Any thoughts on a repair?

[JrStafford]

Just purchased my first truck camper a couple of months ago. A 2000 Fleetwood Elkhorn 8S. Being in a hurry and not having a clue what I was doing, the guy slipped by a damaged camper on me. After I left his house, I took a picture to send to my wife, and noticed a 'fold' in the fiberglass above the propane box. (It was late in the day and not that noticeable at his place, plus I think it's gotten worse since I took this picture.)



Closer look:



The other side looks better, you can see basically a straight line down the same area (barely noticeable), because I think the whole bed area is sagging.

We thought it was an issue right at the jack, because that jack was loose. I pulled it apart, pulled the propane box out, and we put a metal brace inside to shore up the jack. I also could see partway up into the camper above the propane box, and all the wood braces that I could see were fine. So I loaded it and headed out. Going up a washboard road the camper was 'slapping' the top of my truck, and now I'm fearful that the entire corner might come down. I thought I would take a loss and sell for a 'project', but it's a nice camper and I would like to keep it. I also don't want to pay a fortune to fix it, as I won't use it much.

I wonder if anyone here has some insight on beefing up the overhang part so it don't fall on my truck? I'm just thinking some heavy duty 'L' braces, maybe one on each side? Even if it looks not so pretty, I don't mind. I'm wondering if I could put braces on the sides, and maybe lag to metal plates on the inside the camper for stability? I could always paint them to match the camper, so it's less noticeable. One guy suggested 2 long pieces of angle iron on the roof, connecting the overhang to the middle of the camper, and then sealing it up. Not even noticeable that way, but I wasn't sure how much that would help to hold up the overhang section. I don't even care about the fold on the side still showing, I just want the thing to be sturdy so I can continue to use it.

Anybody with any thoughts, that might know more about the internal build of these campers?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated 🙂

[Glacier_D]

Hey, guess the past owner sold you a pile of rotted wood. Maybe you should take it back to him and have a one sided discussion since he knew of the impending doom.
Hope it all works out and you can part it out or repair it, Fleetwoods were known to have too many issues, even the aluminum framed Fleetwood campers had issues with weld failures and the slide outs were not properly braced.
What fire are you on? I'm an EB for a private contractor in the PNW, looks like a slow year again for us. Be safe out there.

[Kayteg1]

I own 2002 Fleetwood Caribou and did have to repair water damage.
Good part my MY has aluminium frame. Even it is more of skeleton, than real frame, it does help a lot to keep the repairs in shape.
I also see strange clamps on driver side nose, so "someone was there before"
Good luck

[Lwiddis]

If you want a 6 to 12 month project, you sure have one. If you want to go camping, buy another camper.

[joerg68]

A local tire shop might have some tubes. Whatever you do, I wish you luck - and success! Be safe!

[JrStafford]

joerg68 wrote:
Some gently inflated tire tubes between the truck and the cabover floor might work. They would dampen the flex, but still allow movement.

Someone out here in the fire camp actually had that as a suggestion too, I just don't have any tire tubes. The other suggestion was a cheap twin air mattress from Walmart in between the cab and the camper. Although I'm still 81 miles from a Walmart 🙂 I might be able to buy one at the local Dollar store.

[BurbMan]

For sure it's not worth paying somebody to fix it, it's a labor of love if you have the time and tools.

The guy I got mine from was in a similar situation. Nobody would buy it and it was gonna cost him $$ to dispose of it at the dump, so he posted it for free on the local FB camping group. I knew what I was getting into but I couldn't say no to free....

I'll be into this for about $4k when it's done, but that will be basically rebuilt every wall except the back, new insulation, new fiberglass on the outside with new graphics, new fridge, new electronics, solar, new mattress....

It will be like a new camper when I'm done, I'm about 2 months into the project and am hoping to be done in September sometime.

FYI, I found a company on Amazon selling new electronics for the Atwood Jacks, here is the controller for $55 and the Remote for $55 and the activation switch for $28

I haven't connected mine yet but they look like this company followed the Atwood designs.

[joerg68]

Some gently inflated tire tubes between the truck and the cabover floor might work. They would dampen the flex, but still allow movement.

[joerg68]

Those Atwood electric jacks on your camper have been discontinued. If you want to part the camper out, they may be worth more than the rest of it together.

I am sorry for your bad experience. I can relate somewhat to your experience as we spent six weeks fixing a relatively minor but unexpected rot problem on our first camper.

[CA_Traveler]

Can you run a support board up from the running boards for the trip home? Use pipe strap or something to avoid holes in the running board. Maybe a diagonal board above the truck roof from DS back door to PS front door or whatever works.

[joerg68]

The main issue is on the passenger side. Sorry for the error.
But the buckling fiberglass in front of the water heater in the picture from the driver's side tells the same story.
Look at the picture BurbMan posted. Once you start disassembly, you will be surprised. And not in a good way.
The cabover is already coming down on the roof, if I understand your initial post right. You will need to support it when you drive this thing. Putting some sort of buffer between the roof and the cabover is probably the only way to do that. And even then you need to drive very carefully. When this camper starts porpoising, every cycle is going to make things worse.
Those brackets fastened to the lower edge of the cabover on the driver's side... I can only guess they are there to keep the floor in.
That does not look good 😞

[JrStafford]

Good grief. Apparently I got a $3,500 lesson for my 1st camper! That's way above my expertise level. Limp it home and try to sell it to someone for a project and get a little bit of money back. It would be silly to hire someone to do all that work to a 2000 camper.

[MitchF150]

Hope you didn't pay too much for it... POS in my opinion.. But, with the price of newer truck campers these days... Might be worth it to fix if the rest is okay?

Good luck! Mitch

[K_Mac]

Sorry for your misfortune, as said, doable, even if you have to build a temp. tent, to get it out of the weather. This is not a couple of wknds. worth of work. You can search all kind of fixes/repairs here, most better than factory. Time,lots of time. Don't let it overwhelm you. Was this a dealer ? (if so I drive it through his front window) or not I'd ask a lawyer if you have any recourse. No way they can say "they weren't aware " of the problem. Good luck !

[BurbMan]

What you're seeing are the symptoms of a LOT of rot under the fiberglass.

I had a similar buckle in the fiberglas on my 2002 Lance. Turns out the window was leaking and if you look in this pic, there is a wide flakeboard piece that runs vertically with a diagonal piece on the cabover that connects with it. All that wood rotted away and let the cabover sag 1-1/2".



Same problem on the other side, this all needs to be reframed , new plywood and new filon fiberglas on the outside.

[JrStafford]

joerg68 wrote:
It will not get better by driving it...
I would not want to drive it as it is, not even to the closest repair facility. Can you get some soft foam board that you can wedge between the cab roof and the camper cabover, so that the cabover weight is distributed evenly? The truck's roof is not made to carry loads, so do at your own risk. Normally, I would advise strongly against doing this, but...

When I moved from the camp on the mountain back to the camp in town, I had actually put some 2x6 blocks in the bed to raise it up two inches. And then I had a 3 inch memory foam mattress that I stuck between the cab and the camper. But the problem with that was, as I was hitting the washboards on the road, I could see the passenger side roof of my truck flexing and it scared me, so I took it out.

I wonder on the highway going home, if I would be better off to leave the memory foam in there? Even though the roof won't bear a lot of weight, maybe it will take a little bit of stress off of whatever is left in the camper that's holding it up? Enough to limp at home maybe?