and we would love to come see some other Overlanders!

[ALANSD]

Hope you can make it watch for the date to be announced, its usually a week before Halloween.

[hissilver]

Your pictures are outstanding. I think we're all cheering you on for completion early this summer.

[KristinS]

Thanks, His Silver!

Today we got the last big patches on the shell, over the old water heater and furnace holes. We have a few more rivets to put in the center of the patches for extra stability, but our trailer is officially an aluminum tent!

Lessons learned from riveting:

The correct tools are the only secret for a good job. Lots of frustrating moments occurred before we realized we were just using the wrong size drill bit, rivet, hammer head, etc.

Don't be afraid to try something again. And again. And again. It takes time to learn the right technique, then it changes with different thicknesses of aluminum, areas of the trailer, etc.

After a full day of buck riveting, neither you nor your riveting partner will have much feeling left in their hands!

[KristinS]

More exterior progress today: Clearance lights installed! (LED's from Command Electronics)







Also got the channel bolts in all the way around the trailer, and will be bolting the rest of the floor down this week as we get the time.

We then installed the entry door seals we bought from VTS, as a much needed waterproofing measure, and now our door doesn't close correctly. :-( It sits fine at the lock, but at the top and bottom it isn't flush with the shell anymore. Does the rubber seal just need to compress over time?



Here's what our hinge looks like for reference. Do the spacer washers need replaced? We have the walls off and access to everything so now's the best time to do it.

[Klatawa]

Jason and Kristin

Excellent job and workmanship I really like what you have done to this point!! We have done a 1963 Safari and the last one is a 1965 Tradewind. We have had it on the road sense April of 2011 and have over 20,000 miles on it. We converted ours to a rear bed side bath and put a 25 gal black and 25 gal black tank in. Also had to rebuild the taillights. Attached to this post is the photobucket of our project. What you guys are doing looks allot like our pics.
Keep up the good work and you will have an outstanding looking Airstream.

Dave

[KristinS]

Thanks, Dave! Just like our home renovations, we approached the trailer with the intention of doing everything right the first time and never doing it again!

If you're ever in East Tennessee let us know, we'd love to see yours!

I love your '65 Chevy. My husband wants a "matching" '65 towing vehicle SO bad, but I'm not sure I'm ready to take that step yet! Did you put a new engine in yours? I worry about getting stranded on long trips.

[Gene]

Originally Posted by KristinS

I love your '65 Chevy. My husband wants a "matching" '65 towing vehicle SO bad, but I'm not sure I'm ready to take that step yet!

We saw a mid-60's—maybe '65—Airstream trailer and a same year Chevy Carryall at the 2011 Balloon Fiesta. The Carryall was the predecessor to the Suburban. They looked good together. I think the innards were substantially rebuilt.

Gene

[lonewolf1977]

This is looking great!!! Good work

[Klatawa]

Everything is either new or has been rebuilt on the Burb and allot of new sheetmetal and body work. I use it as my daily driver and we now have about 20,000 mile towing the Traidwind. That was us at the 2011 balloon fiesta and was our first long trip. We are running a 350 chevy with a turbo 350 trans with a Gear Vendors overdrive behind that with 4.11 rear gears. We just returned from a 5600 mile trip to Az. doing the AlumaFiesta and the 4 corners Jammer rally, and the burb worked well. We have allot of fun with the vintage setup and get to meet allot new people. Again keep up the good work and all of the challenges that come with a restoration. Dave

[Gene]

Here it is:

[JSTOTT]

Great work, you guys are making a ton of progress. I'm just getting back into my restoration project and was looking through your posts. We're also restoring a 65 overlander. Not sure if you sorted out your tailight. Our tailights were also in a number of pieces, we fiberglassed our tailights and then sanded them. It took a few iterations but they cleaned up real nice and they have been holding up well over the past couple of years.

Keep up the great progress.

[KristinS]

Thanks, everybody! JSTOTT, I've been following your project regularly! Good luck with everything now that you're back at it again. Can you send me the link to the new doorknob you bought? We'll be needing a new knob and lock set for ours soon too. Your thread has been such an inspiration to us, and I can't wait to see the finished product!

We started out by fiberglassing our tail lights, then decided we wanted to add reverse lights in place of the reflectors, so we got in touch with a friend who has an auto body shop. He's using our old light surrounds to make a mold for new carbon fiber housings! I don't want to jinx it yet because he's still working on ours, but he might be open to making new ones for other people too upon request by reusing our molds, so if he does I'll be sure to post the info in the '65 Overlander section and in the classifieds section to help others out. I ordered my our tail lights and reverse lights here
because it was the only place I could find that had LED reverse lights that would fit in the light housing!

[JSTOTT]

Here is the link to the door knob.
Plymouth Grade 1 Commercial Door Knob, Schlage D-PLY - Doorware.com

I bough a standard passageway, SS with 3 3/4" backset.

Carbon fiber housings will be sharp. Look forward to seeing pictures.

[KristinS]

Got our floor bolted down last weekend..yippee! It feels more solid and livable than I had even hoped. Still need to do wood filler and caulk between boards.



We also started taping off where our furniture and walls will be. Such an exciting moment to visualize all that finally.

We also ran colored twine to get a measurement and plan of where all our electrical line will go, and marked outlets with masking tape. Pink twine is 12V, yellow is 110. We used 250 ft of 12V and about half that of 110. Seems like a lot of 12V, but we've got the batteries placed in the very front and lots of lines running back to our center bath and kitchen and the bedroom in the rear.







Since the floor is now attached and cleaned of metal shards, and everything is relatively safe, we decided it was time to introduce the "kids" to the Airstream. Initially we were worried that they'd be afraid of it, but everyone was very happy just to finally be near us instead of watching us work in the tin can from afar. Within about 10 minutes they were all happily passed out!









Our Prodex should be here late this week or early next, so we're going to finish our buck riveting and interior waterproofing this weekend and start insulating next week! We have a campsite booked for the first weekend in June in Indiana, so here's hoping we can have a tent on wheels by then!