A Kamper Rebirth - Planning - Propane Compartment (page 3)

Few months have passed, and we're now nearing the time of the year in Oregon when its possible to build something outside without getting rained on.

I'm still doing some decision making, but I have a couple thoughts to bounce off folks that may be in the know.

1.) Can anyone see a good reason to not locate the propane tank compartment underneath the fridge? I'm still trying to settle on a home for it, and its bounced around from being original underneath the wardrobe cabinet, to being down near the bathroom to my current contemplation of it being beneath the fridge.

I've seen it done this way before, seaeagle's old Kamp King had this exact configuration, just on the opposite side as where I wish to put it.



2.) Does anyone see any issue of putting the furnace under the wardrobe cabinet (which would allow me to reuse part of the existing wardrobe cabinet in the new one). I would likely end up having to run the gas line along the underside of the floor, but I've seen that done on many RVs, so not a big concern.

I've also debated modifying the design to add a basement for the tanks, similar to the mid-to-late 70s KITs had, but doing some would require major changes to the wall plans to make the inside tall enough to allow for a good basement plus the 2x3 timbered floor that I already planned.

The snap N Nap is still out there, but I'm more hoping against hope on finding a donor rig to get that off of if I find one by some chance rather than engineering one from scratch.

At this point the camper is likely going to be sided in two materials, somewhat in the fashion of an Amerigo that had aluminum style siding in the middle and fiberglass front and rear, I'll be fiberglass (filon) on the rear and aluminum on the rest to cut down the aluminum costs (I'd go with all new aluminum, but at the current ridiculous prices for aluminum siding, that's not going to happen).

Wagonqueen Truckster wrote:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_0F-db-AHv0

Here is the video of how the snap n nap works.

Ah-ha! That's where the name comes from, it's a fairly complex mechanism.

I was thinking of it simply being two clam shells, where the bed is in the lower clam shell and it has a piano hinge that allows it to tip up against the wall, with the side walls folded down along the bed.

The way I had envisioned it was opening involved unhasping the outer clamshell that seals the unit to the rear wall, tipping it out and then lowering the inner clam shell down to connect to an inner flange on the outer clamshell, then fold the outer walls up manually and lock them in place.

On the Amerigo, the opening is the full width because it has two bearing casters in a track along the outer edges of the opening, that swings the bed frame into position and engages the side walls as you pull on the outer clamshell.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_0F-db-AHv0

Here is the video of how the snap n nap works.

Wagonqueen Truckster wrote:
I will be down at mine tomorrow working on the tile. I will take a video and post it on youtube for you.

Thanks :)

I will be down at mine tomorrow working on the tile. I will take a video and post it on youtube for you.

I know it is confusing to understand how the snap n nap works unless you tried opening/closing them.
I'll try to explain what I experienced on mine...
When the bed is out and you want to close it up, if I just lifted one side, the bed support would flex and bind on the opposite side. The side panels would need to have a tug on them so they wouldn't "lock up" I would have to reach the other side an give it a tug upward to keep it aligned. There were no cam followers in a track to keep it horizontal.
Just like a roll up garage door out of the track...
Once you pass the 1 foot mark, the weight of the bed/frame would bring it all in.
So with that said, you making something from scratch could add a track on both sides with some type of wheel/guide that would let you pull it from one point with an assist strap as you are thinking....
Hope this helps, didn't want to muddy the waters for ya.

Maybe some picks on TCM would help "see" the opening.
look for rear bed shot

76AMERIGO wrote:
When I was rebuilding my Amerigo, I found the patent for the snap n nap....it doesn't give you exact dimensions you would need, but cool old drawings showing the design concept....may give you some ideas... try making a scaled version to see if you can get the geometry correct...
Don't worry about the large opening, box it with 2X4's and you'll be fine.....the rest of the interior (bathroom door frames, cabinets, floor. etc.) all lock the structure together to make a strong camper structure.

Thanks for the old patent, I wonder if McNamee Coaches might have one in there as well..

76AMERIGO wrote:

You'll need more than a door opening to get the leverage needed to close the rear bed...opening is easier and done from out side the camper...just some tips I'd thought i would share..
Good Luck Joe!
Patent Link

That's what confuses me, but it may be simply because I haven't been able to get my hands on one in person.

Why would you need a giant opening to gain leverage? From the descriptions people have given, the unit is two pieces. Rear wall, which doubles as the cover, that swings out, then the bed and side walls drops down and sits in a flange on the back to support it.

I can't quite grasp why you'd need the whole wall open to pull that bed back in, especially if one affixed a seat belt material strap to the outer edge near the flange to use to pull the bed up into the upright position.

When I was rebuilding my Amerigo, I found the patent for the snap n nap....it doesn't give you exact dimensions you would need, but cool old drawings showing the design concept....may give you some ideas... try making a scaled version to see if you can get the geometry correct...
Don't worry about the large opening, box it with 2X4's and you'll be fine.....the rest of the interior (bathroom door frames, cabinets, floor. etc.) all lock the structure together to make a strong camper structure. You'll need more than a door opening to get the leverage needed to close the rear bed...opening is easier and done from out side the camper...just some tips I'd thought i would share..
Good Luck Joe!
Patent Link

Haven't gotten the pictures taken yet, but I am still working on this :).

So far, located some potential holding tanks, still undecided on if I want to go with the original holding tank design (Combined, large single tank), or take a page from the blog entry on Glen-L from the fella that built one of these and uses two twin 20 gallon tanks side by side.

I located where the blogger got his, Ameri-Kart - Holding Tanks. He used two of the H189Bs, side by side on the over hang.

I've also located a potential source for the shower pan for the wet bath (The original is too far gone to reuse, plus its the wrong size) Factory RV Surplus.

So far, I'm debating taking a page from the looks of the old Amerigo's and using a combination of Filon and the original siding, depending on the price of Filon sheets to cut costs, unless I can find smooth aluminum sheets for a better price.

Either way, my walls will be a sandwich design, with plywood on the inside surface and a layer of luan board on the outside of the frame (since filon will require the luan anyway), to make a nice durable truss.

The rear bed is still up in the air, I've been causally searching to see if I can find someone parting out an Amerigo, so I can simply steal the whole rear bed assembly, but I haven't found one within a reasonable distance.

To those that commented about structural weakening that would be created by cutting a giant whole in the rear wall, let me restate that my plan was never to have a large opening, rather a small door opening to facilitate entry and exit into the bed space, with the rest of the wall still solid around it, the rear bed basically being almost it's own little room.

GWolfe wrote:
Subscribed, this will be fun to follow along.

On the stove thing, I wonder if they had it forward for the COG thing?

I don't know, however, moving towards the rear would actually give one a bit more room to work around it.

silversand wrote:
Sounds like a very cost-effective plan! Will be following along.

Have you got the Kreg jigs?

Have you thought about using epoxied in oak dowles to hold the fame together in lieu of metal bolts/screws?

Have a look at these honeycomb aluminum sanwich panels, from Pacific Panels (ie. all cut-outs and camper shell sides pre milled and ready to assembled in polar white?): here-->

I suck at doweling, I've tried it on a number of occasions in the past, but I always manage to get the hole slightly off on one of the pieces.

I've ordered the Kreg Jig for the large lumber, total cost off amazon was $56, I'll pick the small lumber one up later, when I get to building the cabinet faces, as I plan to replicate the method used in my fifth wheel, which yielded some very nice, very sturdy cabinets.

Wagonqueen Truckster wrote:
OMG... I would love to get my hands on an original Kampking. How many do you think are still in existence ?

There's some, since I don't have any idea of how many were built, I couldn't say, they were very sturdily built campers.

I did manage to reach the grandson of one of the designers for McNamee Coach and asked if he could inquire with family if any of the blueprints still existed for the KampKing Snap-N-Nap, waiting for a response back, I do hope that I am able to obtain a copy, as it would make the engineering alot simpler.