Tramper 080S refurbish

[Paul Kemp]

Well, the Tramper was ready for some power so I did some research on batteries. As I mentioned in a previous post I don't intend to go anywhere with hook ups and I don't really want to lug along a generator. Bill Harr mentioned solar and I really like the idea and did some preliminary research about a month ago. There was so much info I couldn't dedicate enough time to research and I decided to hold off (for now) and go with two golf cart batteries. I have a heater (biggest draw), stereo (draw equal to consumption of beverage), and then little stuff that won't add up (fan, LED strip light, cigarette lighters).
Quick items that I learned when researching batteries:
1. I didn't know anything about batteries. All of my knowledge of CCA I did when buying batteries for my diesel was nice but completely useless since this is a different animal.
2. Bruised ego put aside, this forum gave tons of info on batteries. The large take-away was to judge golf cart batteries on amp/hours. Now I was prepared to price stuff out...
Batteries + had a Duracell Procell for about $150/ea. Very tempting and they had 230 AH (at 20 amp). Warranty was middle of the road.
Local golf cart distributer had some US Batteries at $140/ea. 232 AH (at 20 amp). Warranty was that I had to mail it to manufacturer myself. Considering each battery was 65 pounds I saw this as zero warranty...
I saw some people raving about the Kirkland batteries at Costco on various forums. I wandered into Costco knowing that the typical admittance fee is in the ~$300-$500 range. They (in Portland market place) recently stopped carrying the Kirkland batteries, made by Johnson Control. They now had Interstate batteries but no AH rating. But the price was tempting! I took a picture, bought a hot dog, and went home to the Google machine to see what these batteries were made of. A $1.50 at Costco was considered a victory...

 

[Paul Kemp]

Several days in front of the computer yielded zero results. Interstate had several batteries that would be close to what I saw but I would be making an uninformed purchase. I didn't want buyers remorse so I finally called the factory. A nice fellow from TX called back a few hours later and confirmed my suspicion- Costco bought a bulk lot of batteries from Interstate but stipulated what the sticker said. Nice man went on to tell me that the batteries in question were 208 AH at 20 amps. I got out the abacus and realized that I had 10% less power but had a 33% savings and the Interstate batteries had excellent reviews as an overall product line. I decided to take a chance.

As you can see, Costco extracted their tax on me but I now had batteries and nourishment. Tramper project could continue...

 

[Paul Kemp]

I charged the batteries at the 2A setting and several days later the batteries were ready for battle. I rigged up the car stereo in the garage and turned it on. I ran the stereo at normal listening levels for 56.5 hours and the battery charger said I had about 80% life left in the batteries. I went off of the digital read out on the charger, nothing too terribly scientific. *NOTE* This battery chager is about five years old and is all digital. I trust that it charges well but I question the accuracy of the percentage of battery life. Close enough for my purposes but something to be aware of...
Feeling pretty good about that simple feat I charged the batteries back up. I read somewhere that deep cycle batteries need to go through multiple cycles to start displaying their full capabilities. With that in mind I hooked them up to the heater earlier this week. I figured it would get down to 45 or 50 that night at my house. When hunting it gets down to ~30 and I'd want the camper to be 55-60. With that in mind I set the thermostat 25-30 degrees more than the outdoor weather at my house that night to replicate the load it would experience at hunting camp. Hunting camp would be the most extreme weather and length of camp so I felt this a good test.
I set the thermostat at 75, opened the propane, and the heater clicked right off! I ran about screaming, "it lives!" like I was Frankenstein.

For good measure I left two windows open and both little doors that lead into the truck bed open. I figured we should push the batteries to see what it can do while in my backyard versus in the woods. 10.5 hours later the Tramper was still a balmy 75. The batteries went from 12.8V to 12.5V. The digital readout said that was a 20% expenditure. I was a little surprised but after I looked all of the openings and ran the numbers it would have been like leaving the back door open the entire night. I'm still feeling like these batteries could handle 4-5 days in the woods without tapping into a generator if I actually behave versus push them unreasonably. More testing this weekend.

 

[Paul Kemp]

Something that I failed to mention is that I cleaned out the exhaust port on the furnace. I've heard of multiple horror stories about insects building nests and starting fires when things get plugged. I read somewhere that insects are attracted to propane. I'm not sure if that's true but I'm kinda weird in the fact that if I have a fire, I like it to stay where I want it and not move about as it feels. I pulled the exhaust port and there were multiple wasp/hornet/demon nests. A little compressed air fixed that. Ten minutes gave me peace of mind...

 

[Paul Kemp]

Well, my excitement last night was for the wrong item. The water tank that I ordered four weeks ago didn't show up and it is still in limbo...This is the piece of the puzzle that is holding up the full build out. Hope to have it in the next few days since the Tramper has a maiden voyage next weekend.
The mattress that I got off of Overstock did show up though! I got the Innerspace 5.5" thick foam mattress. The three quarter size is 48" x 75" and filled the 48" x 83" space really well and still would accept standard sheets. I had heard the mattresses were shipped extremely compressed and take a few days to expand to full size. This thing was 48" long and rolled up into about a 10" diameter cylinder. If any of you have ever cut open a bale of insulation that is how much the expansion is once the packing is cut...Cut this thing open in the camper or you'll have to fight this thing into place.

Something weird that I did (and shows my anal nature) is that I went to a local foam store and laid on the different densities. I'm a side sleeper, 6'-1", and 180 pounds so obviously everyone is going to react differently to a mattress. The 2.5-3# density felt right to me. I'm glad I took the time to lay on some foam before I laid out my money though. Oddly enough, this mattress shipped to my door was about $50 cheaper than just a chunk of foam that didn't have any kind of cloth surround. The cloth over the foam seems like it would be better but I can't articulate a clear reason as to why.
The mattress looks pretty squished but supposedly it will be full size in a few days...It felt about like what I envisioned but I'll be able to give a better report after this weekend. So far I'm happy with the purchase.

 

[bill harr]

Looking forward to how the mattress works for you. My FWC mattress just does not cut it. I have a 2" foam topper but still not the best.

 

[Paul Kemp]

Since I pretty much rebuilt the casework and did a full new roof I ended up using a handful of products. Some had excellent results and others well, learn from my mistakes... *EDIT* I'll leave out my affection for Gorrilla Glue or else everyone will think I'm getting a kick back from them. Significantly gushed in previous posts...
Let's start with my victories:
The canvas was in really good shape and only a little dirty and minimal mildew on the exterior. It wasn't all old and brittle which was probably the tipping point in me buying the Tramper. This canvas cleaner I found in Fisherman's Marine. This store is all over the Oregon area but you probably find it anywhere. Cleaned all of the mildew and dirt immediately and wiped off with a simple paper towel. No scrubbing required and the canvas is almost soft and supple now. The downside is that they aren't giving this stuff away. I want to say it was in the $12-$15 range...
When I did the roof I knew the roof would last forever if the seam down the middle and the vent was properly protected. I went to a local mom and pop camper store by my place. A gallon of this stuff is good for 200sf- more than enough for the Tramper. Ha! I only got half of the roof done and the vent. This product was applied with a trowel and I think it was money really well spent. It was late Saturday though and I wanted to get the roof on. The mom and pop shop was closed on Sunday...The seams were protected so I went to Camping World on Sunday and got the Dicor paint stuff to finish the roof. I put on about 4-5 coats and went over this troweled on product too. Probably shouldn't have mixed products but I wasn't going to wait until the next weekend to trowel more stuff on and have all the same product.

This product has mixed reviews but I'm a huge fan of it.

And for the whoops! When I removed the exhaust port of the furnace I wanted to clean all of the silicone that Mr. Sticky Finger PO had left for me. Simple Green is a good cleaner but I got impatient. Goo Off is definitely a no-no on paint. Writing that sentence really makes me feel dumb but, hopefully it will help someone else...

 

[Dave Bennett]

Great thread :lurk:

 

[Paul Kemp]

NivekD-
Excellent info on the cab corners! The lady I spoke with said they have something at Northstar that will work for ~$18+ shipping. Not exactly cheap but...I'll buy one and see if it really works but like everything, it's just money and I'll make more. If this cab corner works I'll dress the ol' Tramp up. I'll put a sentence fragment at the bottom of this post to so hopefully future people will capture it with Google searches.

Scamper + cab corner + replacement + roof fix + scamper parts

 

[Paul Kemp]

I mentioned earlier in this rambling post that I tore out the ice box. It looked well intentioned but well intentions don't always get the job done. I have pretty basic coolers that I use while camping and they've always served me well. The Coleman Xtreme are excellent and worth the extra $20 over the Wal-Mart special. I would imagine that we're all past our 7-11 foam cooler days...I can be out in central OR in the middle of the summer and keep ice for 3-4 days with the Coleman. When I'm hunting I never worry about ice melting.
All of that babbling is because the Tramper ice box lives in the land fill and the Coleman Xtreme will live in that spot. I am lacking on pictures of the finished product but I have faith in your imagination.




You see the hole, you see the cooler living in the hole. Obviously the cooler goes beyond the face of the cabinet by six inches but still ~30" to jump into the bed...
This cooler is far superior in R Value over the ice box. The factory ice box had two layers of 1" polyiso- R-10. Ha! I didn't run any hard numbers but my highly calibrated eyes and inebriated brain puts the cooler at a 200% volume increase. Another bonus over the ice box is that the cooler doesn't smell like someone stored fish bait in it. What the pictures don't show is that I made a drawer to house the cooler and put heavy duty ball bearing slides on both sides of the drawer. The cooler can be pulled out of the cubby hole and left suspended in the open area so that the cooler can be accessed for goodies. A picture would really be good to show this but I have not installed the cooler drawer since it will block the water tank installation (see previous rant.) Essentially, I increased the cooling ability, doubled storage capacity, and it didn't cost anything other than some slides, plywood I had on hand, and an existing cooler.
If I was out in the woods more than a week at a time I would want to go with a fridge but that will eat at batteries and the whole "gainfully employed" thing really eats into my camping time. I found that doing food prep (veggie dicing/ meat marinade) prior to camping and then vacuum sealing will really allow gourmet food and easy storage in an icy bath at the bottom of a cooler...Another huge bonus is that no prep in the woods cuts down on dishes to clean in the field!

 

[Paul Kemp]

One more post and then I'm off into the sunset to do work on the Tramp.
Campers always have a smell about them, no matter how hard a person tries to keep it up. The PO had a very interesting SW motif carpet going. It also had a smell about it. Now I have the smell of wet dog on all personal belongs but this carpet was a bit beyond that. The landfill I speak so fondly of in previous posts received this ethnic textile as well. I was a little afraid that they were going to search the truck and make me declare it as hazardous waste but good, clean-living paid off...
I went to bLowe's and bought some lick-n-stick vinyl tiles. For $20 I have new flooring- that won't hold smell and will react kindly to a wet mop at the end of a camping trip. I yanked all of the couch cushions and washed the outer shell with a liberal amount of bleach and laundry soap. I was very liberal with the bleach and it didn't seem to hurt the sandpaper-ish fabric. You all know I bought a new bed and I would have done that anyways just for the cootie factor.
One of the cooler little parts of this odyssey was rebuilding the two drawers under the sink/ stove. They were originally mdf and 25 years of moisture did them in. I replaced them with handmade boxes. This was overkill but kind of a fun little Sunday project. The box is made out of a cedar tree I cut down in my back yard and milled 3-4 years ago. It's a blond cedar but extremely aromatic. I'm really hoping this keeps the camper fresh smelling. For the bottom I did a simple dado cut and used some leftover plam and underlayment from this project. Now I can wipe out the drawers and have a reasonable expectation of cleanliness.
I guess working for $7/hr in a cabinet shop while in college finally paid off. How else would the Tramp have gotten two cedar drawers and faux marble plam?

 

[Paul Kemp]

Can't leave jobsite yet so this is the last post- for reals!
Costco got some more of my monies last night. I bought some sheets for the bed for $20. I also saw a carbon monoxide (CO) detector. When I fired off the furnace the other night I noticed there wasn't any detectors. Any camper I've been in always had one. $25 seemed like cheap insurance to make sure I wake up...Battery lasts for 10 years and screams when it's near the end of it's life.


*EDIT* While on safety topic- I always carry a first aid kit, whiskey, and a fire extinguisher. I had a truck fire once and pouring a beer on it doesn't quite cut it. Fire extinguishers are extremely caustic (especially electrical equipment) but that's $20 of insurance you'll be so happy to have if you're in the woods. It could be the difference between a really long walk back to town or a quick drive...the whiskey and first aid kit come in handy elsewhere...

 

[Paul Kemp]

Maiden voyage is six days away and I'm feeling the pressure. It's just a quick jaunt with some buddies but I realized I don't have a good way into the Tramper and the pup is 11 years old... CL was pretty sparse on camper steps in my area. I am not going to buy steps the same cost as my Tramper so...SLO_f250 had a really extensive build thread and one of his ideas was so basic I was a little ashamed I didn't think of it...toss a step into your receiver hitch. $25 at the local steel shop and 30 minutes with the Miller made it all better...


They had a scrap piece of 12 gauge steel diamond plate 14" x 17". A few dollars more got me a 2' stick of 2" TS 3/16" wall. I was pretty happy with it but I'm 180 and each battery is 65# so this step will see 250#. And I have some buddies a fair amount bigger than me so I zapped on a 1" x 1" x 1/4" nosing. Way overbuilt now and still only on the 20# range so it's easy to handle.
SLO_f250 painted his a bright color and mine is currently drying in bright yellow. I also eased all corners and will put a foam surround on it while in camp. I know my dog may bump it but I'm sure I will. Foam will keep us dummies safe...



Eric the Red approves too...

EDIT- it's 18" to the step and another 18" into Tramper. Not optimal but that's better than nothing. I think the first step into the bed is 19.5" and then a jump in the realm of 24" so this little porch won't be my biggest step during camping..

 

[poriggity]

Loving this build, and I am a huge fan of the idea that costco is getting all your monies! ! Keep it up.

 

[Paul Kemp]

So I was tinkering with the Tramp yesterday and I noticed that the furnace likes to squeal- but only occasionally so maybe it's salvageable. I pulled the furnace out and got to the squirrel cage within about a dozen screws.

Being that this furnace is exposed to fire I had to think about the appropriate lube since most propellants are flammable (ie- WD40). I had some liquid graphite that seemed like a good choice but I was still worried about it being flammable. Better experiment.

I poured some out on my weld table and hit it with a cigarette lighter. Nothing. I grabbed a torch and with some effort I got it to catch fire. I finally settled on graphite being my best bet.

I used some liquid graphite and used it pretty liberally. I spun the squirrel cage by hand but I wasn't able to get the graphite drawn into the bearing well enough and the furnace would still squeal. I lubed it up again and this time used compressed air to spin the fan. When it started to levitate off of the workbench I thought that was as good as it's gonna get. I hooked it up and the furnace was whisper quiet.
I don't want to jinx myself but I have a sneaking suspicion this will need further attention. Anyone have success with this issue? Have a better lubricant that won't burn the camper up? Thanks!