New to Pop Ups & starting off with making a conversion.

[GeorgeNJ]

This is a 94-95 Coleman Hatteras by Fleetwood, I saw it for sale on Craigslist. The guy was asking $500, hadn't been used in years, top doesn't go up, etc... I email the guy a lowball $100, knowing it would likely be a big mess. A few weeks later I get an email back $200, we then talk on the phone and he told me to come look at it and see what it's worth. I show up and sure enough the top it dead. Unbeknownst to me, this thing has hard sides, a shower & toilet & a electric over hydraulic lift mechanism. I could only peak in the little door and smell that it wasn't mousey or moldy, no evidence of black rice. I still offer $100, we settle at $150.

I get it home and my sons help me muscle up the top (what a bear) to find out it's missing the tent ends & poles, mattresses & dinette cushions. I call him and leave a message, " where are those items, I'm hoping you have them stored somewhere..." He calls me back apologetically saying, " his wife threw it all out after mice got in it a couple years ago, he had forgot about that, sorry. He offered to give me my money back for my trouble and keep it for nothing, which was very generous. So I ended up getting it for free.

I begin to look up how much they want for replacement tent ends, a crazy $800-900. I'm not looking to spend anywhere near that considering everything else it needs. I come close to scraping it for the trailer frame to sell, but it was in too nice condition, so I figured I'll make do with it.

I decide to take out the end beds and make hard end walls for it.
We are a family of 5, I figure the wife & I could sleep on the dinette full bed, my daughter could sleep on a bed that would go down over the shower/toilet area & my two boys could dome tent it. I'm thinking I could MacGyver an upper bunk over the dinette bed for them, so we could all stay contained.

It would be tight, but we would only be using it for destination trips, not hanging out in. We have a 36' TT that we do that in. This would be to bring somewhere (beach) to not have to spend $200-300 a night in a motel for a place for all of us just to sleep.

I replaced two broken cables (I think someone powered up the top with the one side still locked down,imo). Thankyou youtube guys!
The thing is pretty neat just flip a switch and it goes up / down & the two hard side walls go up and down with the roof.

Here's where I'm at now, end walls 90% done, ordered new mattresses & upholstery fabric, new tires, smoke & co detectors.

I'm going to put about an inch width of Eternabond over the four corners & use the Eternabond / velcro to attach my new little wing walls to the hard side walls.

[GeorgeNJ]

Just an update on our "new to us" beach pop up. We've taken it down the shore a few times now for short notice stay overs, that would've never happened had we not had it.

I've been lucky enough to find parking for both Jeeps & pop up on the beach's Ocean Ave after we broke camp, You can't beat that. We're saving so much money not staying in over priced motel / hotels, it's already paid for itself.

She even has a new pet name, it's "Little Sis", We now call our 36' TT, "Big Sis".

[GeorgeNJ]

Mike Up wrote:

GeorgeNJ wrote:
Mike UP, we like the idea of the hard walls instead of the tent ends, at least for now. The good thing about the hard walls is that it's been up since I got it, almost three weeks now. In that time we've had some serious wind and lots of rain, you wouldn't know it by the way the hard/ water proof FRP covered walls handled it. I like not having to worry about it like that. Thanks for the links.

Looks like you done a great job on the hard wall ends. Glad it's been weather proof for you. Looks really nice. Thanks.

Just not sure how the 2X4 base bed works. Can you open the door if needed to escape (from fire) if needed. Also, I would need the toilet especially at night. The king size bed is over the toilet at night, everyone would have to make sure they go before bed setup, or go outside at night. You can open the door, it swings out. If it were only my wife & I we would only use the dinette broken down as a full size bed and keep the rest of the camper & toilet open to use.

Also, where do you store the hard wall ends when traveling? Inside the bed of a truck? The hard walls will lay on the dinette bed when traveling, so they lay flat. They fit in just right. The king bed system will stay together for traveling too, because the trailer hard walls needed to rest on the old roll out beds, the new king bed take that place now. So everything will stay in the trailer contained when packed up for travel

Good luck with it. Pretty nice when a project turns out to be virtually free.

[GeorgeNJ]

donrebyct wrote:
Thanks for the input. As for the hydraulic lifting system, I would think all hoses should be replaced on a 20 year old system. The owner already had to replace a hose on the pump that ruptured as they were preparing to take the camper out for the first time this year. My hose looks good, even for it's age. there is only one thin hose from the pump to the cylinder, it would be cheap enough to fabricate at an auto parts store like, Napa.

It's a pretty nice unit, and would work for us, especially if I replaced one or both pull out beds with folding walls. But, I can't see paying anywhere near $3900 for it. A quick NADA check for it came up with about $1800 east of the Mississippi; also stated higher west of Mississippi. But, I doubt it would be double. They must be dreaming or are looking for a sucker. I've found a useable old pups around here from 150 (needing some work, but not a wreck) to 450 for usable (old), most older in decent shape are around 900, come the end of the summer, early fall the prices will drop.

By the way, did you use plywood for the new walls and piano hinges? My thought was to use 1" Styrofoam with maybe a 1"x2" frame, and piano hinges. That would give me some insulation. I would also install a window from one of the RV salvagers in the area.
I used 1/4 plywood underlayment with FRP glued to it for the exterior & painted on the inside. I bought piano hinges to attach the little wing walls, but decided to use aluminum channel to make the connection to keep everything separate pieces, less awkward when setting up and breaking down. If/when I put back a bed end, I would make my walls just like the old Apache hard wall pup had (you can find a setup video on youtube). It would be easy enough to replicate with the 1/4" plywood & Frp panel, piano hinges & aluminum channel.
Post more pictures when you can.

[Mike_Up]

GeorgeNJ wrote:
Mike UP, we like the idea of the hard walls instead of the tent ends, at least for now. The good thing about the hard walls is that it's been up since I got it, almost three weeks now. In that time we've had some serious wind and lots of rain, you wouldn't know it by the way the hard/ water proof FRP covered walls handled it. I like not having to worry about it like that. Thanks for the links.

Looks like you done a great job on the hard wall ends. Glad it's been weather proof for you. Looks really nice.

Just not sure how the 2X4 base bed works. Can you open the door if needed to escape (from fire) if needed. Also, I would need the toilet especially at night.

Also, where do you store the hard wall ends when traveling? Inside the bed of a truck?

Good luck with it. Pretty nice when a project turns out to be virtually free.

[donrebyct]

Thanks for the input. As for the hydraulic lifting system, I would think all hoses should be replaced on a 20 year old system. The owner already had to replace a hose on the pump that ruptured as they were preparing to take the camper out for the first time this year.

It's a pretty nice unit, and would work for us, especially if I replaced one or both pull out beds with folding walls. But, I can't see paying anywhere near $3900 for it. A quick NADA check for it came up with about $1800 east of the Mississippi; also stated higher west of Mississippi. But, I doubt it would be double.

By the way, did you use plywood for the new walls and piano hinges? My thought was to use 1" Styrofoam with maybe a 1"x2" frame, and piano hinges. That would give me some insulation. I would also install a window from one of the RV salvagers in the area.

Post more pictures when you can.

[GeorgeNJ]

donrebyct,

Thanks, I'm very happy with the way it's worked out. We ended up with a full size dinette bed & a king size bed over the rest, so we have plenty of room for sleeping.

$3900 sounds VERY steep with all that is wrong with that one you mentioned.

I wouldn't worry about the electric / hydraulic system, these kinds of systems are used in very heavy work load applications. All the heavy equipment, garbage trucks, tow trucks & snow plows all over the world use hydraulics, it's proven technology. This system is really overkill to lift a pup roof. I guess if it ever failed, you could put in an electric winch or come-along to do the pulling, it would be pretty easy to do.

The small down side I see about the elect/hyd system is, you wont "feel" that you forgot to unlock a roof lock (or two) when you hit the switch to raise the top. I think this is what happened to mine, two cables were snapped on the road side, not one, but two...so I guess it had to happen all at once. I bet the woman that had it unlocked the top on the door side, forgot to unlock the other side and hit the switch to raise the top... The piston did it's thing, the roof locks held and the two cable gave out all at once. Not a big deal to fix, I did it my self after watching a couple guys on youtube fix theirs. **I put a label on the door to remind myself and others to, UNLOCK ALL ROOF LOCKS BEFORE LIFTING ROOF.

[donrebyct]

Nice looking camper. Replacing the ends with walls is exactly what I've been thinking about for a pup, if I ever had one again. But, I would probably need a double/full size bed for the two of us.

I just looked at a Yosemite this afternoon that is in pretty good shape. Both beds are attached and canvas appears to be good. Trouble is, they are asking way too much, $3900. It does have issues: a broken but usable porta pottie, a melted or crunched right front end cap, and the worst appears to be a leak around the A/C that has messed up the ceiling in front of the A/C. I don't like that, especially for the high asking price. It seems to open and close ok, but I'm a little leery of the hydraulic system; I've read they can fail fairly regularly (no details).

Please keep posting on how your a doing with your new camper.

Don

[GeorgeNJ]

Set up & take down of this king size bed takes less than five minutes, the memory foam topper is comfy for being only 2" on this bed.

Our little mobile beach shack is just about ready, yay!

[GeorgeNJ]

Mattresses finally came in, I cut up the 4" memory foam topper for the dinette cushions / bed. Very comfy. My 13 y/o son came up with an idea for sleeping for 5 instead of me rigging up a bunk style bed over the dinette. At night put the kitchen sink/stove down and make the entire camper a bed. It's a whole lot easier than what I had planed, too. I just needed to rip down a 2x6 to make a temp night floor joist that spanned over the toilet cover & cooler cabinet, then put 6 2"x3" sleepers over the sink base bridging to my temp joist, then 3 sheets of 1/2" 2'x6' plywood for the bed base. That makes a 6'x6' bed for the three kids. The 3 pieces of plywood can be stowed easily on the end wall out of the way during the day, the joist & sleepers can be stowed beneath the camper during the day. When closed up, the big bed will stay in position to hold up the hard side walls like the old roll out bed ends used to.

Here's a pic of the dinette cushions & carpet runner that we had in storage for 7 years that just happened to work for this.

Corners covered in Eternabond.



Bed system.


I'll post more pics when I get the plywood cut and assembled.

Mike UP, we like the idea of the hard walls instead of the tent ends, at least for now. The good thing about the hard walls is that it's been up since I got it, almost three weeks now. In that time we've had some serious wind and lots of rain, you wouldn't know it by the way the hard/ water proof FRP covered walls handled it. I like not having to worry about it like that. Thanks for the links.

[Mike_Up]

Looks like a really nice camper. I'd say put the $1,000 into it and gain the bunkends. In fact, I would think Bear Creek Canvas would be cheaper as they usually do an entire camper, side walls and bunkends, for $1,000.

$650 for a pair of bedwings (bunkends).

For your information, you may find this interesting.

[GeorgeNJ]

qtla9111, I'll definitely post more pics as I go along.

DutchmenSport, Yeah, it is much nicer than I thought it would be, too bad she, the seller threw all that stuff out (tent ends & poles, mattresses & cushions). She claimed they were mousey, but the camper is clean with no mouse urine smell at all...I think she might have been one who "needed" to have *new* & pitched it all without knowing what it would cost to replace, then broke the lift cables and that sealed it's fate with them. They never mentioned camping in it, just that they got it, she "cleaned it", then the cables broke. It had sat under these low trees for years and was filthy looking, I did a quick cleaning and it looks good, it still needs deeper cleaning to look perfect...but I didn't expect it to look as good as it does now. It's gonna look nice, even the Mrs' will love the upholstery I picked, it's high end with roses (her favorite & will be a surprise when she sees it). I have plenty of left over Allure flooring that will give it a much warmer feel, too.

BTW, I didn't butcher the roll out bed system, I carefully removed them so I can put them back in. I'm thinking that I might try to do the Apache (type) hard panel bed ends. I'd use the same thin plywood / FRP panel & piano hinge. I'd do that now, but I already have too many other projects going. I just want to get this thing ready to use asap for the beach. Maybe a fall / winter project.

[GeorgeNJ]

Thanks, Mike & thanks for linking to the manual. It is too nice to not keep her going as a camper. I'm thinking I'll be all in for $500 to get her where I we can use her, which is cheap...and that's the way I like things 🙂

[DutchmenSport]

Read your post before you got the pictures up. I was thinking to myself, this camper is a real looser! Sounds like a lot of work.

Now your pictures are up, and yea, ... I like! Considering the price you got it for ... I think you did well. If you invest a thousand dollars into it, I think it would be money well spent! Don't cheap out. Invest a little $$$ and make is a really great functional camper for you! I think you've got a little prize there! Hope it works out well for you! Good luck!

[qtla9111]

I think you got a good deal! Looks great! Give us an update as you go along.