Good greif.....

Bert the Welder wrote:


The floor of the TC is load baring. It's what they sit on in the truck....

No it is not. The 1x1 piece of wood, even sandwiched between the siding is definitely not design to hold thousands of lb weight.
I removed plywood I had for couple of seasons as a shim under my big camper and clear imprints show that the camper weigh applies to front 6" and rear 6". This is where you have reinforcements.
Center of floor will bend under 200 lb foot. Maybe not to degree to notice it, but you might try it when you have your camper on jacks.

And as for "they lift boat's like that"....gee, maybe they were designed like that. Or hey, maybe lifting a "V" or "C" shaped boat hull presents different forces then lifting a square box by the corners edges and not even the bottom corner edges at that.....
Comparing the two is returded.

Kayteg1 wrote:
I have seen other dealers using forklift to lift campers, what is using the area of floor, who is not design as lifting point.
Campers still survive, but again- I would not do it without checking with manufacturer and pay attention to not lift under side opening like water heater.
Somebody mention that the pictured lifts are originally boat lifts, so we might see more such conversions around.

The floor of the TC is load baring. It's what they sit on in the truck....
The side projection where your dinette and kitchen are located are not the same thing. and that's where that "boat lift" contraption is lifting from.
I have no problem with what's going on in the pic Brad posted. As long as it's not the wash kid driving.... :)

2oldman wrote:
except after c...

x2

BradW wrote:
TC / Forklift

They sure took lot of time to figure it out.
I parted Lance 1161 and whole floor is having 2 pcs of 1x1 fir under the walls, with cross pieces and Styrofoam sandwiched by thin plywood.
Might be surprise, but Styrofoam well glued on both sides to plywood will add quite a bit to structural integrity.
That evidently can hold the weight of new and dry camper, but when I tried some jacking on my aged camper, the floor under the wall simply dent.

I have seen other dealers using forklift to lift campers, what is using the area of floor, who is not design as lifting point.
Campers still survive, but again- I would not do it without checking with manufacturer and pay attention to not lift under side opening like water heater.
Somebody mention that the pictured lifts are originally boat lifts, so we might see more such conversions around.

Most of you guys seem to be enamored with this contraption. And I get that it is pretty neat. I'm a fan of DIY problem solving.

Maybe I'm crazy. I just look at that thing and think no f'ing way I want my $70k camper being hoisted by that. My reasoning being if it's lifting by the bottom edges, what's that doing to those corner seems? Even if it's a fiberglass 2-peice, it was built to be suspended buy the jacks or sitting in the bed of the truck and that's how/where it's been designed to handle that.

Like I said, love to know what manufactures would say. I doubt "Fine" and "Okay" would be the 4 letter words they'd be using. :)

I took that photo about 16 years ago at the Lance dealer. I think it was in Thornton, Co (north Denver). I used to know the name of the dealer, but that was many years ago and I have forgotten it. The owner was a really cool guy. IIRC, he claimed to have been one of the original owners of Lance Campers, but he sold out in the 70's or 80's. Seems like he went into the Jeep rental business. His brother started the Dolphin class C RV company who made the small class C's on Toyota chassis. I may have the story wrong, but it was something like that. He had a guy working there named Big John. He was another cool dude. Seems like the name of the dealer was Sunshine, Sun Flower, Sunny something..... I forget.

That's not far from Longmont, it must be the same contraption in the video.

bradw

The video was taken at Discount RV Corner in Longmont, co, it looks like the same machine! Could be 2 exactly alike?