You're welcome! I'm always happy to answer questions if you have any, and one of these days I might have a minute to post some new content too!

Thanks! It's taken a year to get to about 1500 subscribers, so it's a slow process, but it picks up some speed over time. Really though this just started as a pandemic project to pass the time, and I hope to keep it up while going back to work regularly. Glad you find the videos helpful!

Ha ha, evidently you did have the exact same camper!

Thanks for subscribing! I've always kind of wanted to do a teardrop, but the opportunity hasn't presented itself yet.

Ha ha, well thanks! Vintage campers are really simple little machines, but they're smartly designed. Make sure you understand how and why they're put together the way they are so that you can take the right notes to put it back together. It's fun and not too difficult for a reasonably handy person!

Yeah, I expected things to be bad, but the material was in reasonably good shape overall. Of course, the wood really needs to be good in some key areas for any of the rest of it to matter.

I look forward to seeing how I do it too, lol! But no, seriously I don't think it'll be too hard.

Your welcome! Sounds like a fun project, let me know if you have any future questions!

Good luck with your camper, and thanks for following along! I think there's going to be some interesting projects that go into this one.

Thanks!

Thanks, it can be a test at times!

Well it's been a slow few months for content between illnesses and an extreme uptick in our business the last two quarters, so we probably haven't been able to push it like we could when we had more free time. But we are still slowly growing in subscribers! Thanks for watching.

Oh, I mean I don't really draw the line, but I honestly prefer the rougher campers to the nicer ones, because anything I do is an improvement. It's also usually quicker/easier/cheaper to just take the measurements, knock it down, and start from scratch! Now, if I'd stumbled on something really rare or in a really good condition I'd probably work to preserve as much of the original craftmanship as possible, but on this Cal-Craft basically everything was toast in spite of the generally "solid" framing. From your description of your Lil' Loafer, I'd say you're going to have to disassemble it all the way down to the frame to get the frame fixed. Now you might be able to remove the walls in one piece and repair them depending on what's left, but it's not a great idea to piece the floor back together so plan on building that from scratch. You might be able to salvage your cabinets though, but be aware that they are likely attached from the exterior (and possibly the interior) so you can't just yank them out easily. Regardless, get those skins off and see what's really there. Then you don't have to speculate about what you're going to need to do.

Screws loosen up over time, and you do need to reseal these campers every seven to 10 years or so, which was their expected lifespan anyway.

For $350 there's almost no camper I'd pass up, but I like a challenge, lol!

Well I swore I wasn't doing another camper without a carport or something, but here we are! Tarps work okay temporarily.

Marking the skin probably wouldn't be that beneficial to you. Most partial repairs would be done by replicating the framing bit by bit and replacing it one piece at a time. The panel, so long as we're just talking about the walls, can be added once the framing is in place, but you may need to remove cabinets in the area to do so. There is more than one way to do a partial repair, so as long as it makes sense to you and it's within your ability to accomplish give it a shot. Building a section of wall might be the easiest approach though. Every camper rebuild is a unique job.

Well, I haven't really decided what to do yet. I was thinking that I'd build directly on top of the old walls, but I'm finding some things that might prevent me from doing that. I'll have a 3D model to use as a plan once all the measurements are taken, but I'll also have to decide if I'm going to make changes to the original design. The curve will definitely be made of thin laminated strips of plywood like the original though.

Hey Sally! Not to put too fine a point on it, but yeah that's a bad idea. :) It'll take you far longer, and it'll be much harder/impossible to do a good job of putting it back together. Now it's a little hard to say without seeing your camper and knowing what your plans for it are, but the way to repair anything on these is to work backwards from the way they were built. So if it's the floor you need to repair, then you need to take the skins off, take the ceiling off, take the walls off, take the cabinets out, then you can get to the floor. It's important to note that the way these were built, and the order in which they were constructed is part of what gives the camper its strength to hold up as it rolls down the road at highway speeds. But if your walls and cabinets are in okay shape, you should be able to reinstall them once you've rebuilt your floor so long as you keep everything very exact to the original sizing. But trust me, once you take the skins off and start taking it apart, you'll see why it's better to do it this way. These things are really easy to build and put together, but the order and the process for how you do it is part of what makes it easy. Good luck!

These weren't clutch head, just regular old Phillips #8 if I remember correctly.

So the short answer is, no. The longer and more qualified answer would be to say, there are SOME repairs that can be done to the walls without removing the skins, but the ceiling or "wrap" has to be repaired without the skins on. But even those repairs that you can do to walls with the skins on, are FAR easier done with the skins off. If you think about it, it's a little like asking if you could repair the roof of a house without taking the shingles off. Even if it could be done, it'd be a million times easier to do it correctly. Regardless, there are a few reasons why you really need the skins off to repair a camper, but when it comes to the ceiling panels those have to overlap the walls and be nailed down into the top edge of the walls. This is not only the easiest and quickest way to attach those panels, but it is critical to the overall strength of the box of your camper. I talk about it a bit in this video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bc2qaK-l3di-gqM.htmlsi=Cwd5Mdl_nYSoAoLu&t=559 Trust me, taking the skins off isn't difficult, and neither is putting them back. Building a camper from the inside out is far more difficult and time consuming, and it isn't as strong and likely to continue leaking. Here's a recent-ish video of me taking skins off: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j9Spoc1zu9SXppc.htmlsi=aYkDRilNI0nk-VyJ Good luck!

I've got a local shop that stocks J-channel so I just replaced it. If yours isn't too beat up, it can worth it to keep it and reuse it, otherwise you can order it from several online places. I think Hemet Valley RV stocks it, and Vintage Trailer Supply.

Well, I don't know anyone near Idaho that's looking for one, but I'm sure she'll find a buyer if the price is reasonable.

@@TrailerTrashtoTreasure That is probably right. Just thought I put the word out to you in case.

Never hurts to ask!

Hard to say. Looked like it was wired to a buzzer under the floor. Maybe an alarm system?

This would've been what they would've called a 15-foot model.

It'd be fun to find out, for sure!

That little thing you found looks like a switch to turn on a light when the door opens, like the one inside a fridge.

Yeah that's another thought, and I thought that at first when I found one in the side hatch, but I didn't find anything that looked like a light fixture inside. I'll trace the wiring back eventually and figure it out.