2004 T1950 Restoration Project - (Ugly Picture Heavy)

[JohnGB]

With the frame coated and cured, we started on the floor joists and insulation. As in most camper restorations, when you join new floor decking to old floor decking, there is a thickness issue to work through.

The old floor swelled dry to 0.40” thicker than actual 1/2" OSB. And getting new floor decking in a true 1/2” thickness in today’s lumber yards, is not an easy find in OSB or plywood short of furniture grade plywood. The new plywood sheet I bought was 15/32” thick (1/32” under 1/2”). So you need to shim to accommodate the old floor swell and the new floor thinness. This takes time as it is not even all over the frame. We first shimmed the floor joists to meet the bottom of the old floor. Later we will shim the top of the floor joists to align with the top of the old floor.

Here are the new floor joists during installation.

We had to jack up the left side of the frame to lift it to be in line with the right side. The left side frame sags by approx. 3/4". I will address this with a brace at the left side wheel well. I needed the frame coating on first as the bolt on brace will go over the coated areas.

I ripped floor joists 2 x 3’s out of 2 x 12” southern yellow pine boards. Since you cannot get quarter sawn boards much anymore, and the kilned drying process is rushed at the lumber mill, when you rip a 2 x 12, it starts warping as soon as it is cut. Or before you even started in some cases. This creates an untrue floor joist that needs thin shims stapled to them where it touches the metal support frame. This creates a flat top of joist surface when you put the decking on. Not a hard thing to do, just it takes time as each joist frame location is custom fit.

Here are the end of day pics with the insulation in place and joint support pieces where the old floor to new floor will transition. We are now ready to start the floor decking.

This completes the work to date.

The tally on time and materials to get to this point.

Work completes Day 14 of the repair.
12/28/19, 2 workers for 6.83 hours = 13.67 labor hours

91.44 work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
New material use: 12/28/19
$12.47 qty 1, 2 x 2 x 8ft clear pine board, shims
$22.39 qty 3, 2 x 12 x 8ft SYP board, floor joists
$6.24 qty 48, #9 x3” lg gold coat deck screws
$4.28 qty 32, 3 9 x 3 1/2" lg gold coat deck screws
$16.29 qty: 5# #6 x 1 ¼” lg deck screw
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$61.67 work day subtotal. 12/28/19
$162.41 prior material subtotal
¬-------
$224.08 Materials Subtotal to date

Thanks for looking

John

 

[JohnGB]

BenB and I found another workday. We managed to get the rear floor decking on and the wall studs on the left back wall. There was some cleanup to do, get old staples out of the wall, fix/cut out warped existing studs and the tedious job of truing up the floor joists so the new floor would meet perfectly with the old floor.

The old floor had swelled, 1/16” thicker in many places and half that in others. The old floor is now 17/32” to 9/16” thick as opposed to the actual 1/2” it was before it was water exposed. OSB when it is exposed to moisture swells even if the wood is not rotted for a considerable area. When it dries, it becomes stable at the new swelled dimension. The need was the new floor and the old floor be even across the joints between the two.

The new plywood was 15/32”, or 1/32 under 1/2”. Between thinner modern-day plywood and swelled old OSB, we had to create 3/32” of shim that also thinned out as the old floor thinned.

I started by cutting 1/16" shims, it took several boards to find the “one” that would saw correctly. New clear pine board came out as a wedge, as the board warped as it was cut. Junked them and started over. I found a 2-year-old select piece of clear southern yellow pine in my wood stockpile and sawed shims 1/16” thick true thickness in the table saw. Amazing what properly dried wood can give you and spoil you quick.

To create the other 1/32”, I cut strips of 15# felt tar paper 1 ½” wide to go over the top of the wood shim on the floor joist.

We stapled the wood shim on all floor joists and staged the felt tar paper shim in stages and multiples as needed, so the floor surfaces would blend correctly at the joints. It worked well.

All shimmed ready for decking

The decking all screwed down. I wanted to use construction adhesive on the floor joists, but the shimming prevented that. So we screwed the floor down every 4 to 5 inches in spacing to gain more holding power.

Next was to build up the simple wall on the left back side wall. The new studs went in nicely, what took time was sorting out the splice into the old wall at the ceiling area. The wall needs to be 78” tall for this vintage camper all the way around. The siding has to match, the shower stall etc. The old wall top sill plate was warped down 1/4," and the wall stud under it was 1/8” short of making the 78” wall height. We created enough cut back of the good old wood to correct the warp and short stud. All is good now.

I also used my new 1” wide crown stapler. Sunline attached the wall studs into a frame using 1” wide by 1” deep staples. This Senco stapler works well and fast. It’s a new tool to add to the collection. I have 3 more camper restorations to do after this one, so it helped justify the new tool.

The LH wall from the inside view

The LH wall from the outside view. You can see the top splice into the old wood to correct the warp and short stud.

It was a good work day, just it does not look like that much. The fine shimming, blending into old work etc. takes time. We did rip two, 2 x 12”'s into 1 x 2 wall studs to get a head start on the wall rebuilding.

The tally on time and materials to get to this point.

Work completes Day 15 of the repair.
1/4/20, 2 workers for 7.08 hours = 14.16 labor hours

105.60 work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
New material use: 1/4/20
$33.61 qty 2 ea, 2 x 12 x 8ft SPF boards, wall studs
$1.00 qty 1 ea, 3’ x 8’ no 15# felt tar paper, shims
$29.28 qty 1 ea, 4 x 8’ x 15/32” plywood sheet, SYP, BC finish, floor decking
$0.88 qty 4 stick, T50 1/2” wide x 1/2” LG crown galv. staple
$0.80 qty 2 stick, 1” wide x 1” LG crown galv. staple
$1.76 qty 16 ea, No 8 x 2 1/2" blue coat Kreg screw
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$67.33 workday subtotal. 1/4/20
$224.08 prior material subtotal
-------
$291.41 Materials Subtotal to date

Thanks for looking

John

 

[JohnGB]

I have finished the camper frame reinforcement on the left side behind the rear axle. A little background on this, we found the bumper mounting plate on the left side frame rail cracked more than 50% of the way through. The right side also had a crack starting. This reply shows the details of the bumper plates and correction. http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...ct-ugly-picture-heavy-17684-2.html#post150990

After seeing the bumper mounts crack, I thought to myself; there has to be metal flexing ongoing to create those cracks. Sunline made a lot of T1950’s and other floor plans with rear tire mounts, yet there have not been extensive reports of failed bumper mounts. Yet, this camper was for sure cracked to the point failure would occur shortly if not corrected before then.

The spare tire mount is on the left side of the camper as the water heater is on the right side. See pic with the red circle around the spare tire mount on the bumper with the tire removed.

This camper has been from OH to AZ at least once, maybe twice as the prior owner told me. In the life of a camper, that distance is not a tremendous amount. All towing on this 2004 camper stopped in 2010 and it sat until 2017 when I bought it. My thoughts are, the spare tire bouncing on the back with this bumper mount setup started a fatigue crack that over time, kept tearing more metal as the miles went by. The fatigue of the bumper mount may be aggravated by the way the left frame rail is made.

The T1950 has a unique trailer frame that uses an offset to create clearance for the black tank drain. The offset also changes the main frame rail size from 4” C channel to 3” C channel as it passes over the top of the black tank dump pipe. This offset also creates a long overhanging bumper mounting plate due to the offset.

See pic of the dump pipe under the 3” channel iron frame rail.

Here is the frame jog from 4” to 3” channel.

When we had removed the rotted rear floor joists, I noticed how wiggly the left frame rail was at the back of the camper as there was then no more bolts left holding the floor to the frame. A large part of the 3” frame rail flex comes from the offset jog. Channel iron can carry a lot of weight when the weight is applied perpendicular to the 3” width. However, that structured shape does not have very much torsion strength when you try and twist it as compared to the perpendicular weight of the 3” side. See here; the red circle arrow shows the twisting action and the straight-arrow shows camper weight pressing down on the 3” width.

Looking at the offset jog in the frame, I came up with an idea on how to reduce the flexing of the left frame rail, before bolting the floor to the frame.

I created a bolt-on brace to the offset jog in the frame. If the camper box was off the frame, this would be a lot simpler to weld the brace in place. I did not want to attempt welding to the frame with the camper over this area. Too much heat damage to the area.

The steel I selected was angle iron, for the integrity of the iron shape to resist the twisting at the offset jog area. I had this steel in my stockpile of “stuff”, and while the angle I found was beefier than needed, I used it up.

Here are the 3 pieces cut and drilled before welding that make up the bolt-on brace.

Here are the bolt on parts being drilled onto the frame before tack welding them in position with the angle brace.

I did tack weld the parts on the camper with bolts in the holes so the brace would fit after full weld out. Here is the test fit of the welded parts before cleanup and coating. It’s easier to see how this fits to the frame before coating the metal.

The bracket curing after being coated with the KBS Rust Seal. Also are the black tank mounting plates hanging to cure.

Before mounting the new frame brace, I tested the left frame rail deflection before mounting the brace. Since last weekend we bolted the corrected floor to the frame, I took the nuts off the rear wall frame bolts. The left side frame rail could then move freely down. I measured the frame rail deflection and recorded it. More on the test data in a moment.

The brace cured and ready to mount.

Mounted. The white tape is Eternabond roof seal tape. The fender well was cracked from being stapled on and this will seal all the cracks. Those fender well cracks I feel were there since the camper was made. A plastic strip did cover the cracked areas. I removed it when I put the Ebond on.

I then tested how much help did the brace rigidity adds to the frame rail deflection at the back bumper mount. I can attest, the left frame rail takes minimal effort to press down by hand and make it bend down. The right side is 4” channel and no offset jog, is rigid (does not move) to what usually can be bent by hand.

I tried to capture the left side wiggle in a video but that proved not successful with the camera and me wiggling while trying to take video. I created a static bending test that most of you should be able to relate too. I measured the left frame rail to the concrete on the left side and the right side. Then I hung weight on the left rail and measured again. I did this also with the brace added. Here is the weight, 2 almost full paint cans. 17 lb of weight. This is not a lot of weight, yet the frame deflected with it.

Note: Dimensions are from concrete floor to top of the frame at the end of the frame rail. Camper is on jack stands behind rear spring hanger, distance from the frame to concrete at jack stand the same at both LH and RH side.

Left side:
No brace added: 3” channel frame
Frame not bolted to camper floor: 21 1/2”
17 lb of weight hung from frame rail: 21 3/8”
Left side deflects 1/8” down with 17# of weight

Right side:
No brace added: Standard 4” channel frame setup
Frame not bolted to camper floor: 22 1/8”
17 lb of weight hung from frame rail: 22 1/8”
Right side has no deflection with 17# of weight or entire weight of JohnB at 205 lbs on it.


Left side: Frame brace installed
Frame not bolted to camper floor: 21 5/8”
17 lb of weight hung from frame rail: 21 9/16”
Left side deflects 1/16” down with 17# of weight

Right side:Frame brace installed
Frame not bolted to camper floor: 22 1/8”
17 lb of weight hung from frame rail: 22 1/8”
Right side has no deflection with 17# of weight


Frame brace installed and camper floor bolted to frame
Left side:
Frame bolted to camper floor: 21 15/16”

Right side:
Frame bolted to camper floor: 22 1/8”


Summary: Adding the frame brace at the LH rear tire area reduced the left frame rail deflection by 50%. The offset frame jog is very rigid resisting twisting with the frame brace added. However, the left side 3” frame rail extension is still a long lever and will deflect at the point where the 3” channel is welded to the offset jog. Using a rebuilt sound flooring structure bolted to the frame rails adds significant rigidity to the left side frame rail. The left side of this camper is 3/16” lower than the left after installing the frame brace and bolting the frame to a sound floor system. Before adding the brace and bolting the floor to the frame, the left side was 5/8” lower than the right. The brace addition has increased the strength of the left side frame rail; however it is not as rigid as the right side.

Once I have finished installing the walls on the camper, which adds even more rigidity to the camper, I will evaluate any remaining frame rail deflection, and what that effect may have on the spare tire mounting.

Work tally on time and materials to get to this point;

Work completes Day 21 of the repair.
1/3/20, 1 worker for 4.08 hrs
1/5/20, 1 worker for 3.33 hrs
1/6/20, 1 worker for 2.0 hrs
1/7/20, 1 worker for 2.25 hrs
1/8/20, 1 worker for 2.83 hrs
1/9/20, 1 worker for 2.58 hrs
Subtotal: 17.07 hrs

122.67 work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
New material use: 1/9/20
$28.79 qty 1 ea, 2.5" x 2.5" x 0.25" mild steel angle, A36 hot rolled
$2.50 qty 12 ea, 1/8” welding rod, 6013
$0.50 qty 2 ea, 1/8” welding rod, 6011
$2.50 qty lot, grinding disk
$1.10 qty 1 ea, 4”w x 12”lg Eternabond roof seal
$5.50 qty 12 ea. 1/2-13 x 1.5” lg, hex bolt, grade 8
$3.00 qty 12 ea. 1/2-13 full hex nut, grade 8
$1.25 qty 12 ea. 1/2 spring washer, grade 8
$2.00 qty 12 ea. 1/2 flat washer, grade 8
---------
$47.14 workday subtotal. 1/9/20
$291.41 prior material subtotal
-------
$338.55 Materials Subtotal to date

Thanks for looking

John

 

[JohnGB]

BenB and I had a good weekend working building wall frames.

We started with making up an 8’ x 8’ table worktop from 2 sheets of plywood, 2 x 4’s and 4 sawhorses. This surface worked well to have a large enough, flat work surface at the right height. Then, we started building a new rear wall frame. We checked dimensions off the old rotted wall, but you cannot trust them alone, more of a guide only. Rotted would for sure changes the dimensions and you have to cross-check just about everything, including the siding cutouts.

The work table and the rear wall in progress.

Test fitting the siding cutouts to determine the exact placement of the rear cargo door and water heater location.

These black corner pieces are called radius corner blocks which we place in the frame corners for cargo door and window openings. The are stapled in place and fill the siding radius void in the wall square corner framework with back-up material in the radius corner. This allows the sealing tape on the door/window flange to compress firmly and not collapse the siding.

A close up of a radius corner block. There are different styles of these, these blocks fit the Sunline curved corner windows (Krino brand) and Lippert cargo doors.

You need to shim around the windows and doors with single 1/8” or a 2 stack, creating 1/4" luan shim strips for the windows and siding to align and compress correctly during window and door installation. A router with a straight cutting bit and bearing on the end work well to trim out the corners. A saber saw works also if you do not have a router.

The completed rear wall framing, soon to have the wallboard installed.

New wall next to the old wall.

Now onto the right rear wall repair and a test fit of the new repair frame for a siding fit with the kitchen window. When you have two holes in the same piece of siding, and you are rebuilding the wall frame, you have to match the existing siding openings. Sunline never had to match the opening, they sided the whole camper and then cut out the siding holes. On a repair, you have the hole already cut out, and you have to adjust the new wood to match the siding hole. Check 3 times, cut once!

We are adding a new cargo hole door to the floor plan. Draughty here on the forum, added one to his Advancer for easier access to the water pump, low point drains and the water heater bypass. His came out well and sparked the idea for me to do it too. I found a new cargo door on Ebay and we framed it in. We just had enough room as the awning arm will be to the aft of the cargo door frame.

Now is the time to do a ceiling/roof check that the newwalls are in the right location. We took the old rotted ceiling parts and put it back up on the roof and checked to make sure the length of the walls matched the sidewall siding folds as they go over the end walls. Too short of a wall, and you can cut off excess siding, but reusing inside cabinets may not fit. Too long of a wall, there is not enough siding to cover it. The ideal length is to get it back to the original. You also need to account for all the 1/8” shims Sunline puts on the wall studs. On this vintage camper, they have 2, 1/8” full-length shims on the corners and then you shims each stud or window accordingly to the way the walls studs warp in or out.

We also did a test fit of the back wall with the ceiling on to make sure the end walls all align and the openings at the floor, matched. In this case, the water heater opening is floor level, and the wall is below the floor resting on the main steel camper frame.

We cut bare luan wall panels that will go on the left and right rear walls. These are now only clamped in place. They will be glued and stapled on during the next work session.

That’s all for now.

Work tally on time and materials to get to this point;

Work completes Day 23 of the repair.
1/11/20, 2 workers for 6.92 hrs x 2 =13.84 hrs
1/12/20, 2 workers for 6.17 hrs x 2 = 12.34 hrs
Subtotal: 26.18 hrs

148.85 work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
New material use: 1/12/20
$1.60 qty 4 stick, 1 x 1, galvanized,16 gauge, crown staple
$0.30 qty 2 stick, 3/16 x 5/8”, 22 gauge, galvanized, crown staple
$13.00 qty 2 ea, 4’ x 8’ x 1/8” luan plywood
$1.80 qty 12 ea, radius corner block, 3.25 Rad, x 1.5 width EckCo Plastics
$1.43 qty 13 ea, 2”lg no. 8 flat head deck screws
---------
$18.13 workday subtotal. 1/12/20
$338.55 prior material subtotal
-------
$356.68 Materials Subtotal to date

Thanks for looking

John

 

[johnnybgood-SUN]

Nice work John

Looks like your labor hours are, or about to, exceed the value of the camper if you were getting paid. [emoji846]

 

[JohnGB]

Thanks John,

Yes, these camper restorations are a true labor of love. Your not in it, for the money. It's therapeutic for me, and fun. As long is it's not a full time "job"... it will stay fun.

One does not really want to attempt to do this and make a living off of selling this detail of a restoration at standard shop rates or even half shop rates. Trying to get all your time back when you done , that could create a whole new meaning to "minimum wage".

The intent of listing the details on time and cost, is to help others going into this. They may not go this far into a camper repair, but it is easier to see how long it takes then trying to imagine it taking that long never having been through it before.

When we are done with this camper, it will be better than new from a leaking standpoint with better sealing materials and methods. And, still rivel many of the new TT's for sale on the lot.

Thanks

John

 

[Sunline Fan]

When working on the T1950 I noticed on the outside wall where some insulation fell off Sunline had marked 1950 #11. I was curious if anyone knew (Sunline Fan maybe) what this might mean. All the other panels we have had apart didn't have anything on them, but we have never really had a door side center wall apart. I think the siding might be off there on the T317SR now but it is currently stored about 4" from the T2499, so to check if it has the same marking under the insulation isn't easy. On the T1950 it is located above the small window that is over the kitchen sink. My original thought was maybe it was the 11th built T1950 for that model year?View attachment 6794

Hi Ben,

That's a great question. I highly doubt it has anything to do with total built. There would have been a number similar to this written on the frame in the front, but it was like a yard, build, or order identifier not documented on any owner's manual paperwork. I never found out what purpose that number served, other than they did only seem to start using them around 2003/04 and not before that. I don't think this frame number is related to your #11 either, but it's possible.

My best guess is that whoever built that particular wall numbered it with the # in the build run for that day or week. So it may be the 11th 1950 wall like that built on that day, or it was the 11th trailer going down the line at that time so they could find the associated wall in a stack of them.

 

[JohnGB]

Sunline glued the shower surround to the wallboard on 3 sides. Some of the wallboards were bare luan plywood, and other areas were vinyl wallpaper bonded to 1/8” luan plywood. When we pulled out the shower surround, that removal process created some damage on the wall section between the bathroom and the bedroom. I started in rebuilding the shower/bedroom wall section. Some wood pieces were cracked and separated along with some wallboard damage. We also wanted the majority of the bedroom area to have a matching wallboard being a separate room, so I replaced the bedroom side wall panel to create the matching look.

Here is the wall section before I started the rebuild. The bare luan was ripped apart/torn in several places. The luan will be repaired and to allow the new shower surround to be better attached to it.

I was able to separate the old luan plywood from the wall framing. The thin 22 gauge staples pull through the wallboard easily, leaving the staples stuck in the wall framing.

There was a boatload of staples in the wall framing to be removed once the plywood was off. I also needed to create a splice support board along the length of the bare luan wallboard. There is an approx. 1 1/2” wide strip of wallpaper that is part of the bathroom that I wanted to leave intact. So I would cut the torn luan piece off and spliced on new bare luan plywood at the spice joint.

The piece of saved bathroom side wallboard cut and spliced to the wall section.

The new bare luan glued and stapled in place, completing this side of the wall rebuild.

Flipped the wall section over and removed the bedroom side wallboard. There were some minor wall framing issues to correct while I had the wallboard off. And, another boatload of staples to pull out of the wall frame.

Here is the bedroom side wallboard piece I took off. I will save this for a future 2004 wallboard repair.

I cut and fit the new wallboard to match the size and shape of the old piece I took off shown above. The new bedroom wallboard will not install until after the wall frame is screwed to the floor as the wall panel being off, creates the needed access to the screws holding the wall section to the floor. Here is a snapshot of the new wallboard next to the old. I could not find the exact 2004 Sunline wallboard, but I found a supply of new wallboard that would look good and go with the old wallboard. We plan to redo the majority of the bedroom wallboard. Since it is a separate room per se, the new pattern should go well next to the original as the room change to the kitchen area.

It is hard to capture the new wallboard pattern next to the old. The lighting is key to making the pattern show up.

A closer pic of old next to new

This shower/bedroom wall section is now repaired and will be set aside until the new shower goes in.

Work tally on time and materials to get to this point;

Work completes Day 24 of the repair.
1/17/20, 1 worker for 5.42 hrs.

154.27 work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
New material use: 1/17/20

$21.45 workday subtotal. 1/17/20
$356.68 prior material subtotal
-------
$378.13 Materials Subtotal to date

John

 

[apackof2]

Wow!! That’s amazing. The listed cost of supplies + hours of labor are truly invaluable to anyone thinking of restoring a camper

Thanks John!

P.S I wish you would do a 2363 for me!!

 

[Tweety]

Excellent job John! You’re basically building it back to new, or better. It’s gonna be hard to sell (if that’s even the plan) after putting all that work into it! Won’t it be like your baby? I know we have a tough time parting with a trailer that we have good memories with.

 

[JohnGB]

Wow!! That’s amazing. The listed cost of supplies + hours of labor are truly invaluable to anyone thinking of restoring a camper

Hi Joan,

Thanks for the good words.

I was listing the hours and material costs per reply with pics to help show folks thinking about doing this, just how much is involved. Labor is by far the largest cost, that is if you are hiring it out. Until you have been through this, it is hard to comprehend how it can cost that much and how far water damage can become when you do not see any signs of water inside the camper. If someone has some wood tools and a little know how, this is all very doable. But it does take considerable time.

Thanks

John

 

[JohnGB]

Excellent job John! You’re basically building it back to new, or better. It’s gonna be hard to sell (if that’s even the plan) after putting all that work into it! Won’t it be like your baby? I know we have a tough time parting with a trailer that we have good memories with.

Hi Pam, Thanks for the comments.

This project is a total restoration, it will be become more involved as the project continues. Brakes, suspension, frame work, new roof, new anwing the list goes on. So yes, it will be close to new/better than new in some areas.

Selling this one, that is not in the plan at this point. We have family members who expressed wanting to go camping in it. They think it is so cute! We will hang onto it for now.

Funny you call this hard to part with your baby. Since we now have 5 Sunlines... Cindy is not much into Sunline model numbers to remember which one is which, so we came up with a more close to home naming convention.

2004 T1950 "The baby camper"

2004 T2475 "The toddler camper"

2007 T2499 "The kid camper"

2004 T317SR "The teenager camper"

2004 T310SR it use to be "The Camper", but that doesn't fit anymore, so this one is now "The big camper"!

I sense there may be a few more Sunlines added to the collection as time goes on. And some of the "children" will most likely find new homes.

 

[JohnGB]

We moved into rafter making. We copied the Sunline rafter. You start with a clear or tiny knot 2” x 12” x 8’ SPF board and rip cut it into 11/16” x 1 1/2" x 8ft lg. pieces. You do not want any large knots, ideally none, in the top piece of the rafter that has to bend to form an arch. The large knot will complicate the bending and strength of the rafter. Here is the 2 x 12 cut up. I went to a different lumber yard to get different 2 x 12’s as the last ones warp badly coming out of the saw. These cut well with little warp.

Then you need to create side plates from 1/8” luan to hold the rafter together. The endplate is angle cut and the center plate is just a rectangle. Here are the angled pieces being made. Start with the correct size blank, then slit on an angle to make 2 parts.

Once you have all the parts cut, you start putting them together. Rafter building was a learning process. The assembly went well, but I ran into an arching issue on the top chord.

Place the bottom piece flat on the work table, and we created a center height spacer. Sunline didn’t use one.

Then clamp the bottom down and the top. You also need to clamp set the arch distance at the end side plates as it is lower than the arched board. Then glue the side plates and stapled them on with 22 gauge staples. 3/16” wide, 5/8” long.

The assembly process once your setup, goes fairly quickly. We soon had 5 rafters made up.

An hour or so later, I learned we made an error. The top rafter chord had more stress in the wood then I expected. It was strong enough that it pulled the bottom chord that was true flat into a bowed shape. The bow starts from the end of the center side plates and flares out from there to the end side plates. This view is taking all the bow in one direction so you can see it. This view makes it look like the one end has a large warp as I am pressing all the bow out in one direction. This picture shows double the warp as the warp is half as much on each end of the rater. Or each end is bowed up 1/4".

The learning in this, the rafter top chord should be pre-bent and stable in that arched shape before assembling the rafter. It was the end of the day and I needed to do some research into bending wood. The next morning I tried to heat the bowed section and pull it to where we needed it. I started with the heat gun, then moved to the propane torch as the guy I saw doing this was using an oxy/acetylene torch with a large lazy flame. But he was using non-kiln dried wood. The kiln process changes the wood proprieties making it harder to bend wood. I also could not get it hot enough not to be able to touch it. I could get the rafter to be straight, but once the clamps were removed, the went back to the warped shape. I gave up on the heat to bend method and went with the forced/time bend method. I made up a setup that would force the wood straight, took measurements and let gravity, weight and time do the rest.

The results, in 4 days of being weighted like this, I took the 1/4” bowed end to 1/16” or less in the relaxed condition. It’s not perfect, but I can work with it. If we have any folks who are into wood bending, please speak up. I could use some pointers on how to create the arched top cord and the shape be stable in that position before assembly. I’m hoping I don’t have to build a steam box to bend the wood, hoping there may be another way. If anyone ever made it to the Sunline factory to see how they did that, please post.

Work then moved to line up the left and right wall framing and fastening it to the floor and spliced into the old wood. The left side wall where the shower was, only needed to have bare luan plywood bonded and stapled with 22 gauge staples. We use construction adhesive to bond the plywood to the studs in place of standard wood glue. Construction adhesive costs more, but since we cannot 100% clamp the wallboard to set wood glue, we went with the construction adhesive. The left wall is now complete and ready for the shower work to start.

Then to the left sidewall. The wall framing was fastened to the floor along with all the window and cargo door radius corners installed. Due to the repair process, this side will get double wallboard thickness. First bare luan to fill in for the rotted sidewall, then new wallboard over the top up to the kitchen. These all were construction adhesive bonded and stapled.

Next was to put the new wallboard over the top of the old and to the end of the wall. Here is BenB applying more construction adhesive. The new wall piece is all precut and fit next to the area it will install to.

The new wallboard installed and all cut out for windows, doors, etc.

Dealing with straightening out the rafters, it used up some time to sort that out. We had hoped to have the ceiling all made up, but the rafter snafu prevented that during this work period.

Work tally on time and materials to get to this point;

Work completes Day 26 of the repair.
1/18/20, 1 worker for 5.83 hrs.
1/18/20, 1 worker for 3.75 hrs.
1/19/10, 2 workers for 6.5 hrs x 2 = 13.0 hrs
Subtotal: 22.58 hrs

176.85 hr.- Total work hours accumulated to date 1/19/20
New material use: 1/19/20

$62.29 workday material subtotal. 1/19/20
$378.13 prior material subtotal
-------
$440.42 Materials Subtotal to date 1/19/20

Thanks for looking.

John

 

[tony17112acst]

John, I also have a t1950 and had 2 others in the past. I was looking at your old threads on these repairs and assumed this was an old thread. To my surprise, you're doing this now! Your documentation is appreciated by so many on here, I'm sure, but especially me.


It's been 13 years since the 2007's were sold and I'm guessing the last of our Sunlines will be rusting out or rotting from roof leakage soon. But not yours. You'll have yours for another 15 years, I'd guess! The flooplans are what I love the most, especially the 1950's which is perfect to pull with those of us who don't want pickup's but have an SUV that tows 6000 lbs. So once we lose the last of the 1950's, I don't see a great replacement. Maybe decent replacements, but not a good/great one. I love that many of these Sunlines didn't waste precious space with dinettes, favoring a sofa/swivel rocker which can be use to eat our meals easily. Losing comfortable sofa/swivel chair space for a 10 minute activity never seemed like a good trade-off to me and no one who makes RV's seems to think this way, sadly.


Sometimes we get to a camp stite and they can't take us in due to full capacity, but when I tell them my camper is only 19 ft., we always seem to get in (this even happened to us at the Grand Canyon once - traveled 1000's of miles and almost didn't get a site)!


Anyway, I'd pay decent money to have my roof replaced as insurance to try to keep it another 10 years, but I'd be afraid that the frame wouldn't make it that long.


Keep up the postings! I'm loving every one!

 

[JohnGB]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the good words. Glad you like reading these repair posts.

Yes, this restoration started out 2 years ago. We took it apart and it have been drying out in my barn since then. It's well dried! Too many other things going on... But we now made it back to working on project camper no. 1.

Sunline was unique. They were masters at floor plans and space saving. And keeping the camper balanced well while doing all that. They are for sure missed.

Hoping these kinds of posts can help other good folks understand how a camper gets a water infection, how to repair it if it does, and how we can help seal them up to not have that happen.

Thanks

John

 

[JohnGB]

The rear wall, to install the wallboard.

Start by cutting the sheet to wall length. Then apply construction adhesive on the studs only touched by the first sheet.

Set cut to length wallboard on adhesive applied studs, align to outer edges, and staple wallboard using 22 gauge staples. Router cut out openings.

Scrap off any oozed adhesive from the center sheet joint stud. Place the next sheet tight to the first sheet and mark the length of the second sheet and cut to length. We marked this sheet in this order as if the first sheet is skewed slightly out of square, your sheet joint to joint fit is still tight. These wallboard sheets are slightly larger than 4 x 8, so you have excess to trim in both directions.

Rear wall wallboard installed complete with all outer edges router trimmed. Wall is ready to install as needed.

Test fit of the rear wall to the camper.

Compare the old to the new. The old as found,

The new repair, looks a lot better

Inside looking out,

We had a short workday, but did get the rear wall done. Next is to start on the shower, the shower wall and rebuild the cabinet over the bed.

Work tally on time and materials to get to this point;

Work completes Day 27 of the repair.
1/25/20, 2 worker for 2.08 hrs. x 2 = 4.17 hrs

181.02 hr.- Total work hours accumulated to date 1/25/20

New material use: 1/25/20

$440.42 Prior subtotal 1/19/20
$26.95 workday material subtotal. 1/25/20
-------
$437.37 Materials Subtotal to date 1/25/20

Thanks for looking.

John

 

[Tommie328]

Wow, that looks really good! I wish I had a quarter of your talent.

 

[JohnGB]

Wow, that looks really good! I wish I had a quarter of your talent.

Thank you Tommie,

Trust me, you have talent and drive too. After you took on rebuilding your camper, you done good!

The more we do, the more we learn, the better most times we get. The learning never stops.

 

[JohnGB]

We had another weekend workday. The focus was on starting the rear ceiling assembly and starting to put the shower stall back together.

The rear ceiling assembly was fit up to the new ceiling board, however not glued and stapled in place yet. See the pics below. The shower stall took more fiddling time than expected so the ceiling area did not get finished.

The old ceiling that needs to be replicated.

The new ceiling in progress.

End of day progress. Now ready for final fit and then bonding of the ceiling board to the frame.

The shower area started with sealing up the drain pocket in the floor and routing the rear DOT tail and clearance light wires up through the floor.

Then the bathroom sink water supply, shower drain, and 120 volt to the water heater power routing. Pics include the wallboard covers over the piping and the shower basin support blocks.

Then the basin support decking.

Here is the new shower basin next to the old yellowed basin. It’s different.

The new shower drain fitting prep to the shower basin. You have to be careful and look at the label on the plumbers putty to make sure it will work with ABS plastic. Some brands, specifically state, do not use on ABS plastic.

Test fit of the repaired shower wall with the new basin in place. We also had to fiddle with the drain connection to get it to line up with the old pipe. It does; just took time to get it aligned correctly.

Next was test fitting the new shower surround. See the new next to the old one. Yes, what a difference. Glad we changed the shower.

Then the new surround test fit in place with the rear wall clamped on. We had to check the shower wall height fit and the left to right spacing as there is a cabinet that fits over the bed on the rear wall that has to fit in the space exactly. Clamped in place at the right side of the rear wall is a board from the overhead cabinet to hold the wall location.

The new shower is taller than the shower stall. Being taller is good so we can trim fit it to exactly match up at the ceiling line. This surround is 72”, the stall about 69 3/4". I had to look real hard and long to find a shower surround longer than 66”. The 66” tall seems to be the new standard and that leaves 3 3/4" of wallboard exposed to have shower vapor collect on and potentially drip and get behind the shower walls. We will have a good seal off at the ceiling like the original Sunline shower was.

Some inside pics. You can see the surround being higher than the walls in these pics. It looks really nice in there.

Then back off with the rear wall again… We had that wall on and off 5 times on Saturday. Trimming the bottom of the surround to fit the stall height with large tin snips.

And the final test fit before we take the shower out once again. I have to seal/treat the bare luan wallboard so the double-sided foam tape will bond properly. Glad I went through all the trouble finding the right fit shower surround. It looks nice in there compared to the old yellow one.

That is all work for the moment. The material cost did jump this week with the addition of the new shower. The shower highest item cost was LTL truck freight from CA to Ohio. 30# of air for $240. It comes in a monster size box, 24 x 36 x 72”. See pics.

We had a one day work weekend, but we did good. Next is to start to continue on the shower, rear wall cabinet over the bed to be rebuilt and the new rear ceiling.

Work tally on time and materials to get to this point;

Work completes Day 28 of the repair.
2/1/20, 2 workers for 6.08 hrs. x 2 = 12.17 hrs

193.19 hr.- Total work hours accumulated to date 2/01/20

New material use: 2/1/20

$437.37 Prior subtotal 1/25/20
$618.96 workday material subtotal. 2/1/20
-------
$1,086.33 Materials Subtotal to date 2/1/20

Thanks for looking.

John

 

[JohnGB]

We had another excellent work weekend. We have finished making the rear ceiling subassembly.

Here is the ceiling frame being stapled together. All the rafters, wall framing and box outboards for the bath ceiling vent and shower dome have stapled both sides to make a rigid frame. This new Senco stapler works really well.

Next was to test fit the frame on the camper before bonding the ceiling board onto the frame. It fit up as expected.

The ceiling board was bonded and stapled to the frame. I used construction adhesive on the ceiling, as did Sunline. They used wood glue on the walls, but construction adhesive on the ceiling. I’m assuming so the weight on the ceiling would not come down. The construction adhesive bond is long term under the flexing loads of the camper. I have not yet seen construction adhesive let go in the rebuilds I have done, but we have witnessed wallboard wood glue crack apart.

You start by putting down a joint H shape plastic strip that joins two ceiling sheets. We are reusing the old one as I could not find new ones. I need to paint the old one as it has yellowed.

The H shape is tucked under the ceiling sheet. You align the ceiling panel where it needs to be with the H shape installed and clamp in place. Then, remove the ceiling panel and staple the H shape on the side the panel will install. Leave the other side of the H shape unstapled as it makes it easier to insert into the existing panel on the camper, as it can flex a little that way.

Then apply construction adhesive, install the panel, and staple the panel on using 22 ga. 3/16” wide very thin staples. The heads will get a small amount of white filler over the top of the staple when the staple is exposed.

Then route out the openings and hole saw drill in the vent pipe and ceiling light fixture wire holes.

The ceiling now completed as a subassembly waiting to install at a later date.

We divided and conquered multiple projects at once. I was doing the ceiling and BenB was installing the front bedroom cabinet and the black tank.

Cabinet back in place over the new wallboard.

New welt bead was added along the ceiling line on the outside wall. I found this color matches what is in the camper well. It is not a 100% exact match, I would say, a 95% match. It may also be that the original is 16 years color changed from UV light. This welt bead from Vintage Trailer Supply was their tan and was had a solid bead. It can come with a hollow bead or solid bead, both work. They did not have the hollow bead, and I could not find any hollow that matched elsewhere, so I went with the solid.

The welt bead is stapled to the wall top plate and hangs over into the living space

I did not take any pics of the black tank, but this also includes re-installing the tank vent pipe out the roof.

The shower was installed. First, we had to add filler strips where the ribs of the new surround walls are and at the left and right side of the surround where the Shub Shower screen mounts. Double-sided tape will bond to the filler strips which has vinyl wallpaper on them. The pre-papered strips allowed us not to have to paint the strips to seal the wood.

The basin is held from popping up by 4 screws and fender washers at the top of the basin. The basin can flex down, but not up.

Here is the double-sided foam tape applied to the surround. You have to clean the surround and wallboard before putting the tape on to remove any dust/dirt.

Test fit in the shower opening, the release paper is still on the surround at this point.

How the high spot will bond to the rear wall that also has filler strips on it.

The rear wall was installed and then the process of “sticking” the surround to the walls starts. I did not take pics of the process, but you have to peel each side one at a time in sequence so the whole surround does not accidentally stick in the wrong place.

We started by pulling the surround inward to the camper a foot or two to get it off the rear wall. Then one of us inside lifting the surround up part way out of the roof. The helper on a ladder pulled the rear wall release paper on the foam tape. We then lowered it down to the basin and slowly pushed it to the back wall while holding the left side where it needed to be. The rear wall was then stuck.

Next was to stick the sides. We could flex the side wall towards the center to reach the release paper tape, then attach the side starting from the rear and working towards the front.

Then repeat on the right side and using a urethane roller, roll all joints tight. This process worked well. I only had one small snafu. When I stuck the rear wall, I was standing inside the shower pan. That I feel was an error. Too many things trying to line up and I missed this. The right camper side of the basin on the rear wall compressed down a little from me standing in it. The added weight allowed the surround to drop a little on the right rear corner. The surround was then slightly low on that side. Nothing that will create a problem, but it was not the exact fit we had on the test fits. Here is the surround stuck in place. The wood at the bottom is holding it in place until the tape adhesive fully cures at the bottom.

The inside shower wall in the middle of the camper was then completed. We mounted the wallboard on the bedroom side to complete this area.

An inside pic where we left off.

A few outside pics where we left off. The rear wall is screwed on and not coming off again, at least on this rebuild. The right side corner is still not screwed totally on so I can flex the wall to install the cabinet over the bed area.

That completes the work for this past weekend. More to come.

Work tally on time and materials to get to this point;

Work completes Day 30 of the repair.
2/8/20, 2 workers for a combined total of 14.66 hrs
2/9/20, 2 workers for a combined total of 12.67 hrs
Subtotal for the weekend ending 2/9/20; 27.33 hrs.

220.52 hr. - Total work hours accumulated to date: 2/09/20

New material use: 2/9/20

$1086.33 Prior material subtotal 2/1/20
$61.49 work weekend material subtotal. 2/9/20
-------
$1,114.82 Materials Subtotal to date 2/9/20

Thanks for looking.

John