It all begins here.

After searching high and low for an Airstream in my budget, back in April I stumbled across an Airstream that was way under what I had budgeted for a shell. It was an hour and a half away, so I took a ride one Sunday to go see it. This is what greeted me:

I had been reading about body-off frame repair jobs and knew going in that it's likely what this thing would need. When I did the bumper test at the rear, the separation was only stopped by the wooden 2x4 and spray foam holding the back end together!

At any rate, I called a buddy of mine with a nice big slab on his property to see if I could do the work at his place, and I made the trip home with it a couple of weeks later. I'm out of town a lot for work, so finding the right time for myself and the seller was like playing ping pong.

It made the trip with no issues. The Ranger pulled it extremely well, but my only complaint was not being able to see with the stock mirrors.

The iPhone’s fisheye lens effect when you zoom to .5x makes the trailer look smaller than it really is.

I have taken on many projects in the past of auto restorations that included separating the body from the frame, RV repairs that included removing the slide out to rebuild the floor around the opening, and several other projects that would have your average Joe running for the hills.

So, I decided to jump in with both feet immediately by gutting the interior and sending it all to the dump. During the gutting process, I was able to put together that this thing had likely been used up until 2000 or so, and at that point it was setup somewhere as a hunting camp. Tons of hunting related items were all throughout the camper. Gun cleaning kits, hand warmers, etc. Sadly, there were no treasures to be found during the cleanout phase. Dang it.

I opened the rear floor to see just how bad the frame was. It was when I saw the spray foam that I knew it was screwed!

Join me next time when I gut the interior and prepare to pop the top off this thing!