Search Results for: Caravel plumbing

Sep 18 2017

Fly and be free, Caravel

While I love having Airstreams and cars and all sorts of other things, periodically I stop to evaluate what “stuff” is in my life. That’s because the human habit of collecting things combined with the abundance we enjoy in North America quickly results in clutter—and I hate clutter. Clutter inevitably decays (the universal process of entropy) and becomes kipple. (Read Philip K Dick’s novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” for a good understanding of this.)

Kipple slowly saps your energy and your money, like negative chi. It keeps you from being able to move forward creatively and efficiently, trapping you in a world of what was instead of what could be.

I am very devoted to the future and not very attached to the past, so I’ve been looking at the stuff–>clutter–>kipple connection around our home base and trying to figure out whether things fit into our future or are just boat anchors. The boat anchor-type items will get cleared out.

Surprisingly, one of the big items that made my hit list is our beloved 1968 Airstream Caravel. This trailer has some real history with my family, as it was our first Airstream, and the inspiration for Airstream Life magazine and all the things that have followed it.

We’ve kept it in fine condition—in fact, considerably better than when we found it, thanks to a major renovation—but in the last few years we have rarely used it. Almost everything about it has been repaired, replaced, upgraded, or polished.

And yet it sits, because a 17 foot Caravel just isn’t what we’ve needed for the past decade. It was a lovely trailer when Emma was three years old and we were taking weekends all over New England and Quebec. Everywhere we went people would stop us and ask about it, beg for a tour of the interior, and say “That’s a cool vintage trailer.” But Emma will be old enough to vote in a few months and three adults in a 17 foot trailer just doesn’t work very well for our style of 5-month roadtrips.

Still, over the past few years I’ve kept everything in working condition and ready to go at a moment’s notice just in case we might decide to pop out for an old-fashioned camping weekend. I’ve kept it insured to the tune of $600/year (on a more expensive “Agreed Value” policy since the trailer is fairly valuable), locked with a Megahitch Lock, battery charged, and in a prime spot out of the sun and rain in our carport.

One of my favorite memories of the Caravel was in 2004 in Florida, when we decided to spend a day at the beach near Bradenton. We parked the Caravel next to the beach in the regular lot and used it like a cabana for the day, staying to watch the sunset long after all the other visitors had gone home, and then making dinner before heading away. It was one of many blissfully peaceful times we spent in that old trailer.

Memories like that tempt me to keep the trailer just a little longer, in the hope that somehow we’ll recreate them. But life has moved forward: Emma is driving herself around, making her own plans, and we’ll never have a 4-year-old toddler again, nor will we ever be in our early 40s again. I’m looking forward to the things we can do now, instead of wishing for experiences we can never repeat.

The Caravel, to its credit, has a long life ahead. It is too nice to become kipple, so rather than let it sit and slowly deteriorate we’ve over-invested in maintaining it (as vintage owners often do). It is stocked and trimmed and ready to travel. Just about everything from the axles to the roof vents has been refurbished or replaced. Marmoleum flooring, AGM battery, gray tank, PEX plumbing, and aluminum propane tanks are just a few items on a lengthy list of upgrades. Someone else will benefit from all of this, and hopefully love it as much as we have, and probably take it on many adventures of their own.

If you know someone who might want this trailer, or are interested yourself, there’s more detail here.

But before we let the Caravel go, we are taking one last trip as a family this week. We’re going to the 8th Annual Buellton Vintage Trailer Bash in Flying Flags RV Park, Buellton CA. Nearly 200 vintage trailers will be there!

Our good friend David Neel runs this event and it has been on our “must do” list for years. Finally, we’re going to make the 600 mile trip with our vintage trailer and join the fun (and hang out a “For Sale” sign).

The Caravel is not the only possession of ours going up for sale; I’m also selling my 1984 Mercedes-Benz 300D Turbo, for similar reasons. It was a great car to me for the past five years and a great vehicle for Emma to learn to drive in, but it doesn’t fit our life going forward. Since that’s a non-Airstream topic I’ll spare you the list of things I’ve done to that car, but believe me when I say it’s an extensive list. [UPDATE: now sold]

We’re doing a lot more downsizing of “stuff” than these two examples, but you get the idea. I’m upbeat about it. I’m not forced to clear out stuff, I want to. Clearing out the cobwebs and stuff we don’t use will open doors we can’t even imagine yet—and I believe that the longer we avoid kipple, the longer we’ll avoid becoming kipple. And the Caravel will be happier too, when it’s back on the road and seeing America as it was always meant to.

Nov 08 2013

Lessons from the Caravel

This past week I’ve been digging back into the Caravel, in an attempt to get it back in fully-functioning condition by mid-November. You might remember that last February I was working on that project, and abandoned it because I had to switch over to working on the Safari. Those Safari projects (re-flooring, building new cabinetry, etc.) took all spring, and then we went on the road in May. Now that it’s fall and we are back at home base, I’ve finally got a chance to finish the plumbing.

Actually there were three general areas of work to be done on the Caravel, of which the plumbing was only one. I also started building a new dinette table to replace the heavy one we have been using, and there was the super-annoying propane regulator job that morphed into complete replacement of the regulator, hoses, mounting bracket, and hitch jack.

The hitch jack was still needing to be done when we got back. It turned out that the original manual jack on the Caravel was welded into place, so I couldn’t remove it myself. (Someday I plan to learn welding. I’ll be checking the local community college for courses.)

I hate calling tradesmen, because (a) it’s hard to find a good one; (b) few of them return calls; (c) even fewer will actually show up. My historical success rate has been to get one good worker for every five or six calls. So I was geared up for the worst when I started seeking a mobile welder to come over, but got lucky this time and got a guy with only four calls. One other said he would come over “next week,” but that was in July.

John showed up and right off the bat I could see he was very experienced. Over the phone it took 30 seconds to describe the job, and since he owns a travel trailer himself he knew exactly what was necessary. He got the jack out in 20 minutes, and the new one went in pretty quickly too. It is bolted in place, not welded, so I can get it out myself next time.

While we were at it, John torched off the old—completely inadequate— safety chains and welded up a new set. The whole job took about an hour, plus a few minutes the next day for me to wire up the power leads.

So that ended the saga that began with a new propane regulator. One down, two to go …

I left the plumbing in what I earlier described as an “80%” state. This turned out to be pretty close to the truth, as long as you remember that the last 20% takes 80% of the time. I was hoping to complete the job in about 10 hours. After a week of tinkering with it, I think I’ve already using up my allotment of time.

The problem is rookie mistakes. I learned a lot of things doing this job, but chief among them are:

Don’t ever re-use anything from the original plumbing. I had set out to avoid that mistake (see photo below of some of the old plumbing I threw out), but then I went and re-used just one piece, a brass winterization valve that was screwed into the water heater, because it was so firmly stuck in the threads that I couldn’t get it out. And guess what piece leaked when time came to pressure-test the system?
Well, necessity is the mother of invention, so I did eventually get that brass valve out, and if you enlarge the photo you can see quite clearly that the shutoff has been leaking for some time. All that green corrosion is the tell-tale, and that brings me to the next lesson:
Buy good quality parts. I can’t see any way that it pays to buy cheap plumbing fittings. All the stuff I removed was low-grade and it was all failing after a decade.
PEX is great stuff, but it only works if you remember to actually crimp the fittings. Last February I left a few of the first crimp rings un-done “just in case” I needed to disassemble later because I’d made a mistake. By November, I didn’t remember that. You can imagine the spray of water that occurred later. (Doug R gave me the advice to pressure-test with compressed air instead of water. I didn’t take that advice, and I should have. It’s not fun chasing leaks with a towel.)
You need a LOT more of everything than you think. I bought 100 feet each of blue and red PEX tubing, 100 crimp rings, eight swivel fittings, a box of brass elbows, six shutoff valves, and many other bits. I ran out of swivel fittings, crimp rings, and shutoffs, and nearly ran out of elbows. Why? Because I didn’t realize exactly what was going to be required (and I wasted a lot of crimp rings making mistakes). It’s astonishing to me that I used most of the 200 feet of PEX tubing that I bought. It’s only a 17-foot trailer, for cryin’ out loud!
It’s a lot easier to re-plumb if the cabinetry is out. I would have had this job done in a fraction of the time if the trailer were bare, instead of fighting to crimp copper rings inside a closet!

The job still isn’t done, but it’s getting close. Eleanor has been squeezing herself into the closets and under-sink area to do some of the tricky crimps. We spent most of last Saturday together in there, and we may yet spend a chunk of this coming Saturday in there too. The plumbing is fully assembled, so the next job is to do more leak-testing, re-assemble the interior furniture that we removed, clean up, and then in a few weeks we’ll take the Caravel out for a road test and shakedown weekend. The third project, the dinette table, can wait until later.

Feb 22 2013

Too much plumbing history

Like all projects, the Caravel plumbing replacement moves forwards a little unevenly—a few hours one days, and a few minutes the next. Yesterday I got less than an hour of work done on it, because I was tied up most of the day with other projects, the kind that pay for this project. The major accomplishment was screwing down the water pump and neatening up the wiring with some new butt splices. But although there wasn’t a lot of visible progress made, I was happy to take some time to think about the remaining plumbing to figure out how best to correct it.

There were two major puzzles to solve. The first was the city water fill. I had made some incorrect assumptions, namely that the original 2.75″ round filler was no longer available as a modern part, and also that it did not have a check valve. This lack of a check valve was a major annoyance, since it meant that anytime the fill was not capped tightly our water would pump out it and onto the ground.

Because of those two incorrect assumptions, I had bought a modern Shurflo city water fill for $30 to replace what we had. It comes with a pressure regulator and check valve built-in, all very neatly package but considerably larger than the original. I would have to enlarge the existing hole to 3.75″, and that gave me pause. Anytime you have to cut an Airstream’s skin, you should take a day or two to think about it first. It doesn’t heal itself.

Colin set me straight on this. A replacement for the original filler is available, and it does have a built-in check valve. (The original one did too, but the check valve failed many years ago.) I found it for $12 at Camping World. It’s Valterra part # A01-0172LF. You can see it in the photo, just above the original one.

The only problem is that the replacement unit takes three screw holes, and the original took two holes, so I’ll have to drill a couple of new holes. I can live with that. The old holes will be hidden behind the aluminum flange of the filler, and sealed with caulk.

Space inside the trailer closet to attach the plumbing to this filler is very limited. For some reason, it was installed next to the black tank and so there are only 4 inches of clearance to work in. If it had been installed just a few inches forward on the trailer body, there would have been plenty of working space. This is one accessibility issue that I can’t rectify (at least, not without patching one hole on the skin and making another).

After some visualizing, I realized that it would be simple to put a 90-degree elbow on the inside of the city water fill so that the water line goes upward and then via an 18″ loop of clear flexible line (to absorb shock from city water pressure) to the closet manifold that we installed the day before. This design also has the advantage of self-draining if the trailer is ever winterized again. To do this, I need a special elbow that goes from pipe thread to PEX, and I couldn’t find one locally so I added it to another order from PEX Supply and will get it next week.

The second puzzle was how to re-route the plumbing to the water heater so that it would meet the design goals of (a) easy access for future maintenance/repair; (b) neatness (so we’ll have more usable storage space), and (c) reliability. From a reliability point of view, I’m not a fan of the typical winterization valves sold in RV stores. I like the way Airstream does it instead, with a very clear winterization bypass and three shut-off ball valves. It took me a while to figure out a neat solution, and when I did I realized that the project will require more shutoff valves than I had ordered, so that went on the next order as well.

Since a major chunk of the project is now on hold for parts (which won’t arrive until sometime next week), the next thing to do was to rip out the rest of the plumbing, since I no longer needed it to understand what was going on. The stuff that was left was frankly depressing to see and I was glad to get it out of there.

The most interesting bit was this (above). This was a repair done by an Airstream shop to a section of PEX that was leaking at the fitting. The fitting was leaking because it was installed without an elbow and thus had been overstressed. The mechanic put in the blue section of PEX that you see, using steel clamps. This is a reliable system, nearly equal to the copper crimps.

The repaired section was fine, but the pinhole leak we found before Alumafiesta occurred right next to it, in the first 1/4″ of the white PEX, just past the clamp. Why? It appears that something (a fitting? a clamp?) cut into the white PEX a little bit. It’s barely visible in the closeup view above. The mechanic should have trimmed off the last inch or so of white PEX to ensure good material, but for whatever reason he didn’t, and so this last inch sprang a leak when subjected to city water pressure.

This may help explain why I decided to just gut the entire system and replace it with new. There’s too much history in this system. I want a “no stories” plumbing system. If something goes wrong, I will have to blame myself but also I will know exactly how to fix it, and that’s infinitely more satisfactory than being bewildered while cursing some anonymous prior owner or mechanic.

Even while waiting for parts I can still do some work on the bathroom sink plumbing and get started on the winterization bypass for the water heater, so it’s possible I’ll put a few hours in over the weekend. Otherwise, expect updates next week.

Feb 20 2013

Plumbing on the snow day

Yesterday my iPhone emitted a terrible sound from my pocket, one I’d never heard before. It turned out to be warning me of an impending “blizzard” coming to Arizona.

A what?

Yep, this morning the snow level, which usually stays well above 4000 feet, dipped down low enough that we have gotten considerable snow here at 2,500 feet. This is a rare event for Tucson, one which brings everyone out to look at the strange white stuff, take pictures, and slide around on the roadways. Having seen my share of snow from life in the northeast, I was not impressed until I saw it decorating the Caravel, and then I succumbed to the temptation to take a few pictures myself. I really don’t know why. I have lots of pictures of the Caravel buried in deep snow from Vermont, but I took a few more anyway.

There’s a little electric heater in the Caravel to keep it from freezing at night, and that makes the interior cozy enough for me to keep working on the plumbing project. I had run out of Teflon plumber’s tape yesterday, and I needed to ponder the complexities of the next major phase, so I paused the project overnight.

Today, with large, wet snowflakes pattering on the aluminum skin, I got back inside to figure out what I’ve been mentally calling “the dreaded closet manifold.” One of the narrow bathroom closets had housed a strange collection of plumbing intersections, and it was all wedged into a space only about 1 foot wide and three feet deep. This made just reaching the plumbing a difficult task, since I don’t fit into spaces that small and my arms aren’t that long.

In rebuilding this rat’s nest of plumbing I wanted to design something that would be much easier to access and service in the future. There was a shutoff valve that could only be reached if the gaucho cushions were removed, for example. The city water fill lacked a check valve and a pressure regulator, so it needed wholesale replacement but couldn’t be accessed without disassembling half the bathroom. Much of my time was spent figuring out ways to remove the whole mess before I could even get started on building a new system.

Eventually, with lots of struggling, cutting, use of extension tools, and even duct tape, I got the plumbing out. A neat new plumbing manifold was designed after lots of headscratching. You can see it below.

Although it doesn’t look like much, this little bit solves several problems:

It connects the water pump, city water fill, toilet, and main cold water line to the rest of the trailer.
It fits in the exact center of the available closet space, on the floor, with room to swing the shut-off valve if needed.
Nearly all of it can be easy accessed from the door without requiring the help of a small person.

It took Eleanor and I about 10 minutes to crimp all the fittings once I had the basic layout measured and cut. In this type of job, it’s definitely a “measure twice, cut once” situation. Actually, being a newbie to this, I measured about four times for each piece. So although you may scoff, I regard this little bit of plumbing as a work of art.

Getting it into place was another matter. I could easily make one of the connections, but for the two low elbows I needed four hands to hold everything in the right position when crimping. Eleanor was recruited. At one point she had to wedge herself into the closet, because she’s thinner than me. And I’m not particularly big, so you can get an idea of how tight it was.

Or maybe this picture will help.

And now that part is done. I won’t rest easy until we pressurize the system and verify there are no leaks, but I’ve done everything I can to ensure that it will be perfect.

So now onto the next phase. Believe it or not, the plumbing project is almost half done. We have gone from the fresh water tank to the bathroom, which means the water pump, winterization valve, and toilet are connected. I still have to rig up the new city water fill, water heater, and both sinks. (The Caravel doesn’t have a separate shower connection, since it uses a takeoff from the bathroom sink.)

Time elapsed so far is probably about eight hours, not counting trips to the hardware store or pre-planning. I think that’s not bad for a first effort. I’m actually looking forward to tackling the under-sink areas and the water heater, as (again) they are a mess of stressed connections, all of which are in the wrong place.

I discovered today the real danger of doing this and blogging it: my Airstream friends might ask me for help with their trailers. Well, let me say this:

I’m still definitely not an expert.
You can borrow my tools.

Feb 19 2013

Farewell to Billybob plumbing

With Alumafiesta behind me and some Airstream travel coming up, it’s time to get serious about maintenance again. I’m starting with the Caravel, because it sprang a few leaks recently and I really want to get those under control soon.

The big job is the fresh water plumbing. This is the only major system of the trailer that didn’t get refurbished over the past several years. It’s a horrible hodge-podge of “home handyman” work, with at least four different types of hose (PEX, braided stainless steel, PVC, and clear) and many different connectors. The hose clamps in particular are a problem because they work loose during travel and are a constant source of leaks, but the braided stainless faucet connectors haven’t been very reliable either.

When it became apparent that repeated patches to the system would only result in repeated frustration and new leaks sprang up, I decided to just completely replace the fresh water plumbing—every piece of it except the faucets and water pump. I rationalized this as an opportunity to learn something new. More importantly, a complete refurbishment of the system would allow me to rectify all the little dysfunctional annoyances caused by the prior hack jobs.

For example, the water shutoff valves for the kitchen sink are nearly inaccessible behind the cabinetry. A few inches to the left and they’d right where you’d want them; easily reached without removing all the contents of the cabinet and turned off in a flash if need be.

Somebody who worked on this system apparently had a phobia of 90-degree elbows. Rather than plumb elbows in where they were needed, he just bent the plastic pipe around corners. This works—sort of—but it puts huge stress on the connections and fittings. This is probably the reason a line near the water heater sprang a pinhole leak just before Alumafiesta. Studying the system, I began to see all those stressed connections as leaks waiting to happen.

And then there was the shut-off valve installed where there should be a check valve (a one-way valve). And the frequent use of screw-on plastic compression fittings that weep randomly, mostly when you’re 500 or more miles from home. And the lack of a pressure regulator. It’s all a fine example of what my friend Colin calls “Billybob plumbing.”

So out it goes. I did some research and decided to go with a professional grade system. I read a few restoration blogs, then looked inside a new Airstream to see what the factory is using these days. They’re using PEX with copper crimp fittings. It’s the same system we have in our 2005 Safari, and it has been utterly reliable. The PEX is tough stuff and should be a “lifetime” installation. This is the same stuff used in houses, rated for use in inaccessible locations. That’s the quality I want.

Left: “Before” in Hose Clamp Hell. Right: “After” PEX with crimp rings (except one pair of legacy clamp rings).

This system is really simple. You cut the PEX pipe to length, slip a copper ring on the outside, slip a the fitting inside (elbow, coupling, whatever), and crimp the copper ring with a big hand tool. It’s easy and the connection is permanent. It won’t leak, and just to be sure there’s a gauge provided that you can use to check each crimp as you go.

RJ Dial’s website tipped me off to PEXSupply.com, where I bought about $380 worth of parts and tools to do this job. I bought rolls of blue and red PEX-A (the good stuff, more flexible than the hardware-story-variety PEX-B and more resistant to freezing), about 50 various brass fittings, a bag of copper crimps, and a pipe cutter. There was no need to get color-coded PEX for the hot and cold water, but I figured if I was going to do this I would make it a work of art.

The big expense was a pro-grade crimping tool at $119. My friend the sword-swallower Alex confirmed this choice, saying that the off-patent ones for $30-40 really weren’t worth using in his experience. I don’t know about that personally but I can say that this tool is really sweet, easy to use, and does a great job.

My plan is to go out to the Caravel every day and work for a few hours or until I realize I need to get something at the hardware store. Today that point came after about four hours of work, which was more than I had planned, but I was having fun with it. It’s great to disassemble and toss out the crummy old plumbing and zillions of hose clamps, and replace it with a carefully structured system that will hopefully never give me trouble.

The job will take a long time because I am being very methodical. Every pipe thread fitting will have Teflon tape and be carefully torqued, every crimp will be gauged, lines are being re-routed to avoid stress and clutter, etc. I’m only planning to do this once, so I want to do it right. Much of today I spent relocating the water pump & winterization valve, and rigging up a system to reduce water pump noise. The old plumbing made such a loud noise when the water pump was run (rattling the rigid plastic lines) that it would wake the dead and scare small children.

Now, as recommended by the manufacturer, the water pump output goes to an 18″ clear flexible hose in a loose loop to reduce vibration transmission down the line. I also installed some foam pipe insulation and a clamp to try to dampen vibrations, and I moved the water pump to where it’s (a) no longer in the way of storage, and (b) easily accessed if it needs to be replaced. It feels good to finally get these things right in the Caravel.

Besides having a leak-free fresh water system in the future, an incidental benefit is that I’m learning how to repair or modify the plumbing in the Safari, and I have all the tools to do it. We’ve discussed changing the kitchen sink and countertop, but I’ve shied away from it because of the need to re-do the kitchen plumbing. Now, it’s a completely non-threatening job. So despite the fact that I’m once again putting time and money in the trailer we barely use, it’s a good project. I’ll update later when things get a little further along.