1993 Coleman Cedar rebuild project

[Rusty_ZJ]

I haven't been on the forum in a while, but I've been hard at work with my 1993 Coleman Cedar rebuild project.

For the backstory:
I purchased my PUP in 2021, for a whole $50.00. Unfortunately, mice had gotten into the camper and absolutely destroyed the canvas. I was unsure if I wanted to attempt to repair the camper or if I wanted to tear it down and use the frame as a base for a home made utility trailer. Well, a good friend of mine purchased a pair of 1994 Coleman Acadia campers, and between the two, rebuilt a camper for his family, and that sort of sealed the deal for me on repairing my camper for my family.

Things done thus far:
I started off the project by stripping down the camper, removing the canvas and the cabinets, removing the flooring, and cleaning all of the rodent feces. I followed up with welding in a 2" ball receiver to the tip of the a-frame. Once that was done, I went through and replaced all of the flooring with "peel and stick" faux wood flooring. While that was going on, I was patiently waiting for the new canvas that I ordered from Bear Creek Canvas. After the new floors were installed into the camper, I repainted the cabinets. I used some extra house paint that I had laying around, so we'll see how it lasts. The replacement canvas came in last weekend, and now, the next part of the renovation is the daunting task of replacing the aluminum roof. There are tiny holes all over the aluminum skin, and my good friend and I both decided that replacement is better than patching with fiberglass infused bondo, which was my original plan. As stated earlier in this post, we have the aluminum top from the donor Acadia, which we were planning to use as the material for the replacement skin for my Cedar. We're going to look at the frame, and see how much rot is there, as well as replace the foam insulation, and the luan above it. I purchased sheets from Home Depot last fall for this project that's faux wood, as well. What's nice about it is that if I don't like it, I can always throw some paint up.

I have a YT channel where some of the footage is posted, thus far, but I will post links to the videos when the camper is completed. As for pictures, I will post as I find them on my external hard drive. It's giving me a hard time tonight, of course!

 

[Rusty_ZJ]

This is the camper, the day we picked it up.



Here’s the “peel and stick” flooring that I used to replace the original flooring. Rodents got into the camper again, over this past winter, but there wasn’t anything inside to be damaged.


Some of the damage to the roof on the interior of the ceiling.


One piece of the new canvas for test fitting purposes.


The new 2” ball receiver welded to the end of the A-frame


The 2 Acadia campers mentioned previously.


Will post more pictures soon! Enjoy the rebuild!

 

[Jimbow]

I'm looking forward to watching your progress

 

[Rusty_ZJ]

Thank you! When I have a few days off, I’m going to start the daunting task of the roof replacement. Super excited for that! I’m thinking about installing a roof vent with a fan while I’ve got it all disassembled. I think it would be the perfect time to do it, and there’s never anything wrong with a bit more air flow on those warm summer nights.

 

[jb1996]

I just bought the same camper yesterday-a 1992. I’ll be following your progress with the roof rebuild in case I need to tackle my own. I’m planning to put in an order with Bear Creek asap-how long did it take for you to receive your order? No rodent damage but lots of dry rot to the front section of my canvas.

 

[Rusty_ZJ]

My canvas was ordered in September and delivered in March. It was about 6 months, but when I placed my order, I was informed of the 6 month run out. Worth every minute of the wait!

 

[jb1996]

Great, thanks for the info! That fits my timeline pretty perfectly.

 

[Canvas Cur]

So encouraging to hear that you folks are "resurrecting" these campers. We really enjoyed our 1993 Coleman Destiny Cedar. It was so easy to pull. It was in great shape, but did not have A/C and so we sold it to buy an Aliner. But now we are in another PUP, a Jayco. I will post a pic of one of our trips. It gives you an idea of what it will look like when add your TLC and sweat to getting it into good shape. I have other nice shots of the camper if you want to see them. Happy Trails To You...BOTH!

 

[Canvas Cur]

Just found another pic of the camper...along with a group the week after we bought it. AAAHHH...brings back memories! We had it for several years and it really was a great little PUP. Enjoy! It will be worth it in the end.

 

[jb1996]

Just found another pic of the camper...along with a group the week after we bought it. AAAHHH...brings back memories! We had it for several years and it really was a great little PUP. Enjoy! It will be worth it in the end.

Looks like it was well enjoyed! My son and I can’t wait to make some memories with ours.

 

[toucan]

Maybe you've seen this, but this thread was a big help to me when I started my rebuild.

92 Destiny Cedar

This summer we bought a 92 Destiny Cedar and after thinking we had the top repaired we discovered that was not the case. We managed to get a couple of trips in in September to Pilot Mountain, but soon discovered that the ceiling still had a leak as evidenced by the waterlogged sideboards on...

www.popupportal.com

 

[Rusty_ZJ]

Thanks for the pictures and links everyone!! It’s much appreciated!

The past few days, I got some of the cabinets back into the camper. I wanted to see how they looked with the floors.


I also worked on the counter tops a little bit as well. My daughter and I stained them with a grey stain close to the color of the floors. We used laminated pine for the material.







After a few more coats, when the Poly is cured, I’m going to take a router to the edges to refine them, and paint them flat black or something to that nature, so don’t mind the wonky edges now. I’m more mechanically inclined than I am a carpenter.

We also picked out our fabric to reupholster the bench seats. Unfortunately they didn’t have enough fabric to do the second back rest, however I ordered more and will finish when it’s done.



We will be tackling this roof soon, I swear!

 

[samh]

Excellent start to this project, and thanks for documenting it here on popupportal. I'll give this a follow. It's super inspiring to have been following the other project of folks restoring these beautiful older campers as it gives me great inspiration for the project I've been undertaking. I particularly like that you welded on a modern 2" hitch. I've had that as a 'maybe someday down the road once I get more functional work done' idea and this gives me further reason add that to my to-do list.

 

[Rusty_ZJ]

Here's some updates. Sorry for it being so sporadic, but the home, work, projects balance gets swayed to the home and work sides more than the projects side. I'm sure you all know how it goes.

My daughter and I went and got more laminated pine boards and glued them together to have material to make the table out of. We drilled out 1/4" dowels and set them in the seam to add some structural rigidity along with the wood glue.

Once that was all set up and cured, I outlined the original table on top of the pine boards and cut it out. Once I was finished, I placed the old table top on top of the new one again and clamped it down and drilled pilot holes for the hardware on the underside of the table.



When I finished that, I sanded both sides and the edges with 100 grit sandpaper, wiped down everything with mineral spirits, then applied stain to the tabletop.

When the stain dried, I applied a vinyl decal that I ordered to the tabletop.
It has about 10 coats of Behr waterbed Polyurethane, but I haven't taken any more photos of the progress I've made on the counters.

And now for the moment we've all been dreading...(or at least I have)

I started on the camper top. Boy it's a doozy so far!

Well, starting off, I brought the camper to my buddy's garage, which we refer to as the shop because it's where we work on the ATVs, ATCs, Dirt Bikes, and things of that nature. We started off by removing all of the screws on the exterior of the top, the center rubber strip, which in my case was more like a brittle plastic that broke apart while we tried removing it, cut all of the silicone calk that was still in place, removed the corner caps, then lifted the top approximately 6' to access the interior screws. We removed the aluminum bottoms that hold the seal for the top, the awning bracket, etc. We removed the factory top, and found quite the surprise when we did.


The loan was absolutely rotten. It disintegrated when we were removing the top. I always noticed that fine foam dust around the edge of the camper, and I was under the assumption that it was from mice crawling around and making nests in the camper, but no. Unfortunately a colony of carpenter ants made their way into the camper and completely destroyed the top.

We rested the top outside and have been using it for measuring the replacement that we're making.

I also found a lot of rusting to one of the brackets that connects the lift arms to the top. I've since removed it, wire wheeled it, and hit it with rust deactivator. This is how it looked prior to all of that.

 

[Rusty_ZJ]

Here is more carnage from the ants, along with the moisture that got in from the oxidation.

We made the joint decision that it would make more sense to just build a new top instead of trying to repair what was left there, as it would be easier to start over fresh with all new material and there would be peace of mind in knowing the condition of the wood over our heads as we sat in the camper. We started with the end pieces of the camper top. They are on the front and rear of the top. The original were cut straight with 6" showing passed the camper's roof line. We cut them to 9" so that we have enough material to replace those rounded wood pieces in the last picture that met the sides and the roof of the top. I think they were there to give the metal brackets something to screw into for the canvas and the pole mounting. We used 3/4" plywood for this.

For the sides, we measured and cut out the same 3/4" plywood then did a little bit of math to figure out that the angle the sides come down at is 15°. We will come back to the sides later, though.

Next up was framing out the ceiling. We opted for pine 1x3's. We measured the top and made our cuts. We used 2" - 3" decking screws to fit the pieces together along with L brackets on all for corners of the frame. We also installed corrugated fasteners into the corners, but they are a pain, so we left it at just the corners.

 

[Rusty_ZJ]

When we were satisfied with that, we added a center support, and framed out the rest of the roof. We also framed out where the fan is going to go



After the framing was done, we went through and applied the 1/2" plywood to one side of the framed out roof. That's going to be the side adhered to the aluminum. We also cut out the hole for the fan in that as well. I used a drill to mark the corners and a jigsaw to cut it out. Once that was done, I began to run the wires for the lights and the fan. They used quick splice connectors from the factory, but I prefer meltable butt connectors. Both of the lights are being upgraded to LED lights, so I'm not worried about too much draw for the wires.

When I was satisfied with my layout is when I actually connected the wires. I used a router to notch the framing to fit the wires in and made small recesses behind where the lights are going. I used a stapler to staple the wires down, being extra careful to not puncture the wires. Every section that I did that on was inspected to make sure there was none of that. The routing was maybe 1/8" into the wood, as shown.

The next step in the process was to insulate. We measured and cut out some 1/2" foam board insulation.

And how it looked with all of the insulation installed.


When we were finished, we used liquid nails and brad nails to bond the interior side of the ceiling. I went with a faux wood paneling, because it was on sale and it will paint relatively easily if I decide to paint it. We marked off every area where there were wires running so that we didn't shoot any of the brad nails into the wiring, as well.

 

[Rusty_ZJ]

This is how the ceiling turned out minus the lights and fan being installed. Not to bad if I do say so myself.

Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of this next part, but we're getting back to the sides. The plywood we used was 8' long, but the bottom of the sides needed an additional 3 1/4". We originally made filler boards, but we were not satisfied with how they felt (think of those inflatable car dealership men), so we went and picked up 2 1x10x10 pine boards and remade the sides. Once that was finished, we added the faux paneling to them as well as the front and back sections.

When we were satisfied with that, we made a jig to router out the slots for those rusty metal lift brackets.

Boy do those fit like a glove!

This is as far as we've gotten up to as I'm writing this out. The next step is going to be to remove the metal brackets inside of the old top, affix it to the new top, along with the rails for the door. After that, we still have the larger donor top that we will be using the aluminum skin from. We plan on adhering it to the plywood side of the roof once everything is screwed together.

This is my first major woodworking project, so there are learning curves to be had. I'm really grateful for my buddy for helping me step by step through this process, allowing me to steal his work space for a week so far, and for being such a great friend overall. More updates will be coming next week, so sit tight and we'll get there soon!

 

[Rusty_ZJ]

Excellent start to this project, and thanks for documenting it here on popupportal. I'll give this a follow. It's super inspiring to have been following the other project of folks restoring these beautiful older campers as it gives me great inspiration for the project I've been undertaking. I particularly like that you welded on a modern 2" hitch. I've had that as a 'maybe someday down the road once I get more functional work done' idea and this gives me further reason add that to my to-do list.

Thank you so much. This is a labor of love honestly. I'm thinking of all the fun times and memories my family will make in the years to come in our little PUP. I picked up my 2" hitch at tractor supply I believe. All of my other trailers use a 2" ball, so for me it didn't make sense to have a different hitch just for the camper. It was one of the first things I did because I was using my ATV to move it around the yard, and I already had a 2" ball on the ATV as well.

There are plenty of places I can do some touch up work, but I'd really like to go camping for Mother's Day weekend, so we're trying to get it back together for that. Most of the little stuff is done. I just need to finish the roof.

 

[Warfarin]

I see this and think man that would be a fun project. Then I remember my wood working skills and realize I would be in way over my head. Good job.

 

[samh]

Super work on the roof rebuild! I got mine re-framed this winter and this weekend the aluminum skin will get a full grind, Marine Tex in all the holes, and then next weekend a fresh coat of Dicor.

Seeing your pictures of the rust-proofing you did on the metal pieces that attach the lifting posts to the roof makes me think I'd best do the same. Mine were in WAY better shape than yours but they did have some signs of rust so I should probably just hit them with Rustoleum now rather than regret not doing it later!