Well that's exactly what I did last year! Now I will say this up front, unless you have about $20,000 lying around, 800 to 1000 hours of time and some serious reno/sheetmetal/construction experience, buying something else might be a better idea. But if you do have the time, or the money to pay someone like me to do it ( but I most likely wouldn't again haha).
1974 Airstream Landyacht
We video logged the near finished project on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyMYR5G0o3Udpoe-6SyZcqg. Feel free to check it out, it is mostly just me talking about what we did are are going to do at each step. We are about %80 done at this point in one year with only 2 people and mostly me doing all the work while raising a young child was insane. We took a break for the winter, but will be doing a bit more on it this year. 2016 was a crazy adventure, we had a child just before it started, bought this amazing aluminum beast, renoed it, then moved a bunch. Now back in the mountains where our hearts sing! Hope you check out the youtube page and see what we did with this Trailer. We lived in it for 6 weeks, it was a blast.
A short breakdown of the process for you before you check out the videos...
- Full gut, everything was taken out to frame and shell left.
- Cleaned and resealed all windows.
- New reflectix and insulation in all walls.
- Reinforced the frame, cleaned and repainted with rust proof paint.
- Solar system on the roof 400watts, 4 flex panels, 3 big batteries, all hookups.
- Design is for offgrid.
- Put walls back in and everything is new inside, but you will have to check it out to see them.
Anyone with questions of how about doing a project like this let me know, also if you have some ideas, also let me know. I have a few things left to do on it!
Excellent post dear friend @egregorian very interesting, with my family we are crazy of the camping holidays, since my children were small we wanted to have something like this to vacation with family, unfortunately they became great and never got to hold it, congratulations, this is beautiful, Thank you very much for sharing
You are very welcome! This is an asset I will be holding onto for awhile, especially with all the love we put into it!
It's a look at what can be possible for adventure! Glad you enjoyed it.
Nice job!
Thanks!
Great post! Airstreams are really beautiful. I have watched several of your videos already. This is a huge project that you undertook! It has come out really nice. When you were drilling out the rivets to remove the inside panels, I noticed the rocker type wall switches. I've read that these are the kind of switches needed for 12 VDC systems. The normal 120 VAC switches will burn out when used with DC current. I'm signing off now to watch more of your videos!
Hey Dave, glad you enjoyed it! I will be picking it up soon and getting it to our soon to be bought house! Hopefully be doing more work on it this year. I will have to look into that on the switches. I had an electrician work on this with me. The lights are all on 12vdc from the batteries. The plugs are on 120v, the solar system comes with a converter. It also can plug into shore power, we have switches for that as well. Which I will have to get done a bit better, we were in a rush haha! Ya glad you liked it!
Fantastic! Really great work @egregorian
Thanks @brameld, it was an adventure!
Super cool! Our friends updated a smaller version -- so small, in fact, that watching them unload their camping gear was like watching an entire circus exit a clown car. But it was still by far the sweetest camper on the block. 😀
haha! That is awesome :)
A thing of beauty
Thank you!
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Cool!