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Year for my "New" 8 foot Alaskan Camper Non-Cabover?

8 alaskan camper nco year vintage manheim pennsylvania

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#1 Splittie

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Posted 18 April 2016 - 10:32 PM

Hello folks,

 

I'm a Canadian who has been perusing these forums for the past year or so during my search for an older Alaskan Camper. I've found that there is a lot of in-depth information here from people very experienced with these old beauties, something that I'm glad exists as a resource. Following and reading about the rebuilds that have been performed has encouraged me to attempt to restore a unit of my own.

 

I've finally been able to locate and purchase an older 8 foot non-cab over Alaskan Camper, something I'm pretty excited about. It appears to me to be in great shape considering that it may be into its 60th year (or so).

 

There is an identity plate on the rear of the unit, on the upper half near the bottom edge as show in the photo. The plate reads, "The Alaskan Camper", "PennACamp Inc", "Manheim, Penna" and shows a serial number of 12. It's the low number that suggests to me that it could be from the late 50's, although I've also been told that it could be from the early 60's.

 

Is there any other way to nail the date down? Past postings I've read elsewhere regarding finding the date for a camper have suggested that the serial number may be etched into one of the exterior metal corner edges of the camper (either the vertical corner on the driver's side, camper top, or along the horizontal edge trim on the bottom left edge below the door). In my case, no numbers are present.

 

is the low serial number indicative of being part of an original run, at least from the Manheim, Pennsylvania factory? Or is this camper newer, perhaps from the early to mid-1960s?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

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#2 thisoldcamper

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Posted 19 April 2016 - 10:19 AM

Good find! My camper - serial # 1276M, was built in 1978 at the Mannheim shop.  From what I’ve read, they didn’t start building Alaskans until 1958, so they probably hadn’t expanded their production out to the east coast until the early 1960’s (swag).  

Your teardrop marker lights were getting tough to find because they were out of production, but they’re being reproduced here: http://www.vintagetr...t-p/vts-214.htm

They also have the rubber gasket material for your windows and a lot of other stuff, too.  Keep us posted on your progress.


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#3 Splittie

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Posted 19 April 2016 - 07:03 PM

Hello thisoldcamper,

 

Thank you for your feedback. Yours is one of the four documented rebuilds that I saved and which has given me the knowledge and courage to proceed with my own rebuild. I'm enjoying the start of my learning about the history of these units and knowing a little about the history of the various shops where they were built. I also appreciate the effort that folks such as yourself have gone to in not only restoring their campers, but documenting the process for others such as me to follow. I hope that I can do the same. One challenge for me is doing this without a garage. I'm looking at one of those tarp shelters (for cars) to keep out the elements as it is disassembled and worked on.

 

Your camper is beautiful - you've done a really nice job with it's restoration. I really like the cabinetry. The whole restore is very nice. How long did it take you, and have you done this before? You must have has prior woodworking experience, correct?

 

I guess that you hadn't encountered any serious rot, dry or otherwise, in the framing? I'm anticipating finding some with this unit, so with that as a starting point I'm trying to figure out the best way to both separate the top and bottom halves to be able to work on them separately.

 

To this end I have a few initial tasks on my list before I can start to examine the camper more closely (removing windows and siding and the like). The first is that I've found that the two jacks that came with the camper have 1/4" aircraft cable that is just a little too short when they are lowered down as far as they will go. I'm glad that I checked the cable length as I found that the end of the cable isn't secured to the spool; the camper would have dropped about a foot to the ground otherwise. I've seen how someone else on this forum (dieselrocket) created two new jacks (http://www.wanderthe...er-restoration/) for his 1974 Alaskan Camper restoration. I can find similar jacks here but I'd need to find someone to do the welding mods for me. Ultimately I'm thinking that these old jacks still appear in good shape enough to continue using them once the cable is replaced.

 

The pictures I've uploaded show the unsecured end of the cable. The jacks are at an angle on purpose. As the camper is currently sitting on two metal sawhorses, these are there to help to stabilize the unit so they aren't under a lot of compressive stress, just enough to keep the jacks in place.

 

I've got the jacks set on wood blocks as they don't lift the camper high enough to load on a more modern truck.

 

My plan is to build a plywood and 2x4 dolly using bigger garden cart/wheelbarrow wheels that the camper will sit on, perhaps a foot or so off of the ground. I'd also build a U-shaped frame that would straddle the dolly and camper, whose "arms" would fit underneath the bottom edge of the camper top, if that makes any sense. Ultimately as the camper is lowered to the ground the top would be held up by the U-shaped frame while the bottom would be lowered further until it rests on the wheeled dolly. I'd then be able to pull the bottom "tub" away to work on separate from the top. I don't know if this makes sense though. One issue is that by doing so I could not access the strips that hold the Perelli webbing in place so I still need to give this some thought.

 

Do you know how heavy the top portion of your camper was with the windows out? Could two people lift it?

 

I've started a (growing, but manageable) list of things I'll need, and window gaskets (along with mesh) were on it. They are in surprisingly (to me at least) good shape given how old this camper appears to be.

 

Thanks for the link to the reproduction marker lights.

 

The photo I included in this post shows the next parts that I'll need to source. It all looks pretty simple, but are they made any longer?

 

1. "L" shaped edge trim along the bottom edge of the camper top;

2. I think this is "J Rail", correct?

3. The metal strips that hold the Perelli webbing in place. I've read that these may be brass, correct?

4. The four guides. These appear to simply be drawer slides. Can I use these as a replacement?

 

 

 

Attached Thumbnails

  • Alaskan Camper Photo Mosaic 01.jpg

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#4 huskyrunnr

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Posted 20 April 2016 - 04:53 AM

Funny story, I scored an old Alaskan about 20 years ago but it didn't come with the jacks. I called Alaskan over in Chehalis and Brian said he had some cable jacks for me. I run over there, sleeping for the first time in my life in a camper at White Pass. I get to Brian's house and he looks over the camper and says it's a '66. Looks just like yours. He said to be sure and hang on to those metal insignias. His wife comes out yelling like crazy "what are you selling?" Brian yells back "garbage". He was kind of a wild lookin long haired dude back then. I'm glad he's made a successful go of the company.
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#5 thisoldcamper

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Posted 20 April 2016 - 09:46 AM

This site helped me a lot, too – glad that I could contribute.  I took about 6 months to fix my camper up and was lucky enough not to have any structural damage to repair.  I’ve restored a couple of old pull behind campers that had to be torn down all the way to the frame – those were a lot more work.

 

As for the weight of the top half??? – there’s a picture on this link of two guys removing the top half of an old Alaskan: http://campereparadise.com/wp/?p=1558  There’s a ton of other great information and history of the Alaskan camper also.

 

Try a local rv dealer/repair place for the J rail and corner. If they don’t have it, they can probably order it for you – get the stuff that’s bendable.  I thought that the metal that held the weatherstripping on my camper was done by the previous owner, so I threw it away (oops) and replaced it with aluminum trim that I found at Lowe’s – it came in 8ft sections and is about 1 ¼” wide.

alaskan seal

 

As far as the guides for the top and bottom halves – I’d try to re-use the originals if possible, drawer slides might not be strong enough or thin enough to work.

 

 


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#6 Splittie

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Posted 20 April 2016 - 05:47 PM

Funny story, I scored an old Alaskan about 20 years ago but it didn't come with the jacks. I called Alaskan over in Chehalis and Brian said he had some cable jacks for me. I run over there, sleeping for the first time in my life in a camper at White Pass. I get to Brian's house and he looks over the camper and says it's a '66. Looks just like yours. He said to be sure and hang on to those metal insignias. His wife comes out yelling like crazy "what are you selling?" Brian yells back "garbage". He was kind of a wild lookin long haired dude back then. I'm glad he's made a successful go of the company.

 

Ha, good story. Yes, I'm pretty happy to see that the badging is in place and still in solid condition, barring the fading.

 

The jacks work surprisingly well. When we loaded the camper on to the truck to bring it home, the main things we had to be watching were the height needed to raise the camper (hence the use of the wood blocks under the tripod feet) and that the tripod feet wouldn't be driven over by the rear wheels of the truck. The wheels just skimmed by the feet. From this I'm guessing that a 3/4 ton truck today is likely wider as well as taller than those from 50-60 years ago. 

 

I picked up some new cable for the jacks as well as U-clamps to secure the cable at the jack and on the spool so this should give them a new lease on life.


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#7 Splittie

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Posted 20 April 2016 - 07:15 PM

This site helped me a lot, too – glad that I could contribute.  I took about 6 months to fix my camper up and was lucky enough not to have any structural damage to repair.  I’ve restored a couple of old pull behind campers that had to be torn down all the way to the frame – those were a lot more work.

 

As for the weight of the top half??? – there’s a picture on this link of two guys removing the top half of an old Alaskan: http://campereparadise.com/wp/?p=1558  There’s a ton of other great information and history of the Alaskan camper also.

 

Try a local rv dealer/repair place for the J rail and corner. If they don’t have it, they can probably order it for you – get the stuff that’s bendable.  I thought that the metal that held the weatherstripping on my camper was done by the previous owner, so I threw it away (oops) and replaced it with aluminum trim that I found at Lowe’s – it came in 8ft sections and is about 1 ¼” wide.

 

 

As far as the guides for the top and bottom halves – I’d try to re-use the originals if possible, drawer slides might not be strong enough or thin enough to work.

 

Thanks for pointing me back to the campereparadise.com site. Yet another encouraging and inspirational example of a restore, I had missed some of the photos in the slideshow, including the one with the top being lifted manually. Good to know that it's certainly doable. Makes me more confident in my (for now) crude plan to separate the camper halves.

 

The guides will need to be replaced, or at least the ones on the rear wall. The mating pieces that attach to the wall on both slides is gone, as shown in the photo. I'm thinking that drawer slides could work, I've used some heavy duty, all-metal, zinc-plate ones here at home with 100 pound limits. I don't think any difference in thickness will be an issue. Lee Valley even has some extra HD slides ($$$) that support up to 400 lbs, but these clearly would be too thick to fit between the camper's top and tub.

 

The existing slides in the camper are 28" long, 1 5/16" wide.

 

I did find some J Rail here at a local RV repair shop (see the comparison picture) that I think will work. It's C$3/foot. I guess that this is bendable? My thought was to trace the curve of the roof on a old sheet of ply and screw the J Rail to it starting at one end. I'd follow the drawn curve by bending the trim by hand as I screw it into the scrap plywood by somehow clasping it with wooden blocks to give me leverage, if that makes any sense. Unless there's a better way...

 

One issue with the J Rail I've found here is that it comes pre-drilled and the screw holes don't match the spacing on the camper as you can barely see in the photo. The screw spacing on the camper is smaller at 3 1/4" than on the J Rail I found (5 1/4"). They obviously aren't multiples of one another.

 

Do you know if you can buy undrilled J Rail?

 

I just had a zoomed-in look at your finished camper picture showing what I think is the corner trim you found at Lowes; good to know that it will work for me, look good, and should I need to use it.

 

I just checked the corner trim used on the vertical and horizontal corners of the tub. They are 1 5/8" wide and 1/8" thick and steel. The bottom of the tub's vertical corner trim actually has a triangular end cap welded onto it to keep the otherwise exposed framing in the corner dry. 

 

So many questions....I hope you don't mind :)

Attached Thumbnails

  • Alaskan Camper Photo Mosaic 02 Slides.jpg
  • Alaskan Camper J Rail Comparison 1a (Medium).jpg

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#8 Rusty

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 03:20 PM

Be real careful with those cable jacks....they're well known for losing their position and dumping campers on the ground when the soil is soft.....or scratching the top section

 

Check out reico titan or atwood jacks with offset brackets...bolted to the frame...one at each corner avoids the balancing act performed at each offload

 

good score on the J mold....when you apply it...make sure to drop it slightly below the top section to form a drip corner...water coming off the top tends to wick into the corners of the camper when the molding is cut exactly flush.....double the sealant at that point as well....all things help in the resistance of rot...especially at those corners....the holes shouldn't present a problem...just make sure you have backing sufficient to hold it and the old holes are filled with a goos waterproof material....3M 4200 or like


Edited by Rusty, 22 April 2016 - 03:25 PM.

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