Saturday, July 1st 2017 I bought a pop up camper for $150.00 when my wife and I were checking out some yard sales. The asking price was $200.00 OBO. The guy opened the pop up Friday for the season and realized the roof had leaked so he put it up for sale. When we looked at it today (Saturday) you could tell it was more or less a fresh leak. I figured that if I could not repair it then I would make it so the top was a tent. As long as the crank lifting mechanism worked it would leave a lot of options. The box is approximately 8' long and 6' wide, so its a smaller one.
The goal is to sell my 99 Coleman Utah Pop Up that I bought last summer for taking out to state land and for bug out purposes, replace it with the project pop up and then use most of the funds from the sale to help pay off my sons hospital bills. Not a fair trade off but you do what you have to do I guess. The Coleman is a nice pop up with a slide out, stove, 3 way fridge, furnace and a cassette toilet. I like the Coleman because they used molded corners so there are no seams to pop open.
Heck, for the price of $150.00 I am going to camouflage it woodland and I am probably going to have my buddy do some welding jobs. Reinforce the bumper adding a hitch. Add a bike carrier, weld some Jerry can mounts for water cans. Maybe put a rack on the roof if I can get light weight material. It would be a nice way to haul duffle bags or other lightweight gear when going out into the field. One con that I see is the tires, there pretty small but with the lightweight of the camper my truck could just drag the camper over an obstacle. Anybody have a suggestion to overcome the small tires?
After I got it home I lifted the roof and put the tent portions out. I wanted to air it out and start the drying process. I also put a tarp on it that covered the roof and tent sections but just wide enough to overhang a couple of feet. Now it is protected from rain but the windows are still free to get airflow.
Some of the things that I noticed is that the walls of the roof where I checked all seemed to be dry and in good order. Both plywood bed ends need to be replaced. There is rot on the outward ends. I still have to start pulling down the interior ceiling to open it up to dry. Almost all of the tenting material is in pretty good shape. There is one zipper that needs repair work. It is coming loose from the window.
While looking through the counters and anything with a door I noticed some one removed the water tank. That's a bummer. I didn't see a furnace which sucks but I have a Big Buddy propane heater that I can use. It has the counter top propane stove(no oven). I'll have to look out for one of those portable cassette toilets for times when a cat hole latrine is not possible.
So the journey begins. Anyone having any suggestions or ideas feel free to comment even if has nothing to do with repair work. I may or may not take you up on your suggestion, everything is up in the air.
The goal is to sell my 99 Coleman Utah Pop Up that I bought last summer for taking out to state land and for bug out purposes, replace it with the project pop up and then use most of the funds from the sale to help pay off my sons hospital bills. Not a fair trade off but you do what you have to do I guess. The Coleman is a nice pop up with a slide out, stove, 3 way fridge, furnace and a cassette toilet. I like the Coleman because they used molded corners so there are no seams to pop open.
Heck, for the price of $150.00 I am going to camouflage it woodland and I am probably going to have my buddy do some welding jobs. Reinforce the bumper adding a hitch. Add a bike carrier, weld some Jerry can mounts for water cans. Maybe put a rack on the roof if I can get light weight material. It would be a nice way to haul duffle bags or other lightweight gear when going out into the field. One con that I see is the tires, there pretty small but with the lightweight of the camper my truck could just drag the camper over an obstacle. Anybody have a suggestion to overcome the small tires?
After I got it home I lifted the roof and put the tent portions out. I wanted to air it out and start the drying process. I also put a tarp on it that covered the roof and tent sections but just wide enough to overhang a couple of feet. Now it is protected from rain but the windows are still free to get airflow.
Some of the things that I noticed is that the walls of the roof where I checked all seemed to be dry and in good order. Both plywood bed ends need to be replaced. There is rot on the outward ends. I still have to start pulling down the interior ceiling to open it up to dry. Almost all of the tenting material is in pretty good shape. There is one zipper that needs repair work. It is coming loose from the window.
While looking through the counters and anything with a door I noticed some one removed the water tank. That's a bummer. I didn't see a furnace which sucks but I have a Big Buddy propane heater that I can use. It has the counter top propane stove(no oven). I'll have to look out for one of those portable cassette toilets for times when a cat hole latrine is not possible.
So the journey begins. Anyone having any suggestions or ideas feel free to comment even if has nothing to do with repair work. I may or may not take you up on your suggestion, everything is up in the air.
