TC Newby Questions

Great!

Some of them have had leaking problems and they are very heavy. They have been out of business for a number of years. If you can find one in good condition without signs of leaking and you have a truck heavy enough to handle it they are a nice camper.

What Butch50 said..

Yes, it should be called Alpenheavy. With water, propane, batteries, and other personal materials, I am at 4000 lbs

When I bought mine used I saw signs of two past leaks and the rubber roof was reaching the end of its life. So I coated the roof with EPDM making sure I extended the coating up on the roof vents, over the seams on the end caps and over the seams on the side. Also gave the roof of the slide a coating.

With that preemptive action I have not had any leaks nor needed to caulk the roof.

In spite of what might sound negative above, I have been very happy with my purchase.

I am not sure about Alpinelite TC's. When I had a Lance TC it was attached on each corner to the truck with chains and a spring shock type attachment. There are much newer types on the market now. These attached to a bracket on the front of the truck bed, and the rear attached to a special bar that came out of the side of the trailer hitch receiver. Normally the rear would attach to the rear bumper. The TC must also be electrically connected to the truck. Lance had their own connector, Alpinelite might have their own also. After I purchased mine I learned so much about center of gravity when mounting and whether it could even be mounted on my truck. JMO

Oops, ya, electrical, didn't think about that hookup.

Edit, I have a 5th wheel hookup in the bed, can I use that ?

You will have to make sure the umbilical cord has the proper connections to hook up. Like said above, the lance has a proprietary plug. Perhaps you could get a pic of the plug and have the proper connections before arriving si you can have lights.

The Alpenlite uses a 7 pin connector, just like your fifth wheel, however, the umbilical cord comes out the front of the camper and is only long enough to connect to a connector that is located in the center or front of the bed.

You can either install a 7 pin connector in the front (or side/middle) of the bed or you can do what I did - get a extension cable and plug it in the connector that already exists in you bumper.

Let me know if you want pix or more details.

Thanks for the replies.

I've been thru 2/3 of the pages of photos posted, and I see zero Alpenlites. But now I know there are at least 2 out there....course mine doesn't get delivered till Thursday, and here it is only Monday.

We had some friends that met up with us a few years in a row after we setup of 'rally' of sorts in Steamboat Springs in February to go camping. Her screen name was KarenAR and if you go search the archives for her posts you might find some good comments. For a few years they did an annual trip to Colorado to ski and they really liked their Alpenlite. It WAS heavy as some of the others noted, but so are most of the monster campers. The only complaint I remember them having was a water line ran right along the outside edge of the camper and they had problems with freezing until they had a dealer do some work (probably rerouting the line but I can't remember for sure.)

Here's a few pictures of that big Alpenlite on one of the trips we met them. We also camped another year with them in Leadville, on New Year's Eve, and skied at "Ski Cooper" a couple of days.









Not the greatest pictures, but might help. Why would anyone go camping in February in the high mountains? How about two reasons, not counting skiing.

Snow angels?



Hot Springs?



(both of these are from that trip with KarenAR.....and the beauty of the TC was they didn't have to unload their camper to drive the long bumpy snowy road to Strawberry Hot Springs and give us a ride as well. Try that with a motorhome!