Coast Resorts Open Roads Forum: Our custom true flatbed truck camper build thread

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Topic: Our custom true flatbed truck camper build thread

Posted By: 69 Avion on 06/09/15 08:48pm

pjay9 wrote:

Jfet, WOW!!!!! When are you giving it a 'test camping'?

Only thing I notice and it is because I am a bigger boat driver than most, the tie downs, in my opinion should act like fore and aft spring lines on boats. Most pick-up tiedowns do that or at least should! IMHO

This site is a little overkill but makes a very simple point regarding the springs, which relates to TC's. Again IMHO! Springs

Some flat bed trucks have springs under the flat bed that allows the frame to twist while the bed stays flat. I don't know if that rig has them or not.

Ford F-350 4x4 Diesel
1988 Avion Triple Axle Trailer
1969 Avion C-11 Camper

Posted By: bigcitypopo on 06/10/15 09:10am

outstanding!

2014 RAM 2500 BigHorn CrewCab 4x2 ShortBox, 6.7L CTD
2014 Keystone Springdale 294bhssrwe - Hensley Arrow!
The best wife, 2 kids and a bunch of fun

Posted By: Jfet on 06/10/15 02:40pm

We went on a short ride today (80 miles round trip) with the complete rig and also went to certified scales to weigh it.

As expected, the garage pod took some weight off the front axle(yay!).

Steer axle 5920 pounds
Drive axle 9960 pounds

Total 15880 pounds

2006 Isuzu NRR maximum ratings

Steer axle 6830 pounds
Drive axle 12980 pounds

GVWR 19,500 pounds

So right now we have 3600 pounds available for people + cargo. Not as much as I wanted at the start but maybe enough to get us by until a 2001 to 2006 Isuzu FTR or GMC T-7500 with 20k miles driven by a little old lady falls in our lap.

The 2000 pound flatbed could have some of the 900 pounds of wood removed since we really don't use it much as a hauling flatbed. Replacing the wood with aluminum extrusion would gain us 500 pounds of cargo capacity.

Posted By: Bedlam on 06/10/15 03:04pm

You will have trailer tongue weight taking away capacity. Maybe 500 lbs?

How much water do you plan to carry at 8.3 lbs per gallon (roughly 100 lbs per 12 gallons of water)?

Two dual-purpose bikes at 250-300 lbs each?

The weight adds up fast...

Chevy Sonic 1.8-Honda Passport C70B-Host Mammoth 11.5-Interstate Car Carrier 20-Joyner SandViper 250-Kawasaki Concours ZG1000-Paros 8' flatbed-Pelican Decker DLX 8.75-Ram 5500 HD

Posted By: Jfet on 06/10/15 03:45pm

Bedlam wrote:

About 300 pounds on the boat trailer tongue weight. 37 gallons of water....about 300 pounds. 600 pounds for the two bikes.

1200 pounds gone there, so yeah. Still leaves some capacity, but not ideal. I guess every truck camper goes through these weight issues. Taking off some of that 900 pounds of flatbed wood would help.

Posted By: Bedlam on 06/10/15 04:23pm

Worst case for you is to remove the garage pod and make a custom trailer that can hold the pod and the boat. This way the garage can travel with you on the truck when not towing and on the trailer when you want the boat along. You have choices and configurations that most people only dream about...

Posted By: Jfet on 06/28/15 06:13pm

Just got back with our camper from the Northwest Overland Rally in Plain, WA.

It was HOT. I have spent too many years now in western Washington and was not used to baking in the 105 degree heat.

We loaded the motorcycles in the garage pod, tied them down and set off Thursday. I estimate with the gear, water, motorcycles, gen, food, we were around 17,500 pounds. I crawled up to the Hwy 2 pass in the slow lane at around 37mph in 3rd gear. On the return trip I put it in 2nd gear and did the descent at about 22mph LOL. This was my first time doing the pass in this truck and I didn't want to go over the edge (you would not live). I think 3rd gear would have been just fine at 35 to 40mph. It was nice though that I did not have to touch the brake even one time. On my list is some sort of transmission temperature gauge (assume this is something you can add) just to know how things are, but the truck did seem to do fine. 55mph no problem on flats, can go a bit above 65mph if I want to burn a lot of fuel.

They packed us in like sardines at the rally. We had purchased an extra 20x20 foot space, giving us 40x20 feet, but really it would have been nice to have more. I think we are elbow room type campers.

Solar was pretty awesome. When the sun popped above the ridge at 7:30am, we were getting 150 watts, by 10am we were running the air conditioner straight off of our solar. We ran the A/C off of solar from 10am to about 5pm, then I put the Honda 2000 in eco mode and the Magnum MSH4024 did it's shore power assist thing, taking 200 watts from the solar and 500 watts from the gen to power the air conditioner (which seemed to draw around 650 watts, plus we had a small AC fan). The Midnite solar charge controller produced 6200 watt-hours on Friday from our panels, which I thought was most excellent. The little 6000 BTU A/C kept the inside around 79/80 (after we rigged a ghetto awning to keep sun off the window/door) when the outside temp was in the 100s. As a contrast, the garage pod was 108 degrees inside and the cab of the truck was over 120 degrees. We would go outside to rally events then run back to the camper and cool off :-)

We met quite a few people, some from this forum. Lance, Arctic Fox, 4Wheel campers, XPcamper, other cabovers (well, one), tons of rooftop tenters, and a zillion motorcyclists tent camping.

We rode our WR250R to Sugarloaf peak on Saturday and about died in the heat when neither bike would start after we had walked around and took pictures. It seemed the fuel pumps were not coming on. I got mine started after letting it sit for a few minutes but my wife had to coast for 14 miles down the mountain. I then shut mine off to drink water and it would not start but hers did, so I coasted 10 miles, then tried mine again and it started. What I am thinking happened is some form of vapor lock? which caused the fuel pump to be unable to deliver fuel to the engine. It was over 105 degrees, the bikes were probably even hotter, and we have never ridden in those conditions at that altitude. I will have to research this further because wearing full gear and helmet in that heat with a *****y bike is not fun. The ride up and the view were nice though! [emoticon]

Anyway, here are a few pics:

[image]

Posted By: Explorer1016 on 06/28/15 06:30pm

Nice that you finally got to use your rig. Too bad it was so hot but it was a good test to all your work and engineering and no doubt you were able to test all your systems to determine if any adjustments or changes need to be made. Nice report!

2008 Host 300 Super 'C'
2008 Ford F-550 Chassis
Diesel
4x4
Lariat crew cab
20' enclosed car hauler/garage
'87 Jeep rock crawler
Turbo'd

Posted By: sabconsulting on 06/29/15 01:30pm

Wow, great to see your camper 100% finished and in use - it looks great.

Steve.

'07 Ford Ranger XLT Supercab diesel + '91 Shadow Cruiser - Sky Cruiser 1
'98 Jeep TJ 4.0
'15 Ford Fiesta ST
'09 Fiat Panda 1.2

Posted By: dave17352 on 06/29/15 03:20pm

Curious what the total cost of the material for the project was- the truck. Looks like you used top rate material.

NOW 2017 Leprechaun 260ds
2005 Forrest River Cardinal 29rkle FW
1998 Lance 980 11'3" TC
2017 CHEVY 3500 SRW 6.0
B@W turnover ball @ companion Hitch
Honda eu3000 generator mounted on cargo rack
Crestliner 1850 Fish Ski boat mostly fishing now!

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