Am I out of my depth?

[MarineandAirfor]

Hello All
I'm new to this site and the RV world. I've gotten a wealth of info here.
I've been looking into an RV for about 2 yrs. I came close to a minnie winnie class c last year owned by a close family friend. It was well maintained and was gone thru Totally. It had high miles and no genset & I thought $6800 for a friend was too much.
It sold & I kept looking.

Ok here's the deal. Found 1 I could afford bigger than I wanted but had it all.
1990 34' Winnebago Superchief on Ford Chassis. Seller wanted $3000 talked him down to $2000
Said if you drive it to my house and it makes it you got a deal.
The GOOD....
This was $72k new (have the sticker & all paperwork in binder)
Has 2 - Colman Mach 3 15,000btu A/C's working!
Basically all the options you could imagine minus any leveling kits. Tow pkg w/brake control, central Vac, remote spotlight. Air horns, full bath (not passthru) eve has a functioning washer & dryer in there. Also has onan emerald 3 genset with less than 700hrs. Runs 6500 watt. With 2 remote start locations. The Ford 460 had 65k and has the expected manifold leak but runs pretty good. Fridge is in crappy shape but is working. Not sure about furnace or HW heater as of yet

The bad. God it's ugly as could be. I'll make the inside look lovely but there is a great deal of delam! Not so much from roof but more from the seam along the entire side of coach. Think water wicked up the luan. Structurally it solid all around. The bumper corners are broken & or missing. Tires are crap. The kwikee stairs look as if they were torched/cut out? The fridge went was NOT there so some good water rot behind fridge. The big awning was coming away from coach so I removed. I can go on and on but what I wanted to know if I made a good call or did I get over my head here?! I can fix ANYTHING and the beast is looking better everyday
Anyone that could give my opinions, thoughts? I'll take it well
I just figured with that Genny and the tons of options figured it was a good deal
Thanks for reading all this LOL
Ryan

[MarineandAirfor]

I'm sure that would suck Matt. I've fixed my jeep roadside quite a bit. My mechanical abilities didn't really exist before I had my jeep. I was an oil change kind of guy up to my late 30's. I've rebuild and repaired every possible thing on the jeep and have installed a vast amount of upgrades. Now I work on family & friends cars regularly. My jeep is another labor of love that I've driven all the way to my sisters place out there by you. I miss the sunsets at Gate's Pass

What Jeep looked like back then

[oldmattb]

On trips, at the side of the road or in a parking lot, I have replaced a couple of faucets, an Allison computer, several fuel filters, a broken idler pulley bolt, a furnace, reattached a headlight, rewired a trailer plug, replaced a shower dome, replaced batteries, replaced battery cable clamps, and done numerous oil changes.

Most technical job at home was replacing a seized water pump on a Cat. Every fitting had to be at an exact angle and the sequence of steps had to followed, or something would not fit. Took about three hours.

Most complicated job was replacing a black water tank that was melted by an exhaust with a broken mount. It probably took 20 hours of internet research to find the best replacement, five hours to remove the old remains, and ten hours to install the new one. An absolutely dirty, complex, confusing, discouraging, painful, dirt-in-the-eyes, sore back job.

ANY job done with the comforts of home, shop and full array of tools is a blessing. Leaving your coach in the interstate emergency lane for four hours while you drive the towd to get a part is not fun at all.

Matt B

[MarineandAirfor]

After reading that whole TT build my efforts will be I'm sure much less intresting. But still hoping it will be fun to see me foul things up and ask stupid questions. LOL

I'm hoping to take some decent pics of the newly painted cabinets, fridge panels, tabletop and counter. And the temporary Grey wall paint. Along with new kitchen faucet install & clean sink I'm hoping for a notable improvement. We will see what the RV.net folks have to say

Stay tuned

[MarineandAirfor]

Squealers wrote:
Good luck and I think you will be just fine. If you want inspiration, there is plenty of it on here to go around. And there have been people who have repaired and brought back rigs from the dead with plenty of posts and pics to give you insight on ways to save money or make a better than original repair.

One of the best examples is Westend, and his cowboy hilton project. Not a direct comparison to your Winny, but some great ideas here.

http://forums.trailerlife.com/Index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/25707172/srt/pa/pging/1/page/1

Just poke around here and learn all you can. I'm one of those who have to get others to do my repair work as I would make it worse if I tried, and I'm ok with that, understand that and can afford that route, LOL.

It took a long time to read the whole 38 or so pages of that hilton build. Very cool. His work was top notch and very thorough! But right not so much for my Rig as it's nowhere near that delapitaded LOL but interesting 4-sure!
A man has to know his limitations! Good luck, go Air Force and keep us posted with pictures and updates!

[oldmattb]

enjoying your posts

Matt B

[MarineandAirfor]

[MarineandAirfor]

[MarineandAirfor]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Well now that the Genset is squared away with much help from the folks at smokstak, I can move on to other aspects of the RV. The wood is painted from the cab to the hallway. I finished the cabinet doors all nice & white. I opted for new hinge hardware as painting the brass looking originals was not going to work out. However the $40 hinges I got were close but not perfect so I had to drill 6 new holes per door. Pain but had to be done. I'm keeping the handles as I can't justify the exspence for new. I've cleaned the brassy ones well and primed. I will use flat black & a silver spraypaint from a distance to simulate a pewter finish. Then I'll shoot it with clear. Cabinet doors are all installed. Pics to come this week. I'll have to wait until spring to protect the roof with a good product (any recomended ) will be appreciated.

I scrubbed the double steal sink with barkeepers friend. Looks new. And I got a new satin SS looking fawcet for kitchen. About $50 Home Depot. Unfortunately when hand tightening the hot water line to the thing it stripped it. Leaked. Due to the sub freezing temps here any work on the water systems will have to wait. I painted over the wallpaper with a slate grey color for now. Just 1 coat but not sure if I'm going with it. I really want to do a backsplash of some sort. Perhaps some faux tile or some tin looking stamped pattern sheets. I'm going to rip out all light blue stained nasty carpet and lanoliom floor and put down some fake wood (dark) laminate. It will clean up much easier with the central vac.

Trashing the 3 piece window treatments and will get new blinds and normal house curtains. I really want to paint the ceiling white as well but spraying will be a mess and rolling will fill all the pinholes. I may dilute some ceiling paint then try rolling.

Last will be to reapolster the 3 captain chairs, pullout couch-bed and L-shaped dinette
The bathroom is a project all on it own. Brass and wood. YUCK! The shower door enclosure when opened hits the toilet so it very hard to enter shower. I don't know why. Perhaps the toilet was raised and is in the path of the shower door? May just take it out and install a shower curtain.

The bedroom is pretty ugly as well. Will be more painting and a TV install. Also may replace the stereo bedside with an updated one. (Don't need a cassette player) LOL

The only things not operational at the moment are minamal for the price. The dryer. Cuz it's old had no circuit board and it can only be a few reasons it's not working like the door switch. And a fuse, loose wire or connection, on off switch. The fact it's a simple oldschool GE is in my favor. 1 ceiling fan/ vent is dead. In galley. My wipers not working. The outside lights and headlights flickered on the drive home. (Short). Air horns? I have to find the switch for them. There is a hole in dash where it should be and under dash is a bit of a cluster..... It has the tow breaks set up and I know NOTHING about it. Also what looks like some sort of phone or communication devise. Also a electronic block of hardware that I'm guessing was for TV subscription. All the wiring under the dashboard will be my biggest headache. I noticed a little drip drip drip down onto the dash. It's likely from the broken clearance light lens letting in water. Now I know why it had tape covering it.

That's the plan. I wish it wasn't winter. Then I'd be able to see if the furnace and HW heater worked. It would help I I had some LP in the tank LOL

Ok enough for now. Like I said pics to come
I'll post a few interior before pics for reference. Enjoy the turkey and family
Ryan

[Tinstar]

$2000 for a project RV isn't bad. I used to like doing that kind of work. I had an old 5th wheel that I paid $2500 for. Used it for 10 years, fixed it up and sold it for $5000. I'd say I got a good deal.

I'm sure you are capable and willing to turn this one into a good deal too.

[Squealers]

Good luck and I think you will be just fine. If you want inspiration, there is plenty of it on here to go around. And there have been people who have repaired and brought back rigs from the dead with plenty of posts and pics to give you insight on ways to save money or make a better than original repair.

One of the best examples is Westend, and his cowboy hilton project. Not a direct comparison to your Winny, but some great ideas here.

http://forums.trailerlife.com/Index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/25707172/srt/pa/pging/1/page/1

Just poke around here and learn all you can. I'm one of those who have to get others to do my repair work as I would make it worse if I tried, and I'm ok with that, understand that and can afford that route, LOL.

A man has to know his limitations! Good luck, go Air Force and keep us posted with pictures and updates!

[MarineandAirfor]

Wow! Impressive I'm guessing it was still quite a bit of $ to fix her up. I just completed my assesment of the genset. Carb cleaned, new plugs, fresh oil & filter. New inline fuel filter. New toggle switch for fuel pump. After all that I had no spark so I had to slide gen out to clean/ sand the points. She fired up and ran well. But it wasn't generating power in the rig & was tripping its top breaker. So I clean the slip rings that were really bad/black. Now this is the pathetic part. I had AC when plugged into shore power and everything worked.

I DIDNT KNOW I HAD TO PLUG THE SHORE CABLE INTO THE OUTLET IN JUNCTION BOX!
I'm such a Tool idiot moron Putz fool dumb ass. How embarrassing. Well the 30amp outlet was destroyed inside the box and was shorting out. Got another receptical at Home Depot for $8 and fixed up the flimsy ghetto wiring. It was pretty bad.
Now gen runs perfect and powers everything as it should.
Hey it's learning process LOL

Before

Durring

Much better

[Alphamonk]

Don't worry about the nay sayers! It is your call, your time, your money and mostly your concern. I have attached a couple of photos of an RV I did several years ago because I wanted a diesel pusher at a cost I could handle without financing. We used it for dhtee years, loved and sold it back to the gentleman I purchased it from.

[MarineandAirfor]

Thanks Joatha u will be my go to person due to chieftain being such a close relative. I'm feeling a bit relieved as it was a mixed bag of impressions people got on this rig. When I get finished by spring most will be amazed and I will bask in the pride of accomplishing this colossal task. Stay tuned everyone!

[Pogoil]

mike brez wrote:

fcooper wrote:

Pogoil wrote:
Seal up the leaks fix up the inside and enjoy the heck out of it.
De lamination is an eyesore, do not look at it.

You will have a great time using it.

Pogoil.

I agree. I think you got a good deal overall. After reading about it, I was surprised at the pictures. Fix it and enjoy.

Fred

X2 I thought it was going to look something like this

Wow you could camouflage it and it would hide that.

Pogoil.:D

[Joatha]

In case you didn't know, you can get wiring and plumbing (and other) diagrams from Winnebago for your motorhome. I actually had a 1990 Chieftain up until about 6 months ago. I had it for about 13 years. So, I had lots of experience fixing and/or improving things.

Here's the link for the manuals....
http://www.winnebagoind.com/resources/manuals/

Second, I had an issue with one of the corner pieces on my 1990 as well. I was able to order the part from Winnebago.

You can figure out the part number from their website....
http://catalog.winnebagoind.com/menu/Parts.htm

If you drill in to your model, the part numbers are definitely available for the end caps. You should be able to google the part number and find it for sale at Winnebago.

For example, I looked at what I think MAY be one of your end caps for the bumper and came up with the following link....
http://www.winnebagooutdoor.com/Winnebago-Industries-078578-02-000-Bumper-End/dp/B00PHCTQYW

Good luck with your motorhome!