New Owner of 1972 27' Overlander

[Kendrick]

Hi everyone,

My wife and I just purchased our first travel trailer. We couldn't be happier. The interior is in suberb vintage condition. Even the original carpet is clean. There is a little aging on the rollup cabinet doors that have come apart-not sure how to fix that and latches on the fridge that need to be replaced. It also needs a new water heater, the previous owner noticed a leak when she filled it up the day before we purchased it. The exterior is in Good shape, with one small dent in the front and one on the rear bumber. I have read a couple of times that people think it is near impossible to repair dents but I find that hard to believe. The only thing that did not come with the trailer was the owner's manual. I have tried to look online but had no luck. Any recommendations?

[cameront120]

I have the 1972 owner's manual and got it off e-bay. I think you can also get them from Airstream - I know they sell the repair manual on line, not positive about the owner's manual, though.

The seller presently is listing a 1972 service manual. If you contact him, he can probably give you a deal on the owners manual as well.

eBay.ca: 1972 Airstream Factory Service Manual (item 260102336906 end time 05-Apr-07 11:57:31 EDT)

[Wabbiteer]

First - Welcome, folks here look forward to helping on the Vintage AS '27 - researching problems using the search function can be overwhelming when 100's of responses need to be filtered through but alot of the writing talent are still active here for clarifications...

Sorry I don't know where to refer you too for heavy duty manual.. I got my '73 manual from .ca ebay vendor - letter sized paper makes diagrams hard to read, especially the micro print gets a little blurry on numeric lists, etc. Look for legal or ledger sized paper - If I see a reprint done on larger paper I'll buy twice since the first manual was impulse purchase...

Tambour is the name of the flexible roll-up doors, is the paper backing coming apart? Applying cloth-type theatrical duct tape as a backing can patch things up, sometimes for years. Some types of the early 70's tambour don't age as well as others - My dark wood finish has had all the overhead replaced, the others have dried out and are almost too brittle to mess with.
There is alot of posts on tambours for suppliers - use the search, luke!

[Derin_Don]

Welcome Kendrick -

I second Wabbiteer's advice - Once you have mastered the art of the search feature - there is untold wealth in the advice, tips and tricks to be found here. We lurk on this site quite a bit and have saved hours in labor and trouble shooting by checking here first. Like you, our trailer came to us in superb interior condition. We've got some cracked tambours that will need attention and are coming up on the to do list. Some of the other systems are tired but still functional and will get replaced in turn.

Best of luck!

[Silver Threads]

Welcome to the forums. Congrats on the 72! We have one too. We were also lucky when we got ours that it had been well taken care of. Cant't wait to see pictures.

[tphan]

hi, welcome, and congrats on your new hobby! Maybe one day we can have a '72 overlander rally, there seems to be quite a number of them here. Mine was not in too good shape, but with a reasonably good shell, so gutted it and started over. Glad yours is so nice!!-tim