DIY Slide In Camper questions
Background - I currently have a homemade 8 foot truck camper with a slant front that I built for a dodge dakota. It's just under 80" wide. The end of the camper sits on the tailgate. I had original...
Forum Discussion
mkirsch wrote:
The only support the cabovers have on commercially built campers is along the side walls. It's not even 2x lumber. On a popup it's basically a 1x6. With a "north-south" bed, the overhang is around 6'.
Look at truss bridge design for inspiration. The trusses get built into your side walls and sheeted over. The road deck is your bed.
It's a bit more than 2 - 1x6s on a standard (not popup) camper overhead, but @mkirsch's recommendation is a good place to start, to design it. Similar design on your ladder rack, if it has a cab overhang. Need relatively stiff sides/cantilevered "joists" that run fore/aft with enough anchorage back in the main camper side wall.
Couple other comments. Reason not to bear on bed sides AND bed floor simultaneously, it'll never be perfect and at some point, either the bed side or the floor will be holding all the weight. Not to mention stability and stress on the bedsides if resting solely on them with an (arguably) similar or greater load then your lumber racks. Sure it might work for a while but if you've seen trucks with years of overloaded lumber racks, the beds are no longer straight/strong.
Keep it bearing on the bed floor only, or you're inducing unknown stresses into the truck bed sides.
Regarding the truck, 7200 gvw is a very light 3/4 ton gvw. Presume squarebody or GMT 400 or possibly pre "HD" GMT800 2500? But I think the non HD 2500s were 7700gvw at least.
GM 2500 trucks of that era went up to 8600gvw, with a few changes, but you're safe (presuming the truck is in good physical and mechanical condition) at 2000lbs of payload even with a very light duty Sierra 2500.
