Sunday, November 30, 2008

Axle rebuild and replacement

The first of many projects

I noticed my axles were in the horizontal position so I thought I'd take a look and see how bad they are.
When I jacked the trailer up the the tires didn't stay on the ground they moved right up with the trailer, after removing the wheels I found the spindle arms to be locked up solid with zero movement. I also found the shocks were shot they are regular automotive shocks and not the kind the can be mounted horizontally.
Off they came and in the next few weeks I will be traveling to Indiana to pick up new axles at the same time I will go to Palomino Parts in Colon Michigan, for a new water heater and furnace and to Goshen Stamping in Goshen Indiana and pick up some lift parts for my popup.

Here's a few pics of the axle:

My new 1975 Tradewind

Had been looking for a 20' used SOB for a year, a few months back I ran across a 1960's Safari. I thought holy crap this 40 year old trailer is in nicer shape than most of the 5 year old SOB's I had been looking at, the search was on.
Last week I picked up my 1975 Tradewind, saw the ad at http://www.airstreamclassifieds.com and it was only 20 miles away. The seller was very nice and did not sugar coat anything about this trailer in fact I think it is much better than described.
The refrigerator and surrounding woodwork was missing when he got it and he built new ridge enclosure and cupboards, very very nice work. Got to see his shop and how he did things, when he builds something he does it right and well beyond what is necessary, after seeing his work in the trailer and in his shop I was sold. It now sit in my driveway.

While checking out the trailer we got to talking about boats and boat building and he say he and his wife and built a wooden canoe, I mentioned my son would like to do that. He shown me his canoe and the buck he built and said if I was interested I could borrow the buck. The next day when I showed up to get the trailer he gave me a book on boat building some boat building supply catalogs and mentioned again I could use the buck for building the canoe any time.

Airstreamers are the greatest

Here are some pics from the ad.


And here's a few I took of the inside.