'88 Fleetwood Southwind - yeah, buildthread a motorhome, why not :)

So in my never ending quest to reduce the number of projects I have, I always seem to end up adding more.

Of course when it's a SWMBO directed project you just say "yes ma'am" and get to it. SWMBO doesn't get stuck on a project idea very often but when she does she latches on and never lets go. The last one was her VW Thing, it was a solid 6 years of pestering me, drooling on them at shows, etc until I gave in and bought one.

So 9 years or so ago hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and wifey dearest watched all the news coverage and got freaked out by all the animals left behind because their owners had no way to evacuate them. We have 5 dogs and 4 cats and 2 relatively small DDs so this would not do. She wanted an evacuation vehicle, bonus if it meant we could actually take a vacation and take the dogs along for the trip.

At first I tried logic, we live in NJ not the Gulf region, we don't need to worry about evacuations. So then nature goes and kills my argument by sending us 2 hurricanes and a berkeleying earthquake in the last 8 years. We also had a fire at a local petroleum refinery which if not for a sudden wind shift would have called for evacuation and lastly there was a train derailment on a train full of chemicals which caused the complete evacuation of a town just 15 miles away. SWMBO wants an RV.

There are 3 kinds of RVs:

New: I have a mortgage payment, I don't need another.

Moderately used: Cheaper than a house, more expensive than my DD and still fraught with all the issues inherent to a vehicle built with quality as an afterthought.

The crap I'm looking at: Basically under $10k you are just choosing what type of issues you want to deal with and how often. It's less a matter of what is wrong than what isn't.

So shopping in this range I figured if it can't be good it had better be cheap. I set a budget cap of $5k and went looking for something that didn't make me cry myself to sleep too often. I looked at quite a few coaches, and nothing could get me to justify 4 to 5 thousand dollars of my money for what will mostly be a huge lawn ornament to give the wife some peace of mind.

With that mindset when this 88 Southwind showed up a mile from my house with a challenge budget price I went to look at it. Well it ran great, that's a plus, and under 50k on the odometer, always good. The genset and roof ACs worked as did the appliances. Hot water heater was shot, rear caliper had hung up and destroyed a rotor (brake parts are surprisingly cheap though) and there was some exterior sidewall delamination which is a known issue on these particular RVs. I knew that probably meant there was water intrusion in the walls, but this is also not a stick built home so the damage would be different and manageable. The interior was clean and well kept. I wasn't entirely sold on it, but cheap is cheap so I lowballed the crap out of it and the seller accepted. I was able to drive it home without issue.

TLDR? Wife wanted an RV, I'm a cheap bastard who bought a cheap RV and now you get to watch the fun as I try and exorcise its demons. Stay tuned for photos.

So it looked like this all nice and moss covered sitting in the POs yard.

Interior is dated but clean and well kept.

Looks a little better after some pressure washing.

SWMBO introduces Lucy our "old dog" to her new chariot.

In our next installment, what evil lurks in the heart of men...or behind the walls of an RV....whatever.

I should preface any discussion of repair work here by saying this is a cheap RV, it will now and forever be a cheap RV, there is no point in attempting a restoration, instead I am trying to stabilize where needed and rebuild where required. The goal is structurally sound and safe, not factory new.

So really only one section of the coach is "soft" and its about the last 6 ft of the passenger side, this is also where the severe delamination exists. I decided to start from the inside so I could get a better idea of how the wall is constructed without exposing the exterior to the elements any more than needed. I pulled the bunk and its platform and started peeling off very dead wallpaper and its backing

The walls are a laminated unit which from outside to in goes like this Fiberglass shell - luan plywood - styrofoam - luan plywood - wallpaper. The water intrusion caused the plywood to completely delaminate so I was able to easily pull it from the wall leaving only its last ply adhered firmly to the Styrofoam. This is actually good as it will make a great surface for adhering a new layer of plywood.

That being said I ripped out the rest of the bunk and overhead cabinets and pulled off all the damaged material.

This may look like a nightmare task at this point but really it's pretty simple. I need to air all this out so the surface is dry and then laminate on a new layer of plywood with contact cement. The edges of the plywood overlap the steel frame at the top and back and just get a few small screws to join it together.

Speaking of that steel frame. The upper frame has definitely had its share of water. It is just 2 1x1 steel box sections. Very scaly and rusty but mostly solid with one or 2 areas where there are small holes. The plan is to clean it all up and then use a piece of 1x2 L steel to slip under and around it and plug weld it to the old frame just to add some additional support.

And that brings us up to date. I want to air it out for a few days to ensure it is nice and dry. I'll also be getting new seal tape to redo the roof edges to ensure there is no more leakage. Since our plan is to use this with our dogs I will probably leave the single bunk out when I put it back together and build in dog kennels back there. I'll leave the other single bunk in the back and then the dinette and sofa both fold out to bunks as well so we have plenty of sleeping space.

Once it is dry and finished inside I will need to cut off the back 6 ft or so of the fiberglass shell and repeat the process with laminating a new layer of plywood and then laminate the shell back on top of it.

Stay tuned for the fun.

Now for the real stuff.

Gas or diesel, I am guessing a 454.

How long is it?

Let's race it against Mongo on the 1/4 at Gainesville

Or the autoX

Ahh, yes 454 gas motor, it's a 33'

If I could have found a proper diesel for this price I wouldn't have cared at all about what else needed repaired.

I will drive to gainseville just to see that RV in an autocross.

I have a pop-up camper that I keep patching. Yours looks like a much bigger project.

looks like you have a good plan. Have fun and good luck!

aussiesmg wrote: Let's race it against Mongo on the 1/4 at Gainesville

You'll need a sundial to time that race.

DoctorBlade wrote:

aussiesmg wrote: Let's race it against Mongo on the 1/4 at Gainesville

You'll need a sundial to time that race.

Yet we would all be happy to get sunburned watching it!

That interior isn't dated, it's classic!

Well keeping with my tradition of doing things the hardest way possible I waited for a weekend of 95+ degree temps to climb up on the roof and reseal the whole things. Hours of scraping old seal tape, scrubbing and then reapplying later I have a nice sunburn and a watertight roof.

Sorry no pictures, pretty boring stuff. Now that its watertight I can return to rebuilding the back corner wall, the fun never ends.

JThw8 wrote: Sorry no pictures, pretty boring stuff. Now that its watertight I can return to rebuilding the back corner wall, the fun never ends.

I've come to the conclusion campers are like boats, except less fun/dollar burned. I don't think I'll ever get all the polyurethane adhesive out of my skin and clothes rot repairing my parents trailmanor, the walls had to come off that one.

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

JThw8 wrote: Sorry no pictures, pretty boring stuff. Now that its watertight I can return to rebuilding the back corner wall, the fun never ends.

I've come to the conclusion campers are like boats, except less fun/dollar burned. I don't think I'll ever get all the polyurethane adhesive out of my skin and clothes rot repairing my parents trailmanor, the walls had to come off that one.

I generally agree which is why I fought the wife so hard on getting one. It's also why I bought a cheap POS and I'm mostly limiting myself to repairs that are low cost/high labor. I don't mind doing the work, keeps me busy, but I don't want to sink a lot of money into what is mostly going to be lawn art.

Are you going to throw some sway bars on it and see if will handle better? HA! That's crazy. Who would do such a thing?

pinchvalve wrote: Are you going to throw some sway bars on it and see if will handle better? HA! That's crazy. Who would do such a thing?

I'll try boosting the air in the supplemental air suspension (has springs and bags on all corners) to see if that stiffens it up first. Might need to lower it too ;)

How much can one of those tow and expect to live comfortably?

sachilles wrote: How much can one of those tow and expect to live comfortably?

It really varies from model to model, chassis to chassis, but the quick answer is not much. They are already close to maxing out their weight, at most they are really made for flat or dolly towing a small support vehicle.

In other words, a challenge car.

Or a support car so that once you bug-out to where ever you're escaping to, you can stay parked and drive something else around. Unless the plan is you drive the beast and wife drives the car (or other way around).

Awesome.

Is "Mr. White" available for a vanity plate in NJ?

Edit: Or Hiznbrg.

When I purchased my 1987 Fleetwood one of the first things I changed was the brake fluid.

What came out of the system was a combination of air and molasses. Lots of both.

jr02518 wrote: When I purchased my 1987 Fleetwood one of the first things I changed was the brake fluid. What came out of the system was a combination of air and molasses. Lots of both.

Before this goes back on the road the whole brake system is getting redone. Parts are pretty cheap and one of the rear disks is destroyed from a seized caliper, better to do it all now and make it 100%, brakes are one of those things where I don't like to settle for "good enough" especially on something of this size.

I remember Mom and Dad picking up a 23' class B many years ago. It was a 1975 with the G30 van nose, 350 q-jet and a turbo 400 with 4.10 gears. That thing would scoot.... all the way to 70mph where it was tapped out.

We changed out the cracked manifolds for some Hooker RV headers (appropriately named), 2.5" dual exhaust with an H-pipe, rebuilt the Q-jet, removed the restricter rod so the 4-bbls would open. I borrowed it one night for an inventory many moons ago when I worked at AutoZone because it was an hour drive to and from, and we were prepping for inventory until 2am and had to be back by 6am.

I remember people trying to look around the motorhome to find the badass camaro or corvette on the other side making all that awesome noise.

Holy E36 M3, this looks EXACTLY like my Grandparent's old RV... on the outside. Different interior setup, though.

Thanks for the reminiscing moment.

Reading this build thread is like reading a story about an orgy. I'm never going there but I enjoy reading about the experience.

Keep writing chief! I'm interested to see where this ends up.