Another round eye bites the dust - 1994 Cardinal
Bought a very used 1994 Cardinal SD Designer Series that seems to have almost every option possible except motorized tongue lift, nor the stove/oven option.
I purchased it "as is" and it stealthily wasn't fully opened up when i came to look at it and purchase it on the spot as my family and I were leaving that night on a 4 day trip. The pictures posted on the advert looked excellent, and it claimed that "everything works, it's ready to go".
So, this seemed like a great unit with ac that blew cold air, and a large fridge that functioned well. Both of which our family's long previous Coleman didn't have, so I was very excited as this baby seemed like a popup dream boat! ... well, some people's idea of honesty differ greatly from my standard of the same, as we were about to find out the hard way, the cold wet way, and the cramped way.
The guy who sold it to us lied about it through and through. He said everything worked, and that they resealed the roof last year.
Well that's a big lie.
The the faucets leak profusely when trying to use them, which i suspected they would, and the large bed pull out was previously repaired with particle board which was literally falling apart. We couldn't even try to sleep on it because the support hooks that the support poles go into weren't even there, no skirt loop rings at all and no surprise because the whole bed particle board was falling apart. .... hmmm, why would particle board look warped and bloated, and the metal frame caps that go along the outer edges of the bed that you grab to pull the sliding bed out be pulling apart from the trusty board? Gee, what could that
And to boot, when i got home to raise the top just a little, the front corner lift failed. Likely due to the fact that the roof is soaked and far too heavy.
Missing the bottle and battery cover, the roof is in pretty bad shape. Inside, 0 valence, 0 curtains, no shower curtain, no wardrobe, no over head shelf/cabinets, the long bed is completely unusable due to particle board cheap replacement.
Basically missing all of those things because of water damage from leaking roof and then someone likely folded it up wet, left it for months, and all of those things were mold and water spreading damaged.
The door seems fine before lifting the unit up, but then it won't shut at all as the spline is not able to be well and firmly tightened to both the side frame wall of the lower tent body, not to the door side since all of the regular hole/screw locations have been stripped out and they then tried some longer thin dry wall self tapping screws at other places on the door side, but those are stripping out and loose as well.
And i have to first fix the lift system due to the front left slugs wire popped undone.
Then i need to repair the roof, and i have a plan for that with Crazy roof repair materials.
The only thing i am concerned about with that is the poor geometry and over whelming physics that has been demonstrated over its lifetime causing the roof on the top side to droop downwards from the fore and aft cross bars behind the end caps. Basically, poor design, not compensating for greater length (than a small or even medium trailer tent body model) and thus a far greater weight which exceeds the flawed structural support strength of what seems to be a simple stretched out design from a much smaller model, lacking needed additional cross tent buttresses to compensate for the obvious additional total overall weight and mass from the additional roof length and greater body width.
Making the drooped roof water tight will exacerbate those forces when it rains and acts like a super sized low height bathtub.
Somehow i think that adding some light weight material like specially cut large low height cubes of tough Styrofoam to return the geometry to a centerline 3" convex shape being perfectly wrapped covered by super tough roof wrap. Thus, as Jaycos original roof designs claimed, water would roll off the roof from center to each side.
Other than that, i do like the great fridge, the nice low center of gravity 17 gallon water tank, and that Dacron fabric in the Cushions and bedding is nearly indestructible and has held up almost perfectly. Super impressed Dupont! Great choice Jayco.
And the AC Coleman unit is just fantastic. Blows well, cold air.
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2011 Flagstaff 831 RLBSS
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