Moving into a new Wordpress Blog about RV Restoration called RVHobby.com

I (Jeff) am officially moving all my how to’s, repairs, restoration and road bumps about my RV and popup tent trailer over to my own blog.  I am calling it RVHobby (www.RVHobby.com).  I have invaded my wonderful wife’s Home School Blog too much and have too many people visiting this blog wanting to learn or read about motorhome updates and upgrades and the like.

My new site has multiple contributing authors who own an renovate their own RV’s (motorhomes), pull trailers, tent trailers and anything else you can camp, travel or vacation in.  I will continue to post my progress and updates on the current projects like the 1984 Coleman pop-up tent trailer and the 1982 Class C Fleetwood Jamboree Motorhome.

This will be my last RV post here on HomeSchoolFamily and I hope all you homeschool moms and dads enjoy our HomeSchool Family website.  Oh, and if you are at all remotely interesting in RVing, come on over to RVHobby.com and pick up a few tips and tricks. 

See you around.

Fixing the Screen Door magnetic metal latches on my RV Entry Door

On the RV - My screen door just flopped around because the metal magnetic latches were broken.  I decided that this was the easiest and quickest fix and a good place to start with my rv restoration process on this 1982 Fleetwood Jamboree.

1. First I removed the broken latches with a handheld screw driver.
    
    
2. Then I took the broken part over to Al’s RV (a motorhome and trailer parts store in Arizona) to match it up with a new part.  I purchased 2 latches (one for the top of the door and one for the bottom).  This is what one package looked like:
   
    
3. After getting the latches back to my house, I took the original screws and manually screwed them into the door frame with the new latches in place.  Here is the finished piece.
   

In total I spent $7 for the new magnetic latches - and I am very happy with the result

I am in the process of writing a series of step by step articles (with pictures!) about my restoration process. If you would like to be notified about that series then tell me your email address:

Painting a Popup Tent Camping Trailer

As I decided to rebuild my pop-up tent trailer for family camping, I thought I should go ahead and paint it as well. I did not want to take it to Maaco or have a professional paint it because I did not want to spend that kind of money. I figured I could do this all myself for a whole lot cheaper. Here is what I did.

First I removed all the canvas off the tent trailer. Since a tent trailer is designed to have the canvas removed, this was a rather simple task. You will also need to decide if you are going to paint the inside of the trailer too. In my case, I did - in fact I tore out the inside completely cause I was planning on doing a complete restore. 

Canvas removal and body preparation

Outside: In order for the paint to look nice and adhere well, you need to remove all the decals, pin-striping etc. After all the decals are removed, you should give the outside a nice light sanding with about 120 grit sandpaper. 

After sanding, give the trailer a nice power wash. This will get all the loose dirt and sandpaper residue (for the original paint & sanding) off. 

Now it is time to mask off the areas of the trailer you don’t want to get painted. I masked off:

• Tires
• Door handle / latch
• Side lights
• Rear lights
• Trailer Tongue

For the parts I didn’t mask off AND didn’t want painted, I removed. for example, I removed the outside freshwater supply inlet and the land line power inlet.

Freshwater Supply Inlet

The Tongue on my Trailer was rusted and a very brownish color - I used this spray I got from Wal-mart that turns rust into black primer. Came out looking real nice.

Ok- now before you go any further, you will need a few items for the painting. Here is what you will need:

•  an HVLP Paint sprayer (I purchased this at Harbor Freight on sale for $17)
• An air compressor (the bigger the better as far as gallons go - but at least a 2 gallon)
• Vaseline
• 1 to 2 Gallons of Oil Based Paint for painting steel (I used BAR-OX Gloss enamel white paint. It is made by Devoe Paint)
• Paint Thinner

Now it is time to paint. First, make sure you are out in the open so the paint fumes and over spray don’t get on anything you care about. Now start your air compressor going to fill up the air tank. To get the paint ready, fill your HVLP sprayer about 3/4 of the way with the Paint. Now add paint thinner in small doses to make the paint more like water in thickness. This is so you don’t clog up your sprayer. Attach your Paint Hopper to the HVLP sprayer and then attach the sprayer to the Air hose.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Take that Vaseline that I told you to have handy and smear it on all parts of your body that is exposed to the air - Face, hands, ears, neck etc. WHY? Because you are going to get overspray and oil based paint doesn’t come off very easily. Having Vaseline on your skin allows you to just wipe off all the over spray that gets on your body. It is like wearing a paint suit, only cheaper

To spray, start at one end of the trailer and spray about 12 inches away from the surface of the trailer. Continue horizontally about your arms reach. Then let go of the sprayer trigger. And repeat this process back to where you started from. You want even spray stokes back and forth. Do this a total of two times before moving lower on the body. Then move to the area you haven’t painted on that side of the trailer and repeat this process over and over until the whole trailer is painted.

Painted popup trailer

When you are done painting, let it dry for at least 24 hours - then use a buffer and buff your new paint job

I am in the process of writing a series of step by step articles (with pictures!) about my restoration process. If you would like to be notified about that series then tell me your email address:

1982 Jamboree Fleetwood RV Restoration - Before Restoration Process

I did it. I bought a 1982 Jamboree by Fleetwood RV. I have been looking to buy a used motor home for about 5 years now and finally found the one I wanted. The price was right, the layout was outstanding and the timing in my life was amazing. Overall, I have to say, amazing doesn’t even sum up the complete package. And - just like my tent trailer, this RV needed some cosmetic TLC (but not as much as the tent trailer). 
 

When I walked inside I immediately looked to the left, because I was interested in the rear sleeping arrangements (since this is a 24 foot motor home). I found two bunk beds on the rear left and instantly said to myself, “this is the style I need”. I have seen so many floor plans of RV’s. I have toured hundreds in RV lots and peoples personal RVs - I have rarely seen bunk beds in an actual motor home. Usually the pull trailers / 5th wheels would have bunks. As you can see, I have children. I actually have 3. But two bunks is fantastic for my two older girls (they will enjoy the “cubby” sleeping arrangements of the bunks.

OK - let’s get down to specifics. This is a 1982 RV with 100,000 miles on it. It has a Chevy front end with a 350 engine and an Edelbrock manifold. The coach also has a Turbo 400 Automatic transmission. I have to say this motor home was well cared for mechanically. Even though it has 100k miles under it’s belt, it has regular maintenance on it with brand new tires. These are the things that matter to me because I am not a mechanic, but I can fix cosmetic things. 

On the mechanical items I need I will prolly shop at Auto Zone and Auto Parts Warehouse.

I determined that this Recreational Vehicle could use these inside updates:

• New flooring ( the carpet was nasty - and for camping, I would rather have something easy to clean than high pile carpet)
• Minor cosmetic fixes to cabinet corner bead
• New laminate edge strips for the dinning table and other surface edges around the coach
• A thorough detail cleaning
• A serious cushion shampooing

Outside:

• There were minor cracks in portions of the outside walls. This can be repaired with JB Weld
• The access doors to the outside storage compartments could use replacing
• The awning mounts needed re-enforcing
• A complete re-caulking of seems is also in order

I will be shopping at Walmart, Camping World and Al’s RV for all of my RV replacement parts and materials.

I know what you are thinking at this point. How much did you pay for this?? Well, I picked up this motorhome for about $3,000. I figure I will put about $400 into it for the updates I listed above. All in all, my family is really going to enjoy this.

I am in the process of writing a series of step by step articles (with pictures!) about my restoration process.  The first article will be about replacing the carpet.  If you would like to be notified about that series then tell me your email address:

Here is the photo album for you to enjoy. If you have any questions or comments, post them here! 

RV Restoration on the flooring - New Carpet and Tile

Nasty.  That is the word I would like to use for this 1982 carpet that I had throughout the motorhome.  In fact nasty probably is a very kind word to use in this case.  Hahaha. 

Well needless to say, this carpet ”had to go” in order for my wife to step foot into the big box on wheels that I call my motorhome. 

Here was my original thoughts on the carpet - remove the easy to get to carpet and replace with one big roll of corporate style carpet from home depot.  That would mean one big piece of carpet that measured 7 ft wide by 17 1/2 ft long.  This also meant leaving the toilet riser covered with the old carpet.

Didn’t pan out.  My wife said the toilet riser carpet needed to be removed as well.  As I thought about it, that probably was the nastiest part of the carpet anyway.  It had to go. 

So I removed the toilet and then ripped out the carpet from the toilet riser.  I went over to Home Depot and picked up a remnant ( that is a piece of carpet they have marked down in price because it is the last on the roll or someone didn’t buy a section Home Depot cut off for some reason).

I took the carpet home to the RV and placed the sample piece in.  Now it is corporate style carpeting which means it is a VERY low pile.  It is also not comfortable  to stand on for a while with a hard wood sub-floor.

Pop up Camper cabinets - How I rebuilt them custom

Since I gutted the trailer completely, I needed to build new cabinets.  By the way, I had planned on doing this from the beginning. 

Ultimately, the easiest way to get something going is to create a plan.  I scetched multiple ideas on paper and presented them to my wife (who helped me make the decisions).  I decided on this plan:

As you can see, I completely removed the dining table.  In my opinion having a dining table in a tent trailer negates the purpose of camping. 

I also added a spot for a porta pottie, created more storage and added some neat options.

Ok - Back to the cabinets. 

After you get a plan in mind, it is time to do measurements.  I then went to home depot to purchase my “framing” studs.  I went with 2×2’s because they are lightweight and still make great frames.

Notice in this picture the design and structure of the 2×2 framing:

I cut small 8″ blocks from some of the 2×2’s to create cross braces.  You can see them in the picture above - they are the diagonal braces on the frames.

In the galley area, I cut the 2×2 down the middle with a table saw for some of the framing.  See the bottom parts of the frame in the picture below:

All the pieces I measured and cut to fit.  I used an Air Nailer to put everything together with 1 3/4″ brads.  For securing to the floor, I air nailed 2 1/2″ brads.  It took 3 days in total time to measure, cut and frame the cabinets.

For the facials of the cabinets I used an oak veneer over 1/8″ plywood.  I found it at our local Habitat for Humanity store for only $60!  What a deal for 2, 4 x 8 sheets!