1984 Skamper 072S

[85_Ranger4x4]

Updates!

FIL came down to help, I did this 2-3 times while he worked with the trim and eventually we got the inner board out and then worked with it to get the trim off.







I need to pickup a full shank putty knife I can tap on to get the skin off the last board and I think demo for the back is done.

 

[bilbo]

Good to see you're making progress! It's tough with these as I don't think there are really and standards or anything to guess at for method of construction, so disassembly is difficult without ruining something. Everything fights you every step of the way. At least that's how it was when I did mine. Those oscillating tools are an absolute Godsend. I picked up a cordless one this weekend on sale in addition to my corded ones. It's a tool that always seems to come out for something regardless of the project I'm doing.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I snagged mine on sale at K-Mart 10 years ago without really needing it at the time. It has proven to be VERY handy to have around.

I mentioned to my FIL "It is almost like this thing wasn't intended to be repaired..."

The side board is really going to be fun...

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Hammer meet puttyknife. Puttyknife... meet glue.



That actually worked very well.



Now of course as I was measuring crap last fall I couldn't see the foam wrapped around the top a good inch so now I need to rip and re-epoxy my boards.



Kinda hit a wall for the night so I made my rounds and checked out the other three boards. Left side could pass for being new. The back end has been darkened with moisture but it is still sound. Front looks sound. Right side... is pretty well SHOT.

At the back the bolt pulled thru, actually the bolt head is stuck inside the board. It is also tearing apart ahead of the bracket in the picture.



And where they spliced the two boards together towards the front to get a 10.5' board... the short splice is same as flopping in the wind and very crispy. Nothing is disconnected and I could pull it out if I wanted to.



I will see more of the front board when I replace the right one. Going to try to rip the back board with my circular saw to keep progress going and re-epoxy it. Will try to find a table saw for the other three (might as will rip and seal them while I have the epoxy mixed up and before it goes bad)

 

[Uncle Gump]

I don't envy you going through the process... but I'm sure gonna be jealous of the final result.

I had it in my mind you would remove the top all together and flip it over to do all this. More then one way to skin a cat I suppose.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I mentioned removing the roof in a camper board and that seemed akin to pulling an engine to change the oil.

I am hoping the right side comes apart easier since the wood is soft...

 

[Shran]

I totally understand this whole thread and the work required. I had to rebuild half of the rear wall on my slide in camper because the marker lights leaked and everything rotted out. It was almost not worth it but now that it's done, it's done, and has been a great camper for almost 10 years now.

I thought those oscillating tools were the dumbest gimmick ever until my boss bought one for installing electric door strikes that we'd otherwise use a chisel for. Now I have two of my own.

 

[Curious Hound]

I mentioned removing the roof in a camper board and that seemed akin to pulling an engine to change the oil.

I am hoping the right side comes apart easier since the wood is soft...

Im sure a lot of people never bother to make repairs like this. They just trash the old and buy new. Or sell the old stuff to some sucker ambitious guy who thinks he might fix it.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Im sure a lot of people never bother to make repairs like this. They just trash the old and buy new. Or sell the old stuff to some sucker ambitious guy who thinks he might fix it.

Actually it is rather amazing how deep some guys will go into fixing a old pop-up.

My $100 Skamper build

Hey everyone, first post on here, and a long one at that, this is a documentation of the past month or so of my life and to the present day of my Skamper 072s rebuild that I picked up for a cool $100, and proceeded to dump much more then that into it. So let me preface this with a bit of a...

www.wanderthewest.com

The only time I found where somebody took the roof off... was because the roof was caved in and they made a new one.

For some reason nobody really goes into detail when they do what I am doing. "yeah, I fixed the boards" is about it.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

The original wood was 4 ply with almost a veneer so I am glad I didnt get the 3...



I remembered my new circular saw had an adjustable fence... and it worked perfect to rip it down to size.







And I don't know exactly what the help is doing but they sure aren't getting that other board out.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Clamped the board in place and drilled the holes for the lift brackets.



The roof failed mainly because the bolts worked the holes in the wood frame. A little moisture didn't help. In the interest of adding strength while not adding a ton of weight I am running a 1/8"x2.5" strap of steel across the back to tie both brackets together. It should take most if not all the strain off the wood. Some wrap it around the ends but I don't see how that would do much on mine since the roof brackets already wrap around the corner.

So I took my board and transferred the holes to the steel plate (which I spray painted to try to ward off rust. In a perfect world I would have powder coated it.



Then I scuffed up the epoxy on the board, bolted it in place so the holes would locate it and glued it on the roof skin.

 

[bilbo]

(which I spray painted to try to ward off rust. In a perfect world I would have powder coated it.

Or use stainless!

When I did the roof on my Bethany I added quite a bit of reinforcement. The corners had egged out holes both in the wood and the aluminum corners. All but one of the corners was cracked. So I made new corners from 10 gauge stainless.

Got to be careful though. It's easy to get carried away with the reinforcements and have a roof that's much heavier. Mine is stout, but requires a lot of effort to lift. It uses springs to take some of the weight off, but apparently not enough to account for what I've added.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Or use stainless!

Nobody had it.

I really wanted aluminum but my local metal place doesn't stock it either.

Steel is probably better than aluminum anyway structurally but I don't want my canvas getting rust streaks.

 

[Uncle Gump]

DANG!

I thought I had to many C-Clamps...

Are there any to be had in Iowa any more?

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

DANG!

I thought I had to many C-Clamps...

Are there any to be had in Iowa any more?

Orchelin's had three packs (3", 2" and 1") on sale for $4 each... so I grabbed 10.

One thing I discovered doing the boards was that quick grips are kinda weak.