I will do my best to recall what we did to fix the lift system in the camper and break it up into two blog posts because it did take us several days (or sessions) to get it all done. So when we purchased Dolly back in December 2016, we had a very mild winter so in January 2017 I (and my dad) were able to work on the lift system! This page contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
The first step was just getting under the camper. I recommend our setup! Also, we’ve upgraded camping mats from the ones in the picture to all foam ones. They’re great for at the beach, lounging outside and even exercising!
This next photo (below) is a view under Dolly while laying on that red camping mat you see in the photo above. So you’ll see a stabilizer jack in the upper left hand corner and you’ll see that there is some rust but nothing to be concerned about and you’ll also see a long rod. That is the whiffel tree that isn’t suppose to be exposed. Also a side note about that stabilizer jack, it’s in the front of the camper (near the tongue) and when Coleman built these they didn’t include front stabilizing jacks on the Columbia or the next model slightly larger because they are so small they can remain stabilized with the tongue jack. So someone in the 31 years of Dolly, added those stabilizers! They aren’t necessary and we don’t use them. In fact they come loose and fall down when we’re traveling so we have them bungeed in place to prevent that now haha.
So while looking at the instructions to fix the lift system and looking at what we have, we discovered that for some reason, at some point, someone also removed the bearing plate. I was able to find one on the trusty website on Coleman Popup parts here.
Next up was getting the channel guide back onto the camper, encasing the whiffel tree so no cables will get twisted and break! I got to use a power tool for this part which is always exciting for me!
As far as fixing the lift system we still had to take off the front and look at what was going on there and add the bearing plate that I needed to order. But this was a good stopping point.
But I wasn’t done! I took the dinette cushions home to fix them up. I purchased fabric from Ikea for the interior curtains and bought coordinating fabric from as-is for the seats!
I simply cut, stretched, and staple gunned my way to having nicer dinette cushions!
Here’s the latest breakdown for materials for Dolly:
Comforter for other bunkend $8.99
Red fleece (extra blanket) $3.00
Bearing plate $49.95
2 stabilizer jacks $59.90
Syssan fabric (Ikea) 4 yards $40.00
Fabric for dinette $14.00
-Total is now $578.69
Next things I knew I wanted to purchase were some anti fatigue mats for the bunk ends and we needed bedsheets since we didn’t have any full size sheets. I was hoping to keep the cost down for those since they’d only be used in the camper! Next week I’ll go over the deal I got on those and the next steps in fixing the lift system. We also found QUITE the surprise when we took the front panel off!
See ya next Monday!
-Robin