I am new to FGRV but I have been working on my 13' for a little over a year now. I have dun alot of additions, and have plans for a complete restoration.

Things added..

New Lights

New Battery G27

All new LPG Lines

All new wiring

New Water pump and full plumbing system

New Atword 6Gal Water Heater (Fit it in without it sticking out)

New Fridge LPG/12V/110

New Power Converter + Fuses and Breakers 25A-12V 30A110

Rebuilt an old vent hood, and installed it. (Made it 12V)

Built my own forced air heat system.. (Temporary until i get the new furnace)

Built Bunk Bed in front (was completely missing)

Door fronts and cabanit work (Door fronts are temporary)

Added a shower

-----------------------------------------

We have many future plans but here are some of my pictures... (Not in Order)

Summer 2010 is going to see all the cosmetics addressed...


http://www.pnoutdoors.com/projectscamp/ Lots of pictures (Most of my work is dun at night sorry they are so dark)

I f anyone has questions about the waterheater add please ask.. I will try to write up a full how to later... There is alot of things different I think I would do.. if I was to do it again...

Welcome aboard. I see you have done a lot of work on your unit. It sounds like you have a complete handle on things. Good luck.

We trailerd the horses up to the mountains this weeked. We have been seeing near freezing temps for a few weeks now out in central Wash. but this past weekend was well below freezing in the mountains. I have decited that if I am going to winter camp I need to loose the Mr. Buddy heater. The condensation is horrific. Its going to rott out my Scamp for sure. My door is all relaxed from being old and it froze shut from the condensation driping into the craks arround it. What can I do about the relaxaed door? Also I am looing at installing an Atwood Everest Star. Does anyone winter camp with one of thoose or similer? I am courios how warm it will keep it? I can handle the cold but the kids (And Baby) will need it nice and toasty! Any comments?

Thank you!

What can I do about the relaxaed door?

I had a similar problem, living in the same general area as you. I don't believe the door is really relaxing. What is happening, I believe, is the door was constructed using a pith board core to separate the outer skin from the inner fiberglass. That is saturated with water with no way for it to escape. If you take your door off it will probably weigh 20 to 30 pounds due to the water.

What I did was to remove enough of the inner panel with a circular saw set to just cut through the fiberglass then chopped out as much of the pith board as I could. Then I used a pressure washer to clean out the remaining. The door sprung into the proper shape! From there you have a choice on how you want to rebuild the inner side of your drawer. Whatever you use, it must not be so stiff that it straightens the bend in the door. DAMHIK (don't ask me how I know)

Does anyone winter camp with one of thoose or similer?

Mine originally had a camper furnace. I removed it because of the noise and excessive electrical usage. I replaced it with a propane fireplace designed for yachts. This is a wonderful for most nights, casting a warm ambiance of flickering flames throughout. However with the limited insulation of the Scamp, with the outside temps below freezing, it needs some help. On my 16 ft I mounted it in the wall to the bathroom next to the range. It has a fan, but not enough to keep the floor area warm. It is vented outside, though, so it can run all night and we are completely condensation free.

I plan to add a small catalytic heater and need to do this in the next week or so, before we take off for Missouri.

Hope this helps.

Sweet can you post a pic of your fireplace? Also any model number on it so i can look it up?

Very nice job! You had a lot to do.
Good documentation

Enjoy using it!

Fran
74 Compact II reno

Nice pictures and nice work! We just bought an '89 Scamp with a toilet, but no shower. Any details you could offer on how you added one? Also, our scamp has that "nautical" fabric all over the inside (except for the cabinets, counters, etc) walls. It's in good shape, but it's also in the bathroom so we've got to come up with a way to either cover it or replace it with something that's waterproof. Any ideas would be most appreciated!

I'm interested in knowing about the paint you used for your fiberglass modules. And if, after rolling, a texture was left behind, or if you were able to achieve a smooth coat. How well is it adhering? Thanks.

I used house paint, I would not recomened it. It looks ok but chips easily and it did leave a texture. The fibergalss was so ugly I had to do something with it and I liked the colors I had on hand. I figured it would be easy to remove and repaint with the proper enamel when I am ready to do so. (and comit to a color schem:) The hardware store sells an appliance epoxy coat paint. Allthoug the color choises are lacking I was thinking about trying that and seeing how it comes out. My fiberglass knowledge is lacking so this might be a better question for someone more expericanced in such work. But if you are doing a touchup coat I think the appliance paint looks good. It has that glossy texture of a refridorator. It seems to gell well and over coating does not seem to stand out. Its arround $5 a can for arosol. The Previous Owner had at some point painted the walls with some kind of paint. I have not been able to identify it for sure but it seamed to work well. It is stark white. and fairly smoothe.

Thank you!

I was just curious 'cuz in fact, I used Rustoleum Appliance paint for my Perris Pacer's interior modules. Worked great, and pretty tough. I chose an off-white "Biscuit" color to soften things and to compliment the new interior wall covering and wood work.

I added my shower on the outside. its behind the door side rear fender. It was a kit off of Ebay for like $15. I wanted to do an inside shower conversion but I have 2 kids now so I need the bunks:). I did alot of research on building a wet toilet into my scamp. If you have the bathroom allready you can likly make it work. You can get the shower faucet and head form the local RV store or from Ebay. There are severl RV catalogs that offer shower pans. If you are good with fiberglass you can build your own. Or you could cut and modify a factory one. Home Depot and the like sell shower wall materials that are flexable and plyable buy that in sheets of 4x8. Cut and peel off the mole hair on the walls of the shower and glue on the shower wall materials. If you dont go all the way to the ceeling you should be able to feness the panels so that your seams are fairly strait. If the walls are wooded you can coat them with a heavy duty coating that would be water resistant. Seal all the seams well and calk the heck out of any corrners. I saw one rig where the guy used tile and looked great.. But I doubt it will hold up. I assume your toilet has the black tank on the bottom of it. You will need to pull the whole thing out and cut a hole in the shower pan to work for the drain on the black tank. (If there is one) You can either install a Grey tank (If there is not one allready) or you can have the drain pipe come to a port where you can have it dump into a portable tank. In this situation is it ok to have the water feed pipes going up the wall of the bathroom. If you use PEX or somekind of plastic tubing they look ok. If you have the room to do so you could ferr out the wall on that side, and have the tubing and facucet mounted into the wall. Choose a shower head that is on a hose so you can pull it off the wall. Some of them have a valve on the sprayer so that you can consurve water. This is the case on my outside shower. Main thing to remember is that if water or moisture get under your panals or walls or the like it will mold or rott. You should also consider installing a vent into the ceeling above the shower if the bathroom does not already have one. I can give you more information on the outside shower installation if you would like.

BTW can you post some detailed pictures of your bathroom? I am courious how it exactly lays out. I might have a better idea for you!

Thank you!

I added a furnace over the weekend. It works fantastic too. Although it is indeed pretty loud it will be alot safer for the kids. The install went pretty good and I am pleased with the outcome. The dealrship had to order me a grill for it and that will be in Tuesday. Once I put that on I can finish in around it and make the cabinet look finished again. You can see some of the pictures from the install in the thread "Adding a Furnace"

Shortly after I finished the furnace I decited to repair the door trim & gasket. I scraped and scraped and washed and washed. The gasket adhesive off. I readjusted the door and uest SS machine screws to reatach the strike plate. The door actualy works pretty good now. I realized that my door has not relaxed all that much. I beleive the real cause for the gaps is all the gasket was rotten and hard. I will be appling the new gasket tonight I hope. That is if I can find a good material around town.

I added a furnace over the weekend. It works fantastic too. Although it is indeed pretty loud it will be alot safer for the kids. The install went pretty good and I am pleased with the outcome. The dealrship had to order me a grill for it and that will be in Tuesday. Once I put that on I can finish in around it and make the cabinet look finished again. You can see some of the pictures from the install in the thread "Adding a Furnace"

Shortly after I finished the furnace I decited to repair the door trim & gasket. I scraped and scraped and washed and washed. The gasket adhesive off. I readjusted the door and uest SS machine screws to reatach the strike plate. The door actualy works pretty good now. I realized that my door has not relaxed all that much. I beleive the real cause for the gaps is all the gasket was rotten and hard. I will be appling the new gasket tonight I hope. That is if I can find a good material around town.

I added a furnace over the weekend. It works fantastic too. Although it is indeed pretty loud it will be alot safer for the kids. The install went pretty good and I am pleased with the outcome. The dealrship had to order me a grill for it and that will be in Tuesday. Once I put that on I can finish in around it and make the cabinet look finished again. You can see some of the pictures from the install in the thread "Adding a Furnace"

Shortly after I finished the furnace I decited to repair the door trim & gasket. I scraped and scraped and washed and washed. The gasket adhesive off. I readjusted the door and uest SS machine screws to reatach the strike plate. The door actualy works pretty good now. I realized that my door has not relaxed all that much. I beleive the real cause for the gaps is all the gasket was rotten and hard. I will be appling the new gasket tonight I hope. That is if I can find a good material around town.

I installed a new furnace over the weekend. Although it is indeed pretty loud it will be alot safer for the kids. The install went pretty good and I am pleased with the outcome. The dealrship had to order me a grill for it and that will be in Tuesday. Once I put that on I can finish in around it and make the cabinet look finished again. You can see some of the pictures from the install in the thread "Adding a Furnace"

Shortly after I finished the furnace I decited to repair the door trim & gasket. I scraped and scraped and washed and washed. The gasket adhesive off. I readjusted the door and uest SS machine screws to reatach the strike plate. The door actualy works pretty good now. I realized that my door has not relaxed all that much. I beleive the real cause for the gaps is all the gasket was rotten and hard. I will be appling the new gasket tonight I hope. That is if I can find a good material around town.

I also decited to have a look at the front window. This is one of the worst hack jobs by the previous owner. It apparently had started leaking, so the fix of course was at least 3 tubes of clear sillicone adhesive, layered on over probably several years. They had also ran a layer over the gelcoat around the windo as well just to be safe. It took me well over 2 hours to scrape enough slillicone from around the rivits to be able to drill them out. Also I had to cut nearly a inch and a half bead off from around the window. This was the same around all of the glazing and any other part. Basicly eveything nigh of the glass, had an inch layer of sillicone on it. I was finaly able to pull it out and to my suprise the butel tape was still sticky and plyable. Allthough it has shrunk and cracked in a few spots. I beleive the window is salvagable but it is going to be a nightmare to get all the silicone off. Dos anyone have a recomendation on a way to get it off the aluminum?

The 2nd picture shows the top of the windo poking out above the rock guard. I forgot to snap a photo before I started

Couple of notes:

1) As you mentioned, some types of "house paint" might not be the best for fiberglass.

2) Before painting (molded) gelcoated fiberglass, you have to remove the mold release wax so that the paint will adhere. Maybe this is part of the chipping problem. It seems crazy, but such wax is still there after 25 years. It's still on boat hulls after decades of being submerged in water even.

What you want to do is use a solvent (such as Interlux 202), and wipe the entire surface with rags. You have to be really careful to not use the same surface of the rag twice, or else you just move the wax around. Also, be sure not to sand before removing the wax, or you will simply grind it in and make it harder to remove.

Raya

Welcome to the nightmare. There is no "good" way that I know of to remove silicone. And we won't even get started on the invisible, yet contaminating oil it leaves behind. But here are a few thoughts:

1) Sometimes it will kind of roll off reasonably easily (this obviously isn't one of those times).

2) Your next step is to cut away as much as you can, perhaps with a razor blade (this is silicone to silicone contact).

3) Now you have to carefully scrape as well as you can, but not "kill" whatever you are trying to remove the silicone from. I've used the plastic razor blade type scrapers, metal scrapers (careful!), a fingernail (THAT gets tiring), shaped sharpened dowels, etc. etc.

4) Supposedly there are silicone-remover type sprays/formulas. I have not used them but people who have reported back say they are not a magic cure-all by any means. Still, you might try one when you get down to just a small amount left.

5) Be wary of "grinding" the silicone (and its contamination) into the fiberglass. You can test the surface when you're done by putting water on it to see if it "fish eyes" (the water kind of moves away from your area in a group, instead of lying evenly everywhere).

If anyone has any other tips (or if I think of any), please post them!

I feel your pain

Raya

PS: Interesting that the butyl was still nice and pliable. Probably there were just a few small leaks that could easily have been solved by simply re-bedding the window with butyl. Yes, that butyl is demanding stuff: You have to re-bed it every 25 years whether you want to or not

Thank you for the tips! - The other windows are all in really good shape. The original glazing has shrunk and there are some gaps in it but they don't leak. And the gaps have made good weep holes. My guess on the front one is that he plugged the weep holes and that made it worse. I think I can get most of it off the fiberglass.. Its going to be a nightmare thogh. Since I won't be painting the window frame I was considdering a wire brush on my die-grinder. What do you think about a brass brush? I think maybe I could polish it afterwords. I mean really even if I scratch it all the pieces It would be an improvement!

Here is a question for you... (U being the "expert" on all things sticky) I have been reading lots of posts with your sound advise on adhesives. Since I have no way to cover my rig. What flavor of White Caulk would you recomend that does not take 7 days to cure? I used some 3M below the waterline permanant stuff on the corners of the belly band only to return the next day to having a nice coat of dirt stuck in it!

One more window question.... When I shove it back in? Should I use Pop Rivits like the factory or is there something better?

Thank you for all the help!

Got out there last night and took my angle grinder with a wire wheel on it and went to town. Amazingly enough it worked pretty good. I was suprised to find a solid aluminum window frame under all of that goop. It was a dirty nasty job. I spent 3 hours grinding and scraping. The down side is that the aluminum looks a little strange and there are wire gouges but it is way better looking than it was before. I am pleased with the results. What I did find was the the rubber seal on the tilt up window as rotten and toast. All of the rubber glazing strips were shrunk, and the frame for the tilt open was falling apart. Instead of fixing the window. They used the 3 or 4 tubes of Silicone.

I hope I can find the rubber seals around town. I have never repaired a window before and it's high time I learn how. Does anyone know if that is a material I can find at the hardware store?

Thank you!

Hi David,

I'm sorry I didn't reply to your earlier question. I read it on break at work and was not logged in at the time; later I forgot. Now I don't have time for a long answer (argh).

On the window seals:

1) There have been a few threads here where we discussed part number and fits. If you don't have luck with the FGRV search, try this entered into a Google search box:

text you want to search site:fiberglassrv.com

2) A couple of known sources for seals for the jalousie windows:

a) www.vintagetrailersupply.com

b ) www.interstatemetals.com

There are a couple of others, but this should get you started. Assuming you still have any strength left in your clicking fingers after The Great Silicone Battle.

Raya

Thank you again for all the knowledge!

I was able to pull out all of the seals, clean them up and reuse them. I used laytex glazing caulk with aluminum in it. It is the same color as the original seals. I shot a bead of that into all of the tracks as I re asembled the window panes. I then knocked the rubber seals back in and used the caulking to fill in the gaps. It worked really well. For the seal on the tilt out I used colsed cell weather strip. It made a good positive seal, the hinge has relaxed with age and the extra fluff in the foam makes it close tight.

It took me a while to figure out how to re-install it without having help to push it down while riviting. I used 3" machine screws and ran about 6 through from behind. I then cranked down the nuts from the outside in a nice even torqe patterrn. That sucked the window in to the contur of the shell, and I was able to rivit it back in. I don't know if anyone else has used that method but it worked slick. All in all my first window repair was a sucsess!

I do have one more question? Should I seal the ends of the pop rivits with something?

The dark stuff on the frame is sillicone residue. When I have some more time I will try some remover and see if I can get the rest of it off. I plan on re-doing all of the windows this year. I will see if I can get all the rubber parts from one of those suppliers you listed. The rear windo is next and although it's not in nearly as bad of shape. It has also had a run-in with the silicone monster

Thank you again!

Hi David,

I've always thought those particular Scamp windows were cool. I don't think they used them for very long, so they're a bit rare. I imagine that they are somewhat more prone to leaks than the side windows, being as they are square and have large opening panes, but are on the rounded back end of the camper (in other words, hard to keep tension on the bottom of the pane). Still, if you can keep them sealed they are nifty :yis

Assuming you used "regular" pop rivets, then yes, you should put a dollop of sealer on the very center/outside of the rivet (needless to say, not silicone ). Otherwise you have a hole (in the form of a tube) going through. Typically, one can then fit a vinyl covering strip along the sides to cover up the fasteners. This is mostly for looks, but will also keep the sun/UV off your caulk dollops.

I'm not sure if the vinyl trim will work on your windows due to the radiused corners, but perhaps you can customize it somehow.

Good on you for tackling "the silicone monster." Now you know why I stagger in shock and horror when the word is mentioned

For future reference (or other windows), you can also substitute machine screws for the rivets. I suspect that the main reason rivets were used on our eggs was for time/skill reasons at the factory. After all, they had to be competitive and the campers were made to be affordable for common folks. Rivets are much faster and easier to install in a factory production setting than screws and nuts would be.

Note that you can buy new "operators" for your windows (the crank mechanism). I think that both of the places I mentioned above have them.

Raya