by JaggedEdges » Wed Apr 27, 2016 2:51 pm
Can't leave a whole lot of interior to finish, maybe cupboard fronts and drawers, since a lot of it is either integrated into structure in the first place, or like interior panelling will be too big to deal with in there by the time you got the roof on. TTT size you can wait to do cabinets I guess.
If you find the ideal junk popup, that maybe has road cover split at the corners, canvas split at the corners and zippers bust, enough to make it $$$ to fix, you can recycle a very great deal out if it, provided you don't set about it with a 10lb hammer to get at the frame. Rescue the bed end canvass roofs, cut them on the wall side of the seam if you have to cut, put them through a commercial washer at the laundromat with bleach if there's any signs of mildew. Should get enough to do a roof, with the paint/fabric method of finish. If the road cover is fabricated flat, not one piece of ridged ABS or fibreglass, then you may be able to use that to cover the sides or roof. Rescue the vent cover and frame. Take out the applicances, save all doors and hardware on cabinets and any large areas of plywood, the dinette boxes may yield enough wood across to make a kitchen on a 4x8 or if you're lucky and it was a queen size dinette, a 5x8. Ignore if it's particle board though. The bed end boards should be enough to make the floor of a TD from. Take off all sealing strip carefully. If you luck out, it's got a split hard door, that the top part is the right size to make a TD door, save all frame and sealing for it. The material of the box may be useful to save to cover sides. Hopefully you also get usuable mattresses and cushions. Measure across the kitchentop before you rip it apart, if it puts the stove and sink close enough that it will fit your kitchen, and the top is 4 or 5' across, why mess with fate, take/use the whole thing.
If you get real lucky and get the ideal junker I'd guesstimate a 90s model would tend to have these features, then you could save $1000 worth of parts and materials before you get to the frame, considering, vent cover, door, appliances, trailer lights, half your cabinets, frame your kitchen to use the doors and drawers. Heck you might even sell functioning lift mechanism parts, and tanks (likely to be too big for TD) and make back the $200 lucky you shelled out for it. If you're not going to use the dinette cushions and table yourself, try selling those, they seem to go missing a lot from campers, people end up using lumps of plywood and garden chair cushions. (Potential $200 in those if they're not super shabby or funky)
If everything went super perfect, you've sold lift mechanism mechanics, tanks, dinette stuff, and any unique pieces that owners of good shape ones of those popups will pay good money for, you might have even ended up with $400 back, $200 ahead, in pocket. So go buy you 6 sheets of luaun with exterior grade glue, half a dozen 2x4s to rip, lots of gorilla glue, few hundred 1" weatherproofed screws (What you can get, plated, coated, brass) 4 gallons of recycled exterior paint, can of underseal/roof sealer (for underneath) and 4x 1"x4'x8" styrofoam, can of polyurethane for inside, and I think you'll still have $50 left for any bits and pieces that come up.
So yah, theoretical possibility of a "$200" TD there. Depends how relatively cheap and wrecked popups get in your locale.
You can take it further.. reclaimed 2x4s or skids for your sticks.... discarded basement window wells or galvanized washtubs sawn up for fenders...
Jack of all trades, Doctor of rocket surgery and fellow of the noble college of shadetree meddlers. "in argentum tenax vinculum speramus"
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, Looks like you have enough frame to add a 2 car garage with a deck ! 
