84 Shasta Motorhome Rebuild/ Repair

[Mudshovel]

Hello all I'm new to this forum and after reading for 2 soild days of oldtrucker63 Dodge rebuild has really inspired me to share my project.
Here is go's....
In the begining there was a CL ad, a poorly taken care of motorhome and a dumb guy (me) willing to buy it! lol, here is what I ended up with:
1984 Shasta - unsure if there is a model name.
Built on a Ford E350 Club Van chassis powered by a 460 big block backed with a C6 transmission.
Has 103k miles and runs and drives like a champ! (except the 6 square tires)
I knew this was a project, well more like of a piece of******but have love for things like this and it turns out it was in better shape than I expected but was in serious need of repair.
The seller didn't really know much about it and had vey little to tell me. The asking price was 600.00 and I talked hime down to 400.00 and sight unseen me and my brother were off to bring it home. Well when we got there It seemed a little worse than I thought but the seller said "it fires right up and everything works......" (then the "except" part came in) but the fridge and "I can't get the genset to stay running annnnnnnd there is some impact damage to the overhead bunk, and I think one of the windows is broke. I'm thinking to myself your unsure of this? lol then the story comes out that he barrowed it to somebody and they hit a tree and his fix was a plastic tub lid and 2500 feet of blue painters tape lots of plastic and enough staples to buil a whole motorhome!! Well after walking around this thing I said sure I'll take it as that was my terms of the sight unseen 200.00 off the asking price deal we made on the phone. So I started it up and it fired right up and ran great!, then I started smelling gas and looked under and sure it was pouring all over the ground!! damn, not going to drive it home now. I made the deal anyways and he had no problem if it sat for a few days so I could fix it or get it towed. So I handed him the cash and got the paperwork and headed home.
The next day I dove back to the MH and looked into what was leaking, could not get the engine cover off due to the welded nut in the body was broke free and spun so I had to pop the rivits out of the clamp and deal with it later. The source of the leak was the accelerator pump no big deal, it was a Motorcraft version Holley and they have not changed that pump desigin in years so off with the carb and to the auto parts store. I got the pump, installed it and she was running again!! and good! prepaired it to run down the road and away I went. Had no problem this thing runs smoother than my late model vehicles. on the way home I stoped a Uhaul and filled the propane tank and made it all the way home and put in a long term parking spot in the yard, because I knew I had some work to do, lots of work to do!
Well that's the beginning, I will try to figure out how to post pic and will get a visual up!

[Mudshovel]

tenbear wrote:
Looks great! It must give you a great feeling of accomplishment to see things coming together.

Thank you, and it does. I just wish I was further along 🙂

[Mudshovel]

Scottrn wrote:
Subscribed!
Nice work so far, mines not as involved but I appreciate you documenting it all!
What do you plan on covering the cab corners with?

Thank You!
There are plastic cab corners for the outside and I'm not sure what I will use on the inside, original there was thick cardboard covered vinyl. I believe they do this due to flex in the chassis. I was thinking some type of foam backed fabric. That would give me the flex and fit the ireagular shapes.

We'll see, I have not worked on this thing in a while and have not gave up just haven't had the time But i will here soon now that the summer is almost over. One thing is for sure, I need a new tarp! lol

[tenbear]

Looks great! It must give you a great feeling of accomplishment to see things coming together.

[Scottrn]

Subscribed!
Nice work so far, mines not as involved but I appreciate you documenting it all!
What do you plan on covering the cab corners with?

[BoxerPitMix]

Great progress, thanks for sharing!
I started on the LQ of my horse trailer last weekend... I need to start a thread on it.

[DaHose]

Nice progress. It's starting to show some light at the end of your tunnel.

Jose

[Mudshovel]

Hello all, I got the bunk floor done this Sunday and some of the nose and LH upper wall started. I have to say this was by far the hardest part of this project. A few post back I mentioned that the camper and van body had racked itself and even pulled back a whole 1" on the LH side. I fought this for hours using jacks and cables to pull this thing as close as I could to being somewhat square and well it turned out ok'ish I was unable to get the LH side pulled forward as much a I would have liked to, in short the LH side is a 3/4" back from the RH side and sits a 1/4" higher than the RH side. I figured it was not very square from the factory and I'm sure get got racked from running into the tree and I have noticed this MH has been wrecked a few times so all in all I think it's going to be alright, that is what trim work is for, right? lol
Here are some pic's

This was the start of the day, this is the first time since I got this I have pulled back the tarp.



Removed the forward window and removed the nose, I would really like to replace this section of metal and delete the forward window, anybody have any good ideas on where to get thin sheet aluminium?



Got the bunk floor all squared up and screwed down (or up).

Right side cab corner all squared and screwed.

Got the left side as square as I could. I worked on this for some time but as I said earlier the impact from the tree really racked/ bent the frame a bit, I almost felt like giving up and tossing this project because I couldn't get it perfect. we will see what kind of magic I can performe with the corner triming.



Got the first 4' section of the inside panel up, this panel was the easiest one so far to cut and fit! Notice the super sag in the roof, looked into roof and found yeah the wood is rotten but the metal bar has a hole cut in it for the forward light wiring and it has broke. I can see the roof is going to need more love than expected.



And last I started installing the interior paneling from the bottom up. This was a bit tricky puting the panel first the the framing, as you can see I have not finishe the top panel I was running out of day and had a HUGE mess to clean up in the yard. I will likely leave the last 8 inch panel and some framing out until I get up to the roof so I can graft it all into eachother.
Well that's were I'm at right now my goal is to get the wall done by the end of the month but I'm hung up on the genset, need to get that all done up and installed before I get all of the wall up.
Stay tuned!

[Mudshovel]

BoxerPitMix wrote:

Mudshovel wrote:

BoxerPitMix wrote:

Mudshovel wrote:


I checked out your camper I like the choice of paneling and the rough cut cedar but my favorite is the indirect lighting at the floor line. I'm going to steal that idea for my motorhome!
Seeing your work I can only emagine what you could do to a older model class A. Mine did turn out to be a little more rougher than I would have liked but fortunately the real expensive stuff like drive train and apliances (except the fridge) all work great, the rest is just wood, glue and staples and I didn't pay much for it and really don't have that much money into it so far. I do have a bunch of labor invested but I don't really count that when it's for myself.

Well happy hunting (craigslist) I try to stay away as there is always some kind of project to buy!

Thanks! The indirect lighting I thought was pretty cool, too! I actually picked up about $500 of supplies to start my horse trailer LQ yesterday, and looked for those lights - Couldn't find them anywhere! I got the ones in the pictures at Lowe's, but neither Lowe's or HD had them. Gonna have to look up some stuff online.
For the walls in my LQ I'm gonna go with the birch paneling just like I put in that popup 36" up with some sort of chair rail, then from there up to the ceiling is going to be covered in a fake leather I found at Hobby Lobby. Sounds wierd, but it actually looks great. If you google horse trailer LQ's you'll see a lot of them do that(Sierra conversions are some of my favorites, they do that a lot).

If all the appliances/etc work great, I'd keep them! I fixed up an old motorhome a little bit for a guy (nearly identical to yours) and I just painted everything an off-white color. Made a world of difference from the old dark brown!

I checked out them horse trailer LQ conversions, wow some of them are very fancy. Are you converting the whole trailer or are you making LQ's and still have room for the horeses? or are you doing it all for the horeses? lol. I really like to see how this turns out for you. Start a post!

[BoxerPitMix]

Mudshovel wrote:

BoxerPitMix wrote:

Mudshovel wrote:


I checked out your camper I like the choice of paneling and the rough cut cedar but my favorite is the indirect lighting at the floor line. I'm going to steal that idea for my motorhome!
Seeing your work I can only emagine what you could do to a older model class A. Mine did turn out to be a little more rougher than I would have liked but fortunately the real expensive stuff like drive train and apliances (except the fridge) all work great, the rest is just wood, glue and staples and I didn't pay much for it and really don't have that much money into it so far. I do have a bunch of labor invested but I don't really count that when it's for myself.

Well happy hunting (craigslist) I try to stay away as there is always some kind of project to buy!

Thanks! The indirect lighting I thought was pretty cool, too! I actually picked up about $500 of supplies to start my horse trailer LQ yesterday, and looked for those lights - Couldn't find them anywhere! I got the ones in the pictures at Lowe's, but neither Lowe's or HD had them. Gonna have to look up some stuff online.
For the walls in my LQ I'm gonna go with the birch paneling just like I put in that popup 36" up with some sort of chair rail, then from there up to the ceiling is going to be covered in a fake leather I found at Hobby Lobby. Sounds wierd, but it actually looks great. If you google horse trailer LQ's you'll see a lot of them do that(Sierra conversions are some of my favorites, they do that a lot).

If all the appliances/etc work great, I'd keep them! I fixed up an old motorhome a little bit for a guy (nearly identical to yours) and I just painted everything an off-white color. Made a world of difference from the old dark brown!

[Mudshovel]

sprint180 wrote:
I can't wait to see this when you are done. I am jealous. I had a little camper that I wanted to redo but soon figured out I was the only one to work on it, which didn't bother me. I also figured out that I didn't have the skills, which I could probably have faked but also didn't have the tools needed. Finally gave it to some kids in my boys class to gut and rebuild. Now that I've seen it I want it back!

Well stay tuned/ subscribed any I promise it will get done at some point 🙂

I have to give thanks to all the cheap Harbor Frieght tools that have got me this far (lol) or a person could go very broke buying what thay need from like Home Depot etc.
And eBay for all the overstock, vintage and random RV parts!
Oh and Craigslist for giving me such a project.
I've struggled a bit at times on this project as I don't really have anybody for help either and so far have been the only person to work on this thing, I do hope I can get my brother over to help with the bunk floor tonight..... we'll see.

Thanks for your interest!

[sprint180]

I can't wait to see this when you are done. I am jealous. I had a little camper that I wanted to redo but soon figured out I was the only one to work on it, which didn't bother me. I also figured out that I didn't have the skills, which I could probably have faked but also didn't have the tools needed. Finally gave it to some kids in my boys class to gut and rebuild. Now that I've seen it I want it back!

[Mudshovel]

BoxerPitMix wrote:

Mudshovel wrote:

BoxerPitMix wrote:
Subscribed. 🙂

I've done a couple of camper rebuilds, but never a motorhome... I had a ton of fun doing them. This gets me excited and gives me the bug to buy another to remodel!

Great work you're doing!

I did a slide-in camper and although I have not put the fishing touches on it, it turned out great! I once did a full motorhome re-frame, that however did not turn out well at all, it never made to completion, it's motor was donated to a tow truck and all the new doors and vents etc are all still packed away in a storage unit in Wisconsin.
I WILL finish this one...... I hope!

The biggest overhaul I think I've done is a popup camper.

http://s27.photobucket.com/user/blackhighrider/library/Camper?sort=3&page=1

Still not as big of a project as your motorhome! I was trolling craigslist yesterday after reading your thread! 😄

I checked out your camper I like the choice of paneling and the rough cut cedar but my favorite is the indirect lighting at the floor line. I'm going to steal that idea for my motorhome!
Seeing your work I can only emagine what you could do to a older model class A. Mine did turn out to be a little more rougher than I would have liked but fortunately the real expensive stuff like drive train and apliances (except the fridge) all work great, the rest is just wood, glue and staples and I didn't pay much for it and really don't have that much money into it so far. I do have a bunch of labor invested but I don't really count that when it's for myself.

Well happy hunting (craigslist) I try to stay away as there is always some kind of project to buy!

[BoxerPitMix]

Mudshovel wrote:

BoxerPitMix wrote:
Subscribed. 🙂

I've done a couple of camper rebuilds, but never a motorhome... I had a ton of fun doing them. This gets me excited and gives me the bug to buy another to remodel!

Great work you're doing!

I did a slide-in camper and although I have not put the fishing touches on it, it turned out great! I once did a full motorhome re-frame, that however did not turn out well at all, it never made to completion, it's motor was donated to a tow truck and all the new doors and vents etc are all still packed away in a storage unit in Wisconsin.
I WILL finish this one...... I hope!

The biggest overhaul I think I've done is a popup camper.

http://s27.photobucket.com/user/blackhighrider/library/Camper?sort=3&page=1

Still not as big of a project as your motorhome! I was trolling craigslist yesterday after reading your thread! 😄

[thirtydaZe]

sweet!

[Mudshovel]

BoxerPitMix wrote:
Subscribed. 🙂

I've done a couple of camper rebuilds, but never a motorhome... I had a ton of fun doing them. This gets me excited and gives me the bug to buy another to remodel!

Great work you're doing!

I did a slide-in camper and although I have not put the fishing touches on it, it turned out great! I once did a full motorhome re-frame, that however did not turn out well at all, it never made to completion, it's motor was donated to a tow truck and all the new doors and vents etc are all still packed away in a storage unit in Wisconsin.
I WILL finish this one...... I hope!