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Our latest addition to the family.

15K views 25 replies 5 participants last post by  squatch 
#1 ·
The pop up is gone, and our new-to-us Beach Cottage/Lake house/Cabin in the woods/ Lacrosse weekend home away from home is here.

Laura and the kids enjoyed camping in the popup with one exception... There was no bathroom. To us guys, this is no big deal. Pee on a bush or hide behind a tree and do what we have to do. But to the fairer sex, this quite often is less than appealing. So was my situation. Laura and my daughter were not keen on hiding in the bushes while they answered natures call. So to appease them and get my family out of the house more often I agreed to upgrade our camping accommodations.

What we bought is a 2000 Terry 27x Bunkhouse model travel trailer. It is in pretty nice shape for the most part. There was some obvious water damage in the bathroom, and under the bunk, so I knew I had some repair work to do. As some of you remember with my 68 Go-Tag-Along camper that I restored, this type of thing isn't new to me. That being said, I was able to negotiate the price down to $1700 for a camper that in good shape sells for $4-5k I was happy, and the owner was content as that was more than the dealer offered him for trade-in.

Here are some pics. More to come as I remove the rotten flooring, and get it ready for our first outing this spring. I already made reservations, to push myself a little.

This was the day we picked it up. My daughter and I drove down to VA Beach to pick it up the day after Christmas. We camped out that night, then towed it home the next day.


It had been parked under trees for the past few years and desperately needed a bath. Most of that white on the ground are soap suds, but some of it is oxidized paint. All and all, it cleaned up pretty good though.


The decals are dry and cracking. I plan to replace them soon. Other than that, the outside looks pretty good. The stripes even match my truck.
 
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#2 ·
Here are some inside shots:

The air matress will be the first thing to go. We already ordered a new mattress for it.


It has a full kitchen, with a large beer fridge... Errr... Large fridge. There is a lot more cabinet space than we are use too. I'm looking forward to not having to keep moving totes of stuff anymore, and hunting to find stuff. Everything will have a home, and stay there, not have to be loaded and unloaded.


Looking from the back to the front, the queen size bed is in front, then a half wall/curtain for some privacy. The jack-knife sofa turns into a full size bed quickly, and is quite comfortable. The dinette also folds down to a make a full size bed if needed.


Looking from the sofa back, you are looking at the bathroom door. Just beyond the dinette are a set of bunk beds. The foam they call mattresses are ok, but we will likely replace them.


I have to gut the bathroom to make the repairs to the subfloor and I am confident there is some structural damage as well, so I will cut that out and reframe as needed. This vanity makes no sense to me anyhow. The cavity beside the sink is useless. I'm going to save the top, but replace the sink, faucet, and build a custom cabinet. We are also upgrading to a nicer residential height china RV toilet for more comfort.


As I said before, all in all it is in pretty good shape. I am going to remove some of the goofy stuff the previous owners have added over the years, and add things that work for us.
 
#5 ·
Wow, nice, even a double sink!
 
#6 ·
Well, I have made some progress in the deconstruction. I have gutted the bathroom. I found exactly what I expected. There is basically nothing left of the sub-floor, and stringers in the rear of the camper. The Tub was not sitting on anything, but being suspended by the walls, and plumbing. I figured this was the case when I bought it. I am glad to report that the walls seem to have survived with little to no damage. It would seem that when the OSB got saturated and failed that it collapsed and fell onto the insulation below. This left an air gap between the sill plate, and the stringers that allowed the walls to dry when they got wet and the water settled in the bottom. Due to the fact that the camper was parked nose high the damage seems so far to be isolated to the rear. Once the snow clears out and I have a little time, I have to remove the bottom course of siding (easy) so I can get good access to replace the outer stringers, and then slide in full sheets of new sub-floor once the stringers are re-framed. This seems to be the way it is done the easiest, plus allows for larger sheets with less seams.

I will post pics shortly, but photobucket is down for repairs at the moment.
 
#7 ·
Here are a few pics of the mess I found once I started deconstruction:

Pulled the vanity out-


Most of the rear stringers look like this... Not much left.


Once I pulled the worst of it out, there wasn't much left. The only thing holding the tub up was the screws in the walls, and the plumbing


More pics to follow. Hopefully I can make some progress this weekend.
 
#8 ·
I have been a busy boy. This weekend I attacked the camper and finished the demo. It was exactly what I expected... A mess.

I pulled the water heater out. There was nothing holding it up except the screws into the siding.


Look Honey, the wall is flying...




The driver's side was only a little better


Once that driver's side stringer was removed, I was glad to find no more damage hiding behind it. At that point I could finally start making some progress.
 
#9 ·
I set up my work area and started ripping preasure treated 2x4s down to 2x3s for the stringers. The cut offs from this process are 1x1.5 which is what is used for the walls in these campers. I used them for patching as needed of the bottom plate, and a couple of wall studs.




The gap you see here is there on purpose. It is where the sub-floor will go. It is going to be fun to get it in there too since the gap is exactly the same in the front, but slightly tighter in the rear due to settling. Going to have to jack up the body of the camper to open the gap somehow.




The bathroom floor is coming together. Before I but the subfloor in I am cutting 2" foam board insulation to wedge into these spaces. Unlike the wet, stinking mess of fiberglass batting, this will not hold water in the event there is ever a leak again.




I ran out of time to finish, but I did make some good progress. As you can see in the pictures I am doubling the stringers around the perimeter of the camper, and also where the heavier loads will be such as under the tub, and where they pickup frame supports. What little extra weight I am adding will pay off in strength. Unfortunately we have a week of cold weather moving in. This will put this on hold for a bit. If the weather clears as predidcted, I will be back at next weekend. Besides, Laura might be upset if I spent Valentines Day working on this... :lol:
 
#10 ·
TonkaToy said:
Laura might be upset if I spent Valentines Day working on this... :lol:
But isn't this all for her?!? I am sure that you could sleep in the back of the Trooper and use the woods for a toilet. Just tell her it is a sign of your love for her and get back to work. :lol:
 
#11 ·
I'd say you were a glutton for punishment. But we've had this conversation before! :D

Looks like you are making big progress.

Just be careful not to overbuild too much when you put it back together. It's a big camper and you don't want to add too much weight.
 
#12 ·
[quote="squatch"It's a big camper and you don't want to add too much weight.[/quote]
Adding weight? Just wait until he loads up the cast iron cooking gear! But at least he has that big Ford to tow it. A 1st gen Trooper would never do the job.
 
#13 ·
Hack said:
TonkaToy said:
Laura might be upset if I spent Valentines Day working on this... :lol:
But isn't this all for her?!? I am sure that you could sleep in the back of the Trooper and use the woods for a toilet. Just tell her it is a sign of your love for her and get back to work. :lol:
The high Saturday and Sunday isn't suppose to get out of the 20's... Hell no. I'll wait till next week when it warms back up. 8)
 
#14 ·
Same here. I have heat in the garage but it isn't cheap when it gets that cold. Not bad at all when just trying to make the 40's comfortable to work without gloves.
 
#15 ·
squatch said:
Same here. I have heat in the garage but it isn't cheap when it gets that cold. Not bad at all when just trying to make the 40's comfortable to work without gloves.
I wish mine would fit in the garage... Heck, it won't even fit in our warehouse at work. Only has 10' bay doors, and the camper is 11' tall if I measured accurately. :roll:
 
#16 ·
Made some good progress this weekend. The weather was great Saturday, and a good friend of mine came by to lend a hand for a few hours.

Finished cutting the block insulation in the floor.


Got the subfloor in




We also picked out our flooring. We are going to use LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tile) Plank flooring. It snaps together like laminate, but is waterproof and really easy to install.


Then the rain moved in Sunday. I had to set up my EZ up in the driveway to keep working.


I pulled the awning out as far as I could, but it hits the fence.


Thankfully the rain has moved out for now. I am letting things dry today, and will be able to reinstall the siding after work. Good timing too because we are suppose to get drowned on Wednesday. I'll be glad to have it weather tight again. It will just be cosmetic work from here on. Shouldn't take too much longer to finish.
 
#17 ·
I haven't been online much lately. I have spent nearly every evening, and quite a few weekends working on the camper. It has come a long way and we are taking it out for our first outing this weekend. I'll post up some finished pics after I clean it up and pack tonight. It still looks like a jobsite, but it is coming together nicely.

Here are a few teasers:











 
#18 ·
At least you'll have a place to crash if you ever end up in the "dog house."
 
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#20 ·
Thanks guys. I am quite pleased with it. Our first trip out was this past weekend. Other than the weather, we had a great time. It accomplished exactly what I had hoped... We all got to spend some quality time together.

I have a few tweaks to make, but all and all I am very excited and looking forward to our next trip in it Memorial Day weekend.

Now it is time to regroup and get my tent camping gear together for Uwharrie!!
 
#23 ·
Well, it has been a good camping season. We took the camper out on 6 trips this year. My goal was one weekend a month, and we did just that from April till the July 4th trip from hell... We took off August and September, but had a two great weekend in October and November to wrap up the year. This winter I will be installing a new A/C, along with a few other tweaks, and we will be ready to go come spring. Hoping to start in March and get a few more weekends in next year.

Here are a few pics I took from our last trip. This was at Jellystone Campground in Gloucester, VA. Sunday morning I woke early (as usual) and took the pup for a walk. The sky was just beautiful, so I took a few shots with my cell phone.









 
#24 ·
I have made a few upgrades that I have failed to document. I replaced the stock power converter with an Inteli-Power 9200 45 amp unit. More than once the stock converter had boiled over my battery and ended up killing the first battery I installed. Then, it began to only charge intermittently sometimes not charging at all. It had to go. The new converter is excellent, and has 4 stages or levels of charge. It is also 15 amps stronger than the stock unit, and has eliminated the brown outs that we use to experience when there was a spike in power consumption. Unfortunately, there are no pics of this, but I will get some this weekend.

I just finished adding a exterior baggage door to access the large compartment under the rear bunk. This was only accessible by removing the mattress, and lifting the plywood cover. It was a pain to get to for this reason very under utilized. I ordered the largest door I could find that would fit under the bed. There should be group therapy for those who have to cut large holes in there homes, vehicles and so forth. From the time I bought this camper I have been trying to seal it up and keep water out. Now I found myself cutting a huge hole in the side of it! It really was an unnerving experience, but turned out well in the end. I did make one significant goof though. If you look at the bottom right corner you will see that I forgot that the corners of the door were radius. :roll: Glad it wasn't worse. The camper isnt perfect, so I am not concerned too much about the goof. I am very happy with the end result. I can now easily access this compartment and have a large outside storage area that I badly needed.







 
#25 ·
Are you going to be able to get that beast into Hone Quarry if there is snow on the ground? :lol:
 
#26 ·
He did get it into Hone Quarry. And backed it down a gravel road in the dark!

I got to see this bad boy over the weekend. It's a jewel! :D Mike has done a fine job of repairing it as well. Better than new!
 
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