Many new campers have basements, so that becomes a "joist type" structure that is very strong. That is hard to do on an Avion. Because of the type of construction of the lower part of the Avion, I have always intended that it stay in the truck. (or in my case, on the trailer)
Ford F-350 4x4 Diesel
1988 Avion Triple Axle Trailer
1969 Avion C-11 Camper
If i would load her onto a trailer than i could just load it the way she sits right now , by just converting the tool box that i have build.
I thought about it but dismissed it again since i did not want pulling a trailer.
Anybody else have experience with this issue?
If you can not USE your Avion on jacks, then the floor is rotten.
The Cayos confirmed they were built to use on jacks. I do not have
anything special, marine plywood and epoxy. I use my C10 all
the time in the air on jacks. I suppose if the 50 year floor
is original I might not even speak roughly to it. My point is
these things were designed beautifully and will absolutely
work off truck without ANY added support.
'68 Avion C-11
'02 GMC DRW D/A flatbed
cajunavion wrote:
Howdy!
If you can not USE your Avion on jacks, then the floor is rotten.
The Cayos confirmed they were built to use on jacks. I do not have
anything special, marine plywood and epoxy. I use my C10 all
the time in the air on jacks. I suppose if the 50 year floor
is original I might not even speak roughly to it. My point is
these things were designed beautifully and will absolutely
work off truck without ANY added support.
Howdy!
If you can not USE your Avion on jacks, then the floor is rotten.
The Cayos confirmed they were built to use on jacks. I do not have
anything special, marine plywood and epoxy. I use my C10 all
the time in the air on jacks. I suppose if the 50 year floor
is original I might not even speak roughly to it. My point is
these things were designed beautifully and will absolutely
work off truck without ANY added support.
This sounds encouraging
i will reinforce my floor a bit , just because it is 40+ years old and probably in a few years think about a aluminum tub.
I would love to hear from other members about their experience
Cheers
Tiki I learned it all from yall. This site has certainly inspired me.
I replaced the entire wood structure
with marine grade plywood. 2 3/4 sheets laminated and staggered together with West
Systems Epoxy in the floor and bulkhead. 1/2 and 3/4 sheets in the wings and loft recessed the
screws together with stainless steel screws. I did add a foot to the
loft and screw it to the bulkhead. No added brackets, bracing, or angle irons.
I know I have added weight to the orignal system water tanks, etc.
This thing is rock solid, and believe me there is no appreciable
floor deflection with 5 adults bouncing around inside, on jacks, no
extra support. The design is incredible, if all campers were only
designed this way!
The floor in my C11 was a sandwich of 1/4" ply - 1.5" green foam - another layer of 1/4" plywood. Then it had some sort of exterior roofing compound-type material on the outside bottom. The floor inside had linoleum. It was pretty bombproof. I had no issues walking around on it while it was on jacks.
When I reattached the shell to the the 1.5" square tube aluminum frame, I found that lifting the rig by the jacks alone caused a very small amount of deflection at the rear ends of the wings. That was before I added the aluminum sheer panels at the ends of the wings. In the original Avion design/construction, they were two layers of plywood, perhaps 1/2" each,
The point is that I believe as long as the floor is structurally sound and the plywood sheer panels at the end of each wing are sound, you should be able to walk up and down inside without any issue.
I believe the only caveat I've seen from Avion (or read somewhere else) was to lower the camper as far down as possible on the jacks for stability.
Dick
The other part is that I repaired the tub first since there was significant delamination and rot. The sides had pulled out so far that I could drop a screwdriver onto the ground.
I got into my head that the tub was subject to stress related damage. I haven't wanted to test that hypothesis. But, Cajun, you go where others have not gone before :-)
on edit: You too, D1