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 .

Of Pirates and Truck Campers

Well, the Amerigo is officially mine and happily rests on the back of my trusty old Dodge truck. 

I sit, preparing to enjoy my victory dinner at the Lacey Rock, Wood Fired Pizza and Spirits, chuckling at the fact that I took possession of my new “ship” on the annual “Talk like Pirate!” day. 

In fact, I’ve found it so funny, that I’ve decided to let my inner nerd out to play, and have chosen a fitting name for my new ship . 

For those that are familiar with Japanese Anime, there’s a series specifically about pirates, goes by the name of “One Piece”….

Ironically, the brand of my new camper is an “A-Mer-I-Go”…..

Those that know the show should be screaming by now, cause they know where this is going……

And the name of the main character’s ship sounds very, very similar……

 

So, without further adieu, I give you, “THE GOING MERRY!” 

 

Arrrr!  She be a fine ship, her keel be strong and she sails the asphalt seas as smoothly as a fair maiden’s skin!

 

…..Ehem…..  Couldn’t help myself. 

 

After driving her from Spanaway down to Lacey, I can say she rids on the back of the truck like a dream, that beautifully rounded cab-over slices through the wind far like a knife!  

First time I actually managed to maintain 55mph going up a grade on I-5…..  Granted, that might change after she’s had some remodel work done, but so far she rides like a dream. 

At current she’s using a kludged power cord to drive the signals and running lights, but that will hopefully change soon as the next paycheck rolls around so I can invest in some new wire to get her properly wired up. 

We’ve got a long worklist ahead of us, but I can’t wait to get back to camping!

The Great Northern Redneck Adventure–Chapter 3– The Road thru Idaho, Getting off the Beaten Track

View GNRA - Chapter 3 & 4  in a larger map
Sadly, we were too tired to be up as early as our host, TC Life, so we weren’t able to wish him a proper goodbye today , but, we still greatly appreciated the stay over night though . 

This morning proved to be a test of digestive fortitude, one which both Mason and I lost. 
Good thing the camper has it’s own toilet, as TC Life was gone and no one was home, otherwise, we’d have never made the drive back down Hwy 395 in time to find a bathroom before disaster would have hit. 

We did discover that because of the tiny”ness” of the camper’s bathroom, that for one of us to be able to relax enough to use it in the seated position, we had to boot the other out of the camper so that the bathroom door could be left open, allowing the occupant enough room, but without putting on a show .

Once the great bathroom adventure was over, we finally got everything packed up and started back through town, stopping at our selective fast food choices so that we could make time for Enaville, ID.
 
Now, in the past, I’ve driven through Spokane before, but never along any road besides I-90.  Traveling along the US 395 during the day back towards I-90 provided me with a greater view of some of the actual characteristics of Spokane. 



From what I can tell, old town Spokane is mostly along the old alignment of US 395, at the time of our visit, WADOT was already undertaking a new free-way style alignment of US 395 to improve traffic from the northern suburbs into town and to I-90. 

Most of town made me think of some older industrial cities of Oregon, like Albany, however, I have never seen a hotel quite like this one in Albany .



Anywhere in Oregon, they would have simply bulldozed the big hill before building the hotel, here, they built it on top of it . 

From the looks of the Google Drive by footage, the hotel didn’t always look like it does now. 
Here’s the same hill from just a few years ago.




When I originally saw the hotel, I thought it might be somewhat historic, but now looking back at the Google Drive by footage, one can tell it’s been there only a short time.

The ironic and humorous bit is, when the Google Drive By photo was taken and when I drove by were apparently both election years .

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From Spokane, we drove for roughly two hours before we finally reached Coeur D’Alene, ID, which for some reason I didn’t take any photos of….. 

We drove through town, following the old I-90/Hwy 10 Alignment that passes through the downtown area before migrating out of town along the old US 10/I-90 alignment along the shores of Lake Coeur D'Alene. 


At the time I was oddly wondering why a city road would show signs of old passing lanes and four lane travel, later I learned that at one time this had been the original main east-west highway through the area. 

Shame it’s been retired, it was a drastically more attractive road than the higher up route of the current I-90 alignment. 

The view from the bridge above does make up a bit for it though .



While we were still in town, before heading on further east, I attempted to get ahold of Jammingalong, another Truck Camper enthusiast, but sadly, we never were able to reach one another in time before I journeyed east over the pass.   

Before finally leaving Coeur D’Alene behind, we attempted to get information from one of Mason’s roommates regarding some castle that stands along the shore of the lake, but the chucklehead, whom lived for several years in the area, couldn’t provide any useful information regarding it, and given the smoke that was clouding our view at times, we were never able to locate it or any information pertaining to it.

If any of you readers out there know what “Castle” he was talking about, I’d greatly appreciate information on it, as it would be nice to try and find on a future visit. 

Since we had the majority of the day still ahead of us and the panhandle of Idaho being as narrow as it was, and that we needed to stay close to the area to do the “Route of the Hiawatha” Trail Ride the next day, we took our time and did a little driving along the shore of Lake Coeur D’Alene and a little visiting of the towns of Kellogg, Smelterville, and Wallace, ID, before heading towards our dinner destination of the Snakepit over in Enaville. 

Taking the exit for State Highway 97, we turned south and west and wended our way down the shore line of the lake, stopping here and there for a couple photos and only turning back north when we hit the end of Powderhorn Bay.



Unfortunately, our view wasn’t as good as I had remembered it being, due to the forest fires burning all around the Northwest at the time of our visit. 

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We eventually made our way back onto I-90 and made our climb over Fourth of July Pass and descended down to the town of Pinehurst, ID, one of several towns I’d visited back in 2005 with my parents and siblings. 

Sadly, the Pinehurst KOA no longer exists, as it was one of the better RV parks in the area, however, had it existed, we would have never found the RV Park we ultimately ended up staying at later that night.

Exiting off of I-90, we drove along through the towns using the old US Hwy 10 alignment, stopping periodically to grab photos of the little signs that dot the Coeur D’Alene Trail, a bike path that goes from one end of the panhandle of Idaho all the way to the other side, along the long abandoned Union Pacific right of way. 


First town we reached after leaving Pinehurst behind us was the town of Smelterville.  Remnants of the long gone Bunkerhill Lead & Zinc mines and their associated smelters still dot the area even though their traces are slowly disappeared during the ongoing clean up process. 




From Smelterville, we rolled into Kellogg, ID, a town filled with some rather neat architecture, when I was a boy scout, I could only wish we had a hall quite as neat as the one they have in Kellogg. 



Sadly, the town’s commercial district was looking like it was hurting pretty badly. 



One thing I’ve always found fascinating are the junk sculptures around the center of town, mainly up and down Division Street, near the freeway.  Whoever made them put some good effort into their design .

Each one of the sculptures is made of scrap iron, ranging from oil barrels, to car mufflers.




We swung by the local Ski lodge in town as we were making ready to climb back onto I-90 and continue onto Wallace.  While there wasn’t any snow in the area at the time, the Lodge keeps the gondola-style ski lift running all year round, taking mountain bikers up to the top of the hill so that they can trail ride back down again.



Sadly, another Museum that I still haven’t gotten to visit.  One of these years…..



Last couple trail side signs about the long closed Lead and Zinc mine before we get back on the interstate.