That little piece of pipe pictured above was a HUGE thorn in my side for the past two weeks. As you may recall I had the grey and black tanks already plumbed and I was good to go. Well not so much. I wasnt happy that the above fitting would hold so in my infinite wisdom and my desire to "do it the right way". I decided to correct the issue. Well after attempting several methods to remove the lil bugger I finally got it out. However in the meantime I ruined the connection and had to trim the inlet on the tank side. After trimming the connection I re-plumbed everything and tested it. Not a great test. It leaked the the Titanic. So I looked at my options keeping the following in mind. 1. To remove this tank I have to remove the grey tank, the belly pan aluminum that I cut and installed, and THEN I can remove the pan that holds this tank to get it out. Once I got it out I was pretty sure I could fix it, but I would have lost about a weeks worth of work, not to mention ruining the aluminum I had already placed. So.. I went to our old friend, JB Weld Marine. I thought I would give it a try and if it didnt work I was in the same place I started and would have to remove the tank(s). After two tubes of JB I left it for about 30 hours before touching it again and spoke with the Airstream Gods to ask for mercy. Thank God it did work! Pictured below is the updated fitting with all it glory.
Ok, moving on.
Doing an Airstream restoration by yourself has it challenges! I needed to get the old AC off and knew I couldnt lift it by myself so I worked on coordinating some help. In the meantime I worked out getting it lose. It was covered in what I believe to be Dicor sealant. I started with a chisel to remove the sealant just so I could see the screws that needed to be removed.
I pretty quickly realized this wasnt working and ordered a heat gun. Believe it or not I was able to get all but two screws out without drilling or grinding. I drilled out the last two screws and tried lifting it, hoping maybe it was made of feathers. But it wasnt so I started to take off everything I could to make it lighter.
After removing what I could I went on to coordinate some muscle, but at some point I decided that coordinating wasnt working or I got impatient. Either way I decided I could get it off my darn self. So I used the cushion(s) from my patio furniture and coaxed it to the edge. I then tilted it to balance it on my shoulder (all the time thinking I might end up getting a Darwin award), made it down the ladder about two steps and heaved it away from the trailer. Well I lived to tell the story and the AC is off. Was it heavy? Well, I will say it sits where it fell because I cant lift it to move it or get it in the trash. So I guess its relative.
Ok.. Two really hard things DONE!!
Meanwhile back at the ranch I put Thompsons water seal on both sides of all the wood that will be the new floor and restacked and covered it.
I got the fresh water tank in place although I still need to finish securing it. Somewhere along the line I became aware that I was putting off anything that required I cut anything new, like wood, aluminum, wire.. Anything!. I needed to cut and get the belly pan so I got the aluminum out. Im pretty glad I waited till my mom left town because I think she may have suggested I dont do it in the living room. But that is where I did the first cut.
Thinking I might kill one of the dogs I used a tie down before letting lose of the tape.
Prolly a good thing because it was rolled pretty tight and really wanted to be free.
So I went to measuring and cutting. Measure 48 times cut once, in theory. The first cut was a little long so I had to trim it and refine the process. I was not expecting that I would miraculously become a sheet metal expert so I knew that the first sheets wouldnt be beautiful. But this is the belly pan and the best place I can learn and not see every little mistake.
I was able to get up two sheets of the belly pan and have two more on the underside to go.
As you can see, Im working on improving the process and hope by the time I get to the interior skins (a loong time from now) I will have it down pat.
Final thoughts
I have really toggled back and forth on lifting the shell to do the subfloor. Its such a major step and its very risky. If something goes wrong and I damage or tweak the shell, this has all been for not. I know the right way to do it is to just bite the bullet and lift the shell and that is still my plan at this point. But I have to say Im very nervous about it.
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