What were they calculating?

After I took off the inside shell, I found some interesting notes. The one pictured here caught my attention. First I thought, they were somehow calculating the length of something but frankly, I have absolutely no idea what this is. But see for yourself...

Hoists

Not much progress this past week, despite the boss checking in on the progress (see pic below). I managed to build the hoists (will blog on Naddy's the renovation thread on airforums about them). One very nice airforum member provided a detailed plan, which makes it a matter of a few hours to construct them. They are done and they are up. I will say that it is a very bad idea attempting to put one of the gantry cranes up by yourself. I am 6' 7" and I tried and I miserably failed. The hoist came crashing down on me. The experience included a few bruises and a strained AC joint.
My wife had choice words for me, cannot blame her really. Anyhow, the gantry cranes are up and I am very excited - most of our neighbors are too :-)

    

Finally empty

All inside shell pieces are taken off and the insulation is taken out and disposed too. After that I vacuumed the trailer thoroughly. The insulation was a yucky affair and it is probably a good idea to wear an aspirator - not because of the insulation per se but the potential diseases that are associated with rodent left-behinds.

   

Ribs aluminum

I answered one of my own questions yesterday. I wondered what aluminum was used for the ribs in the 1967 Overlander. As it turns out, one of the ribs had the aluminum type stamped on it. It is 6061-T6. I need to order some channel to replace and complete my c channel. Mine is 1 1/2" wide and 1/2 tall and I have a hard time finding that in 6061 but it is readily available in 6063-T52. That is a very corrosion resistant but also much softer aluminum. I hope the softness will not be a problem. Over at Airforums, a lot of guys just form their own channel out of rest pieces of 2024-T3 and I think I will do the same to strengthen bits here and there. My trailer has lots of channels pieces formed from scrap pieces that way.
  

Stuff I don't need

---

I have a few things from my 1957 Overlander that I do not longer need but maybe you can use them?
These include:
1) a complete and intact maple gaucho (the wood is in decent shape and could be refinished)
2) An overhead cabinet in also decent shape. It is not original to the 1957 but was added later on and replaced one of the upper bank beds in my Overlander
3) some (few) parts of the original TV antenna (inside crank mechanism and outside holding brackets)
4) I believe original freshwater pressurizing pump (I doubt it works but haven't tried)

I include a few pics below. I do not want money (what goes around comes around, right?). The caveat for the larger items is that I am located in north central Idaho, not necessarily the epicenter of vintage airstream renovators, so you may have to drive a little if you want to get the wooden parts.

   

    

Finally

I get to take the inside shell off. The last step before the shell gets separated from the trailer. I knew from distinct scents that more rodent traces would be found between inner and outer shell. But what I found was still surprising. In some side panels, the insulation looked like it was put in yesterday. Others were completely eaten up, compacted and turned into rodent housing with lots and lots of rodent poop. Time again to wear the mask. On the upside it is great to see the clean metal behind the insulation.
The outside of the inner shell end cap is quite corroded from rodent pee. I hope a good wash with lots and lots of dish soap will take care of that. A lot of folks powers the inside of the trailer once the inner shell is off but I rather want to wash it with soap water and mineral spirits.  

No damage after 58 years.

Pile of rodent poop on top of end cap, no insulation left.

...the rail is filled with rodent poop, yuck!

Finally, the inside shell is gone!

The Cylon has been peed on - a lot.

All insulation turned into mouse housing

     

Paint stripping finally done! For now, anyway...

Some of the professional Airstream renovation guys strip the inside of all color and polish the panels to shine. I really thought that this is a great look even if it shows a lot of imperfections and scratches that have accumulated in the metal over time.
So I read up on the Airforums how to best strip the paint layers and original Zolatone. Unfortunately, the best way to do it is quite laborious involving lots of Citristrip 2 gallons of Mineral Spirits and about 40 plastic razor blades.  It took me about three weeks to get all paint layers removed. It feels great to be done though I doubt that the aluminum can be polished at this point. The Zolatone left some sort of etched marks on the aluminum, which may not be polished out. I may have to sand the metal first before it can be polished.      

The trailer is much brighter inside with all that reflecting light from the metal. That's what I wanted so all is good.

Paint removal...

would of course be entirely impossible to accomplish without the INCREDIBLE information from Airforums. Though I have to admit that I used every paint stripper known to mankind including 'Aircraft Remover' inside the trailer (Don't ask and DON'T do it). As you learn quickly reading on Airforums what really works and works well is shown in the image below. Though it is not as if you would have your trailer stripped in a day. Unfortunately!

Very rewarding!
So much so that it keeps you going

Up to six layers of paint on top of Zolatone.
 What do you think, were they lead based?

The goods: Citristrip, mineral spirits, plastic scrapers
and most important, plastic razor blades 

Does the frame need repair?

I believe the condition of the rear frame leaves something to be desired. This is where the black tank was located. The inside aluminum panel is also corroded all the way through.

My biggest concern with all the floor completely rotted away is how do I best template the floor before the shell comes off next month?

Gas line fix...

Creative fix for a broken gas line in Naddy. I do not think that this fix is according to code :-)

  

Slow Progress

It has been 10 months since I have posted something. Little progress has been made. I emptied the trailer out completely and am now on to the next step: paint removal. That in itself takes unfortunately much longer than expected. "Mühsam ernährt sich das Eichörnchen" a German saying that one may translate along the lines of  "It's laboriously for the squirrel to feed itself". you get the point...    

Second pressurized water tank?

Naddy had a big pressurized water tank in the front of the trailer under the Gaucho. We were however, surprised to find a second water tank - at least I assume that this is what is pictured here - under the bunk bed on the roadside. The belly pan was also modified to allow installation of this tank below the sub floor. Not sure this was a good idea since the floor was totally gone in that area.

The water heater. I would like to say it is the original water heater although I am not sure why it was installed somewhat unorthodox. The access hatch was modified and in order to fit it in, the installer/PO cut half an inch out of the C channel including the rivets that tighten the belly pan and the outer shell to the C channel in that area. Well, something to think about fixing at a later point.
Naddy does have btw yet another water heater tucked into the closet in the bathroom...        

Going to the mattresses...

I really did not expect that these green covers were original. They did not seem to be worn enough (one has only one small hole on the top the other maybe 2). They have since been washed (the 'Sterilize' program of our washer) and are sitting outside ready for anyone who would want them

 And as it turns out the mattresses and its covers were original too! Delivery dates stamped as 3 Jan 1957.  I was most surprised about the 100% rubber mattresses. They were really well constructed quite heavy and if I would know how one can restore/repair those I would probably not have hauled them to the landfill.

We did keep these covers - also to be washed on the trusted 'Sterilize" program. I just don't want to throw those away in case one of the restore-to-original guys comes along and should want them

Cleanup or cleanout

I do not spend nearly as much time working on Naddy as I do reading up on all sorts of technical advice on Airforums. It is just so helpful. For example there is no longer any discussion as to whether the shell can stay on while fixing the frame and floor - it absolutely cannot. That said, 11830 slowly gets ready for some serious structural repair.
The only bad thing about Airforums is that every day you want to buy another cool tool...  

Careful disassembling so the interior parts can be restored or used for templating

If you look really careful, you can count the FOUR color layers that were put on top of the original Zolatone

 More disassembling for later templating...

Slowly getting there. As of this post we have probably taking out 10 gallons of rodent excrement and I have not yet come down with Hantavirus (knock on wood). It is an activity for people with a sensitive nose...















Bathroom still left. The Old vinyl tiles are all gone. The sub floor is in really terrible shape but given that it is 57 year old wood that is totally fine. 11830 had a lot of leaks through which water could penetrate the floor because of several rep-plumbing events and many holes in the outer shell when a PO decided to put a skirt around the trailer. But that was all in the past of the trailer.

The Airforum community is the greatest information & advice resource - ever!

... but of course we knew that already.
Thanks to two very helpful Airforum members, we have learned that our Airstream was owned by a couple form Ohio for 37 years or so and that it has been to five international rallies during that time.  I think we will honor the long-time owners with a small plate engraved with their name and the known range of years they owned the trailer. Something like "The R. & V. Cripps trailer - 1966-2003"