Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

[andosfauxtos]

We've had our 1999 Coleman Nevada for two years and love it. All the appliances work (except the hot water heat, which I can't figure out but isn't a big deal). The canvas is good, it tows great behind my Envoy, it's a good size for our family of four, and now the kids are sentimentally attached to it. So that's the good.

Now the bad. Because it's a late 90's Coleman, it has roof problems. It's cracked pretty good and starting to de-lam. I can probably get one more year out of it with a few more Eternabond strips, but at some point I'll need to pull off the ABS and Grizzly Grip it. The front storage box leaked when I got it, but I managed to fix that. However, a portion of the storage box floor is pretty rotted out. Thankfully, it's in a front corner away from the main cabin floor. That said, I did discover some rot under one of the dining booth benches that I think is caused by water coming in the seam between the storage box and the main body of the camper. It's still not a huge area and I think I could cut out the rot and put in some new wood.

My main concern though, is the bulkhead separating the storage box from the living area. I think it also has some rot. It's not too bad yet, but the bed on that end seems a little saggy on one side, so it seems like that bulkhead has lost some integrity.

We had planned to do quite a bit of refreshing on the inside, painting the cabinets, new floors, etc.

I guess I'm wondering, how difficult is it to replace that bulkhead and is it worth it? We got a good deal on the camper two years ago and we really like it, but I'm wondering if its worth the work. I'm at the point where we either go all in or start looking for our next pop-up. I like the IDEA of just going for it, but I also don't want to get out of my depth. I'm semi-handy and not afraid to try things, but I also don't want to have to find a way to unload a dissassembled PUP I had to give up on.

Thoughts?

 

[Arruba]

My take, if you have average carpentry skills, tools and the place/space to do it, I'd consider fixing it. There really isn't that much "stuff" to it. I don't own a Coleman, but I've worked on two Vikings and my old Caveman truck camper to have an idea what it takes. Probably as important as skill is patience.

good luck with your choice.

 

[Sjm9911]

Rip off the front storage box and fix the wall, close it up, you dont need the water heater since you dont use it. Replace with sheat metal or a truck box. The roof isnt bad to do, and it will not leak, take some pictures and let us see the damage? Will cost some to get it on shape. But ots doable.

 

[McFlyfi]

I don't know, but always love a The Clash reference...

 

[andosfauxtos]

Rip off the front storage box and fix the wall, close it up, you dont need the water heater since you dont use it. Replace with sheat metal or a truck box. The roof isnt bad to do, and it will not leak, take some pictures and let us see the damage? Will cost some to get it on shape. But ots doable.

I know a lot of people have replaced the ABS storage box with a truck box or a fabricated replacement. I'm not too confident in my fabrication skills, but a truck box could be an option. I did just notice today the box is starting to crack on the lower part of the front, so that will definitely need to go if I dive full in. Anybody have a good truck box they used as a replacement?

I tried to search the Portal for posts of someone who has replaced the bulkhead (if that's even what its called) on a Coleman to get an idea of how to do it, but couldn't find any.

I'll try to get some photos up in the next couple days so folks can see what I mean.

 

[Tarkus]

I would say fix it. I found it more difficult to remove the ABS end-caps to beef up my front and rear bulkheads than it was to fix.
The darn things are difficult to disassemble if you don't know how they are constructed.

But, once I figured it out, it was rather easy to repair. Actually, now that I have done it, I reassembled everything in such a way so that future fixes are even easier.

As for the roof, there are many ways to do that fix. I replaced my ABS roof with steel siding with a total cost of about $250, and now I have a hail-proof, winter-proof roof.

Am I handy? Not really, just frugal and desperate. I'm happy with my results and my fixes will out last me.

 

[andosfauxtos]

Finally able to take the Shangri-La this weekend and grabbed some pics of the issues with the storage box. I really like how much I can fix in this thing and I'd lose a lot of space by going to a truck box or similar. Losing the hot water heater would make up for some of that, though.

Anyway, as you can see, something needs to be done.