Airstream Remodel

Airhead Composting Toilet Unboxing

We don't want a black tank in our house.  Something about carrying around a talk full of raw sewage inside our house just doesn't seem like a good idea.  We wanted a liquid diverting system, and were initially looking at the Nature's Head after watching a video from The Wynns and seeing Snowmads install the same one.

The main reason for choosing the Airhead instead is that it has a standard type toilet seat that you can lift and lower, while the Nature's Head has a seat that's molded into the base.  Nature's Head lists the molded seat as a feature: "Durable! Easy to Clean! Never needs replacement!"  I sure hope it's easy to clean if you can't lift it, 'cause you're going to be cleaning it a lot.

I also like that the liquids tank in the Airhead is opaque except for a viewing window.  I don't see any reason to put the liquids on display.

First impression is that it looks like a quality product.  Reasonably well thought-out construction, moving parts feel pretty sturdy, and it has a functional household size.  I'll have more feedback on function once it's installed and in use.

One note on composting.  My reading of the Nature's Head documentation seems to imply that solids compost in a matter of days or weeks.  Airhead's documentation is clear: it takes three months for composting to occur.  In a full-timing situation, we're not going to be hanging on to the contents of the solids tank and waiting for it to decompose so that we can use it as compost on ornamental plants.  While the solids will be much less offensive to deal with than the contents of a black tank, they're still going to need to be disposed of carefully.

Do Your Best, Caulk the Rest

The big news for this weekend comes courtesy of our brothers.  Leanne's brother Russell helped me over Easter weekend with removing and re-riveting the lower vista view windows to address some leaking Olympic rivets.  I'd show you pictures, but it looks exactly the same as when we started.  Then, this weekend, my brother Tim helped me finish installing the interior skins.  I'm happy to report that all of the skins are in, and we've started priming the walls.

Boy am I ever glad we have those Maxxfans installed.  Kilz oil-based primer is some nasty stuff to work with, but it sticks like crazy to anything, which is exactly what we need to coat these skins.  And Leanne's skin, apparently. 

The Airstream is looking much nicer just with the coat of primer. All the yellowed and faded bits are starting to blend together. 

Installing the upper interior skins can be maddeningly difficult.  You've got a long flat aluminum sheet that wants to bend and bow, and you have to hold it over your head  to fit a curve while someone else clecos it in place, all while it's flopping over on the parts you can't reach.

This would probably have been much easier if I didn't add insulation to the ribs, which covered all the original holes and changed the geometry enough to throw everything off.  But as it is, it's nearly impossible to avoid ripples along the edges of the upper skins.

Installing the center ceiling panel did help flatten out the ripples somewhat.  The center panel consists of two long strips of aluminum extrusion that are riveted to the ceiling (total width of 25.5"), and then the center aluminum sheet is snapped into place between the strips.

Once the first coat of primer is dry, I'll hit all the seams with latex painter's caulk, which should help the imperfections blend.  Then, sand everything with 220 grit, another coat of primer, and then paint.

Spare Tire Carrier

Our Airstream is designed from the factory to accept this tire carrier.  There are two threaded fittings built into the frame to attach it.  I wasn't able to find a good diagram of where/how the front attaches, so here are some pictures.  The install instructions look like the bracket attaches to the A-frame, but it doesn't.  The bracket bolts onto the bottom of the front hold-down plate.

See the ~1/2" space between the top of the handle and the bottom of the A-frame?  When I supported the fittings from below to line everything up, I had the handle touching the A-frame.  When I installed it, it dropped about 1/2".  That space is just the extra "wiggle" in the fittings.  If I had known that, I would have installed the mounting bracket a little higher so I could get the carrier as far off the ground as possible.  The instructions say to install the bracket an inch from the bottom, but they don't say whether that's the bolt hole or the bottom of the bracket.  Not a big deal, but now I have 1/2" less clearance than I would otherwise have.

Speaking of clearance, I'm not thrilled about how little clearance I have between the tire carrier and the ground.  It's a factory design, so it must work OK, but I'm concerned about scraping when going over a hump in the road.  I considered trimming the end off the handle so it didn't hit the A-frame, which would get me another inch or so of clearance, but then I realized that would be a very bad idea.  If I do bottom out on the tire carrier, I want the handle to hit the frame, not the tire to hit the plywood floor above it. 

You can see here how much clearance I'm losing.  The grass is kind of high and the tongue is dropped quite a bit because I'm parked on a slope, but nevertheless, it's a significant loss of clearance.

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I've seen folks post on airforums that the geometry of the tow vehicle and trailer makes it nearly impossible to scrape the tire carrier, so I'll leave it there and see how it goes.  It definitely does limit how low I can drop the tongue to level the trailer on an uneven surface.  But, it's reasonably easy to access, and it avoids having to store the tire in the tow vehicle. 

Good News, Bad News

Bad news first?

I have multiple leaks.  A couple in the front couch area, one on the side by the vista view, one in the rear bathroom area.

The good news?  The only worse time to find a leak would be any time after now.  I'm behind schedule for the month and this is going to set me back at least another week, but better now than any time in the future.  I thought I had all the leaks sealed up, but it looks like stuffing the walls with Rockwool has helped make them more visible.  Rockwool repels water, so it goes straight to the floor where I can see it.  If I had fiberglass insulation, I might not have found all of these.

After finding a leak in the bottom corner of the curb side wing window, I checked the street side, and sure enough, that's leaking too.  Looks like I just didn't seal everywhere I should have when I reinstalled the wing windows.  I need to seal up the bottom corners of the window frame.  The leak on the side looks like it's mostly coming from the fiber optic turn signal fitting, which I missed sealing up entirely.  It also looks like one of the Olympic rivets around the street side lower vista view window is leaking, which means I probably should remove and re-rivet that window and the one opposite with buck rivets.  The rear leak looks like it's coming from the seal around the rear access door, which won't be too much trouble to re-seal.

I've made some progress on installing the interior skins and the 12V lighting (currently running off my motorcycle battery hooked up to the battery tender), but it looks like most of this work is going to have to wait until it stops raining so I can re-seal the leaks I found.

Recessed Lighting Install

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I'm using these 12V LED recessed lights made by Dream Lighting for the main lighting in the Airstream.  I was originally intending on using these from VTS, but they've been out of stock for months, and it turns out the Dream Lighting ones are nicer.  They have a nicer chrome finish (the VTS ones look kind of chintzy), are recessed instead of surface mounted so they fit more flush to the ceiling, have a frosted lens so you can't tell they're LEDs, they cost less than half the price of the VTS lights, and they were IN STOCK.

To install these lights, I need to drill a perfect 2-1/8" hole in the interior skin.  I don't want to use a pilot bit on the hole saw because I don't want to risk drilling out the top of the Airstream.  I also can't use the tile cutting method of starting the hole saw at a 45 degree angle because ... well ... I tried that and it skipped all over the place.  So, here's what I did:

Drill a hole in a piece of wood using the same hole saw I'm using to drill the ceiling.  Mark the center line so I can line it up precisely with my marks on the ceiling where I want the lights to go.  Mark a reference line so I can get them all exactly the same distance from the edge of the panel.  Clamp in place and fire away.

The process for the bathroom lights was a little different.  I was able to do it freehand by spinning the hole saw backward, which still cut the plastic endcap, but didn't grab it so strongly that it skipped out of control.

The lights are just clipped into the holes now, which is not enough to hold them securely.  Once the skins are painted, I'll either screw or rivet them in.  Each light has small screw holes underneath the removable cover.