Moonshadow Meets Island Girl

Back in 2010 as we began restoration on Moonshadow, our 1955 Airstream Overlander, we spent many hours researching on-line at the Air Forums and Airstream blogs by others who have done restorations, some experts and some amateurs like us. We became familiar with certain bloggers through reading posts and communicating on-line. Over time we've met a few in person and hope to meet more.

As plans for our Alaska trip developed we routed our return through Washington state in order to visit friends in the area and to meet one of these Airstream bloggers, Steve, whose work on his 22 ft. Caravanner, Island Girl, is inspirational, as is his story of over 20 years living on a 31 ft. sailboat with wife Pam. From 1996 to 2004 Steve and Pam circumnavigated the globe, wandering the world, having great adventures until Pam began to show signs of Alzheimer's disease. She did not want to give up their sailing life so they stayed on the boat but headed homeward. They continued to live on the boat at a marina in Blaine, Washington. Steve became Pam's full time caregiver. To keep himself busy he bought a 1957 Airstream Caravanner and dove into the restoration.

To learn more about Steve's project go to:

Steve’s Air Forums thread  -  First She Had to Take a Ride on a Boat

In August of 2011 Steve, Pam and cat, Brissy, gave up their beloved boat to move into Island Girl as Airstream full-timers. It was at the RV park where they now live that we met them in the last week of October.

Steve recommended Birch Bay State Park as a good, nearby campground. We arrived around 2:00 PM. It was one of those seaside parks so thick with trees you can't see the water. We paid $21 for a space with no hook-ups. Though electricity and water were available we didn't feel we needed it for one night's stay. Leaving a folding chair to mark our site as taken, we headed for town, trailer in tow. We wanted Moonshadow to meet Island Girl.

Island Girl was easy to spot as the only Airstream surrounded by

big-box SOBs (Some Other Brand)

Island Girl and Moonshadow, side by side. Don't they look great together?

Steve turned out to be the nicest guy. Of course, talking Airstream is a source of great pleasure for him during a difficult stage of his life. The day of our visit a home care helper was there to care for Pam, giving Steve some free time.

Brissy, the exotic cat from Brisbane, Australia, adopted while Steve and Pam were on their world travels. Until now, Brissy had only ever known life on the boat. Now she adapts to the Airstream and terra firma.

After over 20 years on a sailboat, Steve said he still feels a need to be anchored.

Steve gave us the tour, inside and out. Here you can see the beautiful job he did with bamboo flooring, rebuilt cabinets and other interior details of his own design.

Steve told us that in 1957 Airstream started using molded plastic on the front interior, which he didn't care for. In order to get that vintage, 13 panel look, Steve covered the plastic with wood veneer to create a beautiful finish much like the interior of a boat. To further the boat theme, notice the green running light on the ceiling. Steve replaced  both the red and green running lights on his boat, keeping the orginals as tokens of good memories. He made creative use of them by mounting both on the ceiling of Island Girl above his and Pam's comfy recliners.

The next morning we returned for a round of espresso, a bit more visiting, photo ops and goodbyes. In the chill of a light drizzle, Steve greeted us in short sleeves and bare feet. We were bundled up in fleece coats, scarves and hats. Steve laughed at us and said in Washington if the temperature is above 45 degrees, it feels like summer.

If you are a coffee lover, Steve makes the best cappuccinos ever.

We sipped our coffee in the cozy warmth of Island Girl

while Brissy went in and out, in and out.

Saying goodbye...parting is such sweet sorrow. We hope one day Steve will hoist the anchor and visit Utah to see us and make use of our “courtesy parking.”

 

A montage video and tribute to our new friends, Steve, Pam, Brissy & Island Girl.
Click arrow in center to play video.

Thanks for a wonderful visit.

Our next post will wrap up the last leg of our trip and conclude with answers to the questions some followers have asked about details of travel to Alaska in an Airstream.  

Hehr Window Restoration: Rear Emergency Exit, Storage Door and More

Everyone who has rebuilt Hehr windows from the 50’s knows the work involved in replacing the famous back-frame gaskets. Let me just say, yes there are a lot of parts to clean, put back together with a new gasket, then re-rivet to the trailer.  But come on folks, they are handmade pieces of history! Real craftsmanship from a time when what a person made with their hands meant something. In other words, true vintage, and I think they are great.

The rear window in our trailer is an emergency exit window. This window has an extra frame mounted permanently in the shell of the trailer which the Hehr window is then mounted into with a hinge at the top. There are two lock down latches at the bottom inside which when released allows the entire window to swing out for exiting in an emergency.

Here you can see the rear window with the drip-edge pulled up exposing the hinge at the top, which allows the entire window to open in case of an emergency.

After removing the entire window back frame and all, I also removed the storage compartment door and old hinge system.

Fifty-six years of a steel latch clip riveted to the aluminum rear window frame caused severe corrosion due to chemical reactions between the two metals. The corrosion was so bad I decided to remove the clip and clean it all up.

To my surprise they cleaned up much better than I thought they would. Before re-riveting the clip back to the window frame I wrapped it with two layers of electrical tape to prevent contact of the two metals with the hope that it will last another fifty-six years or more.

The rear window has two vertical mullions, one which holds the crank that opens it and one which holds the latch that locks it down. These vertical mullions are also steel riveted to aluminum which again results in corrosion. Before putting it back together I used a piece of folded plactic, seen here, and attatched it to the backside of the mullion using aluminum foil tape. I would have used electrical tape here but it could be seen from the outside.

The gasket that has to be glued to the back of the frame before reinstalling must be held firmly in place while the glue sets up. I made a couple of small wooden corners to use whenever adhereing these gaskets to hold them against the window frame. The adhesive I used was TremPro 644 RTV silicone.

I used aluminum foil tape to seal the seams on the inside edges of all corners, then put a nice bead of the 644 silicone on the opposite side of the foil (outside edges) as extra insurance against moisture getting past the gasket.

After putting everything back together I changed from normal window screen to a special sun-shade screen which helps keep the rear bedroom area cooler in the summer. This screen's over all gray color looks good too.

Now I turned my attention to the rear storage door and hinge. The rear storage door on our trailer is also made by Hehr, or at least the hinge for it was. The hinges on the 50’s Hehr windows have a nice hook-over and loop-into sheet metal hinge system which works very well. This design is still used today by most RV and camper shell window makers. (Of course they are all extruded aluminum or plastic and not re-buildable in today’s throwaway world.)  However when this hinge design is turned upside down, as it is on my rear storage door, see photo above,  it acts as a catch-all for everything you don’t want it to catch, like water, snow and dirt. All of these things only serve to make the hinge work less correctly over time and our trailer has 56 years of time, so I was determined to change this upside down hinge to a better aluminum piano hinge. The following photos show what I did to correct the problem. 

 Here you can see the hooked sheet metal on the bottom of the door which is part of the Hehr hinge and the catcher of rain, snow and dirt. 

Normally this part of the door hinge would not be removed, simply cleaned and polished along with the door but I wanted to replace it.

Here is the four inch piano hinge I bought from Fastenal, a company I never heard of until reading a post by Doug Bakken who publishes a blog named, Just Streamin' 54 Cruiser "Nellie" where he wrote about aluminum piano hinges from Fastenal. Just what I was looking for!  I went on-line to learn there is a Fastenal store 20 miles from me, in Cedar City, Utah.

Now the trick was to bend the hinge into the configuration needed so the storage door would properly seal against the gasket. After I cleaned the door and put it back together, I held it firmly in place and made a wire template of the bends needed for the hinge.

The next best thing to owning your own sheet metal break is having an ol' friend who has one. Friend, Tom Harris, matched the wire template exactly. Here he holds the results.

With the door cleaned and polished and hinge attached with Olympic rivets and TremPro 636 (previously Vulkem) it was ready to be put back in place.

I love it when a plan comes together. Old Hehr upside down hinge out, new Spike-styled hinge in!

Now on to a few other things....My 40-something son, Paul,  who doesn't mind working his tail off came up a couple of weekends from Las Vegas to help his ol' man do some polishing.  He's more than willing to find time to help me fix up the old Moonshadow. It probably has something to do with the fact that I've told him, if he doesn't want to inherit it, I'm going to be buried in it.

Paul thought it was easier to work on the top of the trailer from the vent holes rather than climbing around the outside on a ladder. So I said go for it!

With the drip-edge reinstalled over the rear window and storage door, along with more polishing the rear end is looking better.

Most of the first step of polishing  is completed.  We are about ready to head for the Four Corners Unit Restoration Rally in Albuquerque where we'll learn what to do next. 

Airstream Restoration: Axles first, Spring of 2010



Canyon de Chelly  -  oil 16x20''



Sue and I had been thinking of getting our Airstream back on the road for some time.  The old 6 volt brakes that came with the trailer served us well for many years with a voltage resister on the break controller, but the time had come to replace them. The easiest way seemed to be to replace the entire axel with new, modern brakes.  The next question was, where do we find new axles for a 55 year old trailer? At this point we had no idea.



In May of 2010 I was in Canyon de Chelly, AZ on a painting trip, car camping in my mobile studio. I pulled into the campground near the canyon entrance to discover some 90 Airstreams taking up most of the park. It was a WBCCI (Wally Byan Caravan Club International) caravan touring the South West.

WBCCI Caravan in Canyon de Chelly, May 2010

Being a proud Airstream owner I just had to talk to someone in the group. A man named Jerry Hall from North Carolina was very helpful and gave me good information about what’s going on in Airstream circles these days. He informed me Airstream now uses Dexter Axles and directed me to a source. When I returned home I got on-line, joined the WBCCI and then VAC (Vintage Airstream Club). Through the VAC on-line forum I found someone with a trailer close to the same year as mine, Bill Kerfoot from California who owns a 1954 Airstream double-door Liner. Bill confirmed what I had concluded, that replacing the old axles with new axles and brakes was indeed the best way to go. 



Within two weeks we ordered new Dexter axles, they were delivered early in July. We began figuring out how to remove the old and install the new. To my surprise we discovered that at some point before I owned this trailer serious damage had been done to the center axle hanger that supports the equalizing arm on the curb side. I remember Roy telling me about damage to the right side of the trailer that required a trip to the Ohio Airstream factory for repair. I wish I had paid more attention now. The photo below left, shows how off-center it was. It must have broken loose and was welded back in a misaligned position, almost a half an inch off. I always had bad wear on the right rear tire and now I understood why.  





The center hangers that came with the new axles were shorter than those originally mounted to the trailer frame. I wanted to use the old hangers so the trailer would not ride any lower than it already was so my solution was to cut the misaligned hanger off at a point that would allow me to weld the new shorter hanger to it, thus maintaining the same height (photo above right).

With the center hangers measurement from the hitch, now the same on each side, 
I used a jig to ensure correct alignment of the front and rear hangers.

 

We loosened the belly skin in order to reach in
and shroud insulation from welding sparks.



With help from my oldest son Paul and a fellow Airstream owner Steve Masefield we got the new axels mounted and a brake controller installed in the tow van which is my mobile studio, (more about the mobile studio in another post.)

Steve Masefield (left) helping with the brake controler. 

Finally ready to roll.

By now it’s the beginning of August and we wanted to be in Salida, Colorado by the 8th to attend the Rocky Mountain Vintage Rally hosted by a club in Denver. We had Moonshadow roadworthy only hours before our departure deadline.

First 500 miles on new axles, arrived safely at rally site.

Patti Reed's 1953 Flying Cloud

  

Shari & Rod Davis' 1956 Safari / 2010 award winning restoration.

Herb Spies' 1963 Globe Trotter, WOW, what a polish job!

 

Our rally neighbors, Duane & Cheryl Ferguson with dog Buddy

& their 1976 Caravaner

We had a fabulous time, met some great people, learned a lot and even got a polishing demo by Rob Davis done on our own Moonshadow. Watch this video, it’s almost as though, after 55 years, we get a peek into the hidden soul of our trailer.

Our Airstream is still usable even though it needs a full restoration from the frame up. It is in original condition. As the guys on the VAP (Vintage Airstream Podcast) say, trailers like ours are survivors. Our plan is to do the outside cosmetic work and window restoration first while we enjoy a few more trips. We’ll then dive into it deep and serious towards the end of this year.

Rocky Mountain Vintage Rally 2010

That's us at 9:00 in the innermost circle.