Cait's 1964 Winnie Restoration

2010-11-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

Letting go is hard....

My health post surgery is good but I'm still not up to working on the camper like I'd hoped. I've decided to put her up for sale in order to pay some bills from all the time off I accumulated this fall. :(

She's a GREAT little camper and will make someone a beautiful restoration. It's just not going to be me. Asking $650, somewhat negotiable to the right home. Email trainsdogs@gmail.com

Please feel free to forward this to anyone. :(

Brief hiatus

2010-09-24T17:05:00.001-07:00

This blog is briefly on hiatus- I have had my back surgery and am recovering at my parents'. Blog updates will be sparse until I'm actually home to UPDATE and there is some progress.

2010-08-27T01:54:00.000-07:00

My boss is an electrical engineer, if you actually look at his degree, even though he hasn't worked in one in a very long time. He's volunteered to help me with the camper (actually, he said he would do it, because he was afraid of me setting myself, the camper, or something else on fire and/or electrocuting myself, and then he would have to do the weekly maintenance on our servers himself.) Anyway, so theoretically, I probably don't NEED to learn how all this works - but I might need to repair it, and I feel like I really OUGHT to know.
Some links I've found useful:
http://www.marxrv.com/12volt/12volt.htm
http://mikenchell.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=37732
More on my plans for the actual system tomorrow.

My little brother finished grad school earlier this month and is temporarily back here in Dallas while he hunts for a new job. He's going to help me with some of the manual labor of getting the camper re-built on the inside. Hopefully I'll have some real progress photos soon.

Sorry for the lack of updates!

2010-08-25T01:28:00.000-07:00

But it's just been too hot to work, and we've been spending time swimming at the lake instead of sweating in the yard. I've recruited some manuel labor to help me build in the bed platform as soon as it cools off a little, and progress should be made soon-ish.

I'm going to lose the second half of September and probably all of October to some long-put-off surgery to help with my back problems, so I'm hoping to get the 'heavy lifting' in before then and be down to light panelling and painting and stuff. We'll see- that's probably overly optimistic.

At this point, my goal is to have the Little Dream ready to hit the road for some camping by January, and fully completed by next May so that I can do some volunteer workcamping for an extended summer vacation in Oregon or Washington.

Thank you Nancy!

2010-08-08T22:03:00.000-07:00

My friend Nancy Wright saved me the old 12v lights from her Rialta that she and her husband upgraded over the weekend! Thanks Nancy! We'll find them a great new home. :) I haven't really done anything over the weekend. I swept out the camper, sat in it and thought about floor plans, and that's pretty much it. It's been horribly hot, and I just don't have the energy to do much in this heat.

Speaking of floor plans- looking at Rusty's camper (link in the previous post) has really solidified in my head what the original layout of my camper must have been. (uneven dinette, with a cabinet at the end of the bench on the driver's side; stove and sink (under a board) on the counter), and cabinets overhead all over the place. I'm not sure I want to go back to this layout. I know I want the bed to sleep two, and I'm contemplating giving up a little of the center aisle to make it two wider singles- it can still function as a dinette, there just wouldn't be much leg room. If I did that, I might do velcro-ed down curtains along the sides of each bench, so that the space under the opposing bench could be foot room when it's serving as a table. Restoring the fold-down bunk in the rear could be storage space (or kid-bunk, for the planned visit from Emmy and Dea next year. :D)

Since I'm hoping to have the camper at least USABLE for the 9/24-25 campout at Joe Pool Lake, my goals for the next few weeks are to get the hitch installed, lights tested, and then get the new flooring laid down and the wall panelling installed. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the closet (beyond that I know I want a mirror on the door) or the counter. I'm contemplating either a melamine counter top or a temporary stand in (maybe sheet vinyl and an almuinum edge?) and a curtain to cover the opening. I'm contemplating using wire basket shelving underneath there (like the Container Store 'elfa' storage system). Curtains in front of the drawers under the counter- which could be replaced with cabinetry in the future.

On the sides of the benches, I'm also thinking about putting curtains on the benches rather than cabinet doors (at least temporarily), but instead of having them be 'curtainy, I'm thinking abut using velcro at both the top and the bottom and making them out of heavy duty upholstry 'barkcloth' type stuff, or the leather-textured vinyl. (Additionally? Velcro and fabric? I'm SO THERE.)

I don't think I'm going to be able to get this done before the campout. Not gonna happen- not since I alwao want to get the outside patched and at least primed before then. :P So my goal is to get the flooring laid down, and the wall insulation and panelling up. That, in addition to the hitch (and the lights) should get me set to go. At that point, I can camp in there with a sleeping bag and an air mattress.

Hand sanding is for the birds....

2010-08-07T05:08:00.000-07:00

My sander can't get here fast enough!

We had some thunderstorms yesterday evening and the temperature dropped to 85 F. I promptly decided to work on the camper between bands of storms. I didn't want to start patching because of the rain, but though I'd work on some of the crappy paint that I want to sand off, since I'd rather not just paint OVER the top layer of crap. The answer to that is WAY TOO MUCH, at least iwth hand sanding. We'll see what happens when the sander gets here.

It's a cool 75 degrees this morning (and rising, with 99.something% humidity, ugh), and I'm skipping out on camper work this morning to go hiking with my friend Courtney and her dogs Thor and Fran (unless the trail is closed, which would figure!) Then off to the Metro Golden Retriever Club fun match with Kaylee.

Plans proceeding apace

2010-08-06T12:57:00.001-07:00

I feel so, so clever and crafty.
I just ordered a palm sander (A 5″ Porter-Cable Random Orbit Sander) off Amazon. (Thanks Awesome Handy Curtis for deciphering the specifications for me and figuring out what would work best for what I plan to use it for. Curtis belongs to Emily @ Dreameyce.)
Also, today I went to the auto parts store and bought Bondo, which has a bunch of scary warnings on it but will apparently be exactly what I need to fix the dents in my camper.
I found a blog with photos that have confirmed for me that this trailer is almost certainly a 1964 Winnebago. That blog is located here. (I’d put it in the blog roll but the writer sold the unit after restoring it and it’s no longer being updated.) There is one small difference that isn’t accounted for by the inside of my camper being stripped, and that’s the quilted-patterned siding at the bottom edge of my camper, which isn’t present on the one on the other blog. I’ll continue to research.
I’ve drawn up a variety of floorplans but I’ve got a ways to go before having to make a final decision, so I’m just spending a lot of time thinking about which one will work best for me.

She's home!

2010-08-02T12:55:00.000-07:00

(originally posted over at Gypsy Hearts)

(I may be moving RV posts to their own blog- anyone have any opinions?) I know most of the dog people on my blogroll probably could care less!
Anyway, Jessica and I (along with WHV puppy Reed) drove down to Mabank today in her Ford Escape (my car doesn’t have the hitch on it yet) and picked up the camper. Along the way, we stopped (immediately, and yes, it was a planned stop!) and got some new tires for the camper. The tire store folks were very kind to us, and hitched and unhitched the trailer (I need practice, but greasing the hitch so it doesn’t require a hammer will help, as will it NOT being 105F- my brain shuts down about 99F and I start feeling awful around 101F and just staying upright becomes Interesting.) and installed the new tires while we ran down to the auto parts store and picked up a set of magnetic towing lights so we could be legal, as the electric connector on Jess’s towing hitch didn’t match up with the connector on the trailer!
Mike, the fellow I bought the trailer from, is apparently as much of a camper junkie as I am, because over the weekend while he’d waited for me to pick up the mystery camper, he’d found himself another project- a 13′ 1964 Shasta! (no wings, though!). It may be up for sale, and it’s already restored, so if anyone in Texas is interested, drop me a comment and I’ll forward you his information.
Getting the camper into the driveway was another adventure, but we got it in (with some assistance from the guys across the street), and she’s now sitting in my driveway, waiting for me to start work on her.

2010-07-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

My birthday present to myself – thanks Mom & Grandmother (who don’t read the blog and Do Not Approve of This Camper Nonsense).
She’ll need a lot of work, but has already had most of the really hard parts done (mouse sh!t removal, major leak repair, and stripped down on the interior) but she’s going to be just perfect for me and plenty light to tow with my Pontiac Vibe. (I love my car, I can’t believe they aren’t making them anymore! Boo!)
The camper is a mystery camper- title and registration are LONG lost, but I suspect may be a Winnebago from 1962-1964 or a Midjet that’s even a bit older than that. (The Winnebago is somewhat more likely numerically, but I believe Mid-Jets may have been made in Texas or OK as I’ve seen a number of others for sale locally.) She’s 10′ and features a dinette, tiny closet that previously housed a portapotty, and a counter where a stove sat on top, which PROBABLY had an icebox mounted underneath (but which has been ripped out. Plans are still pending, and Jessica and I are going to pick it up on Monday!