Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

We just got ahold of a 1948 Tourette and are in the process of redoing it. We are the true babes in the woods and no nothing about what we are doing. We have rebuilt Model A Fords, but not a cute little tear drop trailer. So far, so good, but need to find some window opener/closer thingies. Also need a tail light. Any suggestions on how to go about finding these things? Just love the cute, little thing, and hope to get it on the road by this summer. Pretty barren when we bought it, but have a floor ready to go in after the trailer frame is rewelded, need to redo the screen windows as they appear to be originals, and need some suggestions on how to build the cupboard doors for the "kitchen" area. Refrigerator is gone and so is the water container. Oh well, we will do the best we can to make this a true tiny tears.

Hey Tom and Cindy congrats on the Teardrop purchase. The best advice is to post a picture and those of us who don't know what your tear looks like can try to help.
Help with pictures
http://www.mikenchell.com/pichelp.html

Enjoy

Tom and Cindy welcome to the forum and congrats on your new tear. Maybe Gage or Grant can chime in on the old trailers and parts. But they will probably want pictures. Auntie M has giving you a link to the directions.

T&C...welcome aboard...we charge for that kinda info and the price is pics...can ya spot a theme here...anyway, here is one place to start looking for parts... http://www.teardropparts.com/
madjack

p.s. we REALLY would like to see some pics of that old Tourette...not a lot of 'em left around........MJ

About window opener , closer thingies... I like you're description ! haha

If you mean, the crank open arm piece so that you can open the window... Leggett's Mobile Mart has a website and has lots of teardrop capable parts.... I also noticed one day at Ace Hardware, in the drawers with special screws and hardware, they have things like replaceable oven knobs and such that would be cool and retro looking...

Where are you located in this big teardrop world? NO doubt, there's something within shouting distance that can help you find a source.

WELCOME !!! and best of luck !!! Let's GO CAMPING !!!

Julie

If you want some killer retro stuff, quality items, check these guys out:

http://www.vandykes.com/

The website is overwhelming, so request a catalog.

It's not teardrop stuff, but they have all kinds of cool things that would fit right into 1948.

Thanks for all the advice! We did hear that the 1948 Tourette was kind of a rare model, so look forward to getting it on the road behind our Model A. We are from Wisconsin (Northern) with lots of great camping spots. Will get pictures on soon of how she looks now. Doors off, no floor, just waiting to get some rubber stuff to put around the doors (you can tell it's me, Cindy, talking). Tom knows what he's talking about, but I don't. All I know is that it is coming from J.C. Whitney and we're hoping it works. The trailer frame is down getting some welding done and the body will be ready to get back on the frame in 2-3 weeks. It appears it is not the original frame. Thanks again for your help, and we will keep checking back for tips on how to make her road worthy.

I love this web site! Been asking questions, been getting answers! Great! Sorry guys. Unable to send a picture. Not smart enough on the computer. But sent it on to another e-mail, and hope they can display our little gem to you.

Tom and Cindy...if you are planning on a restoration and want to be accurate, it's probably going to take some research with the other Tourette owners out there to see what was correct...but that's if you want to take it that far....Guess it's kind of a "Tourettes Syndrome" thing...doug

OK, We're new. Give us some suggestions. It's cute, it's in need of a lot of work, should we paint it, or leave it as is? It was found in a garage in northern Wisconsin.
No floor boards, doors are there,back "kitchen area" door is there, the kitchen is pretty much gone, shelves,yes, doors, no. Husband's concerned about condensation. Do we need to worry about that.? We've had water dripping on our head before What do you think? Do we need to put in a roof vent, or does that distroy the integrigty of our tear drop?

Pics would be a great help....it's hard to diagnose a patient, if you can't see just how sick they are...and I'm sure Gage, Len etal... would be a great help, but I know they are going to ask for pics too. Doug

T&C...I can tell you that pics are almost mandatory to get anything close to accurate advice...they are worth a thousand words ya know...if you can email a pic you can post one here...first you will need to resize the pic to around 640x480 pixels...many types of photo software do this but if you don't have any I recommend this one http://www.somewhere-in-time.net/tutorial/irfanview/ it contains the program "iview395.exe" and a tutorial on how to resize a pic...after you have it resized you can follow the directions under the "Help with photos" link at the top of this page (in the top index of links).....we would really like to help but you will need to feed the need for pics to get truly close to accurate info...
madjack

Tom & Cindy Lerdahl wrote:We just got ahold of a 1948 Tourette and are in the process of redoing it. We are the true babes in the woods and no nothing about what we are doing. We have rebuilt Model A Fords, but not a cute little tear drop trailer. So far, so good, but need to find some window opener/closer thingies. Also need a tail light. Any suggestions on how to go about finding these things? Just love the cute, little thing, and hope to get it on the road by this summer. Pretty barren when we bought it, but have a floor ready to go in after the trailer frame is rewelded, need to redo the screen windows as they appear to be originals, and need some suggestions on how to build the cupboard doors for the "kitchen" area.
Refrigerator is gone and so is the water container. Oh well, we will do the best we can to make this a true tiny tears.

Here is Cindy's Tourette:

I was just about ready to say Does it look something like this?


Then I got to the last post and saw that our sweet Aunti M. posted a picture of your tear. I had always thought that the ice box was part of the galley cabinets. But I see where you say most of the galley is also gone. There wasn't much of a galley to begin with so maybe you still have all the galley, just no ice box.

P.S. I figured it was you Cindy doing the talking. "window opener/closer thingies" kind of gave it away.
Sorry about not seeing this post earlier, but I don't come into this section very much. Keeps me out of trouble.

Cindy... Looks like a fun project. The metal all looks nice and straight. I'd love to find one of those to rebuild... Never seen one in real life. From the few pictures of Tourette's I've seen, it looks like the windows hinge from the top and have a metal sort of "prop stick" thingie with notches in it to hold the window open? My guess is they could be pretty rare to find in the wild. All else fails, you could have a metalworker make you some. They don't look all that complicated. Keep us posted on your fine project.