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| Total Length | 24' 2" |
| Body Width | 8' |
| Interior Height | 6' 4" |
| Axle Weight Empty Approx. | 3000 lbs. |
| Hitch Weight Empty Approx. | 440 lbs. |
| Gross Vehicle Weight Approx. | 3440 lbs. |
| Actual Dry Weight | 4000 lbs. |
| Tire Size & Load Range | F78-14 B |
| Fresh Water Capacity | 34 gal. |
| Gray Water Capacity | 25 gal. |
| Black Water Capacity | 25 gal. |
Couch/Dinette/Bed Couch/Dinette/Bed Kitchenette Back Bedroom Refer and Pantry Systems Monitor Hall to Bedroom Pantry
When I pulled the Sunline home, I borrowed a draw bar and a 2 5/16"ball from the previous owner because the ball that I had for old Shasta was a dinky 1 7/8". For the short trip home, I had no weight distribution and no sway control. The rear of the truck was sagging several inches and I had to drive no faster than 40mph to avoid trailer sway. I obviously needed a hitch upgrade. So, I went whole hog and bought a Reese Strait-Line Trunnion Bar Weight Distribution hitch with integrated Dual Cam High-Performance Sway Control. It's an expensive hitch, but I wasn't taking any changes. I've dealt with trailer sway problems before and I won't do it again, if I can help it. So, I bought the right tool for the job.
The installation and setup was pretty straight forward, although it did take quite a bit of trial and error to get everything adjusted right. And, it will all have to be adjusted again once we get the trailer loaded down for it's maiden camping voyage. But, with the initial installation and adjustments done, I moved forward with a couple of "modifications" to make the hitch more reliable and easier to setup. Here's what I did...
The first change that I made was to replace the bolts that attach the cam yokes to the the tongue brackets with removable pins. The pins that I used are Class II 1/2" draw bar pins. They fit perfectly and now I can remove the cams and yokes when the hitch is not in use and stow them away out of the weather.
The second change was to weld the weight distribution hook-up brackets to the trailer A-frame. These brackets are designed to be bolted on, so they can be moved from trailer to trailer, but they have a tendency to loosen and move around. This makes a lot of excess noise and can adversely affect the performance of the hitch. Since I intend to only use this hitch with this trailer, I welded the brackets in place permanently. Now, there is no need to worry about them coming loose during travel. If we decide to buy a different trailer sometime in the future, we'll just buy replacement brackets. I intended to also weld the dual cam hook-up brackets in place, but I found that they are plenty secure with just the supplied bolts. But, while I had the welder warmed up, I did weld on a couple of other bits while I was at it. I added supports for a new battery box to replaced the rotting plywood support, a new battery shut-off switch, and a pair of hooks to keep the safety chains up out of the mud while the trailer is parked.
Here are some pictures of the hitch installed:
Reese Strait-Line Hitch Reese Strait-Line Hitch Close-up of Sway Control
Travel trailers, as well as most other types of trailers, come from the factory with a trailer wiring cable and plug dangling off the front of the trailer that connects to a connector below the rear bumper of the tow vehicle. One of two scenarios befalls this cable. Scenario one involves a careless hookup and you forget to connect the power plug before towing the trailer. The end result is that the power plug gets chewed up on the pavement and the cable gets beaten to death. The second scenario involves the power plug succumbing to the ravages of time and the elements. The end result is that the contacts in the plug are just too corroded to make good contact. No matter which scenario, the outcome is the same. You have no trailer lights and no trailer brakes...
When I towed our Sunline home, it was obvious that at different stages of life, the power cable had fallen victim to both of the above scenarios. The plug showed signs of road rash and the contacts where so corroded that I only had intermittent tail lights and no brakes. So, I decided that since I needed a new plug, I'd attempt to keep all of this from repeating itself in the future. Instead of just replacing the plug and the chewed up wires, I installed what I like to call a Trailer Wiring Umbilical.
The idea for the umbilical struck me while I was traveling to visit some family. I was cruising along a two lane highway and had to swerve to miss what appeared to be a neon green snake in the road. It turned out to be a hydraulic hose from a tractor/trailer. It was basically a short length of hose with connectors on either end. When not in use, it can be completely disconnected and stowed away. That's when the light bulb in my brain lit up. Why don't I just install a "car end" receptacle on the trailer tongue A-frame like the one under the bumper of the tow vehicle and make an umbilical with a "trailer end" plug on either end to connect the two together. That way, I can disconnect the umbilical and stow it away out of the weather when the trailer is parked.
So, I called eTrailer and ordered up a 7-way trailer wire with 8' of cable, an extra "trailer end" plug, an extra "car end" receptacle, and a trailer wire junction box. Here are pictures of each component:
7-way cable & plug "Car end" plug "Trailer end" receptacle 7-way junction box
I mounted the junction box on the A-frame next to the batter box. Next, I cut the old tattered trailer wiring back just long enough to terminate into the junction box. I used a short length of 7-way trailer cable, cut from the end of the 8' cable, to run from the junction box to the new "car end" receptacle, which I mounted on the A-frame next to the jack. Then, I connected the extra "trailer end" plug to the loose end of what was left of '8 cable. This gave me a short umbilical to connect the "car end" receptacle on the tow vehicle to the new "car end" receptacle on the trailer tongue A-frame. Here are some pictures of how it turned out:
Battery box & cutoff switch Battery box & cutoff switch
Before we brought the Sunline home, the previous owner had parked it for three years at a campground under a canopy of very messy trees. So, the taillights and marker/clearance lights were a wreck. They were all full of water, dirt, and decaying leaves. The contacts were corroded and most of the lenses were missing or broken. Replacement lights were definitely in order. The original taillights were standard Bargman Series #91 taillights with backup lights. I like these lights because they're large, simple, readily available, and they use standard automotive replacement bulbs. So, I picked up a new set at my favorite RV dealer. The original marker/clearance lights were Bargman #99 marker lights. I didn't like these much because they were small, dim, and use a single odd-ball bulb that nobody seems to carry. So, I opted for the same Peterson Manufacturing #138 (red) and #139 (amber) Double Bulls-eye marker lights that I installed on the old Shasta. I like these lights for a few reasons. First, every auto parts store and farm store carries them. Second, they're very bright and easy to see. Third, replacement bulbs are readily available. And, forth, they use two bulbs. So, if one bulb burns out, the light still works. Here are some pictures of the lights that I used and a shot of how they actually work on a dark night:
Bargman #91 Taillights Bargman #99 Marker Lights PM #138 & #139 Marker Lights New Tail & Marker Lights
This is an idea that originated with the old Shasta. When we remodeled the Shasta, we removed the kitchenette to save space. We built a set of shelves that attached to outside of the trailer to serve as an outdoor kitchen. We enjoy cooking/cleaning outside so much that we decided to add an outdoor kitchen to the Sunline, even though it has a perfectly usable kitchenette. Since this is version 2.0 of the outdoor kitchen, I incorporated some of the ideas that we learned while using version 1.0 on the Shasta. First, the shelves on the Shasta were cantilevered out from the side of the camper. So, I had to build the shelves out of heavy 3/4" plywood to give them enough strength to support themselves. I built the new shelves for the Sunline much lighter. I cut strips of 3/4" plywood to build frames, then skinned the tops with 1/4" luan. This makes for much lighter shelves that are just as strong as version 1.0. Second, because the old shelves were so heavy, I had to build the outdoor kitchen in three 2 ft. sections. The new lighter shelf design allowed me to build the same 6 ft. outdoor kitchen in only two sections. And, they're still easier to setup than the old smaller (but heavier) sections. Third, because the old shelves were supported by the side of the trailer, if the trailer wasn't exactly level, neither were the shelves. And, the shelves had quite a bit of flex, which made the three sections difficult to get exactly even. The new shelves are supported on their front corners by adjustable legs. This allows us to level the shelves regardless of how level the trailer is or how uneven the ground is. I used inexpensive adjustable broom handles for the legs. You just extend them to the desired height and give them a 1/4 turn twist to lock them in place. The top end of the legs fit into holes drilled in the shelf frames. The result is that new outdoor kitchen is always level and much more stable than the old version. The last design change is that instead of being all one level, like the old outdoor kitchen, one of the new shelves sits about five inches lower than the other. We found that it was difficult to wash dishes in a wash basin at the same level that you would cook at. So, now we have a tall section for cooking and a lower section for cleanup. Like most designs, I'm sure that the outdoor kitchen will continue to change and become more refined. But, for the time being, we're pretty happy with the new setup.
Outdoor Kitchen Outdoor Kitchen
This was a rainy day project. I had a long list of repairs to make on the exterior of the trailer one weekend, but the weather didn't cooperate. So, I spent Saturday afternoon in the barn putting together this stovetop cover. I cut the center section from some left over melamine shelving and put the frame together from some 3/4" oak left over from a furniture project. What I ended up with is an easy to clean stove cover that matches the woodwork in the trailer. This adds some much needed extra counter space when the stove isn't in use. As a nice, but entirely accidental, surprise, we discovered that the cover fits perfectly on top of our "Ice Cube" cooler to act as an ad hoc table. Over a rainy memorial day weekend, we had five adults in the front couch area playing cards around this handy little table.
Stovetop Cover
When we bought the Sunline, we knew there was "some water damage". We could tell from the outside that the roof seams and windows had leaked and been "repaired" at some point in the past. We had the roof seems resealed and thought we could ignore the water damage for a couple of seasons. By mid-summer 2009, it became obvious that the water leak problems were worse than we first thought. The roof seams were beginning to look bad again and The rear corners and windows appeared to have active leaks. I could clearly see and feel moisture under the rear bed and along the base of the rear wall. So, I took the trailer to our dealer of choice for some diagnosis and emergency repair. They started by scraping and resealing the roof seams. That went reasonably well. Then, they pulled one of the rear corners off and pieces of the wooden corner framing fell out. Not good... After a bit more investigating, they called and said that they thought they could probably rebuilt the corners and reseal everything for about $4000.00! Needless to say, I was shocked at that price. I didn't get the feeling that they were trying to rip us off, but this was WAY more money than we were willing to sink into the old Sunline just for repairs.
Oh well, I've done major camper reconstruction before. So, we parked the trailer for a few weeks and I tore into the rear bedroom area. By the time I was done removing all of the rotten wood, there wasn't much left. The roof framing was OK and most of the curbside rear corner was solid. But, most of the rear wall, streetside rear corner, streetside wall, and rear floor framing was shot. Here's what was left after the smoke cleared:
A bit more of the floor framing and quite a bit of wall insulation had to be removed after these pictures were taken. Then, it was time to begin reconstructing the framework. I replaced the rotten frame members with new wood. Since the Sunline is considered a "light-weight" trailer, all of the wall framing was originally constructed using 1x2 (3/4" x 1 1/2") pine. I used 1x3 (3/4" x 2 1/2") pine in the corners and walls, wherever possible, to add some rigidity. The factory used large staples from the inside and out of each framing joint. Since I only had access to the inside, I opted to use Kreg pocket screws instead. I used this technique when I rebuilt our old Shasta with good results. The floor joists were made up of 2x2 pine with a 2x3 pine rim joist along the back wall. Lucky for me, there was a seam in the floor about 44" from the rear wall. So, when I did the demolition, I removed the subfloor up to the seam. This gave me a convenient place to tie the new floor joists to. My original plan was to cut off the rotten joist ends and sister in new joist along-side the originals. But, there was so much rot, that in most cases, it made more sense to replace the whole joist. The rear rim joist was rotten most of it's length, so that was replaced too. Once all of the framing repairs were finished, I resealed the rear corners, windows, and door with new butyl tape. Then, I covered the exposed edges of the butyl tape with a bead of urethane caulk.
With everything weather tight, I turned my attention to the interior. I replaced the old wet fiberglass bat insulation in the walls and floor with pink rigid foam insulation. Then, I installed 1/2" plywood over the floor framing to replace the old rotten 1/2" OSB and tied the whole floor "sandwich" to the trailer from using new 5/15" carriage bolts through the original frame mounting points. The new floor is much stiffer than the old rotten floor. Next came new 1/4" luan paneling for the walls. Then, came the freshwater holding tank, water pump, bed framing, and cabinets. Mostly, this was just a matter of reinstalling the pieces that I removed during demolition. But, some of the bed framing was rotten and needed replacing. This also gave me an opportunity to add some support to the bed by beefing up the bed framing. I also took the opportunity to do some remodeling. I left the folding bunk/overhead cabinet over the bed out to give us some more headroom and add to the "roomy" illusion. When I reinstalled the tall wardrobe in the curbside rear corner, I removed the tilt-out laundry hamper (which we never use) from the lower section of the cabinet and add some shelving to make room for bike helmets, gloves, shoes, etc.
At this point, the camper is usable again, but there are several details left to complete, including: quarter round molding in all of the corners, paint on all of the wall paneling, new valances over the windows, new window shades, new lighting sconces over the bed, and eventually, new flooring. All in good time...
Spring 2009 - New Salem State Park Spring 2009 - New Salem State Park Spring 2009 - New Salem State Park Spring 2009 - New Salem State Park
