1968 Avion C11 Truck Camper restoration

[Avion C-11]

I'd love to see that!

[scorpiontimo]

Originally Posted by Avion C-11

I was thinking of making an Airstream style trailer to haul all my stuff with behind by Truck/Camper. We all think alike.

This had me all fired up to find one luck has it a person cam to my shop today as I was polishing a 61 bambi and told me he has 2 airstream campers and if I am interested in buying them after more discussion he has 2 avion campers he thinks they are 11's I told him oh ya so i will start my adventure to get them both to the shop next week site unseen one will be on the truck nice and polished by summer with 31 airstream following behind only issue what and how do I carry my polished 57 canoe ? there must be a way to mount it on the camper

[Avion C-11]

Originally Posted by scorpiontimo

This had me all fired up to find one luck has it a person cam to my shop today as I was polishing a 61 bambi and told me he has 2 airstream campers and if I am interested in buying them after more discussion he has 2 avion campers he thinks they are 11's I told him oh ya so i will start my adventure to get them both to the shop next week site unseen one will be on the truck nice and polished by summer with 31 airstream following behind only issue what and how do I carry my polished 57 canoe ? there must be a way to mount it on the camper

That's great! I may have to get the Bambi just to be cool. Maybe find a nasty one and turn it into a toy hauler.

You have a lot of work to polish an Avion by summer. PM me when you get ready and we can chat on the phone. I will share as much knowledge as I can.

You can put a set of stairs up the backside of the camper and a rack to mount the canoe on. Or, similar on the Bambi. Better yet, build a hitch mount bracket on the Bambi that holds it vertical??..

Get us pics!

BTW, I have been away from the camper (AFC) for two weeks. Today was the first day back and I spent it mulling over window seals. More later..

[Avion C-11]

I have been away from the camper project for a couple weeks doing some traveling and today we got back to work. It has been raining a lot lately and I have discovered more leaks that need fixing.

One leak was in a gouge through the skin up front. There were actually two gouges but only one leaked. I was going to patch those anyway so I went ahead and did that today. We finally got the air compressor moved to the back yard so I can do normal riveting. I think I will go back and change out the rivets on all my other patches too while I can.

Another leak is in the windows. Pretty bad leak too. After much watching it rain and leak and a few hose attacks I finally figured out what is going on there too. The water gets in at the corners of the window panes where the window frame has a 45 degree joint and then pools up in the sills. There’s a weep hole in the sills that let it drain to the lowest sill and then out of the camper. Well, that’s what is supposed to happen. What actually happens is most of the water does that and the rest follows gravity away from the weep hole toward the back of the camper and into the wall. I would bet money that most of these windows in C-11s leak in exactly the same fashion. I ordered up the seals and gaskets and will tackle the left side windows next weekend. It will give me a chance to clean them up and polish the frames. I need to decide if I am going to remove the whole window from the camper or fix it in place.

I also ordered up all my LEDs and other lights as well as a hitch extension. This is getting exciting now!


These are the two gouges. The forward one leaked very badly.



Two patches cut and drilled to cover the gouges.


Closeup of the forward gouge before mounting the patch.


The aft gouge.


Since we buck riveted these we need to get at both sides.


Clekoed in place and ready for sealer and rivets.


Same with aft.


Completed riveting.


Patches installed but not polished.


Polishing in progress.


And now polished.


That tree scares me.


And from a distance you can't even see them.


This is the area where the windows leak. Water comes in the corners and any water in front of the weep hole leaves the camper. Any water aft of the weep hole drains into the wall.


Till next week..

[Avion C-11]

Tail Lights and More Patches!

This weekend I got in some of my LEDs and was able to finally fix the gaping holes in the back of my camper where the old tail lights used to be. The only lights I could find that would be big enough to cover the existing holes were so big that they would never be able to make the bend around the back of the camper. I decided to put patches over the old holes and use some smaller clear LEDs. I am very happy with the result. Better than the original in every way.

This is the old tail light location


This is the old backup light location


I cut out yet more patches from the 12 foot sheet of aluminum I bought when we started this. I remember at the time I was pissed I would have to buy that much aluminum but funnily it is almost down to 4 feet.











Patches all finished and ready to go


Notice the very careful placement of holes straddling the vertical rib.


Sealer applied and awaiting rivets.


Once it is foamed in I might just forget that hole is there!






I use scotchbrite pads to scuff up the polished aluminum before applying the sealer.


4 done. Believe it or not that took most of a day.


We got out to the camper at 7am to finish up this morning. Man that was cold and early:


A little coffee and polishing warmed us right up


The LEDs are riveted to the camper and sealed to the skin. Then a Chrome bezel snaps over them.


With chrome bezel








I still like looking at it!








We got some work done on the leaking window too but still have not received the seals in the mail yet. Next weekend...

[Avion C-11]

Sorry for the late update but I have been busy as heck lately.

Last weekend I finished polishing under the wings to get ready to lower the beast so that we can polish the top and finish the windows. We also deanodized all the way around the window and cleaned up what was left of the old sealer. I got all the seals in the mail this week so that we will be able to finish the window this coming weekend.

We also built a new lower stand! I have hated the old rickety one we got from the PO for a long time. The new one is a copy of one someone did on the Truck Camper University (RV.Net Open Roads Forum: Truck Camper University - Tips, Tricks & Projects). It is very sturdy and a bit heavy. I am not sure I would be able to move it by myself without wheels on it. I will probably build another higher stand at some point to make it easier to get on and off the truck and will need a lighter more maneuverable solution. I will keep this new short one for working/cleaning/polishing the roof in the future.

[Avion C-11]

This week the major project was rebuilding the left side window and sealing the last big leak. In addition to that we got some more deanodizing and polishing done, started to rebuild the front window and work on the marker lights.

The left window was the second major leak on the left side. The first was fixed when I rebuilt the bunk but this one has been harder to track down partly because of the loads and loads of sealer that previous owners had applied but also because there was two things happening. One is the corner window glazing leaked and the other was where the upper metal frame and lower metal frame came together and basically acted like a scoop to run water straight into the camper. There was also a rivet under the frame bulging the whole thing out.

First we deanodized, removed old sealer and polished the frames. Sounds simple but that took two weekends!

Then we re-glazed the windows by cutting off the old glazing and using Tempro 635 to re-glaze it. Temro is great for this job because it cleans easily with alcohol and makes a nice bond. I used Parbond injected with a syringe in other places that were hard to get to and to fix the frame leak.

Third we replaced all the old window seals and gaskets.

Lastly we Temproed around the outside of the window frame do seal it all up.

After the left window was sealed it rained the next night and day so we were able to verify that all leaks are stopped!

The next day we deanodized and polished the front end cap, cleaned up the window and began rebuilding all the seals. I also got a little work done on making the round bezels for the marker lights I'm not 100% sure that I will use these bezels. It is a lot of riveting and I could send the lights I have back and get ones that would cover the old holes from the original marker lights. Those bezels looked great on the tail lights but it's tough to know when enough is enough.

So here is the major offending leak

From the inside


Removing the old glazing


Taped for deanodizing


Deanodizing


With the frames polished and the old gunk/sealer removed you can now see the water scoop area of the frame.


The first resealing I did was to remove the screws in the corners and inject Parbond until it fully came out of the 45 degree frame cuts and the glazing channels.




This is what the parbond looks like squeezing out of the corners.


Then I taped off and reglazed cleaning with alcohol as I went.






Then I taped off and sealed around the outside of the frame




Installed new rubber seals in the lower windows. See the black rubber in the below pic.


Outside dust seal.


Started working on the front endcap. You can see all the sealer that is caked up on there in this photo. It is easy to remove that stuff with a heat gun and a wire brush we have found. Of course you wouldn't want to do it that way unless you planned on polishing it afterward because you will remove the anodizing with the wire brush.


Frame and encap mostly deanodized, cleaned up and ready to rock and roll.


This is a very satisfying piece of the camper to polish! It's been a long time in the making but we finally have a whole endcap polished!


I wanted to get the left side finished this weekend but we didn't get the back endcap polished. It is deanodized though!


These are the bezels I started making. I could go buy different lights that would cover the old holes or go with this idea. Any opinions?


I will look at this angle all week!


Sorry for the long post but I had two weeks worth of pics. There's more on the blog if you want to see them.

[REDNAX]

One heck of a job! Glad you got to it before it gets any hotter.

[69travelux]

Wow,Im so impressed by all your hard work. Thanks for all the deanodizing and polishing tips!!
One question ,have you tried any other products to remove the anodizing such as lye (sodium hydroxide) or is easy off the best?
Thanks ,Chris.

[Avion C-11]

I have not tried sodium hydroxide. I've tried various methods involving oven cleaner and the best seems to be to spray wait for it to bubble and wipe off with paper towels. Then repeat until it's mostly done. Then spray, wait for bubbling and scrub with scotchbrite, rinse with lots of water. If it's really pitted follow the above with an application of toonbrite.

I'm sure there are other methods that work and even work better but as of right now we are deanodizing faster than we can keep up with polishing and other projects that pop up along the way.

Chris.

[Avion C-11]

This week we uncovered a 43 year old practical joke wile working on the marker light bezels. While I was digging out foam so I could buck the rivets on the rear left marker light on the side I found written in pencil, “Betty is a hellbilly from Missourey” with a nice heart around it. And then apparently Betty, or someone, came back and corrected it to read “is a h”I”llbilly from Missour “i”". Written in the dying art of cursive, it probably made someone chuckle as they foamed in the camper. (See pics)

Other than that, I worked more on the marker lights and porch light. I taped up the bezels in the morning and stared at them for a while before deciding they looked good and to just go for it. So we did. I also cut and mounted the bezel for the porch light.

Next, polish and mount lights.





Trying on the marker lights for size


Porch light bezel


Betty's bezel


Front side bezel,


Top 3


Lots more pics in the blog if you want the details of how this stuff went together.