Category Archives: repairs

Leaving Austin

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Finally, after over 3 months, we are close to getting back on the road and leaving Austin. It has been very interesting being here for this amount of time. We have learned the 40-mile radius from our campsite very well, and we know Austin as a whole pretty good also.

As of this writing, Roxie’s procedure has been completed and we just have to return next week for her final programming, then we plan on leaving here Wednesday. Our next stop will be the North Texas Airstream Community that is south of Dallas/Fort Worth. We will spend the Memorial Day weekend there to ensure we have a location for that busy time. Then we head north to Alaska.

While we have been here, we were able to accomplish some things (in addition to what I wrote about in the previous post). Two posts ago I showed some damage we incurred to the rock guard on the front of the trailer. I went to the local Airstream dealer, Camper Clinic II in Buda. The part was relatively cheap but the shipping was horrendous! Airstream, I am told, does not price their shipping, they box it up and call the shippers. The shippers then charge the rates. The shipping on the box was like $90! UPS charges the maximum rate for the box depending upon what can fit in it regardless of the weight. Oh well, we needed the part. Here is the repair:

This is the inside of the rockguard and shows some of the damage to the aluminum also.
One of the supports had pulled out of the skin. Not sure if that was from the pan hitting the guard.
This shows the rub rail (without the trim), it covers where the aluminum and plastic meet. I have to remove that before I can put on the new one.
Here is the aluminum rockguard part with the rub rail and the plastic removed.
The new plastic portion.
The new piece needs to be trimmed to fit.
Here is the completed product with shiny new piece of rub rail trim.
This is the support reattached and holding up its portion.

The repair was not too bad. Initially, I thought that I could just trim it to the same size as the other. But with the curves, it is hard to get it accurate. The best solution was to attach it at one end, work it around, riveting as you go, and then trimming it on the end. It will do the job.

But there was not just one repair, oh no! I was walking back from the park’s restroom and I found Roxie out talking to our neighbors. I walked over to join the conversation. They asked me if I had heard the noise. I did not. It appears that the window in the trailer next to Roxie’s chair slammed shut and shattered! I went back and looked and found this all over the ground:

Shattered window glass!

There was heavy rain forecast so I kicked into repair mode immediately. I contacted the Airstream dealer (again) to get a replacement window. They quoted me about 3-4 days shipping but this was Thursday so I was unsure if they could get it out on Friday. But I had to order it. I went to the local Home Depot to figure out how to close it off to the elements.

I got some bubble insulation, a paint drop cloth and some Gorilla tape. I left it open at the bottom for ventilation. It was not clean or pretty but it worked. After doing this, we went to Austin and got some more ‘insurance’. I got the window dimensions from Airstream, went to a local plastics company and ordered an acrylic window (sans holes). I also ordered an acrylic version of the larger windows on the trailer also. I figured if this happens again, I will have replacement versions with me until I can get the glass.

The glass version came in just under a week later and, ironically, that was the same day the acrylic ones were done. I used the glass one:

This is the small acrylic version of the window.

Thankfully we had an operational window again. But that rain forecast was very true. It was an interesting Friday for us.

We go to a town called Bee Cave to watch movies when we do. They have nice recliners in the theatre. I purchased the tickets online so we can also choose our seats. This time I purchased them for the wrong theatre! I rarely do that but I did today. The manager gave us a pass for the movies there but the movie was on an hour later, so we had to wait.

While we were in the movie I could hear rain on the roof of the theatre. I have heard that before and didn’t think anything about it. When we got out of the theatre there was a tremendous downpour. Of course we didn’t have an umbrella and I didn’t even have any coat. We had less that 100′ to walk to the truck but we were drenched. We also walked through water that was overwhelming the drainage and it was 4″-8″ deep. Wet feet also.

We tried to get back to our trailer in the Dripping Springs area. We tried at least 3 different low crossings but each of them were at least 2 feet deep with running water. I have a little video on Youtube of it:

https://youtu.be/kRHqXp9fjW8

We eventually decided to take major roads to get back. It added about 30 miles but was safer. I would drive through a foot of water but no more. It appears our local area received 8-9″ of rain in a 3 hour period! Luckily our trailer is almost to the top of a knoll so there is very little surface area for runoff. We survived!

One more thing I worked on for the truck in anticipation for Alaska and their roads:

Rock Tamers!

Now, we just have to GET to those Alaska roads!

A few projects

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Since our trailer was a 50amp model it came with two Air Conditioners.  This meant no Fantastic Fan above the bed.  This also meant there was no direct source for airflow to us, like no ceiling fan (in household terms).  When it gets hot it is nice to have a fan blowing on you.  I found a Vornado fan at Target that would work and we put it on the floor, blowing up to the bed.  This was adequate, but I wanted more.  I wondered how I could mount the fan on the wall but didn’t want it adding weight to the wall as we were driving down the road.  I put a hook in the wall where we can hang the fan when needed:

We have been having some issues with our walls in the trailer sliding inward as we travel.  Some of the movement is close to 1 inch.

These walls were very cheaply made in Airstream and no require reinforcement, Airstream just stapled the corners together and covered them with trim.  The first wall is the hallway wall for the bathroom that attaches to the wall in the bedroom (behind the bathroom).  I took a 1×2 and mounted it vertically and screwed the walls together:

Inner structure

Hall wall with structure screws covered by trim

Bedroom wall with structure screws covered by trim

Another location of poor wall construction is next to the refrigerator.  There is a small 45-degree wall there but all Airstream did was put screws through a panel and into the next.  These panels are really thin and don’t have anywhere to bite:

I shored these walls up with some better anchor points and re-attached them with screws:

The part of the wall that is most concerning to me is the wall between the bedroom and bathroom.  The first picture shows the gap.  I put some brackets in the floor and secured the base of the wall (we will see if that works):

One problem we have been having is with our Dometic thermostat.  It consistently shows a different temperature (hotter) that just a few inches away.  I attributed this to having a large hole in the wall where the thermostat attaches to the wall.  Behind this wall is the side of the refrigerator and a lot of hot space during the summer temperatures.  We found a few bamboo flooring samples from a local home store and moved the thermostat up (so we could see it behind the TV) and to cover up that large hole.  Also filling in behind the new bracket with some foam has solved the issue.

Another upgrade was the TV in the bedroom.  The old setup was a 22″ that came from the factory:

This was the only place for one in the bedroom since there was a sliding door on the other wall to close off the bedroom.  I removed that door almost a year ago as we did not use it.  The gave us the option to put a 32″ TV on that wall:

A huge upgrade was accomplished in changing our sliding doors in the hallway wardrobe.  One of the selling points, for me, was the large wardrobe that this floor plan offered (twice the size of the 30′ Classic).  However, the doors would continually jump off the tracks.  Some on Airforums found the same problem and posed some solutions.  None of them worked very well.  Airstream themselves moved away from the sliding doors in the next two model years and created hinge-attached swinging doors but they were almost $1400 for the parts!

Enter Willard Amtower.  He saw a post about the doors and contacted me.  He had full plans for creating new sliding doors with appropriate hardware to not jump the track.  I did it.  I did not use as nice wood that Uncle Bill did but it sure works great!  Heavy mirrors, heavy hardware and tracks to keep it in place.  We have done about 1600 miles on the new setup with no issues.  Here are some pics:

I was able to find a good handle match also (original and additional):

Uncle Bill also showed me one more trick.  Our water pump can be turned on/off in two locations, the kitchen and the bathroom.  This requires a 3-way switch so you really cannot tell if the pump is operational by switch location.  I was replacing the water pump because the backflow valve was faulty and I wanted a more efficient one.  Bill showed me that he simply added an LED indicator that was tied to the water pump.  When the pump was energized the LED was on:

I like it but I used an LED for a truck trailer side marker so it might be a bit bright.

So far, I am very happy with all these modifications.  Am I done?  I will never be done.