Adding a Toilet in Shasta Compact ?

Thanks, and touching the porta potty to clean it would be no problem, back in the 80's I had a friend that owned a Roto-Rooter business and I helped him when his only employee broke is leg, after pumping a few septic tanks you learn as bad as it smells it won't kill you. Danny

P.S. I have a penny bank already started in case the day ever comes that Hamlet is looking for a new home.

The tires are one thing we’d do differently. Ten years ago we couldn’t find white walls that were for trailers, so we wound up with these. They are Coker tires, NOT radial. They were spendy (around $200 per tire ten years ago), but we wanted to get as many made in USA parts as we could since the original was all made in USA. They are still in great shape with no cracking and not a lot of wear despite having at least 20k miles. They handle well. We know that trailer and auto tires have different load ratings, but Hamlet weighs in at under 1300 pounds loaded, which is why we seem to have done OK so far.  When we’re ready for new ones, we’ll look for American made trailer rated tires, and hope for whitewalls. We’d rather have no whitewalls than a foreign tire for Hamlet.

Hmm, good question.  We definitely made some changes.  By 1962 one could get a Compact with a toilet, but never a shower, so that’s an upgrade.  We made it taller in the front, so that’s literally an UPgrade!  When we did the bathroom, we took about 20 inches off each of the long benches (to give us a side to side double bed), built a closet on one side and a two drawer chest on the other, so that is absolutely an upgrade.  

The funny thing is, though, that unless you know what the original floor plan was like, you’d never know it isn’t original.  We were careful to make Hamlet look like the best possible version of an early Compact, so although he doesn’t meet “the letter of the law,” he certainly meets its spirit.  What we started with was rotted, windowless, had a caved in roof, and some of the cupboards missing.  What we wound up with is a little house on wheels that I actually lived in four nights a week for 2.5 years while commuting from Tacoma to Portland.  Hamlet has handled all of it beautifully and I guess that’s the point of restoration or upgrading, or whatever we want to call it.