Grunion

Both my Husband Bob and I where born and raised in Southern CA, true CA natives.  The beaches have always played a big part in our youth, life, romance and marriage and although for various reasons we left CA in 1995 to live in the sand box of NV, our hearts will always be attached to our home state.  We've chosen a laid back beach theme for the trailer so the name GRUNION seems appropriate to us.  For those that don't understand:  the grunion was\is a small silver fish that you used to could catch by the bucket on some of the beachs in CA.  We hope to be found on the beach in our GRUNION. :-)

Cushions

Yippee!! the new cushions are done.  After much research and pricing of replacement foam I decided to buy a 8" memory foam mattress from Overstock.com, this has worked perfectly for us.  Let me say this is my first purchase from Overstock.com and I am impressed, great price and fast delivery.  We early on decided to keep the 2 separate front bench\beds in our layout and so I bought the full size memory foam mattress and sliced it in half  and cut the rounded front with an electric knife, covered in simple denim this has worked great. 

The New Floor

 

Hooray, the new floor is almost in! It was a rough start, we had purchased the Swift lock floating wood flooring on clearance because the color was so perfect but trying to install it in a travel trailer is more difficult then we thought it would be.  We finally decided that we would install it on the short width,  it reminds us of walking on the pier in our youth.   What a difference the floor makes inside and the painted rims with the new tires make on the Airstream period.  I finally finished the all the front window treatments too.

New plumbing

Well, the new toilet and repaired black water tank is installed and the plumbing is getting the finishing touches. We decided to replace most of the old plumbing with the new blue pipe plumbing used in houses and high pressure clear tubing, it's really pretty easy to work with and requires no soldering. The original grey pipe used has a bad reputation of splitting in homes and I can't imagine it was much better in a travel trailer. Since we've had this Airstream less then 5 months at this point I think we've come a long way.

Moving right along

We are making great progress and Bob was successful in "welding" the large crack in the black water tank. He will add an extra layer of aquarium sealer to the weld for a little extra protection. We knew that there was going to be some extra work to do in the rear compartment since the trailer has had water damage and some of the plumbing leaks, of course it was only after we bought the new toilet and pump that we realized that the black water tank was cracked and had to come completely out. At this point we have chosen to restructure the whole rear compartment and replace the grey pipe plumbing and most of the copper too. There was no hot water heater when we bought the yacht and we really aren't planning to replace one. We will just have to choose camping with showers available.

Interior

The original interior panels are in surprisingly good shape and we like the front set up with the two beds and table. At first we were thinking of making one larger bed but decided after laying on these that just keeping the original design and improving the foam to serve as a good bed would be our best option.

Airstream Repairs

The front now has a new left window and the two front tears repaired and is looking good.

Making the Repairs

Bob has 30 plus years in the auto body repair business so you might think that repairing the skins on this would be easy for him. He has found that because of the construction and the light weight of the aluminum some of the damage is best left. On the front of the Airstream there where two tears, one on either side, some basic repair was done and then Bob created two matching aluminum patches, siliconed underneath to prevent leaks into the trailer and used the Olympic rivets to apply the patch's. I think you can see from the pictures that the look is just fine and in a way I think it adds something to the front. We also used the same technique to cover the antenna holes since we don't plan on replacing that.

Travel Plans

We intend to take this Airstream on a special adventure starting in mid-California, probably around Pismo Beach, and continuing up the coast through Oregon, Washington into Canada across and down through Montana. We would like to devote at least a month for this trip and even more if we can manage it. If you know of any cool things we should see along this way I would really like to hear from you.

Aluminum Fencing?

This Airstream has seen some use and neglect, it was basically being used as a privacy fence and storage shed. When Bob (the brawn and brains behind the rough stuff) took me to see it sadly sitting in the brush I knew the size was just right for us, sometimes you have to look beyond the dirt and see the potential.
It is a 1970 Airstream Land Yacht, 23' from hitch to bumper but more accurately 20' inside. It is a single axle with a side bathroom. The Airstream has been named the "Grunion" for reasons that I will explain in later pictures. We have never reconditioned a trailer before but have much experience with homes and cars so we figured this was just the challenge we were looking for.