REHABBING THE GROUND EFFECTS SUPPORTS ON AN AIRSTREAM INTERSTATE

This is what I mean by "ground effects" on our 2007 Airstream Interstate.

It's really a running board and fender package, rather than the skirt style ground effects that newer models have.  I *love* the running boards - they furnish instant outdoor seating wherever I am.  Very convenient and we don't need one of those pesky electric steps that seem to break routinely.

The construction of the wooden ramp you see in the photo is described here.  I painted them after construction because I didn't want the raw wood to soak up rain water.  The upper surfaces are red so that they catch the eye of the driver as if to say, "Hey, don't forget to dismount the vehicle from the ramps before you try to drive away." (We also use a flight tag as an internal reminder).  But the front and sides are slate gray, so that they won't be screamin' obvious when viewed by passers-by from the street ("Hey look, our neighbor has their truck up on ramps again... isn't that cute.")

Airstream did a beautiful job cosmetically of these add-ons, but unfortunately, the supports are made of ordinary square tube steel and steel plate.

I call them the "outriggers".  They descend from the chassis and make a right angle before proceeding over to the running boards to form the primary supports.

As you can see, the original coating had failed and rust was beginning to take hold.  Yet another maintenance task for me, whoopee. 

I had spent boocoo (from the French "beaucoup", in case you ever wondered)... boocoo bucks on the POR-15 products that I had needed to repair the roof seam rust (description here).  I had plenty of those materials left over and they are expensive (about $30 for the pint of POR-15 rust paint) so I wanted to keep going with my rust work before they spoiled on me (the paint has a sky-high VOC content and would not last in a can that already had a cracked seal).  

Another view of the coating failure on one of the "platforms" that secures the running boards to the right-angled outriggers.  

 I followed my usual practice of removing caulk applications where the seal had obviously failed. 

You can't see it very well by looking at it, but the rust had worked its way under all six of those big dabs of caulk sealant on this platform.  

 But if I saw a location where the original caulk appeared to be holding tight, I left it alone for now.  I can always go back and touch up later if it degrades.

Photo is out of focus obviously, but I had to rip all the caulk off the bolts that secure the "platforms" to the underside of the running boards.  The seals had all failed, and you can see that the surficial rust extends all the way to the bolts.  

So basically this is a three-step process.  First, I used the wire brush as shown in the second photo in this blog post.  

Aaaand I killed it.  It doesn't seem to matter what form of metal abrasive tool I use - it gets destroyed.  Same thing happened to me when I was using an angle grinder on the roof a few weeks ago. 

I followed up with steel wool to smooth the surfaces.

A surprising amount of crap was thusly liberated.  This is all from just the first little outrigger and its platform.  A tarp on the ground under the rig is a good idea, especially for this next part. 

Then I applied the POR-15 prep spray, which is a phosphoric acid compound.  It reacted strongly with the rusty surface, so I wiped it off, applied a second dose, and let it set for about 15 minutes.

After the excess gets wiped and the surface dries, it resembles this blackened shellac type of surface.  It looks wet even though it is not.  

That was then followed up with a coat of POR-15 paint, the first of several more to come.  As with the roof seams, I used a foam brush to apply it. 

That in itself has a kind of otherworldly sheen to it.  Once I get done with all coats, I'll re-caulk all those bolt heads.  In the background, you can see a couple of the original outriggers, as yet un-done, with my under-chassis stacker rack on them (construction description here).   

Obviously this job is not the most fun thing that a person could do with their camper van, so I think the trick is to take it slow.  You can see from the photo above that my rear wheels are not also on ramps - that's because my husband was working on the lithium battery system at the same time I was doing this, so I couldn't efficiently flip and re-stack the van.  The only way to get all 4 wheels on ramps is to do a back-on, because our exhaust pipe was installed too low to clear the ramps for a drive-on.  And I really can't do this work efficiently until all 4 ramps are in place.  But now that I know how much time and energy will go into each outrigger, I can plan accordingly and do a few per session until they are all complete, thus stopping short of driving myself crazy at any given point in the process (hopefully).  

And in closing, a reminder...

Not on a job like this, not with debris raining down into your face and the metal prep consisting of a phosphoric acid compound.