1993 Scamp 16' repair and remodel

[TheWanderers]

Originally Posted by Borrego Dave

Bill, since you like sanding so much I'm kind of surprised you're not using something electric .

Dave, Laura told me that I had to hand sand. I have an older orbital sander from years back that I may break out and try. This is a lot of sanding...

[emij]

But you are making such good progress and it looks great!

When I was in highschool, my dad and I restored a 1964 Falcon Convertible for me to drive. I wanted that car so bad, but the deal was that I had to help in the restoration. I cannot even tell you how many hours I spent sanding bondo by hand- and getting life lessons from my dad Loved the time I got to spend with him, but I also, HATED sanding!

[TheWanderers]

I bought this orbital sander in 1978 and have used it less than a dozen times. I tried it once on drywall and THAT was a stinkin' mess. Almost choked to death on the dust in an enclosed space. Glad I'm working outside on this job. On the positive side; I've made four times as much progress today than I had expected and this old sander has paid for itself in productivity today!

(I still hate sanding, though.)

[TheWanderers]

It's 92.1° outside this afternoon and we all know what that means don't we kiddos? It's time to get sweaty and work on the camper! Yaaaaaa!!!

And you know what we get to do today, don't you? SANDING!!! Hooraaaah!

So, I figured I might be able to finish off the glass work to seal up the exterior wall and maybe get the new section of floor tabbed in too. Well, everything went pretty smoothly including using the drywall sanding screen. And the cool thing, it's reusable! Once it get loaded with fiberglass yuch, take if off the sander, tap it out, remount and away you go! The combination of the power sander and the sanding screen made this job go soooo much faster.

I still have to finish some final sanding on a few spots but I have it up to 220 grit in most places and I want to hit everything with 320 just to ease out some orbital sanding lines. I may have a few spots to fill it but I was going snow blind by the time I quit.

You can see that I ended up putting quite a bit of fill into some areas that were quite low compared to the surrounding shell and then there's a spot where I had to sand of a substantial portion of the gel coat because that section of the shell was high

I've also included a shot of my tool cart. Laura bought this cart for me and it has turned out to be one of the best "tools" that I've ever had; makes rolling out the mess of tools that I need for a particular project simple and clean up is quick and a lot easier.

We're off to see the new Jason Bourne movie but here are a few images of both the external glass work as well as the new floor tabbed in place. (Somebody's made a dusty mess in there, whew!)

[TheWanderers]

I've been sketching the bench frame for the new bench support that will be doubling as the bed extension. I figure to have this thing knocked together this week.

My first thought was to use 2X4's to construct the frame. I may find myself redesigning the frame and working through several versions so I'm going to use what I have on hand to save money and just see how this works out.

Stay tuned for this new chapter of mods to Ziggy!

[TheWanderers]

I've fabbed up the frame for the side bench/bed extension. I believe this is the first version of this bench. It's not actually screwed in place yet and I've already figured out something that I've messed up and need to modify. If you look closely at these images, you'll notice that the height of the frame matches almost perfectly with the dinette bench. Problem is that I didn't account for the thickness of the plywood that'll be installed for the bench. It seems this is the type of problem that I always forget when producing something. I remembered in the design drawings and actually produced it correctly, with the proper height allowance but when I dry fitted the frame, it looked too short, so I took it out and removed the legs and added new legs to raise the height. (Big dope) Well, I'll have to cut those of tomorrow or the next day.

Notice that I allowed for the 45° angle cut of the dinette bench so there's no hole in the middle of the bed to fall through when you reach down to climb out of bed in the middle of the night.

[Borrego Dave]

Looking good Bill. Don't knock yourself for a few mistakes, that's how we learn. The few people I ever heard say they didn't make mistakes only told me they're only standing still. I remember my Dad telling me when I was around 10 years old, "don't be afraid of trying it, there's always someone that can fix it". I took that to heart and have only had to call in the cavalry twice and I learned from them what I messed up. Money well spent too .

[TheWanderers]

Dave, I consider this "problem" something I deal with regularly. You'd think I'd learn to consider it better to avoid these issues. Oh, well, I also plan to re-work this frame to include mortised joints if the basic design functions correctly. I didn't want to spend any time making the frame "better" by building it simply and getting to use it as a "proof of concept" and if all goes well, I can make it look prettier with cabinet door front or some other type of finished work.

Next step is to adjust the overall height and attach the bench seat, then the bed extension using piano hinges. We have a camping trip planned and I am working to have this modification in place for testing. Stay tuned...

[BucketsGoneWild]

I have just purchased the entire hinge set & am curious about your intent to relocate the hinges. Have you done that and what was the outcome.
Several years ago we replaced the ball part with no change. I was wondering about replacing the door. I have the new rubber gasket but am reluctant to do anything with that until the door warp is corrected.

[TheWanderers]

Buckets, we did not move the hinges. After reviewing the issues and the fit of our door, I decided not to move the hinges, primarily because we don't see any light around our door. It should be noted that the previous owner added some foam insulation as part of the door seal, but we haven't really experienced any issues with the seal.

[TheWanderers]

It was supposed to rain this evening but when the skies cleared, so did my feeling of getting cheated out of being able to work on Ziggy. So, I dragged my skil saw out and cut down the remaining section of 9-ply plywood from the old bed extension as our new bench seat. I don't have the hinges on hand for the next part of this project so I'll be heading to Lowe's for another piece of matching plywood as well as two piano hinges to complete this mod. I plan on fitting a tiny triangle of wood into the space between the dinette bench and the new bench, just for a nicer look.

We're gonna be ready for our next camping trip!

[shaggydoink]

I spent some time with my morning coffee reading through your restoration, you guys have done a wonderful job!!

Jonathan

[TheWanderers]

Jon, you are very kind. Thank you for your gracious words. We've been 'round the world and back again and are looking forward to another camping adventure very soon.

I expect to finish fitting the bed extension/bench seat tomorrow and then Laura will apply some sealant in preparation for use. Pretty excited!

[TheWanderers]

Well, I spent most of Sunday working on Ziggy to complete the bed extension/bench replacement for the stove/refrigerator. I had frame the bench and dry fit the pieces so Laura proceeded to put a coat of poly sealant on all the components while I worked on reconnecting the wiring from the brakes.

After allowing for drying time of the sealant, I used the frame to determine placement of each leg on the floor and drew an outline of the each let on the floor using a sharpie. Then I removed the frame and drilled a hole for each leg through the floor, from the inside of the camper to the outside. This method ensures that I'll hit the leg when I screw from the outside into the bottome of the leg for each part of the bench frame.

Having the frame securely screwed to the floor from the outside, I was ready to attach the bench seat as soon as I rehang the 12v wiring to the bottom of the bench frame. This will protect the wiring from getting tangled in anything stored under the bench.

I used brass colored piano hinges that I bought from Lowe's and first attached the bench seat to the bench frame. Then, I used a second hinge to attach the bed extension to the front edge of the bench seat. The results worked pretty good. The bed extension will require two supports, in the form of stools that have have had the legs cut off at the right height to stand under the bed extension at night. These stools will do dual purpose as extra seating during the day, inside or out.

I'm including extra images of the sewer hose relocated to the bottom of the front section of the frame under the battery. I stopped at Advanced Auto Parks and picked up three 7" hose clamps to attach the hose caddy to the frame. We've removed the hose from the front wall of the Scamp and patched those hole to eliminate the potential for another leak. I don't think this hose caddy location will ever be at risk for grounding out unless we happen to actually go off road.

[TheWanderers]

Here's a shot of the local of hose caddy.

[TheWanderers]

When I made the bed extension the exact same size at the bench, I forgot about the dimension of the wood and the hinge on the back of the bench would need a little room to allow for the hinge flex. Who woulda' guessed I'd forget this, AGAIN! hahaha!

I'll need to trim off about two inches of the bed extension to allow the bench seat to fold up and allow access to the storage space under the bench. Laura and I agreed that we wanted to be able to access the space from both the top of the bench as well as the front of the space, like the dinette, through the doors in the face of the cabinet. I'll make these cuts later; the bed extension functions now and we're ready for our next camping adventure. We're ready to have some fun and put this baby back on the road!

[Carol H]

Originally Posted by TheWanderers

Here's a shot of the local of hose caddy.

I do not think you will have any issues with the hose caddy located under the battery. When I purchased my old Scamp it had a larger diameter PVC located there for the same purpose and it never came close to hitting the ground with the trailer hitch up level .... or perhaps I should say as far as I am aware it never did.

[TheWanderers]

We still have to remanufacture the overhead storage above the dinette, patch various holes in the shell around the A/C slide and install the screen door with the side closet. Also want to install some sort of storage solution inside the closet above the A/C slider. Lastly, install a kick panel to the front of the new side couch.

We plan on painting the exterior shell, maybe this winter, but are undecided about doing it ourselves or hiring the job to a body shop that can paint fiberglass.

Laura is now talking about putting Ziggy in the Christmas parade here in town.

[TheWanderers]

First off; Happy Birthday to me! We took Ziggy out for a shake down camping trip and returned today. While we were out we tested all of our latest and greatest updates and everything worked fabulously!

Special thanks to Ian for the fresh water tank hook up. The camp grounds we went to didn't have water for each site but instead provided an area spigot for people to collect fresh water from or fill your camper on-board holding tanks. Our converted water cooler worked perfectly! We only stayed one night but we only used about 1.5 gallons of water for drinking and washing. Well, we didn't drink only water, ya' know. Shesssssh, it was my birthday party after all

We also tested the new bed extension that worked perfectly, as did our dog exercise pen and the Cobb Grill for cooking breakfast, lunch, dinner AND birthday cake! The cake burned a little, but hey, we ate it anyway. It was still good!

[TheWanderers]

Happy Birthday Bill! (This is Laura) - It was 92 degrees yesterday when we camped. Our A/C mod continued to work flawlessly. Our camper is cool, I mean really cool, after 30 minutes of running the unit. It's only 5000 btu, old window a/c on a drawer slide so it drains outside and boy does it make a puddle. No wonder the floor was rotted out from the A/C draining inside the camper before we made the mod. We continue to be amazed just how well this system is working. It's not loud, and it got so cold in our camper last night we had to get the blanket out. We had company at our camper last night and ate dinner and birthday cake in the scamp in more than pleasant temps. We've seen a lot of A/C posts and I just wanted to note that for some reason our set up is working well.

Also, we removed the old dorm fridge that didn't work as well as we expected and made me afraid of the food inside - we switched to a Yeti cooler and that thing is amazing! Kept food super cold and drinks too. Feeling good about our recent mods. Great job Bill!