Bare Bones

Friday we finally got the frame stripped down to bare metal. I was pretty concerned about what we might find underneath the rotten floor. The trailer had clearly seen a lot of water infiltration over the years, so I expected to find significant rust. I was pleasantly surprised to actually find very little rust. The frame is in excellent shape with just surface rust on the top of some of the outriggers.

None of the outriggers are broken and the frame as built originally was pretty beefy with fully boxed main frame rails and a long piece of reinforcement spanning the length of the axle mounting points.

The only real problem area is this spot at the very rear where the factory blasted two holes through the main frame rails. God knows why they put these here as there were no plumbing lines or anything else running through them. Despite the weakening of the frame at this point, there was very little sag at the rear of the trailer on this side and when we bounce on the bumper right behind this point you can't even see any movement. Nonetheless, Ryan plans to weld in some reinforcement at this point to cover the holes

The front hold down plate is also in excellent shape. Oddly, it is an aluminum plate unlike others we have seen on Ryan's two trailers. Both of his hold down plates were made of steel and welded to the frame. This one is bolted to the frame.

Cutting out the floor we saw the true extent of the termite infestation. What a mess. There was never any remote chance of saving that floor. As we pulled the flooring from the front of the trailer, I turned the plywood on edge and found the termites had eaten out entire layers of the plywood.

Despite the extensive damage, we were able to get a nice accurate template of the front and rear curved sections. These templates are in addition to the interior templates that go up to the c-channel. Between the two, we will hopefully be able to carefully recreate the shape of the trailer and avoid too many fitting problems when we go to reattach the shell.

Today Ryan is going to continue cleaning up the frame and will take a bunch of measurements for the replacement axles. I've decided to convert the original leaf spring suspension to a modern torsion axle set up. Airstream switched to torsion axles in the early 1960's and have stuck with them ever since. Although the leaf springs have obviously performed well on the Captain, I like the idea of modern running gear and now is the time to make the switch when we have easy access to the entire frame.

We will have to correct some problems with the current axle alignment that would require a fix regardless of what type suspension I choose. The current axles are so close to the frame on the curbside that the shock mounts are less than a 1/2 inch from the outside of the tires. On the front curbside tire, this actually led to a blowout when Jeff picked up the trailer. He had to cut the shock mount back, but even with the added clearance, as we were taking the tires off yesterday, we found scratch marks in this tire that showed it was still rubbing. We are lucky that Jeff didn't have another blowout at speed on the drive up from San Diego.

The cause of this problem is a combination of the tires being larger than original and the fact that the axles are off center bringing the hub on this side too close to the frame. I think we will add about a 1/2 inch of distance between the hub faces to provide just a little more clearance (and of course, we will mount the axles on center). We can't add much though, or I won't be able to get the tires out from underneath the wheel wells.

Shock mounts are also going to be an interesting design issue as a result of the lack of clearance between the hubs and the frame. I'd really like to install shocks, but I'm just not sure how it will work. But somehow I'm pretty sure Ryan will come up with a solution as he always does.

I'm also going to add some height to the trailer with the new axels. Although the low rider look is pretty sweet, the poor Captain is really sitting way too low. Without a few inches added to the ride height, she will drag ass on just the slightest bump. So, we will order the axles with a down angle that should provide a little additional clearance.

The weather is still being very kind to us. The wind and rain started up again as we finished yesterday and a huge storm blew through overnight. But this morning we woke up to blue sky and a beautiful Seattle Fall day. Perfect for Airstream work.