Bigfoot B13.5 Interior Wall Covering Reno

[John DM]

I need to recover the interior walls of my 1987 Li'l Bigfoot. The walls are foam insulated with a soft material covering that is now drooping and peeling. I may take it to a auto/marine upholstery shop to get a new fire retardant material installed.
Any other suggestions or restoration ideas would be appreciated.
The attached picture is from the brochure of what it looked like new.
John DM

[slimmit]

look into automotive or marine headliner or hull liner. its relative inexpensive and if your handy, you could probably do it yourself . I just completed my boler with marine hull liner and marine headliner and apart from my time and a little spray adhesive, super easy. Need two people to do large areas, so you can get it on straight..If you didn't know. FYI, All the liners on these trailers go in first before the furniture. I've got pictures if you want to see.

[John DM]

Thanks slimmit. I went and looked at some marine hull liner material today (J Ennis Fabrics: Sea Galley collection) and got an estimate. I am going to spend a few extra bucks and have the shop do it. About $2,000 material & labour. I am going to spend a few extra bucks and have the shop do it. I'll post a picture once I get it done.

[koots_roots]

i need to do the same for my lil big. wish i could afford the shop to do it, but not at that price! slimmit, what and where did you source for your replacement? thanks

[slimmit]

I purchased my material from Georgian Bay Ontario Canada - Sunbrella Boat Tops, Canvas Covers, Custom Biminis, Marine Upholstery, Boat Fabrics & Carpeting - JT's Top Shop
Check under hull liner/headliners. Prices are in canadian$ Lots of Colorado to choose from.
Also check out sailrite website and watch the videos. Shows how to install headliner and make cushions and such.

[Perry J]

I completely renewed a Lil Bigfoot a couple of years ago.
I had the same wall covering problem.
I removed all of the interior cabinets including the seats.
I removed all of the fabric and left the foam.
I like the material Scamp uses and could not find any on the West Coast so I bought it from Scamp and had it installed by a local auto upholstery shop.
The Rat Fur from Scamp was about $300.00 and labor was $400.00.
You will have a much better job if you gut the trailer before you redo the walls.


John

[skogan]

We redid the walls in our Lil Bigfoot with hull liner/rat fur from Outback (Team Trillium) in Calgary. We ended up doing a partial gut, leaving the kitchen and all upper cabinets in place. We left most of the original wall covering on and cut open the sagging areas and re-glued it with 3M aerosol adhesive. We glued the rat fur over top and tucked the edges under the cabinets and roof section. We had removed the benches and closet to replace the flooring and wall panels so those areas were easy to work with. That was two years ago and so far so good, no new sags or releasing areas. If I remember right the cost was under $400 including the glue which we ended up not using.

[skogan]

Unfortunately we never took pictures while re-doing the interior, here is the only one I have that kind of shows how it turned out.

[John DM]

Thanks for all the tips and inspiration. I worked all weekend pulling the Lil Bigfoot apart. That old material and glue is very hard to remove to bare foam/fibreglass (see picture of old stuff). I'll probably almost gut it, so I can do flooring and other mods too. Hopefully I can do most myself.

[John DM]

Thanks Skogan. I just noticed those under-cabinet braces you added. Nice modification! I will have to copy that when I put everything back together. The shelving is prone to detaching from the thin plywood beams glued to the fibreglass, and the plywood beams are prone to detaching from the fibreglass. I just need to determine the best adhesive to use: plywood to fibreglass. I see there is a few posts about that topic. Cheers!

[skogan]

Our cabinets hadn't started sagging yet so the braces were more of a pre-emptive measure. On the front corner by the door we had no existing panel to screw into so we ran a strip of 1/4 inch plywood from the floor to the cabinet glued to the wall and put the rat fur over top of that. The bracket was then screwed into that.


From what I have read the best way to re-attach the plywood to the shell is to fibreglass them on. If we end up doing a full gut down the road that is what I plan to do.


How are your windows? We just got ours refurbished by Sunview Industries in Summerland BC, they made the original windows in these trailer. They put new plexiglass and seals in the end windows and replaced the sliders, seals and screens in the side windows. Cost was $400.

[John DM]

I finally finished the interior renovation! After a complete interior gutting, the wall covering is now marine fabric, new wall/ceiling panels are FRP fiberglass, the cabinets were patched up/stained/re-mounted, along with upgraded electrical and plumbing. I did most myself, except for the fabric install. I re-sealed the windows so everything is good for now, but will consider new thermal windows from Sunview soon. Now ready to roll and enjoy