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poriggity's avatar
poriggity
Explorer
Jun 14, 2015

Project "Problem Child"

This thread will be used to document the build and restoration of a project I've dubbed "problem child".

The project in question is a 1988 Lance LC980 slide in truck camper. I inherited this from my in laws. They were tired of paying storage fees on it, so my father in law told me that if I stored it at my house, I could have it. Score!! So, first matter of business was to get the camper out of the storage lot in the desert. Since the truck already had tie downs installed, and I knew the turn buckles were in the camper, I removed my tailgate and we made the 1.5 hour trip to the desert and picked up the camper.



First thing we noticed is that the turnbuckles were not going to work, as they were too short, so we devised a temporary plan for securing the camper to get it home. Combined all 4 turnbuckles to hold down the rear of the camper, and red necked up some ratchet straps for the front. As you'll see farther down in this thread, this has been rectified.

Here she is at home.. squatting the rear end of my 2500 pretty hard...





It was apparent that after a very squishy ride home, the first thing to do is to add either airbags, timbren Suspension enhancement or something else. After a lot of reading reviews on all the major products out there, I settled on timbrens. The cost to effectiveness ratio seemed good, and all the reviews on them have been positive. They replace your stock bumpstops and I'll say they work great. Took me 30 minutes to install, and that included looking for all my tools and putting them all back away. They definetly help with the ride while loaded, as well as getting rid of most of the squat in the truck.



Before timbrens:



After timbrens:



To be continued in next post....

Scott

34 Replies

  • Looks to be a pretty neat camper. And best of all.....FREE!!!
  • MORSNOW's avatar
    MORSNOW
    Navigator III
    Nice job so far, looking forward to the rest of your projects.
  • First matter of business was to clean the inside and make it somewhat liveable. Its been in storage for the better part of 15 years, so the wallpaper was falling off the walls, and there was dust and dirt everywhere. I've been cleaning and cleaning, and as of today, it's about 99% liveable. I need to get the bathroom cleaned. Here are a few pictures of the interior layout.







    First "mod" I did was to change all the small interior bulbs to LED to help with power consumption.

    Led on left, incandescent on the right..



    And I got rid of the ratchet straps and went to chain and turnbuckles. This configuration will change at some point to some sort of fastgun turnbuckles only with no chains.





    In non exciting news, I also spent some $$$ on a new group 27 deep cycle marine battery for the camper, since the current battery was dead and 15 years old. As I do more, I'll continue to update this thread.

    Scott