Not a Rally

It was supposed to be a mid-September  TCT rally, but all rally activities were cancelled so it became the "Not a Rally". Sampson State Park had recently opened to limited camping, and those that were registered for the rally were given the option of keeping their site registration - after being cooped up for months we decided to go! Camping by nature is outdoors and the distance between sites helps with distancing.  We are really glad that we went, we got to spend time sitting around a few campfires with our vintage camper friends and used the time differently than we would typically when camping in part of New York's Finger Lakes region. We did some hiking along Seneca lake, made a quick visit to a winery, and did a tasting at Muranda cheese company. The cheese tasting was a very cool experience, and their cheese is amazing! Back at the campground there was no open house or viewing of interiors of most the vintage trailers, but it was good to just walk the campground loop and check out the campers from a distance. There were a couple of rigs there that we had not seen before, including a great looking Avion trailer that was painted light yellow with a automotive quality finish, and a recently painted Shasta Airflyte that was very similar to our trailer. Also, some friends from home who are into vintage cars rented a cabin in the park for a few days and are now starting to catch vintage camper bug as well. We are hoping that things get back to normal next year, but this was a welcome break for us during the pandemic. 

Avion water and power upgrades

 

I've been spending a lot of time on power and water utilities... We decided to go with a new plastic fresh water tank instead of repairing the old aluminum one (even though it is super cool), the new tank is a perfect fit and off-the-shelf from VTS. A new water pump and about half of the new PEX water lines are now roughed in. I bought a new Atwood water heater, not plumbed in yet but a perfect fit sitting in the hole that’s been in the side of the camper since we bought it. I replaced the 30Amp 120v electrical inlet with a up-to-date one made by Furrion. I found that the old 120v inlet was an odd configuration made by Hubbell that looks like a common one but has one tab that is reversed, you can buy an adaptor (HBL3333C) but it costs as much as a new standard 30Amp inlet and I wanted to run new wire to the box anyway. I replaced 120v wiring to 3 outlets that I could do without removing any interior skin. I added a 2nd circuit breaker to to the box as we learned by surprise one day that only half the outlets were on the one breaker that was there, the other half were just hot all the time. I added an access panel on the inside wall where the truck umbilical comes in, crazy that you had to remove rivets to get the wire connections in there. I replaced the old glass screw-in 12 volt use box with a modern 12v one and installed a new Progressive Dynamics Converter/Charger to replace the old-school battery charger. I also ran lots of new 12v wiring for the appliance locations and some for lighting. I installed a small 12v to 120v Inverter so that we can run a laptop and other small 120v appliances off the 12v batteries if needed when boondocking. The fuse box, new electrical components, and water pump are all located in the cabinet under the front edge of one of the dinette seats, I spent a lot of time working out an arrangement so they would to be fairly compact so the 12v utilities only take up half of that cabinet.

refinished woodwork and interior wall paint

 

Here's some photos of the refinished cabinet frames and some paint on the interior walls. In the first photo above you can see the original finish on that was under the laminate next to the stove compared to the new darker stain and stripped wood on the fridge cabinet.  The original finish was very opaque, and while in good condition in some areas there were other places that needed a lot of attention. We decided to go with a darker but more transparent stain after looking at a lot of vintage interiors at a vintage camper rally last year. Our Shasta has amber shellac interior and while I like that, I also like that the Avion will feel different yet it still has a lot of wood inside. The light wall color has a great warm tone to it that really works well with the dark wood. 

Avion interior stripped

We've made a lot of progress on them Avion over the last few months with my wife and I continuously working on various tasks.  I'll try do a few posts with different stages of progress. Here's some photos of the interior with the original finishes stripped off the woodwork, everything cleaned up, and the walls in primer.

New Floor is In!

Over the last 4 weeks we did a major project to replace the floor in the Avion. The area in the corner under the propane cabinet & heater as well as just inside the door had severe rot issues. From looking at photos of other Avion truck camper restorations it looks like these are typically the worst areas for rot. I’m not sure if it’s related to condensation from the Propane canister, or a combination of that and the old Hydro Flame heater being so close to it, or perhaps it’s just an area of these campers that leaks consistently when it rains. Originally I thought that I would just piece-in a new area for that back corner, but once I had the water tank removed up front it became obvious that an entire new floor was the right thing to do. There were also some bad soft spots in the middle that we didn't like as well. Also once I pulled up the floor tiles I found that I could see light through a gap all along the edge at the base of the right wing. 

I built the new floor using 2 layers of 1/2” marine plywood and a middle layer of 1/2” polyiso foam core in the middle. The original floor was 2 layers of 1/4” plywood with 1” styrofoam core, so while new floor is about 70 lb’s heavier than the old one it’s significantly more solid and given the payload capacity of the trucks that we are considering this shouldn’t be an issue. For the runners on the bottom of the floor I used cedar 2x4’s. I used exterior wood glue and stainless screws to assemble the plywood parts and also coated the entire bottom, the outer edge, and some of the top edge with epoxy. Lastly we coated all areas of the bottom that will exposed to the elements with Herculiner pickup truck bed liner. We used Herculiner as an undercoating on our Shasta trailer ten years ago and it’s held up extremely well. We also put down some vinyl sheet flooring in the front area that will be inside a storage compartment and under the water tank, as well as some in the back corner by the propane cabinet in the old heater area that will become our shoe cabinet.
I built the new floor completely before tearing out the old one to minimize how long the camper sat without a floor in it. I initially screwed some temporary boards in to hold wings together before the tear-out, but later found that a ratchet strap pulling on the inside walls of the wings was better because the walls naturally pulled out, away from the floor, and with the strap I could adjust it. I found that a jigsaw with a long metal cutting blade used from the outside of the camper was the best way to cut the nails and screws that held the floor on the sides and front. I initially tried to pull them out but it proved impossible without destroying the outer aluminum edge. The rear bathroom corner proved to be the most difficult area to get out, with the floor coming out in small pieces using a Sawsall and hand tools. Once out most of the bottom edge was in good shape but I made some new aluminum pieces to tie the aluminum walls to the floor in both back corners and also epoxied the wood in a few areas that needed repair.

With the camper standing on its 4 jack stands I used our trailer-frame dolly to wheel the new floor underneath. We then carefully lowered the jacks while adjusting the position of the floor to get everything the line up correctly. I used PL Premium construction adhesive and stainless screws to permanently attach the new floor. Also with the camper in the air and no floor in it we took advantage of this unique time to work on some the interior wood-work while it as at a more comfortable working height. 

With the new floor in the difference is amazing, no more soft spots as we walk around inside and we are now confident that structurally the camper is ready to go full speed on the rest of the project!

Olympic Rivets, Water Tank, Cabinet Finishes, and other stuff

We've continued to make progress on the Avion over the last few months, and now are consistently making time to work on it. I finished the structural repairs to the wings in the area where the truck tie-downs and front brackets are. Now the camper can finally stand securely on 4 jacks. I like how the new brackets worked out, and they help to clean-up the look of the camper as well. I am using the original jacks with the new brackets and some extension plates that I had fabricated to help get a little more height. The custom extension brackets allowed the jack brackets to be mounted in the same holes as the old ones on one side, with this mounting position the jack brackets don’t stick out past the sides of camper when the jacks are removed. On the exterior in this same area I fabricated my fist patch for the aluminum skin. I used Olympic rivets which you can install like a blind pop-rivet, but they have heads that appear solid without a hole like a typical pop rivet. I just used a file and some fine sandpaper to “shave” the heads of these rivets instead of buying the $250.- tool, this worked out well for the dozen or so rivets that I needed to use but if you need to do a lot of them seeking out a proper shaving tool will make the job much faster. 

I’ve carefully removed some of the interior to allow access to the water tank. The water tank is a very cool looking aluminum cylinder that looked to be in great shape, my first thought once I uncovered it was that it should be “featured” and not hidden away, one Avion on m mounted theirs on the outside under one of the wings. However it’s a really good thing that I never put water in the tank to test it out while it was still in the camper, once I had it out I found that the bottom seam had failed and was split open. We’re now planning to use a new plastic tank and pump instead of a pressure-based system like it was set-up originally. I think the concept of the old pressure systems is super cool, but I think using a modern pump based system will be easier to maintain and put less stress on the whole plumbing system.

Once the water tank was out I pulled up all the floor tiles to inspect the floor, luckily the tiles came up easily. As a bonus these old tiles from the ‘65 Avion are exact matches to the tiles in our ‘63 Shasta, so we now have a stack of replacements that I may use to swap in for a few bad ones a few areas. On the Avion I had been hoping that I could just repair the floor where’s it bad near the door and the corner under the propane cabinet. I also found that the area in the front under the water tank is pretty soft and will need to need to be replaced. Most of the floor seems to be in pretty good shape, but given that both front and back ends are bad I’m thinking that replacing the entire thing is what we’ll likely do. I also found that I can see light through a gap between the floor and the bottom edge of one of the wings, so some serious attention to the overall integrity of the floor is definitely in order. 

My wife has made a ton of progress stripping the old finish off the cabinet doors and has started refinishing them. After a lot of testing a bunch of stain options are going with a darker colored stain and they are turning out great. She’s also cleaned, painted, and rebuilt all the upper cabinet latches which also are looking really good with the now darker wood tone. I’m really thankfull that she’s making progress on these parts because seeing them look so great helps motivate me to get through the structural stuff. She’s also cleaned up the original kitchen sink which now looks great and done some work on the vent hood for over the cooktop. 

We’ve also been making decisions on a lot of the appliances and for the most part have figured out what we’ll use for the all the major items. We went to two local RV shoes over the winter to try and see specific appliances person, and have purchased a new a propane cooktop and a new toilet. We expect to go ahead and pick up a water heater and a new fridge soon.The bathroom is still mostly in the cardboard mock-up stage but mostly figured out. We are getting excited about possibly starting to get the Avion on the road in the Fall or next Spring and are hoping to make a lot of progress over the next few months! 

Avion C-10 one year later - slow progress

It's been months since I've posted any updates related to our Avion C-10 truck camper project. We are making very slow progress on this camper which we have now had for an entire year.  Here's some of the things we've been doing...

I successfully converted the trailer frame that it came with to a dolly by adding four castor wheels, now two of us can move it from side to side in our garage and it sits low enough that it can roll in and out of the garage door.

After what seemed like an exhaustive search of vintage and RV salvage places I finally decided to buy one new 1000lb rated Rieco Jack after not being able to locate a matching vintage one. The goal was to get the camper on 4 jacks instead of only 3. The new jack arrived damaged in shipping, but that turned out to be a good thing as we were able to compare it to the original Atwoods 1000’s and it was clear that we should hold out for a matching vintage one. The new Rieco jack was similar, but definitely of lighter construction so if you plan on going to new jacks for an Avion C-10 or C-11 I’d go for their heavier duty 2000lb version. I posted a want-ad on Craigslist and waited, sure enough a most later I got a call from a guy a few towns aways and now I have a total of 6 matching Atwood Jacks and some extra handles and brackets as well. I did buy new Rieco “extended” brackets to help get the jackets mounted outboard more to allow more room for a modern truck. I have two of them installed using the same holes as the original brackets which puts the mount point where I wanted it, however I’ve found that I’ll need to get some additional steel plates fabricated to allow enough room for the jack heads.  I’ll post more on this later once I get the plates made. The new also brackets really help clean-up the look of the side of camper, along with a lot of elbow grease and Simple Green!

Inside the camper I found that there was an extra plywood piece fro give more strength to the wings, the jack bracket bolts were under this piece and the tie-down bolts were through it. I haven't seen anything like this in photo's of others Avion's so this could have been added by a previous owner but I am not sure, either way it's been there a long time. The wings are still solid but I'm going to replace these similar to the way they were because they makes sense adding strength the way it was done and really give up any interior space.

I replaced a window regulator on one of the front windows that had a broken cast housing. I got the replacement regulator from Vintage Trailer Supply, and while it's not a perfect match it works with just a few minor modifications.

We have decided on flooring and bought Marlomoleum tiles, but we can't install them until I repair a section of the floor at the rear of the camper.

We've also made progress on the bathroom re-design, I'll post more on this in another post.

We figured this project might take two years to get it in shape to be out on the road, but so far it feels like it is going a lot slower than we expected!