Oops!Found the limits of filling water with the camper off the truck. 03 AF camper. Have camped many times with camper off the truck, no additional support under the belly. Always worked fine until last trip, I re-filled the fresh water with camper off the truck. Must’ve been just about full, hadn’t burped out the overflow yet, and the middle tank brace sheared off of its support on one side, tank didn’t fall but got a real big belly!Now I’ve added water before in this manner, but never completely full as 50g tank and a little under 40g in the bladder I’ve refilled from. Took the skin off, made new braces no problem out of some left over 5/4x4 decking material. And reinforced sides/connections. She’s about 3x as solid As the factory build now. But for others, even just a simple prop under the FW tank would keep this from happening.

Holy ****! That must have been a heart stopper!I'm at a bit of a loss as to understanding how filling a tank, off the truck can lead to this, unless the support is rotted out. I can't imagine a manufacturer building a camper that can only be used when in the truck. To me one of the big features is being able to have your vehicle to use, when camping, without having to bring along the camper to go sight seeing, etc. And if boondocking, not having use of any of various tanks capacities just seems crazy disappointing and counter intuitive to a TC. Your camper isn't that old. Was there rot or damage that lead to this? Thanks for posting! :C

Still have picture from dealing with poor designs on my Fleetwood.ANYTHING is better, than 2 staples holding a "toothpick" frame in corners. What holds it is plywood glued to the frame, but with the age the glue softens, some water damage can enter and whole thing starts going apart. What you see on the picture is my 2nd camper repair, when the sides start sagging too much. At the bottom is the repair I did like 5 years earlier, when rotten 3/4 by 1.5 frame was replaced with 6" tall board and metal corners were added. That hold just fine after 5 years and on the 2nd repair I did not have to touch it. Now going higher on the frame - you can see that whole front of the camper rest on two .75 x1.5 pieces of frame. That, combined with some water intrusion over the years made the sides sagging and eventually jacks start rattling on the mounts. Funny part, the camper is advertised as "aluminium frame", when you don't see any aluminium on this wall. I replaced lower 1.5" tall piece with 4" piece cut to shape and added diagonal frame in upper corners. That was done 3 years ago and I still use the camper. Click For Full-Size Image.

Kayteg1 wrote: Funny part, the camper is advertised as "aluminium frame", when you don't see any aluminium on this wall. Click For Full-Size Image.Are you sure it didn't say "...made with Aluminum Frame" ?As in, "there's an Aluminum frame in the camper somewhere, but we just didn't specify what and where as we know what you'll assume is not the case but to our benefit..."Like "Made with 100% Beef" Most assume that means the burger patty is 100% beef. The 'with' is the deceptive bit, with built-in probable denial. The burger patty contains beef, and beef is of course 100% beef, but the patty actually has a bunch of other stuff in it. Possibly even mostly "other stuff" depending on your countries labeling and/or food related nomenclature laws. So maybe that "Aluminum Frame" was the door frame.....or bathroom mirror frame....:B

There is some aluminium in upper corners behind wood frame, but nothing on front wall.So it is more of skeleton, than frame. Still dealing with dryrot on this camper, aluminium skeleton help a lot in holding the shape.I actually read article about "100% beef" Meat plants use the same grinders for pork and beef. So when they stop grinding pork, they are allowed to grind beef without cleaning. Bottom line, 100% beef is the 1 who can legally have 2% pork in it.

Bert, no there is zero rot. The supports were 3/8 X about 4” plywood rips on edge with a little 1x2 keeping them upright. One of them just sheared off on the ledger it was sitting on. It was the one in the middle of the tank, so it was seeing the most weight due to the tanks propensity to belly when full. Tank is wide and flat. Ya I thought I’d be eating my words about always using the camper off the truck. It wasn’t too bad to repair, but.....She’s all good now !And about 10x stronger than it was

Tank drop! | Good Sam Community

Lancey
Explorer
Jul 27, 2020
^^^^ I saw that *cringe* frightening part is that failed with the camper ON the truck....the balsa wood paneling they use on the bottom does not help in the strength engineering department that's for sure. Thanks arctic fox haha
bigfootford
Nomad II
Jul 26, 2020
Oh Arctic Fox had serious trouble years ago!!!!

https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/21247815/print/true.cfm

Jim
Grit_dog
Navigator
Jul 26, 2020
Lancey wrote:
I must be lucky, I always camp with our 05 AF 990 off the truck, full tanks, and have even run out of fresh water, was able to refill it at the camp site with a long hose, so full black/grey and fresh all at the same time....week at a time....mind you, I reskinned the bottom with 5/8 plywood, maybe that's why it didn't fall apart? Lol

I sure that helps. This one was fine for 17 years until it wasn’t.
Grit_dog
Navigator
Jul 26, 2020
Reality Check wrote:
Grit dog wrote:
And I tried finding light water.... still searching!

I think Vodka is lighter...

Been three days... I'm thinking you had a great night, camper tipped over and the wife and I need to come rescue you from the tip over?

Ugg, got into some vodka of questionable repute.... that’s why I haven’t replied! Lol
All’s well after a week here on Pend Oreille. Loading up tomorrow, dumping the boat off at a friends place. Some downhill mtn biking and then a few more days in MT up in the mountains fishing.
Life is grand!
Thx for the offer though!
If you need a reason to get away, come over to rescue us. Will be at a NF campground likely, outside of Troy MT on the Kootenai River
Cheerz
Lancey
Explorer
Jul 26, 2020
I must be lucky, I always camp with our 05 AF 990 off the truck, full tanks, and have even run out of fresh water, was able to refill it at the camp site with a long hose, so full black/grey and fresh all at the same time....week at a time....mind you, I reskinned the bottom with 5/8 plywood, maybe that's why it didn't fall apart? Lol
Kayteg1
Explorer II
Jul 26, 2020
Reality Check wrote:
Grit dog wrote:
And I tried finding light water.... still searching!

I think Vodka is lighter...

Don't know about it.
Keep trying and my belly still drops down from the weight.
Maybe that's because I dilute it with orange juice?
Reality_Check
Nomad II
Jul 26, 2020
Grit dog wrote:
And I tried finding light water.... still searching!

I think Vodka is lighter...

Been three days... I'm thinking you had a great night, camper tipped over and the wife and I need to come rescue you from the tip over?
Grit_dog
Navigator
Jul 23, 2020
And I tried finding light water.... still searching!
Grit_dog
Navigator
Jul 23, 2020
Reality Check wrote:
lol, like you needed another project.

Ya' got to quit carrying heavy water.

Lol, right?
The ole camper is solid as a rock now.....knock on wood. Been off the truck for a few days now, camping.
If you don’t here from me tomorrow, it might have tipped over while I was sleeping, hahaha.
PS enough cocktails I don’t care right now....
Grit_dog
Navigator
Jul 23, 2020
Bert, something to look out for, for sure. But this tank was supported. Fatigue and a marginal “design” gave way finally. Thankfully it was a super easy fix

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