How much creaking and twisting is ok when jacking/loading?

[WillTheThri11]

I was jacking the camper off the dolley this evening and saw quite a bit of misalignment at the door. And not all of it squared up when it was up in the air and level. Wondering if I have a broken weld...thoughts?

If I need frame work do any dealerships work on that or does it have to go back to Woodland? I’m in southern CA.

Thanks in advance!

Also, as an FYI, I moved this thread over to here when it became a definite frame repair project:

https://www.wanderthewest.com/forum/topic/20512-fwc-ranger-ii-frame-repair-and-continued-build-thread-maybe/#entry239115

 

[Andy Douglass]

If I do it by myself, I do front and back corners together in small increments (5 cranks, move to other side, 5 cranks). Usually my wife helps me and we crank the front or rear at the same time in equal numbers of cranks.

How bad is the misalignment of the door after you leveled it?

 

[WillTheThri11]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rGKpnd5dFefMKNodA

It's still pretty significant in my opinion (see videos in link above)

Another thought I had about the construction of these campers in general: Most of them seem to hang over the truck bed by just a little, but I have an 8' camper in a 6.5' bed so it's more than a little. This means that the aluminum frame is not sitting in the truck bed and is hanging out in the air with the weight of the camper on the plywood floor and the load going through the vertical plywood wall. How much of a concern is this?

My camper is also shimmed up off the bed to clear the bed rails with 2" of wood (2 2x4s and a couple of 1/4" redwood bender boards). I'm thinking of building an aluminum frame to go under the floor as a spacer that is lighter than the wood and would also support the cantilevered end. This would also allow for insulation of the floor between the aluminum tubes.

 

[camelracer]

Your videos show cracking in the in the panel above the corners of the door. I had the same problem which was caused by a cracked frame. FWC fixed it twice under warranty and it came back after each repair. It is now cracked again and since the warranty has expired I'm just living with it. These campers are designed to flex as is your truck bed.

 

[WillTheThri11]

Your videos show cracking in the in the panel above the corners of the door. I had the same problem which was caused by a cracked frame. FWC fixed it twice under warranty and it came back after each repair. It is now cracked again and since the warranty has expired I'm just living with it. These campers are designed to flex as is your truck bed.

Yes the door frame welds themselves have cracks...are those superficial? I wonder if the door frame cracks because of an issue with the frame that transfers the loads into the door frame which isn't made to take it perhaps?

Do you do much off-roading in that condition?

Is there a reasonably unobtrusive way of inspecting the frame of the camper? Seems I either have to remove the outside skins or gut the interior to do that.

Part of me is glad to see I'm not the only one, the other part of me wishes it wasn't a problem on these campers.

 

[camelracer]

The cracks I was referring to are in the siding above the door not in the door frame itself. Mine was only cracked on the right side and was caused by a failure in the internal framing. The first repair FWC performed was replacing a 1x2 and 1x1 tube at the top of the frame with three 1x1 tubes. This worked for awhile but then I saw the exterior cracks again. I returned it to FWC for a second repair and I'm not sure what they did this time but it still cracked again after a while. After warranty expired I'm just living with it.

I do some off-roading with the camper but nothing serious. These campers are meant to flex a little since your truck bed is flexing. If you look at the framing you'll see that the joints aren't fully welded by design. Seeing some distortion when it's on jacks is not unusual. To see if there is any major frame damage you need to either peal back the siding or interior panel.

 

[CoreyTrevor]

I'm sure most people have not seen the inside of their FWC walls. I have all my interior wall panels off during my build, so here are a few pics of the construction in case anyone is curious. This is a 2012 Eagle shell.

The rear wall has interior welds around the door opening framing, across the top 2 horizontal members, and at the corners with the side walls. The front wall has interior welds at all the junctions. The side walls have no interior welds but a few at the top, where the 2 horizontal members make up the top of the wall.

I can't see what is or is not welded on the outside of the frame. They left a lot of possible welds not welded. I wonder if that is to strategically engineer flex in the frame, or to save costs. I'm guessing the latter.

 

[longhorn1]

Not sure why you would have any. In 7 years we haven't had an issue. How are you raising the camper, single or with a helper? Are you rotating around the camper raising and lowering. My wife and I work in tandum, raising the camper, 10 turns raising the back, then 10 turns raising the front until it is up or down. There should be little or no tork raising or lowering. If raising by yourself, 5 turns rotating around the camper.

 

[WillTheThri11]

A few photos. Three of the welds are broken completely it looks like and the remaining one just has a crack in it.

 

[WillTheThri11]

Well I decided to do some disassembly work after getting in touch with FWC. Found a couple things. Previous owner had backed it into something and didn’t do the best job inspecting and repairing the frame which is cracked/torn in multiple places. The header that has cracked welds seems structurally less important based on the 2in. Tube above it whose welds with the door jambs are in good shape. But here I am, so gotta find someone to do some tig welding for me next so I can get it back together quick and still go camping this summer.

Also realized that the tail lights were rewired to the trailer 4-pin and it was probably wired differently from the factory. Found exposed copper on the light switch too which could’ve been a fire hazard.

 

[WillTheThri11]

So far have had a heck of a time finding someone willing to weld on the frame. I've continued doing disassembly and it gets more and more depressing as i rip this camper apart, my dreams of camping being crushed a little more with every screw and staple I remove. I think at this point I'm going to have the entire back wall of the frame welded on the interior. I was very surprised to learn that FWC only welded one side of the tubing joints. This probably leads to the frame flexing at the welds and eventually breaking rather than flexing along the length of the tube which is obviously a much longer area and less prone to fatigue as such.

 

[WillTheThri11]

Some updated pics (not sure why WTW rotated them the wrong way, sorry)...fridge came out last night. Appointment with a welder tomorrow and another welder Saturday.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Will, try this when your photo orientation is hinky.

 

[WillTheThri11]

Seems to have worked (the taped off wires are the DC wires to the 3-way fridge, were disconnected by previous owner)

 

[WillTheThri11]

Question: while I have the back skin off and am hiring a welder, is there anything I should seriously consider doing? I have a single back porch light, should I get another? Should I add a solar cable entry gland or should I wait and just do that on the roof at some point? (i don't currently have solar but have been considering it).

Should I lop off those tail lights? They seem to be dead weight for the most part, but in my case of running an 8' camper on a 6.5' bed, maybe I should leave them?

I also thought about adding some storage boxes on the other side of the tail lights since there is still a significant gap before the edge of the truck bed.

I'm also considering having an aluminum platform built to go under the floor so I can remove my tailgate and save a little weight since I already need to raise the camper about 2" to fit the bed properly.

Thought about shortening the whole camper by a foot to fit the truck better too, but that seems like too much. If I did that I think I'd move the front wall back by that foot and just have more overhang in front...since I'm not really working in the front area, I think I'll leave that for much further down the road potentially.

Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. Let me know what you would do!

 

[WillTheThri11]

no ideas???

Well I kept going on disassembly and bought a welder in the last couple of weeks. Welder arrives tomorrow and I'll see if I'm any good at tig welding. If I get lucky, I'll put it back together this weekend and go camping. Otherwise, I'll either toss a tent in the back of the truck and go camping anyway or stay home and work on it more. But wow, what a journey this has been.

I plan to weld all of the interior joints of the back wall which were not welded by the factory (amazed that this is how FWC fabbed them until sometime after the mid 90s).

 

[WillTheThri11]

Some photos of the surgery...

 

[WillTheThri11]

A few more pictures with rotation corrected. Last photo is of the damaged frame pieces removed. I may take another tube out that has a light bend in it since I’m in there.

 

[WillTheThri11]

The inside framing at the top of the door jamb shows that non of the interior of the framing was welded. This is definitely worth considering for anyone looking into buying one of the older campers. I WAY over paid for this thing considering it’s current condition/state. I didn’t want a project....searched for over a year and though this was a good deal...oh well.

 

[WillTheThri11]

I seem to be getting fairly low traffic/response/comments....is this posted in the right place? Should I be creating a build thread or something?