Yep, amazingly we got out on time yesterday, after weeks of prep.  Well, almost.  We aimed for a late afternoon start, just to get a few miles in before the real push started on Friday, and we got out about 5:30 p.m., which was 90 minutes later than optimum.  But that required only an adjustment to plan, and as you’ll see, everything worked out better than expected.

The Airstream is looking happy to be back on the road. It’s been tweaked, cleaned, painted, washed, lubed, and tested.  It So it was no surprise that our first 150 miles were completely uneventful.  I was particularly happy with the new position of the backup cam. Now that it looks down on traffic, it’s useful after dusk (when previously lights from cars would blind it) and I am getting a much more better picture of the traffic situation behind us.

We weren’t out to accumulate a lot of miles given our late start.  The plan was just to make it to Deming NM and crash for a night at Rock Hound State Park.  Since we were late, we opted to stop in Lordsburg NM instead, which is a small blip along a very lonely stretch of I-10, known mostly for having truck stop and hotels.  There is one campground there.  When we arrived in the dark, the office was closed (no surprise) and there was an after-hours board telling us the usual procedure: pay here, pick out a site.

I looked at that board for a minute.  Three people for a night, $37.  Cash only.  I thought about our three years of full-timing.  And then I thought, “Nah.”  We had just left home 150 miles ago.  We had full fresh water, empty holding tanks, and solar panels.  At 4000 ft elevation the night was forecast to be deliciously comfortable for sleeping. Why did we need, or even want, a campground?

So we went back to a restaurant we had spotted on the way in, which advertised ” RV parking,” went in to ask about dinner (they had just closed) and asked if we could park … Before Eleanor could finish her question, we got a “No problem,” and from there we spent a pleasant night with the windows open and cool breezes floating in.  I slept extremely well and had magnificent dreams, and I awoke thinking, “Being here in this Airstream, in this bed, with this person, is absolutely perfect.” Although we had hundreds of miles to cover, I didn’t want to get out of bed.  That was a bit of roadtrip magic, the kind that I miss from the full-timing days.

We delayed probably more than was ideal, dawdling over (very good) breakfast in the restaurant, puttering a little in the Airstream, but finally got moving and pushed on through New Mexico and west Texas, with a brief stop to pick up barbecue in El Paso.  We ended up, 417 miles later, at Monahans Sand Hills State Park a couple of hours before sunset in 102-degree heat.

I’ve been here once before, with the Caravel, but for Eleanor and Emma it’s the first visit.  After dinner (the barbecue we picked up along the way), they discovered for themselves how beautiful this park gets when the sun is low on the horizon.  Although it was still well into the 90s at that time, we took a walk around the campground loop and everyone went a little nuts with their cameras.

We’re going to be in the “logging miles” mode for a few days, so our stop here will be just one night.  It would have been nice to make our usual leisurely plod across the country, but to do that would have required leaving at least a week ago, and that just wasn’t realistic.  So we’ll bolt across the vastness of Texas, and through Arkansas and beyond before pausing.  Still, a few moments like last night and this evening’s sunset will make the hours of driving feel a lot more worthwhile.

Our countdown to the summer-long trip is into the single digits now, and so it is time to run the “Airstream systems check.”  This is a routine that I started integrating to our pre-trip prep about a year ago, after we had to cancel a long-awaited trip because the brake actuator died while the Airstream was stored.

Although that situation was sort of a fluke (the actuator was part of a run of bad units that were later recalled), it demonstrated that we can’t take our Airstream for granted.  It is almost nine years old now, and has seen heavy use.  This spring I’ve been going through the areas of the rig that have shown wear.  Through a process of refurbishing, repairing, and updating it has been put back into good shape, better in some ways than it has ever been.

In addition to all the stuff I’ve blogged, a few smaller projects got done in the past week.  For example, I added LED light strips to the under-bed area.  These turn on automatically when the bed is lifted, thanks to a magnetic switch.  It was a surprisingly painful job, because I had to squeeze myself into the front storage compartment to connect wires, but worthwhile because before we never could see well when rummaging around in that storage area.

While moving the backup camera I discovered a second main ground wire, hidden inside the rear bumper compartment.  This one was also somewhat corroded, despite being a bit more protected, so for good measure I disconnected it and cleaned it up as I had the front one.  I also lubed all the locks and hinges with graphite, replaced the two big zerk fittings on the Hensley (they have special spring-loaded plungers that tend to wear off), replaced a bad cabinet spring latch, and other such simple stuff.

Since we’ve fiddled with the flooring, furniture, plumbing, windows, antennas, camera, hitch, belly pan, refrigerator, bathroom sink, and microwave in the past couple of months, it seemed especially important to do a good road test before we hitched up for the real thing.  I recruited Mike, and we towed the Airstream down to the local highway truck stop, the TTT.

A good local truck stop can be a boon.  At the TTT we were able to get months of desert dust and last summer’s bugs finally washed off the Airstream, then go around to the CAT scale to get weighed (and re-weighed after adjusting the weight distribution a little), and on the way there and back were had opportunities to check the brakes and dial in the hitch head adjustment on the Hensley.  (This latter adjustment is crucial, as an off-center hitch head will cause the trailer to push the tow vehicle off-course in a hard braking maneuver.  We only had to do this because we disassembled the hitch for painting, otherwise it’s a “set and forget” item.) If we’d been in the mood we could have topped up the diesel and had lunch at Omar’s Highway Chef, too.

Mike kept the ladies at the TTT front desk entertained while I went through the CAT scale.  The report told me that the Airstream was lighter than it has ever been when loaded for travel with full water, at about 7,260 pounds.  It has run as high as 7,800 pounds, but usually less.   We haven’t yet finished loading some of our stuff, so when we leave it will probably be right around 7400-7450, which is fine.

While we were at the TTT I had a chance to walk around and inspect the tires, see if anything came loose (especially things I fixed!), and adjust the strut jacks on the hitch to move a little more weight to the front axle.  I went around for a second weigh and verified that the tweak moved another 60 pounds forward. (By the way, our hitch weight came out to 660 pounds, or 9%.  People often assume it’s much higher because of the size of the trailer, but it has always been around 9-11%, verified over the years by truck scales.)

The road test to and from the TTT verified that the new position of the backup camera is awesome.  With the high mounted position I now have a clear birds-eye view of the traffic situation behind us—three lanes wide.  I’m going to really like that when we get into heavy traffic situations like Dallas/Ft Worth. It’s also more useful when backing into the carport.

The test tow was about 40 miles roundtrip and it verified that everything seems tight, right, and ready to go. No surprises.  Even the new cellular antenna clears the carport entry as planned.  And it’s shiny again.  So all systems are “go” for launch.  We just need to get the crew on board and that should happen by the end of the week.

I drilled a hole in my Airstream.

Of all the jobs to be done on the Airstream this spring, this one scared me the most.  Anticipating it was worse than building new cabinetry, worse than de-greasing the hitch & sanding off the rust, worse than laying inside the front compartment and re-wiring (I’ll tell you about that one later).

The backup camera I installed on the Airstream three years ago has been very useful, but I made a serious mistake when I put it on the rear bumper.  That location was easy to reach but far too low.

As a result, car lights and setting sun would create glare, making the camera useless at dusk or at night.  I found that I needed the camera much more while towing on the highway, for situational awareness (i.e., what’s happening behind me) than I needed it for actually backing up.  So losing the camera’s functionality because of glare was a real annoyance.

Also the low position gave me a great view of the stripes on the highway and the bumper grill of the car behind me, but not of cars further away.  Because it’s a “backup camera” the field of vision is very wide, like a fisheye lens, and so the useful distance range isn’t long.  To get any sort of overview of the traffic situation it needs to be mounted up above the roof of the average car.

I knew all this after the first season of towing, but I also knew that the only way to get the camera up where it belonged would require drilling a hole in the rear dome of the Airstream.  Not a small hole either, but a whopping 5/8″ hole to fit the cable connector through.  I have never drilled a hole in the body of the Airstream before.  It’s sort of a forbidden thing, in my book, because every hole is a new chance for a leak, a spot that must be maintained with caulk, and something you can never un-do.  Remember, I just had to deal with a 3/4″ hole that was drilled in the roof eight years ago for the original cell phone antenna.

At least that hole was up on the top where nobody can see it.  This particular hole was going to be right smack in the middle on a very expensive & very visible piece of shaped aluminum, where a virtual waterfall is created every time there’s rain.  If I screwed it up, I’d be looking at an ugly patch forever.

This may explain why I put up with the inadequacies of the camera mount for three years.

With all the other projects completed, and perhaps a bit of bravery inspired by their relative success, I had no excuse to avoid this one any longer.  The re-routing of the cable was easy: it was already in the bumper compartment, and from there it took only two holes inside the rear compartment to run it up into Emma’s bedroom.  A four-foot length of plastic wire chase from the hardware store hid the wire as it ran up Emma’s bedroom wall, and then … I had to face the final cut, right through two layers of aluminum, some fiberglass insulation, and out to the cold, cruel world.

In a previous blog I wrote that you should think several times before putting a hole in the Airstream’s skin.  I thought about it for weeks, running through all the possibilities in my head to ensure there was no other way, and that I had a plan for every possible screw-up.  I ran a piece of blue tape down the centerline of the trailer from the clearance light to the license plate, measured and measured again, then dusted off the dome, applied several layers of protective tape on the aluminum, and drilled a small “test hole” 3/16″ in diameter.  (If this hole had been wrong, it would have been relatively simple to plug it up with caulk.)

It was right on the money, so I continued through larger drill bits, eventually ending up with the monster 5/8″ drill.  Emma didn’t make me feel any better about this when the drill poked into her bedroom and she shouted (through the closed window), “Wow, that’s a big hole!”

The camera is now in place, secured by a very high-bond double-sided automotive tape, and sealed with Vulkem 116.  I wish I had gray or black Vulkem for this, because the white caulk smears look stupid on the black camera mount, but eventually I’ll get my hands on some and re-do it.  In the meantime, it works and the view from the camera is much better.

So I drilled the Airstream, and survived.  But I don’t want to do it again anytime soon.

After a good run of posting every two days for a while, I had to shut up and focus entirely on work.  I have been monumentally busy the past several weeks, but you don’t want to hear about that.  The most interesting part of it (Airstream-wise) has been finishing up the cabinetry project that I began before our last trip to California and Nevada.

If you haven’t read back that far, here’s a re-cap:  We wanted to get rid of the tired old laundry & microwave rack that we whipped up while full-timing, and make the area more functional.  I removed everything on the curbside of the trailer from the entry door to the refrigerator wall.  Originally this was a fold-out credenza with two huge chairs, as shown in the floorplan.

Those chairs took up too much space and we got rid of the first one before we had even towed a mile.  (As far as I know it is still serving as bachelor apartment furniture in Ohio.)  The second one exited while we were full-timing.  We stopped in Florida for a few days and a friend fabricated a counter extension to run along the curbside wall (atop a narrow shelf that isn’t depicted in the floor plan).  We bought a cheap wire rack at a housewares store and muddled the whole thing up into a storage space for a microwave and a small laundry bin.  This was a little crude but it worked for six years.

Eventually we started keeping our recycling in a little cardboard box behind this wire rack, and shoes began to collect beneath the rack.  Then we added a catalytic heater on the wall by the refrigerator.  Eleanor began storing water jugs on the floor behind the rack, too, and we noticed that the recycling bin was often too small.

The point of all this is that gradually we had modified the space to suit our style, and we had noted what didn’t work about it.  After eight years it was safe to conclude we had a clear pattern of use and our “wish list” was based on experience rather than infatuation.  So when Mike & I ripped up the old floor, rebuilding the curbside storage was part of the plan.

I finally finished it last Friday, and I’m very pleased with how it came out, considering that it was a mish-mash of old and new materials.  I tried to re-use as much as possible of the Airstream plywood because it’s very lightweight, and to keep the look somewhat reminiscent of the factory styling.  The fold-out credenza is still there, but it has been moved to a new location further forward and off the wheelwell.  (Kyle and I did that a few weeks ago, and you can see how it was done in the earlier blog entries.)

Added to it is a new microwave shelf suitable for a 1.2 cubic foot microwave, a shelf below the microwave for one of Eleanor’s large pans (probably a cast iron skillet), a black recycling bin that is twice as large as our old cardboard box, room for two 12-packs of canned drinks or four gallons of drinking water, space for the sink covers/cutting boards and a few paper bags, a much larger shoe cubby, the same laundry bin, and a semi-hidden storage shelf for small items like headlamps.

The big win of the whole thing is the huge new countertop, made of black walnut with four coats of polyurethane.  It measures 18″ x 71″ by itself (8.8 square feet), and gains another couple of square feet when the credenza is fully deployed.  With three people in an Airstream and lots of things going on simultaneously, you can never have enough tabletop space.

The only thing we lost in this conversion was a magazine rack, which I will replace later when we find a wall-mounted rack that we like.  No rush on that.

To build this thing took far longer than I had hoped.  That’s partly because I didn’t make it easy on myself.  I didn’t like the standard steel L-brackets that were available at the hardware store, so I bought lengths of 3/4″ aluminum L-channel and cut brackets from it on the table saw, then drilled four holes in each of them.  They aren’t as stiff as the steel brackets but they are a lot lighter and still strong enough.  Plus, they’re aluminum—need I say more?

The Airstream didn’t make things easy either.  You can’t count on square, level, flat, plumb or tight in a travel trailer.  Things move, and they need to flex during travel.  So every cut was “custom,” to accommodate gaps, unevenness, and just plain awkwardness resulting from the original construction.  Eleanor and I had to stop several time and ponder ways to cover up unexpected issues.  I also had to design the cabinet to be light, strong, and yet able to flex a little where needed.  Overall, I think the job probably took about 30-40 hours and at least a dozen hardware store runs.

So it feels great that it’s done, and I think it looks pretty good.  Sure, the black walnut doesn’t match the original furniture color, but I don’t care.  It looks much more sophisticated than the original stuff.  Because the shelves are black melamine, and the microwave and recycling bin are black, they all tend to visually disappear so cabinet doors are unnecessary.  Eleanor even found black no-skid material to line her pan shelf.

For those who are interested, here’s a bit more trivia:  We used the 3/4″ aluminum L-channel to make trim edges and lips for the shelves. It’s screwed to the melamine with 3/8″ stainless screws.  The microwave is attached to the shelf with self-adhesive Velcro and a security strap (made of aluminum) screwed to the side.  A low vertical divider holds the recycling bin in place.  We found the little organizer (pictured with the headlamp in it) at The Container Store.  The countertop, despite being solid wood, weighs only 19 pounds.  The entire structure weighs about 35 pounds, not including microwave, which is probably less than the original furniture and the two chairs we pitched out.

The key here is that this design suits our way of life when we are traveling.  We need convenient, reliable, practical, and durable stuff.  We aren’t glampers or weekenders, we’re long-distance travelers and we live in our Airstream for months at a time.  Your needs will probably be different.  Customizing your Airstream is just like customizing your fixed-base home: everyone has their own needs.

I have never met a full-timer or long-distance Airstream traveler who hasn’t modified their Airstream quite a bit.  Even people with brand-new trailers do it.  So if you haven’t yet, my advice would be to think about what you do, what you carry along with you, what you most feel is lacking in your interior, and starting planning a few small customizations of your own.  It’s easy to start with something as small as an organizer or a hat hook.  But beware—despite the many hours this latest project took, I can tell you that modding the Airstream is addictive.  There will be more in our future.

Today I’ve got to talk about towing.  I’m sorry if the mere thought causes your eyes to glaze over.  There’s just too much dangerous misinformation out on the Internet, even coming from RV salespeople and people who should know better, and it’s going to get people killed.

If you don’t read Airstream Life, you’ve missed out on a great series about towing issues that is authored by Andy Thomson of Can-Am RV.  Andy is a second-generation Airstream dealer who specializes in setting up trailer hitches for best performance, and he does a lot of testing with his own vehicles to figure out what works.  The series he’s writing for the magazine has gradually built up a case for optimal hitching, which involves a lot more than just “buy a bigger truck.”  He’s gotten into the details like the overhang and angle of the tow ball, sway control, aerodynamics, engine power, suspension components, steering, and much more.  Some of what he says is controversial but I think all of his points are very important to consider.

So if you really want to understand towing at the engineering level (and get past all the ridiculous pseudo-knowledge that you’ve probably heard), you should gather up as many of the back issues as you can find and read all the articles.  (The series started in the Summer 2010 issue.)

I can’t begin to reach Andy’s expertise level, but I can talk about one simple piece of the towing puzzle today: weight distribution.  Weight distribution is the idea that the tongue weight of the trailer should be evenly distributed across both axles of the tow vehicle.

It’s horrifying that so many people don’t understand this concept, because it’s absolutely crucial when towing a trailer with a heavy tongue weight. By “heavy” I mean any trailer with over 500 pounds or so on the tongue.  It doesn’t matter how big your truck is.  It doesn’t matter if you “can hardly feel the Airstream,” or if you “never had a problem.”  You need to get this right.

Why?  Because one day it will make a difference.  That will be the day that you have to do a panic stop, or a sudden avoidance maneuver on the highway, or when the wind is blowing 30 knots off your starboard bow, or when you accidentally let the trailer drop a wheel off the edge of the pavement … and I could go on further with reasons why.  One day, you’ll have to do ask your rig to do something extraordinary, and you’ll want it to behave.

Without proper weight distribution, that rig you thought was so great towing straight down the road might do something really unexpected.  Perhaps the rear brakes will lock up prematurely in a hard stop.  You might not be able to control a sway, or stay on the road in a turn.  You might feel the trailer “wag the dog.”  Quite likely you’ll have an accident and afterward only know that something bad happened and you’re not sure why.

The catch is that you can’t tell you’ve got a problem until one of three things happens:

1. You weigh the truck and trailer combination, and then the truck separately, to see how weight is being distributed across the axles.
2. You take the rig on a closed course and drive it to the limits.
3. You crash.

I prefer option #1.

The other day I saw some CAT scale readings from a fellow who was very confident about his truck and Airstream setup.  By common knowledge, he was all set: big truck, no problem.  But the CAT scale told a different story.  When he hitched up his trailer, the rear axle of his truck got 1,900 lbs heavier.  The front axle got 760 pounds lighter.  That’s very bad but not unexpected.  It means the weight of the trailer’s tongue, pushing down on the tow ball at the back of the truck, was actually lifting the front of the truck.

Imagine a teeter-totter.  The Airstream is pushing on one end, the rear axle of the truck is the center (fulcrum) of the teeter-totter, and the front axle is going up. When you lighten the front end that much, the steering geometry is affected.  Now you’ve got understeer.  You turn the steering wheel, but the truck doesn’t turn like it should.  It’s like driving on ice.  It’s insidious because you might not notice until you have to make an emergency maneuver at speed.

A light front axle also affects the braking adversely, giving the front tires less ability to grip the road and slow you down.  So bad steering, bad braking—you can see how this is really undesirable.

With weight distribution applied on the same truck and trailer, the problem appears to the casual observer to be corrected.  With the weight bars in place, the CAT scale shows that the rear axle is now only 1,000 pounds heavier than the axle was without the trailer (which is well under the manufacturer’s axle rating), and the front axle is now lightened by only 100 pounds.   Everything meets the manufacturer’s specifications.

That will work, but it’s far from optimal.  The truck started with a nice 49/51% front/rear weight distribution.  With the Airstream and weight distribution, the ratio has gone to 44/56%, which is not so great.  It will drive OK under un-challenging circumstances, but it’s not set up well to deal with a bad day.  Imagine a sports car with a huge lump of concrete in the trunk.  Go around a sharp corner, and what happens?  The sports car spins out.  The truck with poor weight distribution may be more prone to the same thing.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, the driver may not “feel” anything adverse until it’s too late.

So how do you fix this?  It’s actually quite easy to even out the load on the axles.  The exact mechanism depends on the hitch system you’re using, so it may be a matter of just going down a link on the weight bar chains (on a Reese), or tightening the strut jacks (on a Hensley), or angling the tow ball rearward, or shortening the receiver to get the ball closer to the rear axle, or any combination of these things.  The goal is the same: get those axles back to as close to 50/50 weight as you can, with the trailer hitched up.

If you find that you’ve tried everything and can’t get the weight distribution any better, don’t give up.  Hensleys are not great at weight distribution, but regardless of the type of hitch you use, check with someone who knows hitches.  Sometimes the hitch receiver on your truck will flex so much that it acts like a spring, bending rather than distributing the weight stress.  Reinforcement or repair may be necessary.

By the way, if you followed the manufacturer’s instructions when setting up your hitch, and used the old technique of measuring the corners of the truck to see how much each dropped, you still need to go to a truck scale.  That method is really obsolete today, with modern vehicles that have different suspensions front and rear, air bags, or even full air suspensions.  At best, it’s a rough estimate.  For about $10 at a CAT scale you can get the real story.

If you didn’t know any of this, don’t feel like a noob.  I’ve talked to RV salespeople who send people out the door every day with new rigs, who don’t understand the basic principles of weight distribution.  I just hope I’ve impressed upon you that most Airstream owners need to check their weight distribution on a truck scale, because what you don’t know can definitely hurt you.

I haven’t been looking forward to this most recent Airstream job.  For a couple of years the A-frame on the Airstream (the front part, for those of you who don’t have a trailer) has been looking pretty ratty.  Paint chips from rocks have turned into unsightly spots of surface rust, and the orange paint of the Hensley hitch has faded, then gradually fallen off, leaving large patches of rust.  The paint on the top of the power hitch jack has chipped off too.  It’s getting embarrassing, like the interior floor was before we replaced it last month.

The problem with the job of repainting the hitch and A-frame is that there’s a ton of prep work and it’s messy.  The Hensley is loaded with grease, which over the years has congealed with dirt and coated not only underside of the hitch itself but also the chains, coupler, and about a third of the A-frame.  After removing all the hitch parts with the assistance of Mike, we dumped them into a large tub and degreased everything with industrial-strength degreaser and heavy brushes, then washed everything.  This job took about an hour, and by the end of it much of the black grease was transferred to our bodies and clothes.

Then we scraped the loose paint off with metal scrapers, and got the surface rust off with a wire brush attached to the power drill, leaving a surface of remaining paint that resembled a cracked dry lake.  It was not pretty, but it was already an improvement over what was there.  It really needs a good sandblasting and powder coating, but I’ve decided I will do this quickie scrape and re-paint just to get another year or two, and then I’ll take the whole thing into a professional shop for a proper & smooth job.

The A-frame was less of a problem because Airstream used real paint (rather than that orange stuff that Hensley uses).  It held up very well over eight years of heavy use and many miles.  We only needed to touch up spots with the wire brush (after washing), and then wash again to remove all the dust.  It should paint up nicely.

After a lot of consideration, I’ve decided to paint the entire A-frame area in flat black.  The Hensley parts will also be black, except the part that was orange which is now a metallic pewter.  Black hides the grease a little better, and it’s an easy color to match for touchups.

Those of you who own Hensleys might be wondering if I’m going to put the stickers back on.  I have an entire set of replacement stickers, including the serial # label, but I’m going to keep them on hand and install them after the hitch is professionally stripped and coated.

You might recall that I complained of our LED lights flickering when the water pump was running.  I had considered several possible causes and solutions, including using heavier gauge wire to the pump, and adding a capacitor.  I realized that all the solutions were aimed at the same symptom: voltage drops when the 12 volt electrical system was heavily loaded.  And since nobody else with the LED lights seemed to be having the problem, it seemed most likely that I should try to find the cause of the problem rather than trying to patch it.

With that in mind, the most obvious place to look was the main trailer 12v ground, which is (on my trailers) is located under the main frame on the street side, just in front of the spare tire.  There’s a fat bare copper wire that runs to a little copper clamp that is in turn bolted to the frame. Since we were in that area with the wire brush, I disassembled the clamp and found quite a bit of corrosion on the copper and the steel frame.  I brushed everything back to shiny and reassembled, then tested, and voila!  no more flickering lights. I’ll coat the area with dielectric grease to reduce future corrosion.

We used to know when the main ground needed cleaning because the Actibrake disc brake actuator would suddenly stop working.  This happened a couple of times (Four Corners)  (FL panhandle) and I got used to doing roadside clean-ups of the ground wire.  The replacement Dexter brake actuator we have now doesn’t seem to be as sensitive to low voltage.  So now the LED lights are our warning signal. I think as warning signs go, flickering lights is far better than having no brakes.

The next job will be to paint everything.  This time of year we get a breeze almost every afternoon, so we’ll either paint this evening around 6 p.m. if things have calmed down, or early tomorrow morning.  Then, re-assembly, re-greasing, and adjusting of the Hensley.

In between major jobs like this I’m working on the cabinetry and other small tweaks too.  For example, yesterday I replaced four bellypan rivets with the big “buttonhead” ones because the pan was starting to come loose in the back. I also fabricated a small plumbing chase from leftover pieces of black walnut, to replace the factory one.  The list of Airstream jobs that was a page long is slowly shrinking, and two of the four “big” jobs are nearly complete, so although time is short I think we’ll be ready to go to Alumapalooza in three weeks.

In the Airstream universe you will find a curious phenomenon: passionate debates about caulk.  That’s because the constant movement of all parts on the road causes all travel trailers to leak eventually, and a good caulk is our first line of defense against rain penetration.  Rather unfairly, Airstreamers get more of this debate than owners of other brands, mostly because Airstreams have been around for so long, and so many of them remain on the roads after decades of use.

An Airstream might easily be re-caulked a dozen times over its lifetime.  In contrast, “disposable” cheap travel trailers tend to get chucked into a landfill when they start to leak because they’re starting to fall apart too. You don’t hear the owners of those talking quite so much about re-caulking. They’re busy re-financing.

Another reason Airstreamers love to talk caulk is the aluminum construction of an Airstream.  Silicone caulks don’t adhere as well to aluminum, so we tend to go for polyurethane caulks that are more expensive but stick like crazy and stay gooey for a long time. But what caulk is the “best”?

For decades, the gold standard of caulk for silver trailers was some gray stuff called Vulkem.  These days Vulkem is just a brand name, applied to various formulations of polyurethane caulk made by Tremco.  I use Vulkem 116 but you can also get TremPro 635 from the same manufacturer, and a few variants. Either way, it’s great stuff.  It’s sticky like hot salt-water taffy and adheres to aluminum like glue, once cured it flexes a lot without breaking its seal, and it’s designed for exterior use (only) so it’s UV-resistant and completely waterproof.

Finding the stuff is the problem.  Lots of online sellers offer it but since a tube is anywhere from $6-14 and shipping tends to add $7-9, you want to get it locally or combine it with another order to duck the shipping charge.  Locally it’s sometimes available through Home Depot or Fastenal, but here I couldn’t find it stocked anywhere so I had to order it.

OEM caulk starting to break down after 8 years?

You can always go to the local RV store and find products that claim to be roof caulk.  I’ve tried a few and had uniformly disappointing results, especially the “self-leveling” type.  Those RV-store caulks seem to be made for the disposable RV market, because they all break down in a few years under sunlight and start to crack, then leak.  You can go on the roof of my Airstream and see what things (vents, antennas, etc.) have been caulked with the standard products; they’re drying out and starting to crack around the edges.  I will have to go up on the roof sometime, scrape all that stuff off, and re-caulk.  It’s not a job I’m looking forward to.

You can also see the things that were caulked with Vulkem or TremPro.  They’re still soft and pliable, even sticky, after years of UV exposure.  When I removed the old cellular antenna a couple of weeks ago, the caulk exposed to the UV was hardened but intact, and still waterproof. Around the base of the antenna the caulk was still gooey.  Think about that: the antenna was installed in 2005 and the caulk on it stuck to my fingers like fresh glue after eight years!  I’ve got it sitting here on my desk, just because I like to pick it up and marvel at it once in a while.  (Yes, that’s super-geeky but hey, it inspired this blog you’re reading.)

And eight years is nothing.  I’ve taken apart sections of my 1968 Caravel and found Vulkem contained inside joints and seams that was still good.   That Vulkem was probably decades old.

So that explains why I was willing to wait a week to get a tube of Vulkem 116 from an online seller. I used it to seal up the antenna hole for the cellular Internet booster.  The hole was 3/4″ and the cable was only 1/4″ so I used a set of rubber grommets to fill in the gap, plus a 2″ tall rubber “boot” that I found at Ace Hardware.  This formed a small tower on the roof, from which the new antenna cable emerges. Then I caulked the beejeebers out of the whole thing, sealing it completely.

Two days later, the caulk still feels like it was fresh from the tube, and since it cures very slowly (just 1/16″ of an inch per day at 75 degrees F & 50% humidity) I expect it will take at least a week due to our low humidity.  Fortunately, the Airstream isn’t going anywhere for four weeks.  I’ll get back on the roof in late May to check on the antenna cable again, after having towed the Airstream 2,000 miles to Ohio, just to confirm that the seal is flexing appropriately at highway speed and not developing any gaps that could cause a leak. I’m pretty sure it will be fine.

There are a few challenges with using this stuff.  First off, the fumes are stinky and toxic, which may be why it’s not approved for indoor use.  I would not use this in a workshop without having windows open and a fan.  Second, it’s trickier to shape and smooth than silicone caulk, because it sticks to everything.  The old “wet finger” trick that you use with silicone won’t work—it’ll stick to your wet finger.  I strongly suggest wearing disposable vinyl gloves when you work with it, and bringing along a bunch of paper towels for cleanup.

Third, saving the leftover tube is a bit of a pain.  It’s hard enough to obtain that you don’t want to lose the leftovers between jobs.  Some people put it in the freezer, which I think is a bad idea because the smell of the caulk can ruin your food, even through a plastic bag.  I like my ice cream to taste like Oreo Mint, not vanilla Vulkem.

We’re trying an experiment instead.  We wrapped the nozzle in plastic kitchen wrap, and then vacuum sealed the entire tube with Eleanor’s Food Saver.  (Eleanor wants me to mention that this was her brilliant idea, and I’m glad to do so.  If I open the tube in a year and find it congealed then it will be Eleanor’s terrible idea.  But it should be fine.)

I did warn you that the next few weeks would be mostly about Airstream maintenance, didn’t I?

The job list on the Safari is pretty long, so I’m trying to tackle at least a piece of a project every day.  The past few days Eleanor has been helping me with preliminary bits of the rest of the storage cabinets I started before our last trip.  We’ve figured out how we want to assemble the cabinet and glued up some trim pieces with aluminum strips, as Kyle and I did before.

I’ve also had the countertop made by a local wood shop. It’s black walnut, measuring about 18″ x 69″.  You might think that would be monstrously heavy, but I had it planed down to 5/8″ thick so it’s just 19 pounds.  Not lightweight, but reasonable for solid wood. We think it looks fantastic, even before final shaping and finishing, and I am really looking forward to seeing it finally installed. I’ll post pictures in a future blog.

One of Saturday’s little tasks was to tackle one of those common annoyances in the Safari-class Airstreams.  Those trailers used a type of Hehr window that opens at the bottom third of the glass.  The window operators (cranks) are made of cheap pot metal and they eventually strip and fail.  We’ve got two failed window operators in the trailer and a few others showing signs of imminent failure.  (You’ll know because you have to spin the window crank quite a while before it finally “catches” and starts to move the window.)

This is a job that the dealer will probably charge an hour’s labor to do, but you can do it yourself in less time.  The trick is finding new replacement window operators.  They’re called “torque operators” and they are Hehr part #008-192 if you’ve got the window knob on the right (as seen from inside the trailer).  I found them online for about $8, and bought three figuring that we’d need a spare soon.

Replacing the torque operators only requires two tools, a Philips screwdriver with a narrow handle and a regular (flat-bladed) screwdriver.  The job is a little tricky, and I was wishing someone would document it, so photos are below to illustrate most of the steps. In short:

1. Inside the trailer, open the window fully if it still works.  Remove the black knob by removing the screw in the center.
2. Outside the trailer, remove the two small black screws in the hinge just above the movable part of the window glass.
3. Open the window (if it didn’t operate by the knob) and pop out the C-clips on the arm hinges (one on each arm).
4. Pop the arms apart using the flat bladed screwdriver (one on each side).
5. Now you can lift the window all the way up and either pop it out of the hinge or slide it sideways until it comes out of the hinge.
6. Again using the flat screwdriver, pry the lower end of the spring off the upper arm so that the arm can move freely.  Be careful not to puncture the screen with the spring.  Do this on each side.
7. On the right side, remove the screws that hold in the mount for the round bar.  The top one will be hard to get to, so this is where the narrow handle of your screwdriver is crucial.
   On the left side, remove the three screws that hold in the torque operator.  Again, the top one is a pain to get to.
8. Drop the round bar down on the right side, then the left.  It should come out now, with the torque operator attached.  Might take some wiggling and cursing.  Don’t let the springs and arms fall off, because that will just make your life harder.

   

   Unscrewing the knob inside

   

   The hinge screw

   

   Popping off the C-clips

   

   Prying apart the arms

   
   

   

   Removing the window

   

   Disconnecting the spring

   

   Round bar disconnected on right side

   

   Torque operator and round bar about to come out together

   
   
   
9. Remove the torque operator and note what a piece of crap it is.  Scratch your head and wonder why they didn’t make it out of more durable material.
   

   

   

   
   
   
10. Replace with a new torque operator, and wiggle the whole assembly of bar, springs, arms, and operator back into place.
11. As they say, “installation is the reverse of removal.”  Riiiiiight.

Getting the top screw back in on each side is a pain. I taped the screw loosely to the driver and that helped, or you could use a magnetic bit.  Getting the window back in the hinge is a hassle too.  It takes a little force.  A helper would be useful here, although I managed to do it myself in a few minutes.  The rest is pretty easy.

I’ve still got one more torque operator to replace on the other side, but with the Airstream in the carport I can’t get to it right now.  That will be an on-the-road repair sometime in May or June.  The third operator will sit in the box of spares until the Window Failure Lottery is complete and we have a known loser.  And now we can open up a window in the bedroom and let in the air again!

OK.  I’m sitting here looking at my fingers as I type.  I see three small cuts (nicks from sharp aluminum edges), three broken nails, and one knuckle scuff.  I have been fighting the mobile Internet installation, and finally won.

When I started on the project Saturday I figured it was a two or three hour job:  pull out all the old gear, run a new antenna cable, mount the new antenna, and then install the new gear.  No big deal.  But every step of the way, I was tested.  This was an exercise in beating frustration, which is part of why it took two and a half days to complete.

Nothing would go right the first time.  Now, I can admit that some of the trouble was the result of my inexperience with some things, but I’m not a total noob, so there’s a piece I can attribute to some other force:  bad karma, juju, luck, biorhythyms, alien influence, whatever.  Nothing was as easy as it was supposed to be, and when I realized how things were going to be, I decided I would stick it out even if it took all week.

The big problem was the antenna.  The old antenna was something called an NMO Mount, which means that the installer made a 3/4″ hole in the Airstream’s roof that I would have to plug.  The new antenna requires a side mount (it was designed for buildings rather than RVs) and so I had a very limited range of places I could put it, unless I wanted to fabricate a custom aluminum bracket. I very nearly did, but then found that the bracket upon which the TV antenna rests made a perfect mount.

[NOTE added 5/14/2013:  I'm an idiot.  I should have just returned this antenna and done some more looking.  Since I went through this nightmare install, I discovered a replacement that would have just screwed right onto the existing NMO mount, avoiding the need to run a new antenna cable and seal up the old hole.  I would recommend this antenna to anyone who wants the same 4G performance but with a much lower profile:  Laird Phantom.]

This location was ideal:  away from metal objects on the roof that might block the signal (such as the solar panel and air conditioner), low enough that the antenna will clear the carport entryway, and right where I can easily inspect it.  I had to run the coaxial antenna cable through the base mounts that hold up the front solar panel.  That was actually one of the easy problems, solved with the purchase of a 1/2″ drill bit and two rubber grommets.

The simplest path to the electronics cabinet was through the existing 3/4″hole in the roof.  I thought I was being clever to use the old antenna wire to pull through the new one, but the old line kept snagging.  So I used the old antenna wire to pull through a few feet of slick & smooth plastic vacuum line (left over from the Mercedes 300D renovation), and then used that to pull the new antenna line through–and discovered that the new one wouldn’t quite fit through an internal brace inside the Airstream’s ceiling.

I tried everything to get that wire through, wiggling it, greasing it, pushing it and pulling it, but it just wouldn’t go. I even drilled little holes behind the overhead cabinet to try to locate the problem.  By the time I had exhausted every possible approach, the entire overhead cabinet and doors were completely removed along with one of the ceiling mounted JVC speakers, the curtains, one power outlet, a 12 volt outlet, the coaxial cable outlet, part of the white vinyl wall covering, and (just for good measure) the obsolete DVD changer.  With the tools burying the dinette table and bits of fiberglass insulation, sawdust, and aluminum shavings everywhere, the Airstream looked like it was still on the assembly line.

In the end, there was nothing to do about it.  The new antenna cable was just too large to fit through that hidden constriction. After sleeping on it, and consideration of the idea of relocating the entire electronics cabinet, there was really only one practical solution left.  We drilled a fresh hole in the ceiling and ran the wire down the ceiling about four inches to a point where it could disappear again.  A plastic wire chase helps minimize the visual impact.

There were many more challenges, but I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say that nothing could be taken for granted.  Every splice was suspect, every hole was in the wrong place, every trick I tried was confounded, and in the end the job took about eight hours, not counting three stops at the hardware store.

But finally, it works.  The picture shows the install. It’s a little cluttered looking in the photo.  In reality we have more useful space in the closet than we had before, because I neatened up a lot of the DC wiring and tied up the excess.  That little plastic bag at the bottom contains a 12vDC + wire that is leftover from two installations ago and is still hot.  I’m keeping it in case I need more power in this cabinet later.

There’s a little more work to be done on the roof.  I still have to seal up the rest of the 3/4″ hole from the old antenna, where the new antenna line emerges. I never did find the right caulk locally, so I’ve got a tube on order from an eBay seller.

I’m in the Airstream now, using the new wireless Internet system to write this blog.  The reception is fantastic even in the brick carport (router reports -53 dBm).  I can’t wait to try it out in a remote place during our next trip east.

Since I started this project, I noticed that Kyle and Kevin both went with similar equipment.  Since Kevin is an engineer/publisher who must get online daily when he’s traveling, and Kyle is a full-timer who does Internet consulting, I figure we are in good company.  The transition to 4G technology is raising a lot of questions for people, so I may do a seminar at Alumafandango (Oregon, Aug 6-10) on that subject.  (By the way, if you’re planning to come to Alumafandango, now’s the time to register.  Spaces are filling up quickly!)

As soon as we got  back from our trip I started ordering things for the coming Airstream maintenance and upgrades.  So beginning on Friday, interesting boxes have been arriving at our doorstop.  Many more are due this coming week.

The first package contained a new cabin air filter for the GL320.  That dust storm really got into everything, and so I decided I’d change the cabin air filters and check the engine air filters.  They were all better than I expected but the cabin air filter was definitely due because it wasn’t changed at the last service.

Today’s package contained my new wireless Internet kit.  As I mentioned, our Cradlepoint CTR500 has been obsoleted by the manufacturer and isn’t reliable with the new 4G networks, and the roof antenna on the Airstream goes back to the 2G days (and isn’t compatible with the frequencies Verizon uses today for 4G LTE, which are in the 700 MHz band).  Plus, I got tired of not being able to get online in fringe areas, especially when everyone else seemed to be getting along fine.  Turns out they are all using “boosters,” and so I finally broke down and got one, along with everything else.

I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with Vanessa from the 3G Store to work through the technology needs and make sure everything I was going to order would be compatible.  I already had the core of the system, a Verizon wireless data card capable of using the new 4G LTE network (specifically, a Pantech UML-290). The bottom line for everything else was about $360, including:

• Cradlepoint MBR-95 wireless router.  This is the device that takes the signal from the Pantech UML-290 and makes a private wireless hotspot that all our devices can use.
• Wilson Sleek 4G-V signal booster cradle (thanks to Jay & Cherie for the tip).  This amplifies the signal from any device you put into the cradle, 3G or 4G. It’s really designed for car use but will work fine for our purposes.  The Pantech will get strapped into the cradle with a rubber band.
• SureCall omnidirectional fiberglass antenna with ten feet of low-loss cable, and an adapter to connect to the Sleek.  This antenna is a bit of a monster, 9.5 inches tall and about 3.5 inches wide at the base.  It’s much larger than the antenna it is replacing (which was the size of a shot glass) but hopefully offers better performance too. The specs call for a 2-3 dB gain.

All of this stuff will get wired up in the cabinet that we have reserved for electronics and DVDs, near the TV set.  I’ve already got a 12v connector that fits the Cradlepoint, leftover from a previous installation, and a 12 volt socket which will take the cigarette lighter adapter for the Sleek, so we’re all set for power.

The antenna will be mounted to the side of an aluminum leg of one of the solar panels.  Clearance is a challenge:  I bought this 9.5″ antenna because the Wilson RV antenna that most people use is 18 inches tall and won’t clear the entryway of our carport.  This one will just barely make it.  It will be interesting to watch as it comes out of the carport the first time.  If I’ve miscalculated, we might lose a Spanish tile or two in the process.

Before going to all the trouble of running the new antenna wire and putting mounting screws in place, I hooked up the full kit in the house, and dropped the antenna out the window.  After the usual firmware upgrade and some configuration, the first test, using only the Pantech without the Sleek booster, yielded a good signal of -69 dBm, which is not surprising since we are in a city.  Then I put the Pantech card into the Sleek cradle, which boosted the signal and sent it out to the external antenna, and as I watched the signal improve to -43 dBm.  That’s a really good increase, and better than what Wilson promised for the Sleek booster with its standard antenna.

The actual installation will be in the next few days.  I’m looking locally for the appropriate polyurethane caulk (Sikaflex 221, Vulkem/TremPro 635, or similar) to seal up the antenna wire where it passes through the aluminum, and so far am striking out.  I can order an $8 tube of it with $10 shipping from many places, but that’s annoying so I’m trying to find an acceptable substitute in Tucson.  I suppose I can always go over to the local RV store and get something that will work, but in the past the “white box” caulks they tend to sell have been disappointing.  They just don’t last, and I’d rather not have to get up on the roof next year to do this job again.

The real test of this new gear will be this summer when the Airstream is in Vermont.  Reception at our parking spot has always been marginal, to the point that I have to borrow a friend’s office to get work done efficiently.  It would be nice to be able to work from the Airstream as I’m accustomed to doing. And when we are traveling, it looks like the addition of the big antenna and booster will help me get online in more places, and I’m all for that.