Mounting Camper on Trailer

A major milestone was reached today.  My dear friends from Lawton, Andi and Andy (Andrea and Andrew) Kley were here and they helped me mount the camper shell on the trailer and bolt it in place. Andi shot the first four pictures, so that's why she's not in them not in them.  Believe me, though, she provided a major part of the labor.

So here Andy and I are moving the trailer in place in front of the garage.

 Here the camper shell is sitting on the trailer and we'll be aligning it and putting three or four bolts loosely in place to keep it from sliding around.  Andi obviously couldn't get any pictures while we were all busy placing the camper on the trailer, etc.

After the shell was secure I rolled the tongue around the other way so we could pull the trailer forward into the garage.

After securing all the spacers and bolts I finally realized I needed to be shooting some pictures.  Andy and Andi are busy building a similar camper in Lawton.  They are also producing a blog on their project.  See it at: http://offtimeprojects.blogspot.com/

Tips for builders:

One of the problems with placement of the mounting hole is that the captive bolt and nyloc nut prevent you from getting any kind of alignment tool in there plumb.  My solution was to mark the positions of the the brackets and temporarily remove them.  Then I was able to realign the brackets up against the shell with the bolts and nuts out of the way.  I used a 3/8″ Forstner bit to mark the center of the hole.  I then moved the bracket out of the way and drilled a 1/16″ hole all the way through.  Following this, the 1/2″ “fill” hole can be drilled, partway from the bottom and finishing from the top.  (In my case, I drilled a 5/8″ hole instead, for added assurance that I would not hit any raw wood when drilling the final 3/8″ hole.)   When it comes time to drill the 3/8″ hole, Forstner bits are very helpful for finding the center of the thickened epoxy plug.

A second problem is that it is fairly difficult to get the riser and rubber vibration dampener aligned with the bracket and camper shell holes, especially if it is a tight fit and you don’t have a helper.  My solution was to apply marine grade silicone sealant between the riser and vibration dampener the day before, while using a 3/8″ bolt to make sure the holes are aligned, and using some pressure on the dampener to mold the sealant nice and flat.  To make it even easier, I also applied sealant to the top of the dampener to hold it and the riser in place (with the bracket loosely attached below) and simply dropped the bolts in.   Here is a copy of the drawing from the manual with my scribblings added: