Tank drop!

Grit dog wrote:
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

Glad it worked out and was repairable to better then new.
I just get disturbed when I see things that boggle my mind. Though I'm old enough now I should have lower expectations.....:B
(I'm adding the full tank off the truck question to my open doc. of "things too ask about a new TC" ! :W

lol, like you needed another project.

Ya' got to quit carrying heavy water.

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

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.

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

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.

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