Avion truck camper rebuild

[austinsailor]

I was looking at the thread on rebuilding the Avion that was in the flood. Somewhere in the 400+ pages of posts there might have been a link to my rebuild but I didn’t have the patience to look all through it. So, I’ll post it here, there might be a tidbit to help someone.

We used it for 15+ years and finally got rid of it when my wife was having difficulties getting in and out of the high bunk.

The Avion page:
http://www.austinsailor.net/camper/avion.html



I now have a Palamino Wind River on.an F550 chassis cab 4 wheel drive, on a custom bed with service type boxes on the sides.



I just bought a Peterbilt 385, I will move the Palamino and custom bed over to that.

[austinsailor]

Tvov wrote:
Why the Peterbilt? Are you planning on towing something else? Seems a bit of overkill for the Palomino.

Towing the boat in the center picture. Boat and trailer weigh about 23,000 lbs, 40,000+ for the whole rig. F550 pulls it ok. Stopping, especially in traffic, has a big pucker factor.

[Tvov]

Why the Peterbilt? Are you planning on towing something else? Seems a bit of overkill for the Palomino.

[dblr]

Looking forward to following along.

[austinsailor]

For now, leave it as is. The frame is just right for the truck camper. I am having the top modified. The tractor was built to car hauler specs, but never used as one. Changing tops gives me another 7" of clearance and brings the camper below the 13'6" limit.

[rjstractor]

That will be an interesting build! Is your plan to shorten the tractor frame and remove an axle, or leave it as is?