Fixing Odds & Ends in a Four Wheel Pop-Up Camper

The ceiling was not in great shape. So I replaced the trim on the headliner with actual wood trim, put in LED lights and made other small improvements.

The wing nut that holds the front arm for the pop up portion of the camper was stripped. So I screwed a steel tie into the ceiling aluminum strut.

Then I screwed a pilot hole into the steel tie where I knew it needed to go to meet with the pop up arm.

Then I took out the wing nut, stapled in the new wood trim and then screwed the wing nut into the pilot hole I created in the steel tie. It's been tight and working great ever since.

The Keystone model has a portion of the camper protrude over the back of the gate opening. I don't think they have a model like this any longer. That is probably because the spray from the rear wheels in water constantly soaks the wood on the bottom. So it gets weak and loses strength.

Mine was obviously compromised in a few spots. I wasn't sure how to repair it so I remembered I had a steel support structure that was part of the sale for the previous camper. Miraculously, it fit and bolted right on to my bumper. It's heavy, but worth the extra weight.

It needed a few additions to make it work, like a painted piece of OSB on top of it.

And a couple pieces of 1/2" rigid foam that went under the camper to give it some cushion from the bed and the steel supports on the end. I covered the foam pieces on the end with all-weather duct tape. This is not the ideal setup with the foam because it doesn't allow much for moisture escape. But I live in a very dry state, and I have a plan for changing it in the future.

Once I was nearly finished renovating the camper, I found a forum where others had worked on their Four Wheel campers and provided great tips. That's where I picked up the tip for patching my vinyl pop up material.

I had more patching to do than I anticipated, trying to reinforce areas where I saw daylight through the stitching. I didn't remember to round the corners on my patches until I had put most of them on already. I learned the importance of that as a boy scout, but if you don't use it, you lose it.

The original camper tag:

Manufacture date: 10-20-80

ID #: 32475

The camper renovation was not as smooth or as clean as my curated pictures make it out to be. This was usually how things looked at the end of each weekend.

The original camper stove was a much higher quality stove than its modern replacement. But it was corroded and I only had so much time to fix individual items. And new stoves are somewhat inexpensive.

I cut a piece of spare walnut for a small shelf at the sink.

Putting in new black liner.