Our Airstream Argosy has secrets! When we purchased her we knew there had been another inhabits. She’s 40 years of for gods sake. How naive would it be for us to think, she’s been waiting for us? But Whoaaaa! She had some major secrets.
Secret #1 You have had other animals living with you
Secret #2 Others have taken out your rivets
Secret #3 Who stripped all your Phillips screw heads?
Secret #4 You leak
Secret #5 You are a dirty girl…seriously, how did all that dirt get in the bell pan?
After the sub-floor camp up we really started seeing some major issues with the frame. In some areas, no rust, in other parts, lots’ of rust. The back end of Lucy was completely rotted, along with the front end. Her 30 gallon fresh water tank was cracked. The wiring had been jumpered for some reason to another system. (still trying to figure that out). A previous owner desperately tried to rehab Lucy but probably found out very early, they were way over their heads so they stopped.
HINT: When you have a water leak, and your sub-floor is getting wet. Putting another sub-floor on top does NOT FIX the problem. We took up 2 sub-floors and 3 sets of sticky tile.
At this point we have started to remove inner panels and insulation. The panels are inter-connected. Our Aistream seemed to have been built by putting on the center ceiling first. Everything then was underneath and connected. Not just a simple take the panel off you choose. Probably more like, take the side panel off, but first you have take the top panel off. The panels are at least 22 feet long. Better that 2 people do the job.
The middle ceiling panel is the hardest to take off. You had better choose to keep it, or discard it. If you choose to keep it, it’s gonna be hard to take off without bending it or ripping it.
We learned that rivets are behind other panels that we needed to take off. We also learned…this is going to take a while.