Surveyor SV261T Floor replacment and remodel.

[sself1219]

I bought my trailer from the original owner in 2012, they told me it had a leak but had been repaired by the dealer, which I called and verified. Everything seemed great and was for a couple years. I then noticed a soft spot in the back corner under the bunk beds, that grew over a 1 year period, although I could night find any water coming in. I also found a leak in my city water inlet, that was running down the inside wall under the closet in the front, found this one weekend while camping when I went outside and the rubber membrane under the camper looked like a giant water balloon, punctured it several times and drained it, ran a fan in the same for a week to try to dry it out. Fast forward to a month ago, the back floor is gone in the back 4 feet of the camper, a large soft spot has developed under the dinette from the city water leak.

A big thanks to thebrakeman for posting a thread about his experiences with the same unit, this has saved me some time and guess work.

Original thread: http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...t-41420-4.html

I started tearing out the front floor last weekend, ended up taking the front 12' of the flooring on the drivers side to the middle of the camper.

I will post photos of progress, also planning on putting a U shaped dinette\sofa back in place of the separate dinette and sofa that were originally installed.

[thebrakeman]

Hi! Best of luck to you.
With your city-inlet leak, are you having to remove the wardrobe cabinet, water heater, and pump? I like the idea of the U-dinette, although that will require reorienting the fresh water tank. For short trips, I'd love to have that as the main bed, vs deploying the tipout.
Keep us posted. Need pics!!!!

[sself1219]

Originally Posted by thebrakeman

Hi! Best of luck to you.
With your city-inlet leak, are you having to remove the wardrobe cabinet, water heater, and pump? I like the idea of the U-dinette, although that will require reorienting the fresh water tank. For short trips, I'd love to have that as the main bed, vs deploying the tipout.
Keep us posted. Need pics!!!!

I wound up not only taking out the wardrobe and water heater but also the fridge and furnace, the rotted floor got all the way to the bathroom wall... FYI getting the fridge out was a B*$%H... Because of the uncomfortable pull out bed and the heat\AC loss when the pop out bed is deployed, we haven't used it on our last several trips, I took the canvas off the camper and took the mattress out. It wont be going back in, I'm effectively turning our Hybrid into a travel trailer with a queen bed in back with a single bunk over it, and a U dinette in front that will collapse to another queen bed. I know its a lot of work but it's costing me about $1500 to do all that on a camper that is paid for vs. spend $30k plus to get it in a new unit, I only paid $4500 for the camper in the beginning so I figure it was still cost effective.


I also had to take the lower bunk beds and the center wardrobe out of the back to fix that floor. I'm going back with an RV queen bed in the back with 1 bunk over it for our 5 year old daughter and building a new wardrobe on the door side of the camper in the back. In the front, I'm turning the fresh water tank 90 degrees to go under the U dinette and putting the fridge and wardrobe back where they were originally.

[sself1219]

This is how it will be laid out once complete, sorry for the choppy Paint drawing.

[thebrakeman]

Yeah, we lost the old mattress a while ago. The replacement is more comfortable, and folds easy enough to store on the rear bunks. So now we don't have that bulky mattress in the way when we choose not to tip out.

Your layout looks great. Too bad you'll lose use of the bike door in the back. Any chance you could reverse the layout and hinge the queen bed? That would let you swing up the front half of the bed, and still use the bike door for 1 or 2 bikes. But maybe that's not a priority for you. Lots of options for a new layout.

[sself1219]

I don't really use the bike door that much, except to load and unload clothes\supplies. I'm actually putting a door the same size on the inside of the wardrobe\tv stand there so it can be a pass-through. The queen bed will be hinged, it will have a ton of storage under it.

[sself1219]

So it's been a while since I updated this thread, the project turned out to be a much bigger undertaking after we got the floor pulled up and saw the extent of the damage.

I wound up replacing a 4' x 11' side of the camper in the front of the camper, basically, the entire side from the front of the dinette to the bathroom wall, and the entire back 6ft of the camper.

I had to remove the sofa, dinette, closet, water heater, fridge, furnace, all but 1 bunk bed, pantry, microwave, and hood over the stove, and toilet. Basically, I left the cabinet that held the kitchen sink and stove range, and the bathroom cabinet that held the sink and bathtub.

From where I saw the water stains in the back of the trailer, it looks like the leak that caused that issue originated from the small bicycle door, yet another reason I hate that door, I will be permanently sealing it shut during the renovation, to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Attached are some photos of the carnage and subsequent rebuild, I just finished weekend 3 of this hell and am in this project almost $1500 with the new Queen memory foam mattress ($250) that I bought for the queen bed I'm building in the back to replace the bottom bunk beds, I hope to be totally done in the next 2-3 weekends, the wife decided to paint and redo the upholstery since we were taking the entire camper apart anyway.

[sself1219]

[thebrakeman]

Sounds like you have a plan. Any given the changes you're making to the layout, you can afford to dig deeper, since most going back in will be custom. Are you welding in the support frame before you take out the floor?

[sself1219]

The support framing was welded in before I started peeling out the floor, was very glad I did, otherwise there wouldn't be anything to hold the new floor in.