Rebuild of 1988 Casita 16

[EricAllyn]

Thanks for the ideas -- they sound like a lot of fun.



Can't pull a camper here ....



... but this is a great place. Whale watching in Alaska.

[k corbin]

Originally Posted by EricAllyn

Thanks for the ideas -- they sound like a lot of fun.



Can't pull a camper here ....



... but this is a great place. Whale watching in Alaska.

If you want photos to post here and be visible you need to use a lower resolution setting either when taking the shots or in a photo editing app.

[saucesquatch]

Really enjoying this thread, keep up the good work!

[EricAllyn]

I noticed a small crack in the front -- looks like I missed a small spot in the repair. After a couple of trips and a very hard winter, it showed up. Good thing about working on FG is mistakes can be sanded out and worked over again. So sanded down, put in new glass and epoxy sanded down. Will put on the gel coat when I get back from the trip in June. For now it solid and will see how it holds up in Utah and the area around there. Looking forward to getting on the road tomorrow. I think when I get back going to also rework the belly band area. The metal is just for show, so think I will fill in the little bit of gap and then sand it out and cover with gel coat. I am thinking this summer I will go over the whole outside again and then pick paint colors. time to work on it again.

[Nor Cal Mike]

Eric,
If you get a chance to check your computer while away, Enjoy your trip!
Mike

[EricAllyn]

We just got back from our trip through the national parks in Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Great trip, and now there are a few things to work on. The water pump does not stay tight, so leaks a little. I am going to try something else. I will replace the pumped system, with several blue water jugs in that space, and see if I get along without the pump. We haven't used the stove at all, so will make some storage in that area. Need to check the batteries to make sure they are still good. They did not seem to hold a charge well, several times running down with just the CPAP going. The solar panels worked well giving lots of power when we were able to leave them in the sun all day.
Also want to do something with the bed, we aren't using the table so maybe will get a queen mattress that we fit in. Also likely will build a pull out drawer for storage under the bed.

I will document those as I go along, but will also check over the build to see if anything broke loose. Noticed another place on the front that could use a little touch up. Tomorrow I'll do a complete check and see what else comes up.

[Nor Cal Mike]

Welcome home Eric. We are currently in New Mexico ourselves. Not in the Casita though. We are doing a 3 week house sitting for friends in Llano which is in the mountains 30 miles south of Taos. We pulled our little teardrop out here behind the Subaru for economy's sake and because we have a nice solar adobe house to stay in while we are here. Will return to the Casita for the summer after we get back from this trip.

Forget if we discussed this earlier. If so, ignore the question. Are you using the humidifier with your CPAP? If so that is what might be using up all of your juice. I am running mine directly on 12v from a little lithium-ion batter power station that I got from Amazon. It will run the cpap 4 or 5 days according to what I have read. I haven't used it more than 3 days without charge myself but it was still going strong.

[EricAllyn]

No humidifier just the CPAP. I think I have a bad cell in one of the batteries. If it ever stops raining here, I'm going to pull them out and see how they charge separately. We enjoyed Taos and camped at Mesa Verde for a couple of days, then did the 5 parks in Utah. Was a great trip. Going to set up the bed to stay up, and a pull out drawer for storage.

[EricAllyn]

We have now camped in the Casita for 2 longer trips, and a couple of summers of little stuff. Racked up about 12,000 miles and discovered how we generally camped. Some observations -- we shower in camp showers, occasionally get motel rooms for variety when trying to make more mileage and get across the country, eat in restaurants as we go from place to place, and have only used the awning a couple of times. Crawling over each other at night to go the the bathroom is a hassle, and the A/C is not as effective back inside a cabinet. So now it is time to fix a few things and reshape the inside to fit how we camp.

1. Did not have enough support for the walls and the shell has "rounded out" so will change bracing.

2. Will change the bed so we sleep differently.
3. Take out the water system (seemed that the pex was too rigid at the pump and worked lose every so often, with water leaking while we drove)
4. rework the electrical neater work, and change battery location and weight distribution.

5. make a table we can sit at since bed will be more permanent.
6. Finish all the outside, take down to awning.


I'll include pictures for anyone interested, as this has been a real learning experience. As I was thinking this through I realized there were to basic ways to look at it -- replace a tent camping or replace house living. We started thinking we would have a mini house, and realized we were more interested in having a moveable tent with bathroom and electric. Knowing how we use it, will really help the rework.

[Nor Cal Mike]

Hi Eric,

It is good to hear from you again. As there are many parallels in our Casita experiences, I for one would be very interested in any updates.

Because our big trips this year has been a month long house sitting gig near Taos NM and that we will depart for England & Wales on Sept. 10th, our use of the Casita this year has been very local. No trips in the Casita longer than 150 miles from home. But there have been many weekends jaunts. The primary improvements I wish to make coming up are a good solar power system with lithium batteries, a 12v compressor fridge, and some plumbing improvements. I can report the plywood bulkhead arrangements I came up with has stabilized the walls of our trailer quite nicely.

Best Regards,
Mike

[EricAllyn]

Thanks. I am going to look your supports over as I near that stage. I realized looking at it, that I don't have support all the way to the floor. Nor do they sit on the frame. That has allowed the edge that hangs over the frame to go down and that draws the sidewalls out further and drops the roof line. I think it may also have effected the door. On the original floor, there were screws all through the floor, which connected it to the frame in many places, but with just using the bolts, it is bowed up in the middle, further creating problems. I will try to solve that by making sure I support at the frame position, or take the whole shell off and welding supports further out to the edge. Likely try the support first since its a lot more work to take the shell off, the supports will be needed either way. The plumbing was a bit of a surprise though, and might have been the rough roads we were on, but not really using it was also a little surprising. We will just flush with a little water from a jug, at least until I can figure something else out, like a gravity flow system.

[Nor Cal Mike]

My bulkheads go from floor to ceiling and bear directly to the main chassis rails. There is no movement in them. I bolted them through the floor and ceiling using 5/16" stainless carriage bolts sealed with high grade caulking.

I don't think it is necessary to extend your added mounting brackets out to the edge of the body if whatever support you decide to add bears to the chassis or if trusses the edge of the body enough to make it self supporting as the factory cabinetry does. That said, I am eyeballing a project that will add 1 1/2 sguare steel tubing across my chassis between the body and the chassis. These be approximately the same frequency as the current factory cross members are but will extend to near the outer wall. I will do this not to support my wall but to give me some extra depth in the chassis which will allow me to tuck some waste water holding tanks and plumbing between the chassis rails. I see extending the tubing to the outer edge more as a hard point to tie or jack things from rather than support for the body.

Our trailer originally was a standard which did not come with a bathroom. It did have the customary porta potty that tucked under the forward goucho. My rebuild added a bathroom space but not the head, shower or the plumbing as of yet. We currently only have a nice private space to use our porta potty in. We really only use it for middle of the night bladder relief. Given that we typically stay in primitive BLM or forest service campgrounds equipped with outhouses, we can live without the toilet. What I really want is the shower. Having a shower will allow us to extend our boondocking adventures longer than the 3 days max that we have been doing.

[EricAllyn]

I know it is a long time since I have done anything with the camper. Covid came along and they closed a lot of places, so we bought 80 acres in Missouri that had 50 acres of timber. Have enjoyed that a lot, but wife would like to get back to seeing the National Parks, so I think this summer is time to really clean up the camper, and fix some things that need work. The door did not seal well, so we had a very bad mice infestation, so there will be a lot of work to do. I'll post more from the farm when I pull it out from next to the shed and see the full repair I need to make.

[ChrisRI]

hi Eric this is a great thread because I just started doing the same thing with a 1989
Casita 13.

I have a couple questions even though I have not read through every single post yet, that will happen tonight hopefully

Did your door leak? Did your windows leak?

I have gutted all the old smelly moldy carpeting, and my sandblaster guy is going to take the inside down to bare fiberglass. By the way he'll not really be using sand but a softer media.

I was not aware that some of the interior components maintained vertical support of the shell or keep the sides from bowing out I filled in all the rivet holes with fiberglass already, and I plan to bond the closet and the vanity etc. to the sides and floor when I put the new floor in. I'm pretty good with fiberglass work.

But my main interest is whether the doors on these tend to leak, and also the windows. The windows on this one have a lot of caulking added so I suspect there may be some issues. Not sure how to approach the window and door issue I do not want any water getting inside. Although there will be no carpeting whatsoever. Not on the walls not on the floor. The floor will have no-glue linoleum that can be taken up for cleaning.

[Jon in AZ]

Excessive caulk indicates a lack of understanding of how the windows seal. You probably need to remove the windows, clean up the frame and fiberglass of all the old caulk, and re-install them with fresh butyl tape. That’s the real seal., and done right it should last many years. You can add a small bead of (non-silicone) caulk for appearance.

Search “reseal RV window” on YouTube for videos showing the whole process.

[EricAllyn]

glad the thread is helpful. Jon in Arizona is a GREAT resource! Has a lot of experience and information and knows the Thread well. I found that the doors and windows getting sealed depend on several things. The biggest thing is the butyl caulk. when it gets hot it is pretty soft to work with. That makes it easy to squeeze too thin. Since the windows were riveted in I replaced them with small screws and washers with nuts. I put it nuts inside and also but a little caulk or paint to keep thee threads from getting free. The second thing I noticed was if the FG was not well supported, and matched to the cut-out, it was also a little harder to get well sealed. in older FG trailers, my guess is that often the support was not perfect. A man by the name of NorCalMike had a thread I think called "my broken back Casita" I think, and has a lot of things that he did to support and reset the FG. If you can find it, with would give you a lot of ideas. My door never sealed well because I didn't get the front shape right, and I had tried to get the door reshaped, since the wood in the door was rotten. It gaped which it how it got mice infested, and I am going to rebuild a bunch of stuff. I also bought 80 acres during covid since everything was shut down for a while. When you put stuff back in, remember that there was space taken up by the carpet before the rivets, and make sure to shim to account for that. I did not and that it part of the door issue as well. When I put things together and fix it up, I will make new supports and make sure things seal correctly. Of you have any questions, let me know and I will try to answer them. Also I can try to get some pictures to you. I had a lot of fun with the rebuild and ran about 15,000 miles before covid.

[ChrisRI]

thanks guys very much appreciated

. Interesting about compensating for the carpet when I put the internals back in I hadn't thought of that either. The fiberglass is very thin on these apparently. When I removed the rooftop vent window the hole is definitely not level.

And there is actually a dent in the roof behind the vent window off to one side. Maybe something was laying on it. So what I probably will do is laminate 1/4 inch Marine plywood to the underside of the roof in that area and up and around the vent window. I will sandwich mat with the resin, and push it up against the roof with upright pieces of 2 x 4.

Also ordered a new roof rooftop vent since the one that was on there was all cracked and old with a ton of caulking all around it. The main thing about this is I do not want any leaks.

[EricAllyn]

One additional thought, about the bolts on the floor to hold the FG on the the frame. I think I would use more than the 6 bolts I used. I think part of the ridged frame is dependent on the FG and frame being more together. When I do the work this time, I will add a few more bolts to help with that. I drilled up from the bottom of the frame, then put the bolts through and used large washers top and bottom to spread the force over a larger area of the FG

[EricAllyn]

I put a new fan in as well, and needed to use 1 1/2" to lift it up enough so that it would fit even with the ceiling and not be a head knocker.

[ChrisRI]

thanks, as to the window situation, I just went and looked more closely and all of the windows have been caulked around the outer perimeter to one degree or another, but also more caulking or adhesive against the glass. I'm wondering if there isn't some way that these windows rubber is all shot and has to be all replaced. I'll have to take them all apart and examine them more carefully. It also would help to maybe sit in the rain and see what's leaking and what isn't. I guess I have to learn about the rubber weatherstrip component of these windows or whatever!