runaboutram said:
Yeah, I picked it up for $500 from a dealership that took a trade on a truck with it on it. Unfortunately the P.O. left it in his bed the whole time, so there is some dryrot in the floor. I will rebuild the floor and side wall plywood and then Ill wrap the belly in bituthene and make it water proof. The cab's have been recovered with a plastic laminate. Ill probably remove it and put some skins over it to get the wood grain back. The unit has a new sink and tank, and the original 2 burner range. Should make a fun winter project. I think Ill do a camoclad kit on it to make it look more modern. Should be a fun project.
There are a couple areas that you might want to look at...
Heard of problems with breaking the side window glass in bed mode. No wonder since the factory panels rest nearly on the glass.
I made new panels for the windows... I took some 1/4" plywood and made oversized covers (tricky since the edge of the window is close to the camper side wall) roughly 2" larger than the factory window fillers... then took the factory fillers and screwed/glued them to the back of the new oversize panels to keep them from sliding around... I kept the width of the panels just narrow enough to lay on the side board that remains when the sides are tipped up. I didn't put them back on with the hinges... just lay them in loose.
I also ran to 2x4's down each side just under the outside edge of the flip up seat boards... this was to help with stiffness of the beds. I'm a pretty big guy and they just felt to bouncy. Then I ran some short 2x4's toward the inside wall and screwed it all together. Nice and stiff now. I also screwed the flip up covers down since I have bed length tool boxes which fill the space up anyway. I probably don't want to do that to have the storage space.
Check your inside corners where the side walls meet up with the little shelves in each corner... I noticed mine had loosened up, so I added some "L" brackets to keep things from shifting further.
One word of caution, I don't think this camper is intended to have anyone in it while the floor is unsupported. Never enter the camper when supported on jacks or blocks... I made a 4X8 platform with casters to store mine on when it's not on the truck.
Speaking of jack stands? did yours come with just 2 jack poles? Mine only had the two tripod jacks and the thing sways so bad it scared my wife half to death while loading it into the truck. Her fears let me buy a nice set of 4 corner acme jacks. Much easier to load/unload now. But I still have to use the pole jacks to take them off and let it down to my winter storage platform.
I'd love to see some pictures of the interior... where is your power panel? I noticed it must be mounted in a different location than mine, since your cabinet has a full width door below the sink.
Look forward to swapping info... speaking of info. did you happen to get a owners manual... I'm still looking for one for mine.
Have fun!
I also might try to tie into the stake pockets through the side sills.
