1974 Alaskan Camper. I'm not working on a car again.

OK, the Samurai Challenge car has been pushed to the back of the list.

I picked this up this afternoon and I have 7 weeks to get this done enough to be usable. It's a 1974 Alaska Camper. It's a hard side, pop up, truck camper. I've been looking for a pop up truck camper for a while and this showed up on craigslist yesterday for way under challenge money.

Over all it's in fair shape. It needs some help in the hydraulics department and has some soft wood in the sides.

In 7 weeks we are headed to Canada to meet my parents. I need it at least usable by then. We will be concentrating on the sides first. The stops for the top are missing and pretty important. Next up will be the hydraulics. They work, but are pretty finicky. We raised the top this afternoon, popped it off the track and got it stuck. That wasn't fun.

Here is a picture of one raised just to give you an idea. (Not mine.)

More to come as it happens.

Cool. I think that this will be fun to watch, since I know absolutely nothing about these things. It should be an interesting seven weeks.

I had no idea such a thing existed! Seriously cool

This is going to be awesome!
Some sort of mechanical witchcraft is going on, I can't wrap my mind around how the overhang above the cab pops out.

Hungary Bill wrote: I had no idea such a thing existed! Seriously cool

Me either! Now watching in fascination. Got to love that about these forums

I'll try to get some pictures of how it works, but basically, the roof goes up, the front wall folds up on hinges, then the side walls fold up on hinges.

When collapsed, the three front walls are folded down onto the bed.

I've only ever seen this kind of thing on sawhorses in trailer parks.

Im watching to learn about what I'm missing.

Looks heavy, but quality. I looked at truck campers for awhile and was amazed at how stupidly expensive they were, especially as cheesy as many of them were. Neat project.

In reply to Basil Exposition:

Empty, it tips the scales at 1472#, going by the ID plate. Loaded, probably in the 1700-1900 range. The truck really doesn't notice it's back there other than making it ride much better.

Cool. I have an ongoing eBay search for slide-in campers (a relic from when I had my Cummins) and these show up from time to time. Often not fully functional, yet they do seem to demand high asking prices. Granted, some new ones are pretty amazing and large. A couple of models features 3 slide-outs with MSRP well over $50K and dry weights at 2 tons...

Yes, used slide-in campers are surprisingly expensive. From what I've seen (around 4 years of following eBay prices), you can expect to spend at least $5K for a "fully capable" (has a full bathroom) version that doesn't need anything.

Lighter pop-up versions are still being made, but they all have soft sides. New MSRP is in the low teens.

In reply to Ian F:

I've been keeping an eye out for a fixer upper, that wasn't a rotten pile of scrap, for a couple of years now. Like you say, most of them are horrendously expensive. All the popups needed canvas and major work. This one needs work, but at well under a grand, I can put some effort into it and end up with a nice camper. Besides, I needed another project.

Alaska Camper still makes these. MSRP on a 10' cab over? $28,000+

I have always wanted a hard side pop up, you know for the truck I dont have anymore, but still browse for them. cant wait to see where this goes!

In reply to Toyman01:

Neat. I didn't know they were still around. Somebody needs to call them and mention 1998 wants their website back.

My big issue is the lack of an indoor shower, although it seems there are custom options that would probably address that concern as well as others (lack of storage). Of course, that wouldn't be cheap...

Grateful Dead, Marley, "Ask for Alaska Grown"...does it still smell like a bong den?

Cool project! It looks very neat in the folded down position.

I had to make a run to pick up an engine from Strike Zero this morning, so I didn't get started on the camper until 2:00.

The passenger side was the worst so I started on it. The sides were a little floppy so I knew there was some rot going on under the skin. As usual, the more I got into it the worse it looked.

The window had to come out and a fair amount of siding. The bottom rail was completely rotten, the front corner was gone, the lift guide was bolted to air.

All the gross stuff is removed and the rebuild has started.

It's going back together fairly easily. I hope to have both sides done by the end of the weekend.

Well, I got to thinking and went back outside to rehang/adjust the doors. They were dragging rather badly. Now they both close and latch properly.

One thing led to another and I pulled some more siding off. The rear corner wasn't badly rotten, but I decided since I was in there I might as well fix everything properly.

The back is re-framed, the front is getting there.

That's it for today. Hopefully I get a chance to work on it tomorrow.

Awesome, love those things

Oh man, shades of helping my parents repair the frame of their tent trailer when I was growing up. You get the twin masters of rust and rot.

Great work!

BTW - the links to your first post of repair pics yesterday seems to be broken.

Out of curiosity, and not to nit pick - why did you stay with regular lumber and not use pressure treated in those rotted out spots?

In reply to Ian F:

Links fixed. I had moved the images to a different folder in my Photobucket.

akamcfly wrote: Out of curiosity, and not to nit pick - why did you stay with regular lumber and not use pressure treated in those rotted out spots?

Pressure treated wood is wet when you buy it. It tends to warp as it dries. With very little structure in the sides, there was no way to stop it from warping. In a deck or a fence, it's no big deal, but in this situation warping would cause binding in the slide tracks or make the wall bow. That would cause problems.

I'm probably going to treat the wood with something like Thompson's Waterseal before I button everything back up. I'm still thinking on that. Also, the exterior skin is going to be sealed with a modern sealant rather than the 1970s goo they used.

Cool project. Like others I had no idea a popup version of a slide in even existed, or that they were that stupid expensive.

Plans for updating the interior? Or is this just a rush to functionality and not falling through a wall?

What about spar varnish on the insides of the walls?

Is this framed with standard 2x2's or do you have to rip lumber to the proper dimensions?