Hey! I myself am new here and new to the camper van/class B world. I purchased a 1992 Xplorer back in September and I am in love with her! It has been hard finding much information on these vans, which is why I am happy I now found this forum. Most people I have found have explorers which are older than mine, but not too much info on restoration either. I am hoping with some collaboration on here, I can get my beauty all squared away by the end of next year. Feel free to message me if you have any specific questions. My father and I are currently in the process of gutting parts of the interior, rebuilding, replacing the fridge, floors, door panels, toilet, etc. Decisions, decisions. But I feel like I will need help/advice on parts for the van. One thing I need to do is reseal all of the windows. I have temporarily caulked around them but will have to figure out where to get the seals from or if they are even avail to buy anymore. Good luck with your ride. As I get used to using this, I will post some more photos of my progress.
We purchased our 1990 Xplorer in December 2016 and began restoring with the interior and some mechanical items. It has 120k miles on it and needed a lot of work. I'll be posting pictures of the project here.
This batch of pictures is before we started on any work.
We started the project in February 2017. First thing we did was cleaning the inside. My wife did a remarkable job cleaning the original curtains and blinds (I thought that they would disintegrate!).
We also pulled off the cabinet doors in order to repair them and make them look better. The two pull out drawers were completely falling apart so I made new ones.
I had my little helpers out in the garage (mostly for moral support!).
The carpeting was not salvageable and we eventually covered it over with new indoor/outdoor carpet. We also repainted most all of the hard surfaces in the main cabin and I put in new wood veneer on the side of the wet bath and in the rear bed area.
Why were there holes all over the cabin? Oh well, we repaired them.
The seats in the dinnette area were all worn out. My wife made a pattern from the old seat covers and she sewed new covers. I had new foam cushions made and we reinstalled everything.
The table was not in the van when we got it so I had to build a new one.
Thank you for the compliments! I couldn't have done this without my wife's help. We are pretty much done on the inside of the van and I'll be posting more pictures soon.
As we talk about refurbishing, let me being up an interesting situation. We purchased a 1988 Xplorer 228 on a Dodge B350 chassis. 58k miles and everything works, except the Thetford recirculating commode. Well, it works, but the valve in the toilet base leaks, filling up the drain line. Simple, remove commode, install new valve. Well, it would be if we could remove the commode. The slide latches will not release, the service tech said it looks like the slides are bent, and possibly spot welded. Argh.
So it would seem our choices are:
Live with old leaky.
Cut out the old and replace.
Which leaves us with a choice of
Replacing with a new Thetford recirculating
Replace with a portapotty. I am leaning towards porta potty as dump stations are in short supply on Whidbey Island.
As we talk about refurbishing, let me being up an interesting situation. We purchased a 1988 Xplorer 228 on a Dodge B350 chassis. 58k miles and everything works, except the Thetford recirculating commode. Well, it works, but the valve in the toilet base leaks, filling up the drain line. Simple, remove commode, install new valve. Well, it would be if we could remove the commode. The slide latches will not release, the service tech said it looks like the slides are bent, and possibly spot welded. Argh.
So it would seem our choices are:
Live with old leaky.
Cut out the old and replace.
Which leaves us with a choice of
Replacing with a new Thetford recirculating
Replace with a portapotty. I am leaning towards porta potty as dump stations are in short supply on Whidbey Island.
Thoughts, comments, ideas welcome.
Our Thetford toilet is non-functional as well. We use it with a small trash bag and cedar wood chiips for #1. And for #2 for emergency only (a very basic composting type). These we double bag and dispose of in proper waste recepticals as soon as we can.
We haven't used our Xplorer for any lenghly trips yet or boondocking, so it may become a challenge in the future.
Our Thetford toilet is non-functional as well. We use it with a small trash bag and cedar wood chiips for #1. And for #2 for emergency only (a very basic composting type). These we double bag and dispose of in proper waste recepticals as soon as we can.
We haven't used our Xplorer for any lenghly trips yet or boondocking, so it may become a challenge in the future.
I hope this helps.
Thanks for the feedback. I had hopes for Nature's Head composting toilet, but just too big for the space. As to Thetford, you can still buy the recirculating toilets, found them on Amazon for little over 500$. Where as you can get a good 5 gallon Porta potty for 100 to 200, and only 1 gallon less capacity.
Linear Mode
