1959 FAN TRAVEL TRAILER

The Fan coach company was started in 1954 by Franklin A. Newcomer hence the name FAN it's last year of production was 1980.

Click on pictures with a colored * to get a closer view

Most people that know me, understand that I am a "Retro" sort of guy. That doesn't necesarily mean that I chase after antiques, although I have an eye for them as well, but just older, shall I say "vintage", things.

A lot of people write and ask me questions about Fan campers that I really just can't answer. What I know about Fans is writen above. Not much Huh? But there is a Yahoo group devoted to Fan campers that you can join and maybe get the answers you need or even share some of your own knowledge. Activity there is somewhat slow, but it is likely the best source of Fan information on the web. Click here

"New things are no good, old things are better." Steve McQueen (The Hunter)

I've always wanted to buy one of these old campers (well, at least for the last 20 years) and see how well I could fix it up. I can't pull the trailer and a boat at the same time, and I don't want to camp where I can't fish. But I wanted one and I finally found one at a good price.

When I got this I had to take it to the local elevator to get it weighed so I could put a plate on it. What you see in this picture weighs 1650 pounds. When the work was done I took it back to the elevator and it weighed 2020 pounds. I'm not sure where I picked up that much extra weight, but it must be the extra size of the lumber that I put into it.

I thought the Dodge full moon hubcaps were a nice touch.

You'll see in some of the following pictures, the only way to do things right would be to completely gut it out and start over.

That's not a refrigerator, it's an ice box and, man, does it stink! I have an AC/gas refrigerator that I could install, but.....

I don't really think that we will ever go camping for long enough periods to make that useful. Besides a few coolers full of ice will keep the refreshments a lot colder than those little reefers.

This old stove is not in bad condition, but it is missing one knob and I have a better one to install.

This old sink is in pretty bad shape, as far as looks go, so I think I will replace it with another one that I also already have.

Yup, this sinks gotta go!

The following few pictures will show how far I went with the gutting out.

I wanted to remove the inner walls as well as the ceiling.

But the method of construction for this style trailer would not allow me to do that without removing the front, roof and rear skin first or compromising the strength of the entire structure. So I laminated a piece of white bathroom board over that bad spot and painted the rest.

It was at this stage I decided to go one more step and remove the interior portion of the floor. No easy task, but before I was all done with this project I was glad that I put the extra effort into it. Those floor studs look almost new.

There was a huge bee hive in the floor just inside the door, you can see the light brown spot where they had crawled around and chewed up the Celotex.

Rebuilding

Well, here we go. The first thing I had to do was find a standard mattress size that would work, a "full" size mattress was 54" wide and exactly the same length as the trailer was wide. Perfect for two people and will make an ample storage space beneath it.

I almost forgot while the floor was off I ran new copper for the gas and wire for the new tailights that had to be installed.

The next thing was to build seat frames that would fit the cushions I already had and still allow the table to be used to convert it all to another bed if needed. (See improvements page)

Again, it appears things are going to work out perfectly as far as taking things out of the old slide in camper that I have and rebuilding them into this one.

I've had this old slide in for many years and have not used it much, since it is such a pain to load onto the truck and take off again. Now I own a short bed pickup and it won't fit at all.

In the space that's left between the bedframe and seatframe, I need to build a cabinet to install the new stove and sink into.

I scrounged the old water tank out of the slide in and installed it under one of the seats. It holds 14 gallons of water. Plenty for a couple days camping.

I also canabalized the slide in for its furnace and, after much finagaling and cursing, managed to get it installed into this small space here. The original was in the same location, but this area used to be a full size closet, there was nothing keeping clothing or whatever from touching the vent pipe and possibly starting a fire. I don't know how anybody could go to sleep with that old furnace lit. Sure wish I'd taken a picture of it before I removed it.

I have enclosed the sides of the seat frame......

and the bed frame. The cabinet doors that you see here and on the sink cabinet, were originals in this trailer.

And I have made some small cabinets above the sink and stove.........

And also above the bed/furnace area. The doors you see on these cabinets came from the slide in camper. I thought at first that they would not look right having two different styles of doors in such a small space, but they look just fine.

My wife spent a couple evenings sewing up new covers for the seat cushions and new curtains. After trim painting and caulking things up the way they should be, I think it could be put to use. The following series of pictures will show how things came out. I am very pleased with it and feel like it was a worthwhile effort.

Plenty of storage space under the bed, and easy access, too. Just lift the bed and lid and put the prop rod in place. Or, reach in through the door.

Finally after almost a year we got it out for a trial. Everything worked great and a good time was had by all. I think it's a keeper!!

More improvements.