Chinook RV

Good afternoon all.
When we realized that retirement might actually happen in a few years we started looking at RV's. The search led us to a Chinook for what seem to be the usual reasons (size, one piece fiberglass body, E-350 chassis,and they just look cool).
We found a 1997 Concourse (1996 Ford 460 chassis) dinette, rear entry with under 20,000 miles. That's the good part.
The less good stuff:
It had been sitting for 15 years, the roof vent cover in the bathroom had been broken for some time, the generator did not work (only 20 hours on it), the brakes were rusted pretty solid, when the original owner tried to start it all of the nasty stuff in the gas tank moved to the injectors and plugged them.
After some time at the Ford dealer we now have a pretty solid (mechanically speaking) Chinook.

After a few short weekend trips to familiarize ourselves with the Chinook we realized a couple of things:
MDF and water are not the best combination.
The 10 pound/5 pound thing is a real issue.
The existing electrical system was not designed for boondocking.

Realizing that we will not be "power post to power post" people I have spent the last season reading this and another Chinook forum learning what other people have done. This forum is wonderful. To that end I have started to clear out the inside of the unit. Lots of questions are arising and I will attempt to put them in the right section.

The overall plans call for the pass. side to not extend beyond approx. 19 inches from the wall thereby giving a straight shot from the back door to the dash with nothing protruding, same concept on the driver side with nothing wider than the bulkhead by the shower (~37"). As you probably guessed the refrigerator is gone (out the passenger door--barely) as is the heater. The rear 46" (to the bulkhead) will be closet, next 27" will be cooking and going forward will be a "chest of drawers" type structure. this will hold the chest ref., and lots of storage.
The driver side layout will remain pretty much as it is but most of it replaced.

Some things I have learned on our unit.
1. Even though it has a dinette we have a swivel pass. chair.
2. The heater was not recessed into the floor as some people have mentioned.

This turned into more of a book than I meant. I will put my questions into shorter posts in what I hope is the right place.
Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you've got yourself a project there. Feel free to post up some pictures of your progress. Good carpentry skills make the difference in any RV interior remodel. Hope you have the tools and know how (I didn't.. I can do system upgrades to everything, but wood working turned out to not be in my bag of tricks... yet.)

Welcome! Glad to have you here

I'm right with you on the 10#/5# and the electrical system (of course that latter applies to pretty much any RV, and both points were fine for Chinook's target market). As was mentioned here earlier, the MDF is like a sponge... except sponges are meant to soak up water so are none the worse for it

I have 18" (deep) of stuff on the passenger wall (forward of the stove) and that gives a really nice open feel, at least to my mind. (The original club chair bases were 24" deep.) Stove and aft is 23-24", but not floor to ceiling; much better than the original (again, IMO). Like you are thinking, I'm fine with anything on the driver's side that stays within the shower footprint (helps that the couch is only low where it sticks out and I think a cantilever helps too).

I wonder if the earlier furnaces were shorter and then Suburban changed something so they hollowed out the floor a bit to compensate?

Anyway, great to have you aboard; let the good times (and projects) roll!

BG

Pics, please! My shell project is progressing at an appropriate snail's pace. Finally buttoning up the rear storage compartment rebuild, which seemed like an eternity. So many details to do it right. It's really tough envisioning the space when all you have is an empty shell. I'm definitely overthinking it waaaay too much.

Tough call on the cooler/fridge. At first I was just going to do a better quality ice cooler. Then was thinking about a 12v compressor cooler. Now I'm leaning on just using an existing dorm fridge I have, and putting some $$ towards solar and batteries. It's roughly the same size as a truck fridge TF130, so if it craps out I'll buy one of those for $699. I have a small Honda EX650 generator, too.

Went to move it the other day and the battery was almost dead and didn't quite start. I jumped it & let it ran. Now the service engine light is on... hopefully it goes back off. Picked up a flat on an inner dually, too. There's always something...

Currently what I'm thinking. The white thing is a fold-flat 3rd row seat from a yukon. It'll hold passengers, then fold flat and work as part of a bed/chair/table system of some sort.

Some kind of fold down seat/table/? might go over the front edge of the pass. wheelwell hump. I'm trying not to build anything on top of the wheelwells, or the rear gas filler area. So trying to cover & support on the front/rear/sides.

This is a bit embarrassing, I'm trying to move pics from my Android phone to this reply without success.
Help

Do you see the attachments tab on your mobile browser?

It should be down at the bottom. Then click
“Add files”, select a pic, wait for it to upload, place inline, then submit the post.

I just made this screenshot:

Thanks for the quick response. I use my mobile phone for picts and calls but I am attempting to use my laptop for this forum (fat fingers don't type well on a phone). Does that make a difference?

On a PC there is this lower tab with three "bars" that you need to click to see the word "attachments" then click that to get to the option to upload files. The forum software is a little clunky, but works well overall.

Might be different on different OS's or browsers, but on my computer it shows the two blue tabs just below this text box. "Options" is the default front tab, but next to it is "Attachments" which is the one you want to use. Then as noted above it just lets you find the file on your hard drive, upload it, then put your cursor where you want the image to go and tell it to place it "inline."

If you then use "Preview" you can see if it's going to work or not. Once it looks good, you can hit "Submit" and then we all get to SeeeEEEE!