Coast Resorts Open Roads Forum: Avion truck campers

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Topic: Avion truck campers - Hundreds of photos

Posted By: 69 Avion on 07/16/12 05:32pm

Today we finished the plumbing to the gray water tank and the final piping of the 3" black water.
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Here is a picture of the right wing rear reinforcement piece after it was installed. It certainly is strong now.
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This is my reinforcement for the wall behind the water tank. This is the wall, that when it flexes, the table (when used as a bed) will fall through to the floor.
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I now have two pieces that hinge up above the water tank. The wood piece that you step on to get to the upper bed now hinges upward like the piece next to it does. This gives me easy access to my electical area and the water tank fittings.
These two pieces rest on top of my reinforcement steel.
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Battery charger located where the original one was. All I need to do is install my fuse block and terminate the wires.
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Ford F-350 4x4 Diesel
1988 Avion Triple Axle Trailer
1969 Avion C-11 Camper

Posted By: 69 Avion on 07/19/12 05:46pm

We tested the stainless steel gray water tank today. The good news is the tank is perfect. The bad news is that we ran into more shoddy work from the factory. A couple of the ABS joints are leaking. I have been in the piping industry for over 30 years and I have never seen a properly glued ABS, DWV fitting leak. The joints throughout the camper look like there was no glue on them. That tells me that the inferior workmanship was accomplished by putting a little (or no) glue on the fitting and none on the pipe. The proper way to glue it is to put the solvent cement on the pipe first (bevel on end of pipe) and then on the fitting, press them together and turn the fitting slightly. I now have to go around and try to fix shoddy workmanship again. More bad news, the black water tank leaks. It has a few cracks in it from years of being in the heat. The down side of AZ weather is that all the plastic will be ruined. The good news is that they structure will still be in good shape. I'm not upset about the black water tank, but I'm really upset with people who either don't know what they are doing or are to lazy to do it right.

Does anyone know where a black water tank of this size can be found? I hate to have another stainless steel tank made, but if I have to I will.

At least I got the fuse block in and wired. I have had the kitchen cabinets in and out at least 6 times. I had the countertop remade to match the old one. That was a mistake because the great factory work had the cabinets out of square by about 1-1/2". What is 1-1/2" within 6 feet, amongst friends. I'm trying to use my new countertop with cabinets that are now square. I think I can make it work, but it really upsets me that everywhere I go in the camper I run across workmanship that is not very good. I pulled the cabinets out away from the wall to square them up and then I put a 1" x 1" x 1/8" aluminum angle iron under the cabinet face, atached to the right wing face, to strenghten it.

I think the camper structure was good, but the rest of the camper had serious issues. I'm fixing all of them as I go. It appears that Avion used good parts, but the installation wasn't very good.

Posted By: 69 Avion on 07/19/12 07:23pm

Picture of Blue Sea fuse block. I really like it's layout and it has lugs for positive and negative along with several contacts for the negative wires.
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Picture of cabinet now square with the counter top that we are trying to fit.
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Posted By: ticki2 on 07/20/12 05:38am

69 Avion wrote:

ticki2 wrote:

One more question , what does that label say on the black water tank ?

Too bad the label was not filled out . I wonder if it for the tank or the valve . I am not aware of Thetford building tanks . I also had some cracking around the inlet and vent fittings on the tank . The only good way to repair is plastic welding , adhesives and epoxies don't do well with polyethylene . I also put ss band clamps around the fittings to take some of the pressure off .
A new tank would most likely have to be custom made .

'68 Avion C-11
'02 GMC DRW D/A flatbed

Posted By: 69 Avion on 07/20/12 07:23am

The tag was filled out. When I blow up the picture it is fairly clear. The Model # is 12A. The Part # is 02554. The Blank # is 02550. It as made on 3-7-69.
I contacted Thetford and they no longer make holding tanks. I'm not going to try and fix it and chase cracks all over the place.

Posted By: 69 Avion on 07/20/12 06:46pm

Today went well. We got the counter top installed along with the sink. It is as straight as we could get it considering the original counter top was used as a pattern.
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The cabinets are very straight and I put a 1" x 1" x 1/8" aluminum angle piece under the cabinet face and attached it to the right wing. Without this piece there wasn't enought wood to attach to and the factory just pushed the counter to the right as they went back, which really messed up the cabinet alignment. This aluminum piece straightened everything out and gave solid support to the cabinet face.
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The cushions were being built today and they look great.
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This is the underside of the steel mount that holds the right, front side of the gray water tank.
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It attaches to this one on top.
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This is the pressurized water fill line that goes into the water tank. It needs a new brass chain and new screws under the wing. We open the gravity fill to let us know when the tank is full. I don't know if this was original, but I tore it out and redid it with 1/2" nominal copper. It was 1/2" OD copper.
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* This post was edited 07/20/12 06:55pm by 69 Avion *

Posted By: 67avion on 07/21/12 03:01pm

69Avion wrote:

I couldn't make out exactly what was going on here. If you could maybe post another photo and description of the issue/solution, I would appreciate it.

You are doing great work!

Posted By: 69 Avion on 07/21/12 03:17pm

67avion wrote:

69Avion wrote:

I couldn't make out exactly what was going on here. If you could maybe post another photo and description of the issue/solution, I would appreciate it.

You are doing great work!

When the factory installed the cabinets they pushed them right, onto the right wing, until they hit the gravity fill fitting and hose up front. Then they pushed the back part of the cabinets about 1-1/2" further right, onto the wing. They they screwed the cabinet face down to the top of the wing. To straighten everything back out, I pulled the cabinet back out until it is the same distance out from the right wing, from the front (where it will only go so far right because of the gravity filler) to the rear where the water heater is. This doesn't give you much to attach to on the right wing. That is what the 1" x 1" x 1/8" aluminum angle piece is for. I attached the angle piece (about 6' long) flush with the top of the right wing and to the bottom of the cabinet face. This is what created a problem with the counter top since my new one was patterned after the old one which was installed on a cabinet face that wasn't square with the camper. I made it work, but I would do it different next time. Hopefully, there won't be a next time, except when my kid rebuilds it 50 years from now.

Posted By: 69 Avion on 07/22/12 11:46am

I decided to take off my right rear hold down reinforcement and paint the rear of the right wing. It was a little discolored from a water leak (hole wore through a copper line against copper LP lne) that developed the last time that I used the camper, about 30 years ago.

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A view of the tiolet area before we remove the black water tank. I'll figure out how it is mounted and then I will design a new black water tank that hopefully is stronger and larger.

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* This post was edited 07/22/12 01:26pm by 69 Avion *

Posted By: 69 Avion on 07/23/12 06:16pm

The black water tank is now out.
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The new stainless steel tank is designed and at the manufacturer.
It is wider, and deeper. It will actually rest on the camper floor around the entire perimeter instead of just on 3 sides. I am lowering the toilet by 1-1/2" since the new toilets are higher than the old one. The camper had 3-1/2" of wood on top of the black water tank. I am raising the elevation of the top of the new tank by 1". Because of the two elevation changes, I will only have 1" of wood above the tank. This difference should make up for the added weight of the stainless steel tank. The bottom that protrudes through the floor is about the same size as the original, but the upper part will be 3-1/2" wider. I figure that the old tank was about 8 gallons and this one will be about 12 gallons.

My stainless steel transition piece for the AC is done. Now all I have to do is finish the mount, and put the front window in so that I can use the AC.

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