Two more days and more progress

Lots of progress has been accomplished!!!    Again at a much slower pace than I thought but that seems par for the course!

First out was the pressure tank.  We had struggled with the bolts spinning but the right tools make all the difference!   Out came the Sawzall and the tank was out in just a few minutes!  Yah!  And the score is
Dewalt: 1    AirStream: 0

And then the Airstream bit back..... It took forever to find all the fasteners in the vanity.  We tried to get it out whole but in retrospect it would have been a better idea to take the top off first.  That's what we ended up doing at the end.   We could not find how it was attached to the tub.    Guess what??????

Sometimes they put screws UNDER the veneer!!!!!   See those two little holes to the right of the hinge?  They were underneath the veneer.  They went into the tub side.  Nasty little things.  The bottom part of this cabinet was recessed so these screws would have shown so I guess the factory thought that veneering over them was the solution.    I had to break for lunch after that one!

I really wanted to get the tub out and even had the right tool !  See?

Unfortunately the tub drain just didn't want to budge.  Its going to have to wait until I take the belly pan off.  The score was now tied at
Tools: 1  Airstream: 1



The afternoon  and day two were spent removing rivets.  Remember that tool  I was so pleased with in my previous post?    Not so much now.   First of all, when you place it over the rivet you can't see the drill go in.  And it was slow, very slow .  I had to keep changing the bit because of the various sized rivets.  To change the bit (or to remove the rivet heads) you practically have to break down the entire tool.  Way too time consuming.  Finally I just chucked the bits in the drill and pretty soon I got the hang of exactly how far to drill to be able to flick/lever the rivet head off.  Soooo much easier, faster and no damage.   Plus when a bunch of rivets got stuck on the drill bit I could just put the bit in the claw side of a hammer, set it for reverse and strip all the heads off in seconds.  NICE! 

What follows is a picture caution for all Airstream owners! To wit,  this is what NOT to do!!

DO NOT layer sealants.  It will not stop leaks and it is a PITA to remove! These windows had MANY layers of ?????  We couldn't even see where the rivets were.  We used a razor blade to cut all the way around the frames and pulled off layers to be able to find the rivets.  It was crazy time-consuming and I exhausted my questionable vocabulary by window number three.  I have no clue how I'm going to get the framed cleaned up.  Any suggestions?  Does paint remover take off what I assume is every brand of sealant available to man? 

This next picture is how to attach your curtains....NOT!   I don't know if this Overlander came with curtain tracks or not but somewhere along the way someone decided that it would be a good idea to glue velcro to the tops of all the windows.  They used some sort of superstrength gorilla glue.  Not good.  I truly don't know if this is ever going to come off.  This is after I had pulled the velcro off.  This is just the glue residue.  I could sort of see where the rivets were but I would have expected some of this to chip away when I was drilling but it wasn't budging.  

I really don't think the deer were that interested in looking in!  I mean..... Really?

I do have another question for those of you still with me.  What;s this stuff all over the walls, Its black , hard and not sticky.  I'm thinking its some sort of adhesive residue????  Should I worry about it causing corrosion?  Its in almost every panel and trust me if it was to hold up the pink insulation it didn't work.  Most of the insulation had fallen and compacted at the bottom.  Must have been a cold time hunting!!!!

We manged to get most of the bottom panels out.  I think one more good weekend and she'll be stripped. 
This is the car packed to the gill for the long ride home!

One cool thing happened while we were there.  As we were working on Moonraker we heard all these motorcycles go by.  It was part of the Memorial Day ride by an organization named Rolling Thunder.  It was hundreds of bikers and many were carrying POW and MIA Flags as well as the US flag.  It was quite the sight.  You can read about the organization here.    The pictures don't do it justice.

Day two!

Well another productive day!  

The other beds and cabinets came out relatively easily.  Still hating the fact that we have to use use a regular screw driver.  My arm is killing!

Some surprises.....  The old DuoTherm was not attached to the wall with anything but duct tape!  A couple of screws on the floor and that was it!  OUT!




Evidently at one time our bathroom was Pepto Bismal PINK!  This is what we found at the back of the closet!  I'm guessing it didn't go over so well with the hunting buddies:)!!!



The worst wall to get out was the one by the tub.  It was gunked up with centuries (okay... I exaggerate ...slightly) of caulk.  Come to find out they also used  butyl tape to fix the track in place, along with a ton of rivets.  

I still don't understand the whole closet thing.  A place for formal wear is not needed!   Planning on converting all hanging space to shelving.  I'm leaving the high heels and dresses at home!

The old pressure tank won its war.   The bolts were all spinning in the holes and I broke two dremel cut-off wheels .  As Arnold would say.... I'll be back (this time with a sawsall).  The lovely tenants left us a stash of acorns. Hope we don't find their remains in the belly pan!








To come :  Removal of the old Bowen water heater and pressure tank (anyone need parts?)  I'm going to keep the outside shroud,  if its in good shape but planing on a RV500 for replacement. From the outside it will look original.  Also the bathroom is yet to be tackled.   

But overall we've made progress!  

The good, the bad, and the UGLY

Well this was the weekend we intended to gut Moonraker.  Ah,  so you noticed the use of "intended" huh?  My husband and I headed off in the early morning hours on Saturday and made the 3+hour trip to my sisters where Moonraker resides.  We actually did pretty well but ran out of steam and left the bathroom for another time.

And a cup of coffee to fuel the day and the reno started!     An hour and half later we were still struggling with the gaucho.  Not good, It was in pieces already, so I figured 15 minutes tops.  Those pieces sure were tenuous!!!    I was armed with a battery powered screwdriver (two full batteries) and I figured no problem..... hmmm what I didn't know was that back in the day screws were built a little different.  They were flat head screws that had an unusually shallow slot.  No way could I use the power tool.    We tried the manual screwdrivers too,  but it was obvious that those screw weren't going to move unless we were in a different time continuum!   Then I remembered what Colin Hyde said which was to carefully pry the frames up and that would loosen the screws enough that we could back them out or rip them out of the floor.   Should have listened to the master LOL.   Ah yes grasshopper!

I don't intend on reusing most of the wood as anything but templates anyway.  Its pretty badly delaminated and quite frankly has a ton of random holes in it.  It doesn't look so bad in the pictures, but in person it reeks of a ....well, hunting cabin!   Speaking of which, I'm glad we determined that it was a hunting cabin.  Otherwise I would have been a little nervous about finding these everywhere.  Bullets of every size.  Why does everyone else find cool old pictures and such.  I got bullets and hunting digests!!!!   Blech.



So out came the gaucho!! And I only used about half the tools I brought!   That's my husband, Peter.  He's not thrilled about spending weekends renovating, but agreed to help me with the physical stuff!

One of things that's different from my sisters trailer is that we have these HUGE rivets everywhere.  I used a rivet remover from here.   It looks like this.

 Thank goodness it came with an assortment of bits cause I was thinking I would only have to deal with normal #21 and #30 sized rivets but it appears the PO used whatever was at hand.... cause I have lots of different sizes.  The coolest thing about this tool is that if I back out the the nozzle that sits over the rivet it will take the rivet bits left when you drill(sorry for all the psuedo terminology!)  right off.  Course I didn't discover this til the end of the day but no worries...... plenty of rivets to go!  Would have been nice for this tool to come with an instruction book but de nada

Here's a picture of the rivets   The one at the left is the normal sized interior rivets.  The three on the rght are the monsters.  I wonder what will happen when I replace them?  I hope I don't have t0 go even bigger :(

Then I had to evict another tenant.  Unfortunately this one was alive and blocking my exit.  Finally a good use for the hunting digest.  Squashed!









Then out came the kitchen upper cabinets,  other than a few hidden screws, no problems,   It's already looking way bigger.  The wall to the left of the stove was interesting.  The track that holds it in place had never been riveted to the wall!!!!  Guess they forgot???   It just had a couple of screws going into the cabinet.  That's the one wall I may change.  I'm thinking of making into a half wall.to promote a more open feeling.   They did me a favor cause now I won't have all the  rivet holes to fill!!!!  Karma Thank you!

I know this will mean no bedroom privacy but my kids are practically grown, My youngest, a son turns 18 next week!   WaaaaaaaHHH

So the left twin bed comes out with  few swear words.  As the day progressed I went from happy , to frustrated to resigned ....mostly to it taking WAY longer than we thought.    The girls (my daughter and niece) showed up ready to demolish and put on their best "Charlies Angel's" effort.  They ripped up all the rugs and flooring in no time flat!  Ah slave labor!

They were actually a huge help getting those pesky rivets at the top of the closets as they could squeeze into the closet much better than I!

So ends day one!   The floor actually looks surprisingly okay.  The front is a little spongy and there's  one area by the wheel well that's scary.  Doesn't matter,  Colin will be redoing it during the full monte phase.  And we haven't tackled the bathroom yet where I suspect most of the damage will be.

That's all for now!

How Moonraker got her name!

I know I said I'd post on the lights but having a little trouble with those and I got sidetracked with building a fireplace mantle and working in my gardens!

So instead, this is the story of how Moonraker got her name.   I thought long and hard about an appropriate name, but in the end tradition won out.   The 1963 Overlander has now been officially named "Moonraker"   Not after the 007 Bond movie  (which actually would be time appropriate because the James Bond book was written in 1955),  but after the sailing term.

According to Wikipedia -  A moonraker, also known as a moonsail, hope-in-heaven, or hopesail, is a sail flown immediately above the skysail on the very top of the royal mast on large square rigged sailing ships of the Clipper era. None of the four- and five-masted square rigged ships carried a moonsail.  This is a relatively unusual sail only used on ships built primarily for speed.   See the one in the picture way at the tippy tippity top?  :)



This term also has special meaning in my family.  Growing up, my Dad always had a boat named Moonraker, as was the sailboat he built when we were kids. 

When he retired,  he built a 20 foot mahogany gaff-rigged yawl that was his pride and joy (and a source of many hours of fun sailing for our family!  You can't really see it in the picture but it was built of strips of mahogany glued together.  Absolutely stunning!   He liked nothing better than to put up the racing jib and FLY!  The funny thing was whenever we took it out on the lake,  all the boats would come close trying to get a better look at it.  Quite often we got the "Thumbs-up"!   In a way, it was a lot like owning an Airstream!!!!!

  I think that he (and Wally) would approve of me naming my Airstream after the boats!   Somewhere I read about Wally naming all the Airstream models after boats (and one of them was captained by the first female captain).  but I can't find it again.  Anyone know where I saw that????

Taking apart the stove!

One of the things I brought home with me to work on was the Tappan stove.  About a month aga I saw that one my fellow airstreamers on the Airstream Forums was doing a restoration on a very special Airstream.  He has a 63 Safari that was actually part of the infamous caravan that went from Capetown to Cairo!   I believe that only three of these trailers still survive in the US.  If you'd like to read her restoration story go here.  But I warn you it's 66 pages long, so settle in with a glass of wine (or two!)  and  read the whole scoop.  Here a teaser picture of the trailer being loaded on a boat.  

Anyway, the Tappan stove, as far as I can tell, was only used in 1963, so when I saw Scott's post about needing one,  I contacted him with the good news and the bad.   I had the stove but it was 4 hours away from me and he was going to have to be patient!   Not only that but we are at opposite ends of the US.  So these parts are way overdue to being sent out and were my number one priority!   Note to self..... next time someone offers to walk me thru the removal of something (in this case the oven door) I will  take them up on it!  I spent way too much time taking screws off and removing the back when a couple of screws on the front door would have accomplished my mission in a quarter of the time...... sigh.   And then I forgot exactly how allergic I am to insulation....grrr I barely touched it :(  and my arm is covered in hives.  Lesson number two. wear long sleeves when near insulation.   I remembers a neat trick though...if you rub a pair of nylons on your skin it will pick out all the little glass bits....and frankly its a better use for nylons then wearing them! 

Anyway the parts are off and ready to go..

I don't know if I'll ever get to see the 63 Safari trailer in person, but there's something really neat about knowing that my Airstream (that's never been on a caravan) has a part in such a historic trailer.  How cool is that?

I was planning on putting a new oven in, I like to cook and don't want to fool with a half century old stove!   Unless of course I could find one of these babies.  I LOVE the aqua stove - darn near pulled the trigger on a 68 Tradewind just to get my hands on the stove :)

Next up lights!   One of the forum members stripped his ceiling lights back to bare aluminum and I loved the  look -  kudos to Mello Mike I'm stealing your idea!  

Day two!

Okay, so this morning armed with a cup of coffee I wander out to the trailer and am immediately overwhelmed by all that needs to be done.  My plan for the day was at the minimum to remove the stove followed by all the lights and then the bellypan.

   The stove was held in by four screws, an easy lift out.  Unfortunately I had to evict my first tenant!!! Ewwww

So far the Mouse count is at one, but from the droppings I'm guessing he had relatives!

So this was the first chance I really got to explore the trailer and hunt in the nooks and crannies...And I've discovered that she spent at least part of her life as a ***** gasp******* hunting trailer.   At least the PO's were nice enough to put a real deadbolt on the door rather than hasp and lock!   Yep, a hunting trailer.  So what gave it away?    How about the dead ducks and camouflage curtains!!!!

 Course all the decals from archery/gun places probably should have tipped me off too!   







I was hoping for a hidden gem like an old photo or tickets , nope.... well I did find something. Lucky me!  Hmm don't think I'm going to be framing and proudly hanging this on the wall!  Who knows maybe something will be behing the cabinets.  Fingers crossed :)

I'm sure you've noticed the  switch to black and white...that's good 'cause I DIDN'T!!!  I was meticulous about documenting the wiring in all the lights because wiring is one of the things I find as mysterious as the great pyramids.   I stowed all the lights in my car to take home to refinish.  Pull up the pictures on the camera and drat...so much for that idea.  Maybe the wiring will be simpler than I think.  Moonraker is an Overlander and from what I understand every fixture has two bulbs because one is wired for 12 volt and the other for 110.  Totally separate circuits.  All I know is that there's a lot of wires!  Most have been snack food for the critters.

All in all not a bad day, beautiful weather for Vermont!  The ground was really soggy so the belly pan was put on hold for now.  I did do some "payback" time and helped my BIL and sister put a rub rail back on her 60 Tradewind.     A good day and the girls got to play with the new chicks.   Hows this for a picture?

Chicks with Chicks!

My daughter Annabelle is in the center with my two nieces on either side. 


Coming soon to the blog.  Rejuvenating the light fixtures and the story of Moonraker's previous owners....

Time for a plug!  Be sure to listen to The VAP (Vintage Airstream Podcast)  on ITunes .  Lots of great info on restoring and maintaining your Airstream.  Many thanks to Tim Shephard, Colin Hyde, Rob Baker and Frank Yensan for the hours of entertainment!