41 replies to this topic

[HughDog]

Conduit that locks in place and good anchoring will work.  If you share your plans, I'm sure there are a million owners who will thank you for not putting them through the rivet and spring loaded hinge exercise!

 

In case you decide not to reinvent the wheel on the lift mechanism, take a bunch of hinge placement photos and put markings on the attachment spots.  Use the old panels as templates.  Lift and close the thing a bunch of times, to make sure what you copy is worth redoing (mine was seriously cockeyed)...   The geometry is not that tricky, but with three hinges and a ton of rivet work, it's nice to have a good working movement. 

 

Best - HughDog

[Living The Dream]

Just chiming in here now. Your project looks great! Glad you came across my videos. Do let me know if you have any more questions. Your timeline is way faster than mine. Like 10X faster But get after it!!!

 

 

Going to go with the Conduit lift system, that should give enough space for windows front and rear. Any feed back as to why not go that way instead of rebuilding the existing panels?

Front and rear window sound great. We had played with the idea before but ended up not going with the extra windows. In hindsight I kind of wish we had put one by the bed, it would have been so nice. I would suggest you make the window small enough so that is it "inside" the emt lifters. There is a bit of dull-scissor-effect from the EMT. If you can find a way to mitigate the EMT crunking a part of the canvas I would be interested. 

 

[mhskog]

WOW,

Very cool you saw my post, I've been giving some thought to the issue of the scissor effect. Going to be end of the month at best before I get there. Yes we are thinking about a smaller window at the front that would be inside the lower EMT loop. I think we will just do netting and material for the front and back no clear window. What we really love about this type of camper is the ability of the wind to blow though. We have a ( ok two ) tent trailers now, and we are really good just unzipping and feeling the breeze when the folks around us in Tin cans are having to fire up the AC.

 

So today I started removing the bottom, I'd say I'm about half way done drilling rivets and unscrewing sheet metal screws. The bottom is in about the shape I'd expect it in flaky, bit water damaged but not super bad. Every screw is rusted and all the caulking  has dried up behind the moldings. I'm going to lay out the new bottom to match my truck so I'll gain a few feet here and there. Started doing a spread sheet on cost as well, which I always seem to regret at the end ( if I didn't I think I spent so much less ). Did pickup a king sized foam bed from a neighbor during a yard sale for $10 bucks soft foam on one side memory foam on the other each about 2" thick so bed. Also got a small Kawasaki Generator that runs on starting fluid but the carb seems to be bit jacked up for $40. 

 

Going to see if I can get the bottom removed tomorrow evening I took some video but I think it's going to be exceptionally boring.

[Living The Dream]

Keep up the progress! Best of luck!

[mhskog]

 

Tear down

 

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[mhskog]

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[mhskog]

don't know why pictures are screwing up this evening, tore out the bottom, it's now just resting on  the old one I should have the new bottom fabed tomorrow and then build up from there should be interesting.

[BBZ]

I did this project this spring and if there is one thing I wish I would have done differently.. it was to take the roof and canvas off first.. (as long as you know you are going that route).. just gets in the way..

[mhskog]

We've kinda had a change of heart, we want to camp in the damn thing so the fabric is going to live for a bit longer. It's bad but usable long as we don't end up in a hurricane. 

 

Ok so update time.

 

Remove the bottom had three layers of rotted floor, the thing must have weighed over 200LBs I couldn't lift it barely able to flip it over. 400 #8 screws later and a bit of pry bar and it came off. now I had support only a couple of inched under the bottom so that the frame couldn't flex far. I had measured out and created a new floor with 1/2 ply in the driveway made sure it fit into the truck and drove over to my friend's field where the camper is stored.

 

Picture of the floor you can see all three layers

 

 

This is the floor I made in the driveway, I did the rear 1 inch too wide so had to cut it down on site but other than that it fit really well.

 

 

I then boxed in the rest a piece at a time. This little jig was a lifesaver I could not have done it without it.

 

https://www.lowes.co...mhoCy1oQAvD_BwE

 

One side boxed in 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by mhskog, 02 July 2018 - 03:18 AM.

[mhskog]

and now it fits on the truck.