Interior work on 98 Airstream

Hello! It has been along time and I apologize.


    The interior of our 98 Safari AS is finished! OH YA! So happy about that. I have so many pictures to share!

Here is a picture looking from the entry down toward the back of the Airstream.

Looking at the interior from the bedside toward the front.

Big News!!

I have some wonderful news! This past December while traveling in Mass. we passed an Airstream for sale. I can't stand reading long stories so I will make it short.
 We stopped, looked in the windows and got the phone number.
 The Patriots were playing that day, so we got home, hosted some friends, good times. Better yet - I got a call about the airstream.
  We went 2 days later, checked it out and bought it!
 It is a 1998 25' Safari in great condition. It was part of an estate sale and the older gentleman that owned it had passed a few months earlier but also had not used it for 3 years.


    He was meticulous about the care of the AS and all the bookwork, notes, even dishes, teapots, etc. are still in there. We can use it without any repairs other than a very bad odor which I believe to be a dead creature. It was December when we bought it so until it warms up, we won't be doing anything about it. It seems to be in the bathroom area, I know, it could be a black tank issue but it is empty and hasn't been used for over three years. 
    We will cover the dinette cushions, probably add new flooring and paint the faux wood cabinets.
    Many people don't like the "mouse fur" on the walls but I have seen many tutorials on how to clean it so I'm fine with it.


    We can't wait for spring and some great adventures.

It has been awhile since I posted anything. We have had a busy winter. Our whole February was booked, some of it in Florida. While we were playing our AS was at the AS dealership awaiting work to be done.
    Long story short, it didn't happen. We finally got the guy who was supposed to do the work to answer us and he had quit! He was the only tech.


    I am a member of Facebook's Airstream Addicts page, and lucky for me a friend and fellow addict helped us out. Jim Roy of Silver Moose Restorations, (see his FB page), had done an incredible restore/remodel on his vintage AS. We towed our little AS, (I think we are going to name her our Crowe's Nest),  to Maine were Jim lives and he replaced the two exterior panels.

Doesn't that look so much better? The first picture doesn't really show it, but the previous owner had put butterfly stickers all over it! So, so happy they are gone.


   Rick and I have decided to really gut the entire trailer. When Jim replaced the panels he found a lot of rodent stuff, yuck. The wiring is old and we will just feel so much better knowing it is safe and everything is strong, dry and going to last. Really happy with the work Jim did for us!

Gutting the Air Stream.

This past weekend, Rick and I started the interior work on the AS. Rick gutted the wetbath while I took out the front goucho, shelves, curtain tracking. I also pulled up the badly installed flooring, glued in all the bad spots, ugh.


What we found was lots of rot in the wet bath.

Before demolition. The door or sliding door is gone.

The sink is cracked behind the faucet.

The toilet hadn't been used for a very long time.

The space behind the toilet had a net, a imagine for laundry maybe, anyway there was an oil lamp in there.

You can see that repairs were done to the shower pan at some point. But the floor is very soft underneath, cant be good.

This is the wet bath floor underneath the black water tank, since removed.

The rot goes all the way across the back of the trailer, into the closet. So we will have to pull out the closet to get to the rot. I have read that the rear bumper compartment is usually the culprit for this type of water damage. That will be addressed.


  Here are pictures of the front of the AS with it's water damage. I believe this to be from the windows. We will need to seal those.

Front corner, wet but not rotten.

Other side in front, the same thing.

We are hoping to keep the kitchen cabinet and counter, maybe doing a thin set concrete over the Formica top. I think we will also replace the overhead cabinets.

The previous owner replace the original frig with an only electric. It is for sale.

Next the AS is off to the Airstream guy who is going to replace two front corner panels, the air conditioner and add a new rock guard.

Photo taken before using a dent puller.

Before dent puller.

Clear plastic rock guard. Ugly and damaged.

After the dent puller, better but not great.

I bought this 6" polisher at Harbor Freight for $49.99. We actually bought two so we both could work on it at the same time.

Truck box Polish

six bottles at $12.98 each. I also bought  Clean stripper in a spray can, I think I got 8 of them at $6.50 each.

I also got 100% cotton rags, 100% cotton bonnets for the polisher. Now the problem is I have a water ban in my town so I can't rinse off the stripper! UGH. I really wanted to get started on this. Next cloudy day I am going to haul it over to our fence company in a neighboring town that does not have a water ban in effect! So stay tuned, as soon as I can get started I will document the process.

Yesterday, August 21st, I finally got the dump valve handle to release today. It doesn't work so it will need to be replaced. We are going to redo the copper piping anyway this winter, and replace the black water tank with a gray water tank so we will be replacing the valve also it looks like.


   The other thing I looked at today was the water intake for the fresh water tank.

I cannot open it because the handle to pull it out is broken. I had to research this to even figure out if it screwed in, hinged, but it pulls out. A suggestion from the AS forum said drill out the rivets and replace it. So I am now going to see if this is something out there. Wish me luck!

Rick and I worked on the AS this past weekend. I had the glorious job of figuring out the plumbing. Airstream did not add gray water tanks until after 1973 so our AS only has a black water tank. Our plan is to add a composting toilet, get rid of the stinky black water tank and add a gray water tank. I don't know the first thing about the plumbing other than what I have learned on line and in the forums I regularly go too for information.


    Rick used our handy dandy new pheumatic dent puller to see if he would have any luck on the humongous dent of the front curb side.

This is a picture of the dent puller. We bought it at Harbor Freight for about $65. The tool worked very well but our dent needs more then this tool can provide. Like I said, the tool worked well. The suction was pretty strong. We only used a small air compressor with it though. I'm not sure if we had a larger, stronger one that the suction might have been a little better. The way these work is you turning the air on, get the suction and then quickly pull the weighted slide handle back while pulling on the tool. Rick already had a wrist issue and this did not help it! All and all, it really didn't get the job done. I'm not blaming the tool, we will try it on other things too.  So here are the before and after pictures of the dent. As you can see, it is still there in all its grandeur. I am now waiting for a quote for replacing #12 and #14 panels. I know the panels themselves go for around $450 each give or take a little. If you look closely you will see white butterfly stickers all over the dent. Previous owner (PO). It was her way of dealing with the dent.