JBurt

So my wife and I finally decided to buy a pop up and came across this one



We heard about it from a friend of a friend. His parents are very old and have had it parked for at least 17 years. Yesterday a buddy helped me go open it up and I was skeptical, but it mostly seems in good shape. The plastic is a little brittle. It's well over 100* about 6 months a year (good motivation for the pop up) and the tires are shot. We only get about 1.5" of rain annually here so I had high (misplaced) hopes about water damage. More on that later. Basically I'm really new to pop ups. I think it's an early to mid 80's model but can't find the manufacture date. It wasn't stamped into the plate on the side.

The biggest issue I think is the roof. It looks like that little bit of rain found someplace to puddle up on the roof and rotted the wood part out. There isn't any mold but the wood on 1/2 the roof is shot. I think the seals failed from heat and no maintenance. It has a roof mounted ac, which is nice but doesn't work, and probably just served as more place for water to enter. Here are some pictures:











I've looked at ways to fix roofs and it seems like a fairly common problem but I think the only well documented roof repair/replacement was Irab88's. Anyone know of any others?

Aside from building an entire new roof this is the only other method I've found. Sounds doable

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS94mGIG7_M

The canvas was a big concern but it seems great! Only one place I could find where the stitching has come undone a little but that is hardly a concern.









On one corner there is a little bit of mildew spots but from research it seems these aren't too bad to take care of.



The other internal stuff seems great. It has a shower and built in porta potty! My wife likes that. It also has a 3 way fridge. The mattresses both need replacing. They had sleeping bags lied out over the mattresses so there is no water damage under the mattresses.

I know I would need to redo the propane system. Part of the regulator was plastic and rotted away in the sun. Never worked on gas systems but I'm up for learning something new.

The only other issue I can see is that when I was raising the roof it sounded like the mechanisms were jumping teeth (a pop as it would go up) but it kept going up fine. I looked to see if I could find what kind of lift system it had but couldn't find anything. Anybody know off hand? I went through an owners manual for an 82 and it seems very similar, but it had no documentation on the lift system.

The guy wants next to nothing for it. It would need new tires before I could move it. It's only about 1 mile away so it wouldn't need to go far before it got major surgery. If anyone has any tips, advice, or just wants to tell me to run away screaming from a mess of a project feel free to. I still don't know if I'll go for it but I think it would be fun.