1987 t1550 restoration

[Tommie328]

Not sure how hard it would be to remove but if you remove the shower pan, will that give you a little more access to the floor area?

 

[Yellowjacket-SUN]

The pan is on an additional level/support from the OSB that is rotted. That additional level has a big "square" cut out for the shower pan drain. It is cut oversized for the drain and causes the pan to flex more than it should over this area. I wanted to fill this gap with support foam and pulled the front and sides of the pan up, but the back side "the part farthest from me while working from outside the bathroom door" wouldn't come up. I cant tell what is causing this side to stick, the pan is somewhat brittle, so I didn't pry too too hard because it felt like it was going to crack. I did remove the drain collar.

 

[Draughty]

Extensive work!
Any pictures as you do that floor under the shower pan will be helpful to all of us.
I too find the shower floor 'soft' but that is the one area I have not addressed for exactly the reasons you are stating and finding as you go..then again I have peeled back very little of the siding!

 

[Draughty]

I am having trouble locating my pictures from the work I did but this is the link to the pictures I posted in an album here...

[url=http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/members/9498-albums744.html]Sunline Coach Owner's Club - Draughty's Album: Draughty's Advancer (Northern Ontario Canada)[/URL]

 

[bawitt]

Can someone please tell me what size or model number battery I need to purchase for my 1983 T-1550. Mine came without the battery and I have no idea other than reading about the different types. THANKS!

 

[Tommie328]

Can someone please tell me what size or model number battery I need to purchase for my 1983 T-1550. Mine came without the battery and I have no idea other than reading about the different types. THANKS!

Hi Barbara,

I started off with a group 27, 70ah deep cycle battery from Walmart. I always camp with hookups so I don’t need anything bigger than that right now. When that one goes bad I will upgrade to an agm battery. I think it’s going to depend on what type of camping you’re going to be doing.

 

[bawitt]

Battery Help

Thanks, Tommie!
I appreciate your taking time to help.
Looking forward to the time when I can just decorate the camper, rather than try to figure out all the more intricate parts.

 

[Yellowjacket-SUN]

Well, tackled the front today. Wall was so rotted, it just collapsed. It still amazes me that this thing stayed together when I towed it home. Got the front framed out and installed, and got all the pieces cut for the front driver side. I go back to work on Tuesday, so progress will slow after that.

 

[Roamingnativ]

Hi my name is Maria from south jersey. 2 year ago found our 13 ft. 1983 / 84 Sunny and had the plan to completely remodel it. I wanted a white interior and needed to cut the dinette table back as well. The problem was I had trouble getting out of the corner. We took about 4 inches off the nose of it (I wanted more like bistro table). We replaced the electric panel bc it was a federal pacific bc they are known to catch fire and added a breaker for the AC. We gave it a roof top air conditioner, a new floor under the couch that we made into a stationary bed, and new water heater, refrigerator, countertops, table top, bathroom sink, waterproof snap together floor, tires, and electrical cord. Next is to paint it!

 

[Tommie328]

Brings back memories. Looking good!

 

[sep-SUN]

Hi my name is Maria from south jersey. 2 year ago found our 13 ft. 1983 / 84 Sunny and had the plan to completely remodel it. I wanted a white interior and needed to cut the dinette table back as well. The problem was I had trouble getting out of the corner. We took about 4 inches off the nose of it (I wanted more like bistro table). We replaced the electric panel bc it was a federal pacific bc they are known to catch fire and added a breaker for the AC. We gave it a roof top air conditioner, a new floor under the couch that we made into a stationary bed, and new water heater, refrigerator, countertops, table top, bathroom sink, waterproof snap together floor, tires, and electrical cord. Next is to paint it!

Sounds great, Maria! If you haven't already, please start a new thread with all of this info and some pictures if you have them. This way we can follow each others progress. And, did I say we love pictures!!

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Yellowjacket-SUN]

Made some progress. Got the front, back and all 4 corners completed and layed down the new floor joists today. All the rotted wood is gone! Got a couple of bolts the tie into the joists and on to plywood. I'm starting to see the end. Man, this has been a ton of work!

 

[JohnGB]

Your making GREAT progress and doing good work!

And yes, these kind of restorations take a lot of time. It is almost unimaginable until you have done it how long it will take.

Thanks for sharing the pics.

John

 

[Yellowjacket-SUN]

Thanks John, yeah for sure! In my mind it took 1/4 of the time lol. Reality set in by the time I removed the the thousandth staple and about 400 screws. By the time I had all the panels and windows out, I thought I would have been completely done. My guess is I've got about 70 - 80 hrs into it so far. Turned out to be a whole lot more than "cosmetic stuff" I thought it needed when I towed it home.

 

[JohnGB]

Yeh the time factor is something that still amazes me. Since retiring, I have taken up a new extreme hobby, restoring campers... Some guys do cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, I do campers!

The hours just melt away. The big stuff can go fairly quick, (in the big picture of things) the fine detail work just plain takes time.

Think of it this way, when your all done sitting at the campfire, looking at your camper in enjoyment of all your hard work, you will have some great campfire stories to talk about to other folks! And a bonus, you will "literally" know your camper from the inside out!

Keep up the good work, you are doing great! And thanks for sharing the pics. Little by little we continue to learn the Sunline methods and changes in construction and technique as the model years went by.

John

 

[Yellowjacket-SUN]

Thanks again John, really appreciate it. I had a question and probably more to come as I start putting the systems in/back together. I expect we will use this camper for both hookup camping and boondocking. My question is related to the electrical system converter. Its model in 3230ul. Am I correct in my assessment that the converter only converts a/c to DC and charges the battery? Would I need an inverter if I want to use 120v ac outlet when boondocking and using battery? If so, Any recommendations that I should look at for a new electrical converter system? Thanks in advance.

 

[Tommie328]

Wow! You are making great progress!

 

[JohnGB]

Thanks again John, really appreciate it. I had a question and probably more to come as I start putting the systems in/back together. I expect we will use this camper for both hookup camping and boondocking. My question is related to the electrical system converter. Its model in 3230ul. Am I correct in my assessment that the converter only converts a/c to DC and charges the battery? Would I need an inverter if I want to use 120v ac outlet when boondocking and using battery? If so, Any recommendations that I should look at for a new electrical converter system? Thanks in advance.

Hi,

Sorry so long getting back to you. Been busy the last few days.

I'm assuming your old power converter is this one. A Parallax 120 VAC to 12 VDC converter. This is a manual I found on the 3230 https://d163axztg8am2h.cloudfront.net/static/doc/a8/ae/3c23daa3c41e3d4d05549dd4fa19.pdf

And this https://d163axztg8am2h.cloudfront.net/static/doc/4a/95/68c3313cf77b6548b73081664063.pdf

The current day website for Parallax Recreational Vehicle Products | Anderson, IN

If I have that correct, this is a 120 VAC power converter to create up to 30 amps 12 VDC power to run the camper. It details that it has an automatic relay that drops out the 12 volt battery and powers the camper from the 120 to 12 volt conversion.

It seems some of these older power converters had to have an option to be able to actually charge the battery. I cannot decode from your 3230ul what options it has. The manual, if that is the right one, says Option C in the part number is for the battery charging feature.

That model seems to now be obsolete. And if it is the original with the camper, those older battery chargers were not really very good chargers. They can cook a battery to death.

I do have a recommendation on a good power converter that has 3 stage charging plus a desulfation mode. The Progressive Dynamics brand. These guys, https://www.progressivedyn.com/

I upgraded mine to one of the their stand alone power converters as I was able to reuse my old fuse panel. I just gutted the old converter and tied the new one into the main fuse panel were the old converter tied in. See this post for more on my upgrade. http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f65/power-converter-upgrade-8888.html

In your case, you need to sort out if your old fuse panel and 120 VAC breakers are usable or not. Progressive Dynamics makes both stand alone power converters or combined units with breakers slots and fuses.

Can you post some pics of what yours looks like? We can then see what you have and if it makes sure to reuse part of the old system or upgrade.

When boondocking, recharging your battery is a for sure need. The Progressive Dynamics with the charge wizard will kick into boost charge if the battery is low enough easily or can be switched by the remote pendant. This comes in handy when using a generator as part of your recharging method. Some folks use solar, some a generator and others use both. And some just bring extra fully charged batteries and change them out.

To boondock successfully it all comes down to power management. This is easier today than 10 years ago. The old incandescent lights are the first to get changed out to LED's. Many times it is just a bulb change and you can keep the old fixture. The LED lights can use 4 to 5 times less power per 1 old incandescent light. Means you can light up 4 to 5 LEDS lights at the same power as 1 old light. The water pump and the furnace, are 12 volt power users with the furnace being the worst offender. The blower motor is the issue. It gets really hard to run a RV furnace off a battery setup for winter camping. But warm weather with only an occasional cool night you may be able to squeak by running off your battery bank.

Back to your power needs. You need to think long and hard about what you "must" have and what is "nice to" have when boondocking. That is going to set the sizing of your battery bank. The bigger the battery capacity, the more power. But it also comes with, you have to be able to recharge it in a timely manner. We can help on the sizing but you need to tell us what you have to power. Some folks need a C pap machine to run all night, others don't. Some want to run a fan at night to help cool the camper. Some want a small amount of 120 VAC to run a laptop or recharge phones/ tablets. Think this through and come back to us. Going boondocking and setting up the battery bank, converter and how to recharge the batteries is a post in it self.

You mentioned and inverter. Meaning using 12 volt battery power to create 120 VAC. This comes back to how much load are you trying to create and how often will you use it? Small items like a lap top or phone charging is easier than trying to run larger power items. This again comes back to how big are the batteries, how do they get recharged in time and how are you going to recharge them?

We boondock a lot. We are power misers and converted the camper to all LED lights. We use a Progressive Dynamics power converter and a 2000 watt Honda generator to recharge qty 2, group 27 lead acid batteries. We can only run the generator 4 to 5 hours power day at the camps we go to. We can camp this way a long time. Weeks to a month or more. The wife gets the microwave run in if needed while we are generating. So far, we have no need for an inverter. The laptop recharges from 120 VAC during generation and the phones off of 12 VDC from the batteries if needed. We have never run out of power. We can run the Max Air roof vent fan if needed for air cooling. We cannot power up the roof AC unit with our current setup. I would need to add a 2nd generator or a bigger single unit. Again, we can only run the generator 4 to 5 hrs a day anyway.

Hope this helps get you started.

John

 

[Tommie328]

I think I saw his breaker box in one of his pictures. It looks exactly like mine so he probably has the breaker box with the two breakers - 15 amp for the receptacles and converter and the 20 amp for the AC. I also have the 3230UL converter. It is really old. This is the one JohnB helped me with when I was adding the propane detector. I am pretty sure there are pictures somewhere of the inside of the converter and breaker box.

Found a pic of the inside of the converter. I am guessing his should be the same. I am looking at a Progressive Dynamic model too. Interested to see what Yellowjacket goes with.

 

[sep-SUN]

Looking good! Keep it going! Thanks for sharing your work with us.
Steve