Argo goes on a trip...
Fellow Avionistas, I am pleased to report that Annie and I have just returned from Argo's first road trip, a 2000 mile loop thru the Southwest, to Lake Powell at Bullfrog for 4 days of houseboating, t...
Forum Discussion
Thanks for the kind words about Argo, the all-aluminum camper. Actually the post was a bit of a screw-up. I had intended it to go up only on the "Avion camper rebuilds" forum where I've beeen a member for several years. However, it is an interesting project for truck campers at large. Argo started off as a conventional mid-60's Avion slide in. After I'd bought him, I discovered a great deal of rot in the plywood that formed the foundation of the camper. That lead me to take him apart, remove all the wood and build a new frame out of 1.5" aluminum square tubing. About the time I finished that part of the project, my dear wife convinced me that we needed to be able to get from the truck into the camper without having to go around. Really, this was about allowing our two German shepherd dogs to move freely back and forth. So I sold the older Ford truck that had come with the camper and bought a newer 4x4 diesel super cab. We cut a hole in the back of the cab...
Having sold the pick-up bed, I built a steel frame that mounted onto the truck chassis, using rubber body bushings that approximate the stiffness of the Ford bushings, and then bolted the camper to this frame, to the back of cab and to the top of the cab. A custom fiberglass molding fills the gap between the camper and the truck around the opening. In essence I have created a Class C camper on a F250 truck body. I then built the side storage compartments and covered them with .032 skin to integrate with the original camper design. I recently painted the whole rig Porsche metallic silver because the difference in the original skin and the new skin was too glaring. So, here we are with a 4x4 camper that will take us into those remote places we prefer to visit. I'm preparing to start on the interior. This trip helped to refine our thinking about layout.
The whole process of building Argo over the past 3+ years is covered in more detail on the Avion camper rebuild forum.
As for houseboating, go to the Lake Powell Houseboats website. Note that rates are lower between mid September and early June. We went out of the Bullfrog marina. Quieter and lots to explore up there. A fabulous experience. We'll go back next spring.
The motor mount is mounted on a swing out bike rack base. To get into the back door, I undo a big wing nut on the base and swing the motor to the right. Then the steps can be pulled out and the door opened. But I think I'm going to move the mount to the front of the truck, without the swing feature. Could be more solid.
Again, thanks for your interest.
Having sold the pick-up bed, I built a steel frame that mounted onto the truck chassis, using rubber body bushings that approximate the stiffness of the Ford bushings, and then bolted the camper to this frame, to the back of cab and to the top of the cab. A custom fiberglass molding fills the gap between the camper and the truck around the opening. In essence I have created a Class C camper on a F250 truck body. I then built the side storage compartments and covered them with .032 skin to integrate with the original camper design. I recently painted the whole rig Porsche metallic silver because the difference in the original skin and the new skin was too glaring. So, here we are with a 4x4 camper that will take us into those remote places we prefer to visit. I'm preparing to start on the interior. This trip helped to refine our thinking about layout.
The whole process of building Argo over the past 3+ years is covered in more detail on the Avion camper rebuild forum.
As for houseboating, go to the Lake Powell Houseboats website. Note that rates are lower between mid September and early June. We went out of the Bullfrog marina. Quieter and lots to explore up there. A fabulous experience. We'll go back next spring.
The motor mount is mounted on a swing out bike rack base. To get into the back door, I undo a big wing nut on the base and swing the motor to the right. Then the steps can be pulled out and the door opened. But I think I'm going to move the mount to the front of the truck, without the swing feature. Could be more solid.
Again, thanks for your interest.
