I doubt many people saw my query on eye bolt upgrade and the issues with getting access to the rear (driver side) camper eye bolt. It was basically "hidden" underneath (my older Eagle) small cabinet.
What I've learned over the years with these campers, is that they have a cult like following. The more I work on mine (upgrades, not failures) is what I think, is the reason.
This is totally meant to be a kudos to ATC and FWC. If you are a bit older (like me) when cars had carburetors, condensors, points, etc. and didn't have all the electronics, you could work on them pretty easily. You didn't need specialty tools (in general) and could tinker, etc. with them.
That's how these campers are built. They are built so that you can work on them.
I was worried that I couldn't get access to the bolt w/o removing the smaller cabinet. I was worried that all the cabinets were interlocked and I would have to dismantle the camper to get to the old eye bolt. I had other options (cutting the old bolt and moving to a new hole; more on that in a bit), leaving the old hardware, etc. but since I'm upgrading everything I wanted to utilize existing holes (and not wanting to potentially weaken the mounting point).
Well... after a e-mail to Marty @ ATC and posting here, I decided to try and take the small cabinet out. Easy!!!!! 5 screws and it slides out (a little finesse). Old eye bolt out!
Now, the issue turned out that the old eye bolt is right up against the cabinet sidewall so I can't get my new backing plate in so I had to drill a new hole after all of that :-(. Not my first option but I'll patch up the old hole, paint it and I'm done.
Kudos to ATC and FWC! I'm sure the new campers are built the same way and I hope they don't change because it's pretty easy to access everything if you need to (ok, a few things are hard; water storage, etc. but not many) as long as you figure out where all the screws are.
What I've learned over the years with these campers, is that they have a cult like following. The more I work on mine (upgrades, not failures) is what I think, is the reason.
This is totally meant to be a kudos to ATC and FWC. If you are a bit older (like me) when cars had carburetors, condensors, points, etc. and didn't have all the electronics, you could work on them pretty easily. You didn't need specialty tools (in general) and could tinker, etc. with them.
That's how these campers are built. They are built so that you can work on them.
I was worried that I couldn't get access to the bolt w/o removing the smaller cabinet. I was worried that all the cabinets were interlocked and I would have to dismantle the camper to get to the old eye bolt. I had other options (cutting the old bolt and moving to a new hole; more on that in a bit), leaving the old hardware, etc. but since I'm upgrading everything I wanted to utilize existing holes (and not wanting to potentially weaken the mounting point).
Well... after a e-mail to Marty @ ATC and posting here, I decided to try and take the small cabinet out. Easy!!!!! 5 screws and it slides out (a little finesse). Old eye bolt out!
Now, the issue turned out that the old eye bolt is right up against the cabinet sidewall so I can't get my new backing plate in so I had to drill a new hole after all of that :-(. Not my first option but I'll patch up the old hole, paint it and I'm done.
Kudos to ATC and FWC! I'm sure the new campers are built the same way and I hope they don't change because it's pretty easy to access everything if you need to (ok, a few things are hard; water storage, etc. but not many) as long as you figure out where all the screws are.
