lightweight travel trailers.

compressionignitionrules

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sold the 97 F250 crew short 2wd , along with a pair of 4" drop dreambeams for $ 2500 Canadian funds today. the guy that bought it owns a 97 F350 4x4 same as mine but he did a 5.9 cummins swap(sucker:kick:) and put superduty axles under it. might deliver on sunday if weather lets up, snowflakes falling late this year but not supposed to last through saturdays sunshine. this winter has been way too long!
 

compressionignitionrules

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Well I delivered it today.
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wow this made the little 5.8 efi and C6 work hard, check engine light came on a few times and won't idle right now. sold him a bare 96 F350 cab and doors for $150 just cleaning up a little.
 

compressionignitionrules

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finally got my big ugly on the road and hauled the trailer around monday a bit just o get a feel of it. trans shifts a bit harsh but with the trailer om it shifted great. put a coupel southern fenders on it, and might be goign with a 9'flatbed, put a 6 foot topper on it and have enough room out the back for a few bicycles . kids call it pigpen. tryign to nail down an intermittent vibration for the L front. I took apart thew lockign hub mechanism and left all the guts out except the outer shell to attach the cap to. seems to have fixed the noise/vibration. I did retightne the wheel bearing . I bought a 5" drop for this trailer but it looks fine with the standard reciever.

update; may26. removed the R side hub guts and it seems to have removed the vibration. not goign to mess with it any more, if I need 4wd in a pinch I can reassemble the front hubs in about 20min

rpm runs a bit low liek 1700rpm at 60mph and kicks out of OD pretty quick, so I'm goign to be runnign closer to 70mph I guess or lower to 55 and out of OD . 3.55s are pretty tall.........
 
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compressionignitionrules

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fix fix fix, one thing breaks and I fix that and something else goes. i wish I had it on the road a month earlier, I'd be ready now! have a few thigns left before we leave on Friday; broken leaf springs on Left side, found when unloading them to install new spring hanger and shackle on Saturday at the farm. fuel pump in valley to change , and AC to diagnose and repair. oh yeah, cab corners to weld on but I think I'll just Ufoam them and put tar tape over them. can do welding after we get back from the trip...........

I told the kids, any free stickers go on the bed sides to make it not look so crappy LOL
 

compressionignitionrules

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Fuel pump done Wed night after work, finished at 3:30 am, tonite replaced the AC condensor and vac and charged with 134 , but ran out of 134 before it was full. doen at 3am and then hour and a bit drive home. now I'll have to top up with some store bought stuff. Left rear window messed up and stayed down, will have to play with wiring Friday. leavign saturday morning. jeez I wish this truck rode a little better , man is it a harsh ride.

oh yeah, picked up my freshened trans to take along on the trip tonite .
 

compressionignitionrules

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truck made it up to Tuk and back, will be 4 weeks on saturday, just got home at midnight.
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an't send family pics but truck and me is ok 13yr old is hamming it up. was 6 celcius , water was 8 celcius. day before was almost 20 degrees .

had a pile of trouble , lockup solenoid in trans kept screwing up, sometimes on steep hill climbs! injection pressure sensor in HP pump kept going off and truck woudln't idle. and 1 flat just before we pulled into inuvik NWT. but I ordered a programmer and got it delivered to Edmonton and it saved my *** probably 30 or 40 times. kept deleting codes and it woudl work fine as long as I pushed it hard right off start up. let it idel or putter around town and it was a bear. my wife got so used to hooking it up for me she woudl plug it in as soon as I started the truck and delte codes whenever the warning lites would come on. oh yeah, the Tstat housing started leakign too up in inuvik, local garage sold me a new Orign for it, but I just kept topping it up. if I didn't let it warm up, just drive it hard right away it wouldn't leak.
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the new trailer was even more headaches, but we made it back hoem again, around 10,000 miles round trip but I woudl have to ad it all up.

good to be home again, kids all wanted to sleep in their own beds . LOL
 

laserjock

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Holy crap. That’s awesome! You drug the camper all the way there??

Sounds like it would be an awesome road trip especially if you could get a few folks together.


Not sure I can talk the wife into this one though...

[emoji848]
 

compressionignitionrules

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I woudln't recommend haulign a trailer but a slide in truck camper or other woudl work fine. you need a lot of time! I pushed hard to get there and took more tiem comign home. my truck is very rusty and I wasn't sure if the rad support was goign to last the trip, but it was the box that broek apart, top rail welds broke and box supports broke off. lots of self tappers and ratchet straps and bunjees made it all coem home in one piece. track bar bushings were beat out about 1/2 way there so I bought a set and brought them along but with the weight of the trailer it still steered fine. today we took the truck without trailer into town to restock our empty fridge and its all over the road.....................

don't take a new vehicle on those roads, alaska highway was pretty good but we were only on it until whitehorse, then off to the N and NW.

my wife was commenting how we might have lived in the Yukon if we had traveled before having kids. if you are on the side of the road, people stop and check on you , they know there are no cell phone signals.

I told the wife I want to make trip once more in another 25 yrs or so, but our next big trip will be to Labrador , the land route. truck camper next time, big holiday every 5 yrs.
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Clb

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Enjoying the stars???
I just got back 03 july...
Ate 4 tires, love the frost heaves... Right?!
Drag ya had that many issues...
 

gandalf

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...it never got dark at all above whitehorse just dusky. ...


So true! The year I spent up that way, just north of Fairbanks, I remember we had a "Midnight Sun" party. It was great. I found that I needed a lot less sleep in the summertime than in the winter. I also remember the bad mistake of walking out of the bar at 3am and finding that I didn't have my sunglasses.
 

rempfer

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If you’re looking for something better built that may need some work (just like our trucks) I would look into the older Avion aluminum trailers. They can still be had for cheap, and parts are still plentiful and they are some of the best trailers ever made. I’ve owned three and buy them cheap and restore them either for my own use or as a flip. I picked up our first one that was a 34’ early 70s model (they make all kinds of sizes) for $1500 and spent about 4K redoing the floor, mattresses, kitchen arrangement, new fridge toilet and shower. I enjoyed it for a year and flipped it for over 12. They even made some sweet slide ins that I’d like to get, but so many projects so little time, just another thing I’m into along with the IDIs.

I found a 1966 Avion T-21. The furnace and bathroom have been removed, but the shell seems to be in pretty good shape. Thewespaul was very helpful to me in making the decision, what a great resource Wes has been first for my truck and now for this. Among the "parts are still plentiful" I wonder if bathroom components and propane furnace would be available? Thanks!
 

Big Bart

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Sounds like the typical family vacation to me! White knuckle times, break downs, puckered hinny, problems, and wondering when the next break down will be!

Family vacation is a true oxymoron. It's really more like Mr. and Mrs. butler take the kids for a long trip. Dad does all the heavy lifting, mom does all the cookign and cleaning, and when the kids are not fighting they actually have some fun! Sound familure?

Well you made it in one piece, often the story is better than the actual event, and you have proved you can go another 10,000 miles and get home!

Thank you for sharing the story and glad everyone had a good time.
 

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