New Alaskan Airstream owners - looking for help!

[willfranx]

Hi Air Forums!

I posted this also in general repair, but reposting here

My name is William, and my girlfriend, Aileen and I recently decided to take on a pretty big project. We are the new owners of a 1970 Ambassador Landyacht! We live in Alaska and we decided to start some work on it this summer since COVID-19 has more or less waylaid our plans for the future, and this seems like as good a time as any to take it on.

For some backstory, Aileen’s dad recently bought some property near Willow, Alaska and the Airstream was just sitting on it for, from what we can gather, upwards of 15 or 20 years. We went in with respirators and suits and we have almost completely stripped the interior. We did hang on to a lot of the original appliances, but most of the wood was just too rotten and moldy to try and keep.

This last weekend, we decided it was time to move it to a shop to get an inspection/second opinion. We towed it to a shop in Wasilla, AK that specializes in campers. The owner took a look and we spent a while talking to him. He seemed to think that our main concern should be the dent in the top on the front. Since it is a pretty large dent, he thinks it has bent or broken some of the ribs on the shell. His final assessment was that it would be cheaper for us to buy a new one - we knew that people would tell us this!

However, he did say that if we found him the panel strip that they could remove the dented panel and rivet a new one on. We are waiting to hear back from him on a quote for this, and are searching online to see if it’s even possible to ship something like that up here from Inland RV.

After some serious thought, we have decided to continue forward, but our question is this: is there anyone in Alaska who has either a covered space where we can continue to work on our Airstream over this winter or is there anyone who has some more Aistream-specific experience who can help us out?

Hopeful and ready to keep working,
William

[dbj216]

Hello from Colorado: Welcome to these Forums and the vintage Airstream hobby. You folks are taking on a big project for sure, but many folks have followed that road and now have very enjoyable "new" old Airstreams.

I've seen worse body damage than that. It might be the scope of your project involves removing the plastic end caps and interior skins for the purpose of wiring and insulation. Anyways, if you take down the interior skins you might have some luck "rolling" out the dent from the inside. It may not ever be perfect, but you can make it better. And you can inspect and see if any of the structural "hoops", or ribs, or body formers are cracked or damaged. There is one that supports the front window, and the window is in a frame by itself. Body formers are located by looking for the line of rivets on the exterior skins.

David

[willfranx]

Thanks David! I hadn't heard the option of rolling out the dent from the inside. How would that work? And once it's rolled out, would we just need to re-seal along the rivets to prevent any more water leakage? I'm sure that could be its own post too.

We're trying to take on things one at a time an not get too overwhelmed! (:

[dbj216]

Here is a "project thread" on a 72 Ambassador written by "trashbag" from St. Louis, Missouri. You might like looking it over. In this thread there are post from a user Aerowood. He is very knowledgeable in aircraft sheet metal work and has made a dent roller. If you were to search on Aerowood and dent roller, you might learn how he does it.

https://www.airforums.com/forums/f35...ml#post2404920

The Airstream Knowledgebase found near the bottom of the Forums page is where users post general information and questions about specific model years and models of Airstreams. Many folks start "project threads" in this forum category and folks like you who have similar years and models follow along to learn, help, and ask questions. It is better than posting a question say in axles, then plumbing, then exterior repair, then electrical if you know what I mean. Why not tie the whole project together.

David