New owner

[Cruiser]

We've got a 1958 sales brochure that came with our cruiser (original owner must have been looking at upgrading!). The Caravanner section is two pages, one with a streetside photo and the usual sales hype ("Giant 'Panoram' windows present a kaleidoscopic view of all outdoors"..."at home equally well in urban districts or in the wilds"..."large plastic Astro-Dome floods the living room with daylight"...), the other with a list of features and a floorplan and cut-away drawings. If you want to see it, let me know and I can fax it or maybe scan and send or post it.

Doug

[ivesterm]

I've added some detailed pictures of a 1956 Caravanner that might be interesting. There's the concealed bedroom sink that was dropped by 58.

http://homepage.mac.com/mivester/airstream

[59toaster]

Now that clears up how that partition is supose to be at the end of the counter. Ours is missing. Now I know what is supose to be there. I thought it was a peice that just slid into the slot and sat on the counter. I didn't relize I'm also missing some trackts for to to slide into.

Is the other 58 the one your folks my buy?

Thanks for the pictures!

[ivesterm]

yeah, the other 58 is the one they're going to buy. I'm going to help them pick it up tomorrow. The previous owner is really nice. He's meeting us with it half-way in Tennessee (from Kentucky). He had originally bought their unit to fix up and then bought mine because it had the fridge which his was missing but he didn't end up having the time and usually uses his Bambi, he never puts these into service in the 5 years he had them.

You're welcome to borrow my divider if you want to make a pattern for a replacement. My airstream is missing the small wooden piece that butts up into the corner by the divider and curtain, which isn't that big of a deal I guess. Since my overheads end at that divider, I'm not sure how the divider was secured when up. My parent's overheads are arranged like yours. I've already bumped my head on my overheads which extend into the living area.

[59toaster]

Yeah I would like to trace one of the dividers one day. Our is completly missing. It should be just like the one in your parrents.

There is a spring loaded latch simular to a screen door latch to hold it up attach to the underside of the overheads. I am also missing the slides on the end of the cabinet so want to get some measurments of those as well.

Just aranged to take off 9/29-10/3 to do nothing but work on ours. It looks like I have all the other projects that were in the way rapped up. Going to try to get in and remove some of the bath in the next couple weekends and the carpet and get a list of materials I need and get them ordered next week. If all goes well I might have the cabinets out before then. Then I can see if this is a get my buddies over and lift the body off project or not. Yeee Haaa!

[markdoane]

I'm at the "do-I or don't I" stage myself.
Question for those who've done this before:
If perimeter, rear bath, doorway, water heater area, and front under the water tank are "soft", and I haven't busted out any rivets yet, what is the best way to approach a lift-off?
1. Do I take off the inside skin up to the first seam, bust the channel loose, and slide in pieces?
2. If I find more damage then expected and decide to do a frame off, is it possible to cut off the back of the shell-to-belly rivets from the inside, or do I need to drill them out from the outside?

[59toaster]

Unfortunaly when I was asking these same questions was where the forum lost some of the data base. I had a few good replies.

If the damage is isolated to the last or first section of deck you can slid a peice in from the end whole. The trick is to remove the inner pannels. remove the rub strip and the rivets to the first rib and then you can drop the belly pan. By putting some weght on the bumper you can get the fram to drop from the body about 2 inches and slide in a full sheet.

Once you get to the first rib the U-channel changes shape and it not really possible to slide a sheet in from the end. It eith needs to be peiced in or body off.