Sue Bee
NW suburbs of Chicago
Senior Member
Joined: 06/05/2009
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Classy Chassis makes the Haul It All which, it says, fits slide in campers.
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SoCalDesertRider
SanDiego, CA, USA
Senior Member
Joined: 12/14/2003
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Chuck and Di wrote:SoCalDesertRider wrote:
On most utility bodies, you lose inside bed width, as the whole bed is 48-49 inches wide all the way down, instead of having wheel wells that protrude into the bed area 48-50" apart and bed rails spaced at 60-65" apart. A standard utility body precludes carrying a camper due to the 48" bed width.
Correction: Precludes carrying SOME campers. It would carry mine just fine, as it would many other models I've seen. Not all campers are the same.
The greater majority of fully-equipped (ie: has a bathroom) slide-in campers widen out to 60" at the floor behind the rear wheels, especially those campers that are longer than the pickup bed. Some very few 8-footers for long bed pickups do not widen at the rear and most of those are older models and/or are not fully equipped. Yes there are some, I'm not argueing that, as I have seen enough of them myself as well, but they are in the minority for sure.
If a buyer had to base a new truck camper purchase choice on ONLY models that maintained a 48" floor width all the way back, the available choices are very limited and would only suit a few folk's combinations of wants/needs. Choosing a camper is hard enough without also adding in such a limiting factor as such.
05E350 6.0PSD
97F350DRW 7.3PSD 4x4 4.10 11' flatbed
98Ranger
69Bronco ATC250R CR500
20' BigTex flatbed carhauler
Callen Camper
92F350 CrewCab 4x4 351/C6
B&W TurnoverBall, Curt Magnum V
HD Springs Bilsteins,
285/75-16E BFG AT on 16x8 Stocktons
4.56's & LockRite rear
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SoCalDesertRider
SanDiego, CA, USA
Senior Member
Joined: 12/14/2003
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Sue Bee wrote:Classy Chassis makes the Haul It All which, it says, fits slide in campers. I've seen that one before. While it certainly is a nice looking bed and does have side compartments, there is one major flaw in the design.
They don't let the compartments expand inward where they drop below the bed floor level to take advantage of all that space below the bed floor outside the frame rails. Therefore, the compartments are very skinny and not deep enough to be useful for much storage.
I would have extended the inner wheel wells forward so the front bed floor is 49" wide ahead of the wheel wells and used all that space as storage space in the lower section of the forward compartments. Quite a bit of useful storage space could be gained there.
Widening the lower sections of the rear compartments, as well as extending the compartments all the way to the rear of the bed by way of eliminating that cut-off angled rear corner would gain a bit more storage space there too, albeit not alot.
The bed is an applaudable effort to reach previously untapped segment of the non-custom-made utility body market, but it needs some revision of the design to be truly useful and justify it's likely quite high price tag, for camper use anyways.
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