davesteve wrote:
sabconsulting wrote:
Thanks for posting an updated video.
Looking at the floor in the video it looks like you have cut around the wheel arches in the load bed making the bottom of the camper into a sort of thick H shape rather than a T shape of a normal truck camper floor. I assume that would mean when you want to remove the camper from the truck you'll have to jack it all the way up so it is clear of the wheel arches rather than just an inch or so clear of the load bed floor which you would usually do on a truck camper.
I'm pretty sure this is something you have already considered and designed carefully, so I am interested in what your plans are.
Steve.
Yes. You are correct. I have always noticed that there is unused space in most commercial truck campers. Not surprising, considering the makers have to make campers that fit all types of beds and they have chosen to make real "slide in" shapes. I want to use all space available, so my floor is odd shaped and will have to be slid in above the wheel wells. A small price to pay for valuable space, IMO. It will be custom fit to the 2012 Silverado and probably won't fit many other truck beds.
A couple of things - bka0721 makes some good suggestions about managing your thread, but if regularly editing one of your posts (e.g. the first page) then try to batch up those edits - those of us who maintain the various sticky threads on this forum know that there is a limit on the number of times you can edit a single page - I think it is 100 - after which the thread crashes and has to be deleted. That is why we batch up our changes, e.g. on the trip reports sticky thread I batch up everyone's changes and only make edits about 4 times a year.
Secondly, before you get too far into the build, I would reconsider having the camper flare out ahead of the wheel arches as you have suggested. It will lock you into you're desired vehicle and you will likely find it very difficult having to jack the camper up about a foot or more every time you want to load or unload it. For the first point, consider if your truck needs to be replaced (accident, theft, fire, etc.) you might find you are stuck trying to obtain exactly the same make, model, specification and year of truck just to make it fit.
Also, thinking about having to jack the camper up higher to load or unload it - that will likely make the jacks very long and the whole thing will be balanced quite high in the air. This is less of a problem if you have bolted the jacks vertically in several places up the body of the camper, but if you are using the jacks that just bolt on temporarily with a couple of bolts, like mine do, the raised camper tends to be very wobbly. Plus make sure the jacks you intend to use have the necessary height range to jack down to the ground, then lift the camper high enough to clear the wheel arches, taking into account that the truck's suspension may rise by a few inches when you start raising the camper and taking the weight off.
One option that avoids this problem is to make hatches that allow you to access the space in front of the wheel arches - you can store rarely used or dirty things there. Maybe plastic containers of water, or if you planned to store a battery there, do so, but make it disconnect-able. So if you are creative there are lots of ways of using that space without actually moulding your camper around it.
This maybe just my preference - I do worry about 'painting myself into a corner' when I build something - I like simple but flexible solutions. This is obviously something you have already weighed up, but it is worth having another think about it before you get too far into the build in case you decide it might be worth changing the design slightly while that is still easy.
Steve.
