Avion truck campers - Hundreds of photos
Without going into too much painful detail, we had a mishap several week-ends ago. While working with sand bag crews on the Mississippi River, the truck and camper fell into the flood waters as a road...
Forum Discussion
I have searched the web for a source of anodized aluminum. I will need long pieces for the new lower exterior surfaces on Argo's reimagining as a 4WD Class C. Here's a sample that looks nearly perfect. The top is the new sample and the bottom is a piece of Argo. This company only anodizes the alloy 5005.
And here's the info for getting this particular sheet. They have offices around the country. Ck out the website. (Sorry, I can't seem to get this right side up!?)
And now for the next big step. I have taken the bed off the truck and laid out what I believe will be a good frame system for Argo. I had another conversation with the folks at Tiger motorhomes in South Carolina, the rigs mounted on 4WD vehicles. They confirmed that they weld a frame to the chassis, then bolt the camper to that frame. Then they bolt the front of the camper to the back of the cab and finally, bolt the cabover to the roof of the cab. They have a large cut-out/pass-thru between cab and camper. They say that among all the Bengal models out there, with hundreds of thousands of miles driven, including South America and the Arctic Circle trips, they have had no problems with this style of connection. So I'm moving forward with that mounting. A slight variation: I'm thinking to put 1" urethane body bushings between the crossrails and the long rails to absorb some road shock and allow the camper to move in concert with the cab, which, of course, has body bushings on the mounts between cab and frame. The blue tape on the back of the cab represents the cut-out for the pass-thru.
You can just make out the simulated bushings between the cross mambers and the long camper support beams. I think this will all be fabricated out of 3" aluminum channel stock. The cross pieces stick out to the edge of Argo's body, allowing attachment of the storage cabinet structure, like this old rig:
And that's the Argo report for Sunday, July 12th. I wonder if I'll be rolling by next July 12th...
Dick
And here's the info for getting this particular sheet. They have offices around the country. Ck out the website. (Sorry, I can't seem to get this right side up!?)
And now for the next big step. I have taken the bed off the truck and laid out what I believe will be a good frame system for Argo. I had another conversation with the folks at Tiger motorhomes in South Carolina, the rigs mounted on 4WD vehicles. They confirmed that they weld a frame to the chassis, then bolt the camper to that frame. Then they bolt the front of the camper to the back of the cab and finally, bolt the cabover to the roof of the cab. They have a large cut-out/pass-thru between cab and camper. They say that among all the Bengal models out there, with hundreds of thousands of miles driven, including South America and the Arctic Circle trips, they have had no problems with this style of connection. So I'm moving forward with that mounting. A slight variation: I'm thinking to put 1" urethane body bushings between the crossrails and the long rails to absorb some road shock and allow the camper to move in concert with the cab, which, of course, has body bushings on the mounts between cab and frame. The blue tape on the back of the cab represents the cut-out for the pass-thru.
You can just make out the simulated bushings between the cross mambers and the long camper support beams. I think this will all be fabricated out of 3" aluminum channel stock. The cross pieces stick out to the edge of Argo's body, allowing attachment of the storage cabinet structure, like this old rig:
And that's the Argo report for Sunday, July 12th. I wonder if I'll be rolling by next July 12th...
Dick
