Looking forward to a bucking good time
Frank sent me the pro-offered aluminum piece to cover the over-sized poorly done air conditioner hole and old rivet holes. He kindly pre-drilled the rivet holes and pre-cut the standard 14 inch hole. Thanks Frank!
I prepped the trailer roof (cleaned again, ragged pieces cut or bent down) and gathered my supplies/tools for this project
- rivet gun, bee hive spring, and machine tool tester from Avery Tools
- modified 1/8-5/32 rivet set, 5/32 aluminum rivets and black clecos from VTS
- Sikaflex 721 sealant from Airstream
- my handy dandy Makita portable drill and a #20 drill bit
- air compressor (15o psi 6 gallon pancake)
- clamps for securing the aluminum sheet (and test pieces)
Since I have never bucked solid rivets before, I decided to practice some before marring Rosie or Frank’s piece. I drilled some holes in 2 layers of aluminum flashing and put some clecos in to hold them together. The trailer roof and new aluminum roof piece are thicker than the flashing pieces, but still good for practice. I did a few on my own, then had Craig do the bucking while I did the gun two handed and by-golly, the last couple didn’t turn out half bad. I started out with the psi at 90 and that was too high even though recommended for that gun and rivet size, 75-80 psi seemed better.
Tomorrow I’ll drill the rivet holes in Rosie’s roof using Frank’s piece as a template, securing with clecos as I go so the holes stay true. Then I’ll put sealant down and get Craig to help me buck the rivets. Robin, if you’re out there, keep you fingers crossed from me.
October 18th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Waaah! I’ve been away and missing all the action! I so would have begged to be there to watch or help, darn! You are the girl, Elly! This is SO EXCITING!
March 13th, 2011 at 3:33 am
Hi, i stumbled across your site this morning, when i looked at your pictures, i thought someones been in my Airstream and taken photos over my shoulder, the similarities are amazing, although i think you are much further ahead of me now, we fell in love with Airstreams last year, and one wine fuelled night we said, “we’ll get one ” we search the dealers in UK and they were either Robbers or idiots !!! we saw a 73 Trade wind (as is, needed new axles,floor, etc ect ,) for sale at £19,000 ($30,000 approx) it was then we decided to import one , so the search contiued on Craigs list, camper finds, e-bay and eventually we found our 73 Overlander, in oklahoma, so with only seeing photos we struck a deal, and got her shipped to the UK, i collectected her from southampton on 20th Sept 2010, and i think it rained for about 60 days from then !!! oh boy leaks are hard to find !!, but now she’s dry, plenty of u-pol grey stripe used (similar to the grey original stuff i think, well it works. We decided to replace the inside skins with plain aluminium (like the modern ones) so i’m insulating and wiring at the moment in uk we have 240v so now the overlander has 12v / 110v (for the original A/c and Fridge) and 240v for new stuff. are you keeping yours original or modernising or a mix ? we are going for a mix i’ve kept everything i’ve removed for now, so if there’s any bits and pieces your missing dont hesitate to ask, i dont want anything for them just pay for any post. well my Overlander awaits Bye for now, Tim