1968 Coleman CT-280 fix up

[tzmartin]

Here's the owners manual which has a picture of the kitchen top that may or may not help you visualize your reno.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0273/4347/files/1968_Coleman_Set_Up_Instructions_and_Maintanence_Guide.pdf?15094920290091617767

 

[SteveWithThePBass]

That is a very simple design, but it seems effective. Assuming there's still some spring left in that steel it shouldn't take much to make it work. If nothing else, drill a hole on each side and hold the cabinet up and down with a gate latch from Lowe's

 

[veloandy]

Thanks for the pointers @tzmartin and @SteveWithThePBass!

Just sticking 3 gate latches on there is a great and simple solution, Steve! I’ll have to think on that (I had been thinking about much more complicated spring loaded latches pulled by bicycle cables )

The cabinets are beat up and gross enough that I’m contemplating building new ones. It would be nice to have a cabinet that fits a porta potty. I’m also thinking about turning the dinette 90 degrees so it doesn’t block the rear bed…now that the cabinets are all removed I can play with the layout as I get the inside cleaned out.

Thanks for all your help, guys!

 

[veloandy]

I placed my order with Bear Creek Canvas. They say their current backlog is 6.5 months That means I won’t have a new canvas for the mid-April maiden voyage I’m scheming. That said, when they get to it I bet their canvas will be awesome.

In the meantime I’m going to think about how I can get some sort of functional canvas and continue to try to get everything else sorted…I’ve pulled the interior and interior walls to get to the push-on fasteners on the back of the giant, awesome Coleman metal emblems so I can remove them to paint the body (& refinish the emblems). I hope to have an update on that nonsense this weekend.

In other news, my father-in-law gave me this cool vintage trailer tongue lock that he got with a used TT in 1980 (and sold in the mid-‘80s)

 

[BlackJackAlley]

I just got this old Coleman. It's really cool and pulls well behind my Vanagon but needs a lot of rehabilitation before I can take it camping. I just posted an intro thread here.

It's cool that it's so old that the roof is just a metal frame with a single layer of aluminum, so there's nothing to rot up there.

The first order of business is to make it less of a hassle to use.
1. The door hatch was a pain to use -- you had to wiggle the key just right for it to turn and then if you twisted the handle all the way open, the lock bar would get stuck inside the door until you teased it back out because it was just a little too short. I took the hatch apart and replaced the slightly-too-short lock bar with a piece of scrap steel I had in my garage. I also pulled all the tumblers out of the lock cylinder so it turns with a screw driver -- I figure if someone wants to break into my trailer bad enough to jab a screwdriver into the keyhole, it would probably be in my best interest to minimize damage. After pop-riveting it back together it works great. YAY!

2. The top was REALLY hard to crank up -- Like the top crank wouldn't move around at all, and I could only raise the top using the bottom crank, pulling hard enough to drag the trailer tongue around, and that couldn't be right. I checked the cables (all OK) and gave the wiffletree some much-needed grease, but it was still really hard to crank. I figured it might be the bearing so I took it apart again to disassemble it and realized this pin (#8) was sheared off:

So as I cranked up the top, the threaded rod wasn't held back by the collar (#5) or spinning the bearing (#6) and the threaded rod (#10) was just pressing into the frame crossmember at the rear with the whole weight of the top. I removed the bearing, dug out the solidified 1960s grease, cleaned it in lacquer thinner, repacked it, and replaced the split pin with a new one from the hardware store. Once it was all back together, it cranks up pretty easily with the faster upper crank (which I couldn't even turn before). YAY!

I kind of like how this camper is built to be totally torn down with the "1960s guy tool kit" (pliers, adjustable wrench, hammer, drill, punch, and pop rivet tool).

I also pulled off half the canvas, washed it, and attempted some repairs...the canvas doesn't look so bad in the pics, but the string holding it together is turning to dust and it has some significant rips. When I'd attempt to sew them up, the canvas wanted to rip where I placed the threads (and sewing it with my home sewing machine was way harder than any other upholstery project I've tackled before). I'll probably end up ordering a new canvas.

Next steps:

1. Tape over the seams on the top and repaint it.
2. Fix the broken wheels on the bed slides (which cause them to sag and drag over the stored dinette cushions, ripping the upholstery)
3. Paint the body
4. Replace the cracked old wiring to the tail lights to make them actually bright enough to do anytihng
5. Order, receive, and install new canvas
6. Clean the inside and prime everything with Killz, followed by new paint
7. Reupholster the dinette cushions
8. Build a new swing away kitchen
9. New tires
10. Maybe a new Dexter Torsion Axle with electric brakes
11. Add a 20mm ammo can tongue box
12. Solar panel, battery, interior lights, and a diesel heater
13. Add a Port-a-potty

I'm hoping to get at least 1-7 done by mid-April so I can use the camper as a basecamp for a backpacking trip I'm planning in Utah, but time will tell! I'll try to keep this thread updated with my progress!

I had an older Coleman and experienced the same shear pin problem. I'd suggest going to the expense of a new axle with brakes may be overkill. I towed my Coleman, fully loaded, for over 35 years and never felt I needed brakes. Later in it's life, I installed an axle flip kit to get the body higher with added ground clearance. That was worthwhile. We added what I call egg carton padding, like used in hospitals, under the bed mattresses. Helped a great deal. We don't heat while sleeping and have a kerosene heater and 2 old white gas, Coleman lanterns which made it comfortable during times inside. The trailer was used to hunt elk and mule deer above 9,000' and we experienced temperatures to -10 degrees F. We remote hunt and use a small popup hunting blind as a toilet shelter and have a hospital commode style chair and suspend a plastic bag into a hole in the ground to catch the droppings. Got rid of the water tank after it froze solid and went insulated Igloo 5 gallon jugs. We wrapped the awning with plastic tarps to create a dry enclosure to store our gear in plastic tubs. The trailer was small but, served well for many years. Upgraded to a 12' Fleetwood a few years ago and am very happy with the larger, better equipped, trailer.

 

[veloandy]

Wow @BlackJackAlley! Thanks so much for sharing those memories!

Your post got me thinking about how much I like the sound and light from old Coleman lanterns, and how I could set up my camper to work pretty well for at least 3 season camping with no electricity and just a Buddy heater, stove, and lantern. I think I’m going to try that out before going crazy with battery/solar/diesel heater nonsense. Thank you.

If my trailer had leaf springs, I wouldn’t consider messing with the axle…*but* It has a torsion axle. I’m assuming it’s built with elastomers that have hardened up over the past half century (and not spring steel torsion rods), but I don’t know for sure. Do any of you all? The roof is an inch lower than the “travel height” listed in the specs, so I’m guessing that either the elastomers have collapsed an inch or the unmarked tires it came with are smaller than stock.

My trailer pulled well on the drive home but was a little bouncy over expansion joints on the highway, but I’m not sure if that’s the nature of the beast.

I think I need to do some more measurements and towing to know for sure if I have to replace the axle or not. If I replace the axle, trailer brakes aren’t a very expensive upgrade. They’re totally unnecessary for a reasonable tow vehicle, but I think they might not be a bad idea if I’m towing over the Rockies with my hotrodded early VW Vanagon, whose brakes are merely “adequate” to slow my van by itself from highway speed down an extreme grade.

So either way it seems like the answer is to get it done, K.I.S.S., drag the camper on some adventures, and see how it does!

 

[theseus]

Love it! It is looking great.

 

[veloandy]

Quick update from the weekend:

I gutted the interior. I had to get the interior walls out to get to the push fasteners to take off these awesome metal emblems

Which I cleaned up, spray bombed red, baked at 200F for a couple of hours, and then scraped the paint off the raised letters (the middle one could use some more cleaning, but I might be ready to call it “good enough”)

I also took off the tail lights, door latch, and spent some quality time with my random orbital sander, body dolly, and a little bit of USC Allmetal filler in my driveway, fixing dings and making a bunch of dust in preparation for painting

My wife is heading out of town next weekend so I hope to make more progress then!

 

[veloandy]

I’ve been doing a ton on the trailer, but it has been too cold/dark/nasty to roll it outside and take pictures until today.

First, I used a roller to paint it green (using a 50/50 mix of Rustoleum Sunburst Yellow and Royal Blue from quart cans). I’m pretty happy with how it turned out: the green looks vintage and it’s glossy, despite the orange peel

I painted the tongue with a brush using and semi-gloss black Rustoleum from a quart can. I got a propane tank and installed it on the tongue using J-hooks the P.O. included. I painted the wheels and welded up a little spare tire carrier that goes under the tongue

The problem is when I snugged it up, the tire sidewall would press against the J-bolts’ wing nuts, so I got out my hole saw and made a couple of “cups” out of some ABS sheet that I had lying around. I glued the layers of sheet together using ABS cement

Here’s how it spaces down the tire…I added the orange strap to minimize rattling and add some redundancy in case my metal bracket was to fail.

This thing is freaking solid, accessible, and totally out of the way

I also replaced the tail light wiring. Most four-wire trailer wiring kits seem really low quality, so I used a 16-ga exterior extension cord I cut up instead. It was a pain to pull the cord through the frame with the old, crunchy wiring, but I’m glad I did it that way and it’s out of the elements.

I also ran a separate ground wire all the way to the tail lights with a ground to each fixture.

For some reason, the tail lights’ “reflectors” were black:

So I covered the inside with shiny aluminum HVAC tape and replaced all the bulbs with ultra-bright LEDs

Dang the tail lights are bright now! This is just the tail lights during the day! The stop/turn lights are a lot brighter!

I also got new 87-mph-rated tires for $50/each from Discount Tire and mounted then myself in my driveway with some tire spoons, soap, and a lot of cursing. Mounting tires is a hassle, but it makes me feel good that *maybe* I could patch my own tire if I had to in the middle of nowhere.

I also re-packed the wheel bearings (replacing one), and replaced the grease seals. I’m also happy to report that proper-sized tires put the travel height within 1/2 of what it was new, so I don’t think the torsion axle has sagged too much, so I don’t think I need to replace it.

Today, when torquing down the lug bolts, I discovered one is stripped out. I’m lucky I didn’t lose a wheel or anything dragging it home. I might change it over to wheel studs. THEN time to move on to the interior!

 

[Sjm9911]

Looks great.

 

[Arruba]

Looks great.

I think so too. Good luck with the rest of it.

 

[veloandy]

I’ve been working like crazy on the trailer and am starting to get a little burned out on it, so I figured its a great time to document the progress so far, close it up, roll it into the driveway, and take a little break.

I started to remove the nasty flooring.

The linoleum layer came up pretty easily, and the paper backing and adhesive came up easily from the sides but was stubbornly stuck in the middle.

As I was working harder and harder to remove the backing, I had a horrible realization: this trailer is from 1968. I bet the flooring and adhesive used asbestos.

After getting kind of wigged out, I stopped scraping, donned my respirator, bagged and trashed the flooring I’d removed so far, and primed the subfloor and what was left of the paper backing with Killz

Then I got 9 feet of vinyl sheet wood-look flooring from Home Depot and a tub of adhesive and glued that sucker down! Any asbestos dregs are fully encapsulated now

Since it was exposed, I cleaned and lubricated the top crank chain with motorcycle chain lube. Then I cut new wall panels from hardboard(replacing the 55-year-old, deteriorated 1/8” plywood), and sealed the seams with my leftover Eterna-Bond tape from the roof to keep out dust/water/critters

I was able to tape up the gaps between the walls and wheel wells too:

Then I spent what felt like an eternity priming every face of every cabinet with 2 coats of Killz, followed by 2 coats of Rustoleum gloss white. I didn’t take many pictures because watching paint dry isn’t very exciting…but what’s amazing to me is in my mind I felt like that step should take 10 minutes, instead of days and days and days. At least its done now

I cut new seat backs from sanded 1/2 ply and covered them with a couple of coats of clear gloss varnish (here’s new vs. old and nasty)

I also built a new pop up kitchen cabinet from 1/2 sanded ply. I cut the panels out with my jigsaw and screwed and glued them together with Tightbond wood glue. It was trickier to make than I first pictured because it needed a cutout to clear the wheel well. I made latches for it out of hinges and round stock. Here’s a pic of it being test fitted:

I built sliding doors for the front out of hardboard (so they can open/close even when stowed). It isn’t fine cabinet making by any means but I’m happy with it…its light, strong, fits properly, and looks WAY better than the half-assed exterior plywood “vanlife” conversions I see all the time. I’ll post more pictures once it’s fully complete

I also wrapped the counters with some wood grain countertop contact paper. It looks really good, but time will tell how durable it is.

I also replaced the weatherstripping between the walls and roof and bought a porta-potty that stores nicely in a cabinet.

Remaining To Dos (after I take a break and feel less burned out on this project):
1. Get a 2nd roll of counter contact paper and wrap the pop up kitchen
2. Buy and install a drain for the sink.
3. Buy propane fitting to hook up stove to tank
4. Reupholster dinette cushions
5. Fix one stripped lug bolt
6. Install new tent (once Bear Creek makes it!)
7. Get nice curtains and bedding

So, it’s coming along and it will be great when it’s done (hopefully toward the end of the summer). I’ll post more updates once I dust it off again.

 

[johneliot]

Looks great! Make sure you let us know when you get the email telling you to send the old canvas.

 

[Warfarin]

Watching. Where in Utah are you planning your trip?

 

[veloandy]

Looks great! Make sure you let us know when you get the email telling you to send the old canvas.

Thanks! I hope I don't have to send in my old canvas b/c they might have the pattern already...they only mentioned (expensive) shipping to me in their quote, but we'll see. I'm game for sending them whatever they need to do it. I'll be sure to keep y'all posted!

Watching. Where in Utah are you planning your trip?

I have backpacking permits for myself and my 2 college-aged boys for Grand Gulch in Bear's Ears National Monument at the end of April:


I'm really excited, but it's before my canvas will be done, so we probably won't be able to use the camper at the trailhead. I'm not sure if we'll take my Vanagon Westy, or my 4Runner and stay in tents at the trailhead or a cheap motel in Blanding. My buddy who has hiked parts of Grand Gulch says the isolation, the cliff dwellings, and the petroglyphs are amazing.

I love the backcountry in Utah so much. We did a canoe trip down Labyrinth Canyon on the Green River a few years ago, and every year I try to go to a big off roading VW event called Syncro Solstice in my Westy outside of Moab (we stay at Grand Mesa group campground near Island In the Sky in Canyonlands, but we drive trails all over) I see you're in Central Utah...what are some of your favorite spots?

 

[johneliot]

It cost me about $70 to send mine and it was only a single slide. $70 to ship the new one back. Totally worth it!

 

[veloandy]

It cost me about $70 to send mine and it was only a single slide. $70 to ship the new one back. Totally worth it!

I re-reviewed my quote from Bear Creek from January. It says I don't need to ship them my top (yay), shipping estimate for the new complete top for my tiny trailer is only $85 (double-yay). Their backlog estimate at the time was 6.5 months, so I must be getting close to the front of the queue (triple-yay). I totally agree with you: 100% totally worth it. I can't wait for their email.

 

[Susan Premo]

Hol

I’ve been working like crazy on the trailer and am starting to get a little burned out on it, so I figured its a great time to document the progress so far, close it up, roll it into the driveway, and take a little break.

I started to remove the nasty flooring.

The linoleum layer came up pretty easily, and the paper backing and adhesive came up easily from the sides but was stubbornly stuck in the middle.

As I was working harder and harder to remove the backing, I had a horrible realization: this trailer is from 1968. I bet the flooring and adhesive used asbestos.

After getting kind of wigged out, I stopped scraping, donned my respirator, bagged and trashed the flooring I’d removed so far, and primed the subfloor and what was left of the paper backing with Killz

Then I got 9 feet of vinyl sheet wood-look flooring from Home Depot and a tub of adhesive and glued that sucker down! Any asbestos dregs are fully encapsulated now

Since it was exposed, I cleaned and lubricated the top crank chain with motorcycle chain lube. Then I cut new wall panels from hardboard(replacing the 55-year-old, deteriorated 1/8” plywood), and sealed the seams with my leftover Eterna-Bond tape from the roof to keep out dust/water/critters

I was able to tape up the gaps between the walls and wheel wells too:

Then I spent what felt like an eternity priming every face of every cabinet with 2 coats of Killz, followed by 2 coats of Rustoleum gloss white. I didn’t take many pictures because watching paint dry isn’t very exciting…but what’s amazing to me is in my mind I felt like that step should take 10 minutes, instead of days and days and days. At least its done now

I cut new seat backs from sanded 1/2 ply and covered them with a couple of coats of clear gloss varnish (here’s new vs. old and nasty)

I also built a new pop up kitchen cabinet from 1/2 sanded ply. I cut the panels out with my jigsaw and screwed and glued them together with Tightbond wood glue. It was trickier to make than I first pictured because it needed a cutout to clear the wheel well. I made latches for it out of hinges and round stock. Here’s a pic of it being test fitted:

I built sliding doors for the front out of hardboard (so they can open/close even when stowed). It isn’t fine cabinet making by any means but I’m happy with it…its light, strong, fits properly, and looks WAY better than the half-assed exterior plywood “vanlife” conversions I see all the time. I’ll post more pictures once it’s fully complete

I also wrapped the counters with some wood grain countertop contact paper. It looks really good, but time will tell how durable it is.

I also replaced the weatherstripping between the walls and roof and bought a porta-potty that stores nicely in a cabinet.

Remaining To Dos (after I take a break and feel less burned out on this project):
1. Get a 2nd roll of counter contact paper and wrap the pop up kitchen
2. Buy and install a drain for the sink.
3. Buy propane fitting to hook up stove to tank
4. Reupholster dinette cushions
5. Fix one stripped lug bolt
6. Install new tent (once Bear Creek makes it!)
7. Get nice curtains and bedding

So, it’s coming along and it will be great when it’s done (hopefully toward the end of the summer). I’ll post more updates once I dust it off again.

Holy cow that's a lot of work!

 

[PointyCamper]

THANK YOU for sharing your project. NICE job. Impressed. Enjoy Camping!

 

[toucan]

Very nice! If I might ask, how do those emblems come out of the trailer? I found an old Coleman(possibly older than yours) that has them on it.
Can anyone identify this camper?