Rebuilding the Amerigo–Just call me the Demolition Man!

Finally, an update!

Been wasting a lot of weekends as of late, mostly sleeping trying to make up for too little sleep during the work week, but finally progress has been made and wonderful discoveries as well .

The good news, first.

The frame of the camper is in excellent condition.    I’ve discovered only a couple spots where water entry has (and still is, but now that I know where it is, I can fix it ) occurred, but the only casualty was the ugly as sin ceiling paneling which I had planned to tear out anyway.

The bad, the bloody leak area is over the top of the blasted clamshell bathroom, likely been coming in around the tiny roof vent.

So that means I’m going to have to figure out how to separate the bathroom into its two pieces without damaging it.

Yay….

I had already planned to upgrade the vent opening to a full 14”x14” opening, so I guess this is as good an incentive as any, perhaps now is a good time to look into the new holding tanks, since I’m going to removing the flange for the toilet anyway so I can move the shower. 

The rear vent is showing signs of leakage as well, but no major damage to the frame. Woods still solid and once it dries I can treat it with Minwax wood hardener to protect it from any future moisture exposure.

Bottom edge of the wood is damp, but the wood has not rotted, most of the dark areas are bits of the old roof board after it being removed.

The wooden ceiling material is damp all the way across the top of the bathroom and right around the vent, which follows the path that the camper leans at when its parked next to the house. 

I continued to demolish the ceiling and wall paneling moving forward, finding nothing but good news. 

Also realized why my Amerigo has no rear ladder, when so many others I’ve seen do.  There’s no plywood under the fiberglass roof.   It seems I cannot fail to buy a truck camper with a roof not-designed to walked on .

Good to know, since I plan to attach a Winegard Antenna assembly. 

Main beam above the Snap-N-Nap is still solid and I have confirmed that when my unit was built that it was indeed built with glue and screws, as there’s four counter sunk screws holding each one of the 2x2s in place.  

No staples on this camper’s frame, just on the inner paneling, most of which is going to wind up in a dumpster.

Looks like at one time there was a power vent here, makes installing the Shurflo Comfort-Breeze even easier .

Ah, looks like I did find one potential fib by the last owner, there was in fact at one time an Air Conditioner on this camper.  The original wiring for it was cut off and tucked up inside ceiling, I did a test on it and confirmed that the wire is not connected to anything, so there was never any danger, it simply was disconnected and discarded.   I’ll likely use the old wire to help pull a new line in.

I can tell by the doubled up roof timbers that where the skylight is where the A/C was.   I was surprised to find the skylight is framed in with 2x4s……   Now I’m drawn, do I want to keep the skylight, or restore the factory framing and put my A/C unit back in place there instead of making a new opening?  

Precusory check on the cabover roof at a primary leak point, no immediate signs of any water penetration, ever..

Cabover’s doubling as temporary storage for loose bits till I finish removing the cabinets so I can carefully remove the wall panels to reuse as templates and to check around the side windows for any leakage signs.

Signs of a past leak and repair.   The dark spot on the plywood is an old stain, and is sealed with epoxy and is quite solid.   A section of new 2x4 was grafted in by the previous owner most likely. It is solid, but I will buttress a full length of 2x4 on top of it to add some extra structural strength.

With the wall paneling removed, you can see the silly lopsided offset of the fridge compartment as it came from factory.

I’m going to shift the fridge towards the rear enough to make the cabover a full queen, which will in the same move center the fridge underneath the roof vent and to the exterior hatch.

The propane compartment will not move, but I may be able to gain a little storage compartment along side it to use for storing things like baking sheets and what not. 

The dinette likely won’t be serving as a bed when the remodel is done, at least not for tall people. 

I didn’t notice it until I removed the build up the last owner had done over the old dinette wall that there was a little piece of paneling over a hole cut in the wall from factory.  

When I opened up the wall, I discovered the little piece of panel was covering an access to the tie down anchor, which goes clean through the plywood wing and the 2x4 sill board at the bottom of the wall. 

A lot better anchor strength than the KIT, whose anchors simply went through the plywood and a 2x4 that was attached to the underside of the wings.

 

I can tell, sadly, that some water is getting around the points where the running lights connect, so I think I may go the smart route and replace them all, hopefully with a unit I can permanently seal the base to the fiberglass so that there’s no future worry about water penetration. 

 

The first sacrifice from the KIT, its nice new Suburban 6 Gallon water heater for the Amerigo’s older Mobile Temp. 

I have the new counter top material in storage at a family’s place, as it’s the same thing as what the Formica counter looks like, butcher block.  Lumber Liquidators had a wonderful deal on an 8’ x25” deep section of 1 ¹/₄” thick oak unfinished counter, so I decided to upgrade to something slightly better than the particle board and Formica counters that were sagging in the middle.

With the two large openings in the counter top for the range and the sink, going to the solid wood counter won’t contribute enough additional weight to be of much concern. 

Added another vintage touch to the Express, got a set of cherry Dodge dog-dishes off a 1974 Dodge motorhome out in Ellensburg, WA (seems this project keeps taking me back up to Washington….)

Now, all I need is the grill work off a vintage Dodge Adventurer package truck and I’ll start looking like the Dodge on the Amerigo brochure . 

(Brochure from Pirate4x4.com, photos belong to SwampFox89@aol.com)

Looks like enough demo for one day .

The Great Northern Redneck Adventure–Chapter 2– We’re still in Oregon?!! Onward to Spokane, the East awaits!

 

View GNRA - Chapter 2 – We’re still in Oregon?!! Onward to Spokane, the East awaits! in a larger map

 

Well, luck was with us, and the night was uninterrupted by anyone banging on our door to inform us that we couldn’t park where we were and needed to move, or anyone managing to collide with the bicycles on the rack next to the camper. 

I think it was somewhere around 9-9:30am by the time I managed to pry my crusted-shut eyes open and stick my head under the sprayer attachment for the sink to rinse away the last of the urge to climb back into the bed and pull a pillow over my head. 

It was 10am and the morning sun was already toasting things up by the time we stepped outside the camper cocoon and I got a chance to swivel my head around and get a good gander at the area. 

This wasn’t my first time through Biggs, but it was the first time I’d spent more time there than it took to get gas or take the off ramp onto US 97 South or North. 

The hills have become forested with Wind Turbines over the past ten years, I can recall when there was none here at one time, now there are quietly moving trees of white steel that have synchronized blinking red lights atop them at night for the purpose of befuddling drivers along I-84 who wonder at the surreal view far ahead of them.

Mason wandered over to the gas station to buy a bag of ice so we could chill the little red ice chest of water and soft drinks that we carried in the cab of the truck for the day while I packed in and battened down everything to get the camper back on the road. 

Our first sight-seeing stop was right across the river from us, the Maryhill Stonehenge Memorial!

A quick trip across the Biggs bridge, and a gradual creep up the mountain and we were there .  Sadly, the little souvenir and ice cream stand that’s near the memorial has closed it’s doors .

We meandered around a while, snapping photos here, snapping photos there, Mason posing for photos for what I later started calling his “fan girls” on facebook. 

After meandering around the memorial for a while, we clambered back into the pickup and made our way down the hill from the memorial into the small town of Maryhill below. 

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There really isn’t a whole lot left to the town of Maryhill, mostly a few homes, the Church, the fruit orchards, a winery, the state park, and an RV Park. 

Our main reason for visiting was to stop by Gunkel Orchards to acquire some fresh peaches for our journey.   I’d visited here once before in 2009 during the Eastern Oregon Ramblin’ Journey (as of the time of this post, still backlogged for posting) and had gotten a good bounty of fresh peaches.

This time, the peach bounty wasn’t as… well bountiful, but it was a month later than when I had been there last, and three years later, so that doesn’t surprise me as much.

 

Since we hadn’t had our breakfast yet, we parked the truck across the road in as much shade as I could get it in and we had cereal and attempted to each some peaches. 

I really should have paid a bit more attention to their ripeness, as they were definitely not ripe yet, and kind of ruined the enjoyment I had been looking forward to. 

The remaining peaches were stowed in a sack and tucked in the cabover to ripen as we continued on east before anymore were eaten.

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A sadly, less than satisfying breakfast down, we battened everything down and got back across the river and onto I-84 heading east again. 

Along the way, we passed the numerous hydroelectric dams that generate the bulk majority of Oregon’s electrical power, like the Dalles Dam below:

And had a laugh at the fact that there was a tiny town named “Arlington” in Oregon cut out of the rugged cliffs lining the gorge.

Of course, since we motored along at 55mph in the right lane, everything, including a number of other RVs passed us :

Eventually, after a slight pucker moment with my timing of our fuel stop, we made it onto I-82 and were crossing the Columbia River out of Oregon for the last time. 

At last, we were truly on our way!

For me, this wasn’t my first time traveling I-82, however, it was my first time driving my own RV along it and crossing it in the daylight. 

First thing that caught my attention not long after we had crossed into eastern Washington was what looks like an abandoned mine shaft right along side the interstate.  I doubt it is one, from what I’ve read, but the placement makes it certainly look like one. 

You can see it yourself if you drive I-82, it’s right at Milepost 116 northbound on the east side of the interstate. 

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We made a supply stop at the Walmart Supercenter in Kennewick, WA to pick up some stuff we still needed, including the super handy LED headlamps that were originally bought to ride the route of the Hiawatha trail, but ended up getting used to a lot more. 

Then a brief rest stop a little further north to contact TC Life to take up his offer of an overnight stay:

Truck Campers unite!