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Old 10-22-2019, 07:03 PM   #1
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97 T32SS Remodel!

Drug our (new to us) Sunline home sunday oct 20. 500 miles without ZERO issue after sitting for 20 years. We put new tires, bearings and some electrical work to get the exterior lights working to pull home. I started tear down on it this evening, and figured it was time to start a work-in-progress thread. I will be basically gutting the entire bathroom, removing the lower cabinets up to the fridge, and possibly the uppers Plus the cabinet between the slide and bathroom. Replacing the subfloor from the stove back (I pulled the bathroom floor out with my bare hands. Literally). replacing the ceiling from (probably) the AC unit back. it will get a new roof as well. I’ll add more to the list as I think more and find stuff. If anyone here has any insight on anything specific about what I’m doing, please share! I’ve worked for Servpro doing Water/Mold/Fire restoration so I “think” I have a clue as to what I’m doing at this point Lol, but it’s been a few years since I had my hands in a camper. ill add some pics of where I’m currently at.
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Old 10-22-2019, 07:27 PM   #2
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Couple more
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Old 10-22-2019, 08:06 PM   #3
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You are off to a great start! Keep up the good work and keep the pics coming.

And by the way, it looks like your 1997 camper has an "above floor" slide room. Means the slide comes straight in and does not lift up off the carpet. There is an approx 2" bump (the slide floor thickness) to get up onto the slide floor inside. Trying to keep track what year Sunline changes the design and components to help others when issues come up. The newer slides are flush floor. The slide drops down in a pocket in the floor to eliminate the bump and lifts the slide up off the floor to not drag on the floor when it comes in/goes out.

Thanks for sharing

John
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Old 10-22-2019, 08:58 PM   #4
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Do you have a thread on here on how to pull the lower cabinets and the one next to the bathroom? I know they’re screwed in from the outside, but working by myself and outside, I don’t see it being feasible to pull the skin off. Dismantle them until I can get tools behind to cut the screws maybe?
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Old 10-22-2019, 08:59 PM   #5
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Subscribing! Do you know how long ago it was last used? That's some pretty extensive rot.
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Old 10-22-2019, 09:57 PM   #6
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No I don’t. We have limited info on any previous owners. I do know it was bought in PA, registered, brought to a campground in VA, and has not left until this passed Sunday. Tags expired in 2000. From my water damage experience, this has been leaking badly for at least a month, if not more
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Old 10-23-2019, 08:26 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TrailMaster1 View Post
Do you have a thread on here on how to pull the lower cabinets and the one next to the bathroom? I know they’re screwed in from the outside, but working by myself and outside, I don’t see it being feasible to pull the skin off. Dismantle them until I can get tools behind to cut the screws maybe?
What you are proposing is not going to be simple, especially with multiple cabinets. Getting cabinets out is complex. Trying to take them apart in pieces is also complex if you want to reuse the cabinet. If your just gutting them, then go for it. The cabinet as a unit is, screwed, glued and stapled together in many cases with vinyl welt bead stapled all over wall/floor perimeters. Some places certain cabinet boards are just screwed in with pocket hole screws and at least those 1 or 2 boards might come out. They are made to install as an assembled unit for the most part. They screw the unit to the floor, those you can get out. But the wall side, is a bear as they screw them from the outside in.

Here is a post by EMD_Driver where he managed to yank out the cabinet, leaving 3/8/ to 1/2” holes in the wall board. In his case it worked for him. This comes down to luck, and what damage you are willing to accept. There will be some level of damage, to either the wall board, the cabinet or both.
http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f7...avy-14275.html

I suspect yours has the same hardened screws as the ones I worked on. The hardened screws make for an issue trying to cut them. I’m sure as time goes on, you are going to run into these hardened screws so I’ll add here for you.

If the wall or ceiling is wet, it adds more complexity even when the siding/roof off. When water starts seeping in, the heads of the screws start to rust in the wall/ceiling. When it becomes bad enough, the no. 2 square hex socket in the head rusts oval or is totally gone and then there is no bit that will extract them out.

I have tried drilling the heads off to almost no avail. HHS drill bits chip instantly. Cobalt can last about 1 screw. I have not yet tried carbide tipped bits. I had to resort to using a 4 1/2" grinder to grind the heads off and be careful to not cut through the wall board. Once the cabinet is out, I can grab vise grips on the little stud that is left and get the screw out of the cabinet.

I know you trying to not have to take the siding off, but part if the issue is the hardness of the screw. Trying to pry a little to gain access to the screws and get saw blade in there is going to be tough and not tear up the wall board. I once thought a vibrating tool with a metal cutting blade may work, but the hardness of the screws I think will kill the blade in short order. I have been able to cut through the screws with a Milwaukee Axe blade in a Sawzall when I’m sawing out wall studs and you run into a screw in the sill plate. The Axe blade will cut through them. But, on a cabinet that aggressive blade will do some real harm on the wall board or the cabinet.

To make it worse, they put cabinets screws in many cases every 4 to 6 inches, and you have many screws to deal with. The cabinets are structural to the campers rigidity so they use many screws on the thin wall board. If it was only had 2 to 4 screws to deal with, then issue would not be as bad. Screws every 4 to 6” you can have 20 plus of them pending the cabinet. And that's per cabinet.

See here on a ceiling repair. The brown outline row of dots are the rusted head cabinet screws. That is how many they put in from the outside that I have seen on cabinets at the floor level. I added new screws, silver heads, between them as part of the repair and left the old ones in place as the square bit sockets were gone. The discoloration in the ceiling board is partly from the CPES rot repair resin, the rest from the rot damage. The CPES does help save wall board.


Hope this helps and good luck. If you find a way to get them out from the inside with no damage or limited damage, please share as it is a problem.

John
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Old 10-23-2019, 09:59 AM   #8
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I’m not finding any “easy” route to go about this lol. Just trying to make the most sense of it. I was afraid that they used those stupid hardened screws. What I may do, since I don’t “need” to mess with the wall the cabinets are on, is dismantle them and leave the backs attached to the wall. Replace the floor and piece them back together. The one next to the bathroom I need fully removed as the paneling is slightly affected just from moisture in the camper and don’t want future mold growth to come back. I’ll bring home some tools tonight and come back here with what I’m able to do I suppose.

What is the CPES your talking about though? Some sort of polyurethane? I personally would’ve pulled that affected paneling to avoid future deterioration. Even with it sealed, the damage has been done already and “can” continue to rot even after the water source is resolved.
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Old 10-23-2019, 06:57 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TrailMaster1 View Post

What is the CPES your talking about though? Some sort of polyurethane? I personally would’ve pulled that affected paneling to avoid future deterioration. Even with it sealed, the damage has been done already and “can” continue to rot even after the water source is resolved.
I agree with you on removing all bad wood and replacing with new with one exception. The wall or ceiling board, pending it's condition.

CPES came from the boat industry mainly in restoring rotted wooden structures that are complex to remanufacture. They take this product a whole lot further than I ever would, as they are into rebuilding back to the original size of rotted beams or other difficult replaceable areas. I don't use it to rebuild beams.

CPES, see here https://www.rotdoctor.com/products/cpes.html

I still have a few cans of it left, the production of the treatment was stopped earlier this year. Their S1 product is filling the restoration needs as a replacement at this time. https://www.rotdoctor.com/products/s1.html

On ceiling board or wall board, it comes with a different set of issues then restoring/replacing floor joists, wall studs, subfloor, rafters or other structure wood on a camper. All of these structural wood areas are easy to find suitable new replacements at the local lumber yard. Take out the old, rip new from 2 x whatever size you want and replace. OSB or new plywood is available as needed. This is an easy decision to replace.

Wall board is very difficult to match the patterns used. I have not yet been able to find wall board available to match a Sunline short of finding a wrecked Sunline and taking parts out of it. I hope someday that will change. If you have any options on where to buy 1/8" vinyl paper wall board to match, please let us know. This is a common repair problem.

Ceiling board has some level of positive odds of finding a potential replacement as I have seen the Sunline pattern used on other new brands of new campers. Just it may be a drive to Elkhart IN to pick it up and see that it matches. In the future, I will be making a trip to hopefully come back with some.

On ceiling board, if you have a small infected area, there is a lot of work to change out the entire 8ft wide panel for a small area affected. There are cabinets, the roof system sill plate and rafters all have to come out up to the vinyl trim union splice. Inside the camper, you can't see the damage above it when the damage is small. In these cases, CPES treating creates a suitable option. Which is what was done on the pics posted above.

In some cases where the wall board or the ceiling board has light water damage in a small area, call it ~ 25 to 90% wood still intact, I dry out the area and treat with the CPES to encapsulate any dry rot fungus from growing and to stiffen up the remaining board. I also treat water stained wood even if it is solid with no rot visible to not have dry rot come back. These small areas are practical to do this way as the inside is still totally intact, just the luan behind the vinyl is affected but not yet gone. Yes, I am counting on the CPES to stop any future rot growth as they advertise. So far, it has been shown to be effective and it changes the board strength to being tougher than original. Shooting staples into it stops short with the same settings then shooting into virgin SPF studs.

If the wall board is majorly or totally gone, then you have to throw in the towel and replace it. I have 3 project campers in this state as they are major rebuilds. In these cases, you gut the old and put in new 1/8" luan sheets. The plan then is, use commercial vinyl wallpaper to bond to the new wood. This approach will require repapering much of the good wall board area to match. It creates a nice camper, but it not the original looking Sunline. I'm not that much a purest restorer, but I try and keep close to the original within reason.

Again, this is a camper setting and not a home. What we do on a camper restoration may be shunned upon doing in a home and I can agree with that. But again, a home is built a whole lot different then a camper and a lot easier to gut and put new in.

Thanks

John
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Old 10-23-2019, 08:15 PM   #10
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I think that’s my biggest issue at the moment. I keep looking at ours like a job at work, and while it’s extremely similar (In our camper at least with the amount of damage), it’s not a house. As for treating water affected area, I HIGHLY recommend a product made by Concrobium, can find it at Lowe’s (and I think Home Depot) in the cleaning chemicals area. It’s about $60 a gallon but it’s worth it! We use the commercial grade at work at almost twice the price and I can easily make some disappear from work without question. It’s an excellent pre treatment for encapsulation as it kills and prevents mold growth for 6 months (as long as the source is stopped).

As for finding matching 1/8in paneling, I’m sure is damn near impossible. I was planning on repainting the entire camper (or something along those lines). So I’m not personally worried about going back to original. We planned a full resto our way for this one. The other half dozen campers I’ve done (years ago now) we tried to Match as original as possible. It’s funny saying years ago as I’m only 25 myself lol! Anyway I do see your point in fixing a small damage in a camper, but in my eyes with some well placed decent trim you wouldn’t need to pull cabinets etc unless the damage is directly on top of them.

Out of curiosity what state are ya in? We’re in North-central North Carolina and obviously a trip to Indiana isn’t even going to be considered for damn near anything. We already traveled To the northern cost of Virginia to pull it home.
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Old 10-24-2019, 08:19 AM   #11
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We are in central Ohio and about 250 miles from Elkhart IN. We have camped near Elkhart before and visited several of the RV surplus places and the RV Hall of Fame (a great place to visit if you ever make it there.)

You can build an entire camper out of the parts they have between several of the surplus places. Entire camper frames, axles, doors, windows, roofing, RV fittings, you name it. You just need to go pick out what you want. Just go with an empty truck and not a loaded camper...

The Concrobium, I bumped into this treatment earlier this year and bought a gallon of it. It seems to cost less at our local Lowes then you were stating. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Concrobium-...mover/50053505

I was using it on friends project camper carpet that had prior water. Did some research and found it is rated for treating carpets. Took the carpets up, dried them out, treated both sides with the Concrobium, dealt with the camper water damage and put it all back together. So far, no negative reports from the owner.

I also needed to use it on the carpet in our big T310SR this summer. We had a slide window leak when the window frame drains were found almost pinched shut. Had to deal with the fall out of the leak into the slide floor which was a project in itself. Again, dried out the carpet confirmed by the moisture meter, treated both side of the carpet, let it dry and put it back together.

Never using this before, glad to hear you have had good results with it. So far, ours has not had any ill effect issues and the mold is not there. Again, like you said, you have to stop the mold growing source first. Nature just wants to grow.

Keep the info exchange going.

Thanks

John
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Old 10-26-2019, 05:28 PM   #12
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Felt pretty crappy this week, so I haven’t accomplished much. But, got out there for a few hours over the week and got the big cabinet removed. Pulled the stove, sink and (almost) have the counter top of. I need to figure out how exactly to get the last 3 screws without majorly damaging anything. Heater is loose also. I’ll build a new, smaller box for the electrical that was under the cabinet. I salvaged enough paneling to have it match. I’m thinking we’ll probably mount a TV where the cabinet was. Anyone tried to hang a decent size TV in a camper? I figured I’ll probably have to reinforce the wall some more, not an issue as the paneling needs replacing on both sides of it anyway. Any input would be helpful with that one. I’m also planning on mounting a wall AC unit across the bottom as our current roof mounted unit is beyond repair.

Don’t mind the disaster inside. It’s been raining a good bit and haven’t been able to do a fire or had time to hit the dump, or the energy when I had time.
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