Sunday, January 24, 2010

More work coming into the Works


I had an Airstream follow me yesterday. It followed me all the way to my storage location. Her name is Rosie and she belongs to Elly, client #0007. Elly thought it wise to take advantage of the resent snow melt and bring her trailer in now even though there is a project in between hers. I am honored to have a new client as enthusiastic about getting started.


I also am honored by a client determined to back it in even though she openly admitted to be intimidated by backing up and the turn being somewhat tight. Elly, you did a great job, be proud of yourself.


Rosie is a 1973 Safari built in Ohio. Rosie has a blog named after her that you might want to book mark. Following the customers point of view of working with a professional shop might be an interesting read juxtaposed to me as the guy doing the work.


At 23 feet long and dual axles I would imagine she tracks very straight down the road. She has been rode a little hard over the years. Her new owner is going to show her a little more love than she has seen for a long time.

Rosie has some frame issues such as a rotten out rigger or three. Kind of hard to see all this when she looks so straight from ten feet away.



Fairly nice, clean shell with your usual beauty marks. She will look awesome polished up. I think ultra dark tinted windows or silver film would look wicked cool. That is just my thoughts and not something Elly and I discussed.


The darker segment on the road side was replaced at some point in the past. It was never clear coated and oxidized more than the rest of the segments. The olympic rivets that were used will be replaced with solid rivets as part of the project.


Olympic rivets are approved by Airstream for structural repairs. Unfortunately even in non structural situations they often fail to keep the water out.

A little leak in the tail light assembly and the water goes down...

and just rots things out.

Sometimes it is the factory seam that leaks even after they sealed it a second time out of the rain tunnel.


And that leak runs down and rots things out too.



Many little puddles in the "C" channel. Good thing I came over in the rain to see how the shell was holding out the water.

Next weekend my next client is bringing in his trailer in. Hopefully before Client #0006 arrives I will be able to update what is has happened with LuLu.

2 comments:

  1. I refer to olympic rivets as single-use clecoes.

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  2. Kudos to Elly! I don't know her but I like her already! It's scary to try to back them but what a great feeling when you succeed!

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