Truck camper on a flat bed

Flat beds are above the tires, where regular beds put the camper between the tires, so with a flat bed your center of gravity will be about 1' higher, how about a service bed

I've got an aluminum flatbed on my '05 Chevy dually. It's 8' wide and 8' 9" long. I've got aluminum tool boxes mounted on the top and the bottom. The whole thing was custom built so my camper would fit. I couldn't find any stock beds that would work. The front and rear corners of the bed had to be cut on an angle to accommodate the jacks.
I had it built without the headache rack since I don't need that. I have 4 rings installed in the floor that flip up; that's what I attach my happijack turnbuckles too.
The storage is great but carrying all that stuff adds weight too.
The bed cost me about $6,000 plus around another $1,000 for installation.
I'm not that impressed with the build quality but the company was willing to custom build it so I had to take what I could get. If I had to do it over again I would buy a higher quality bed and then have it modified.
I use my truck for work and it is much more useful with the flatbed and tool boxes. The bed was a business expense so that's mainly how I can justify the cost. If I was just doing it for RV purposes I don't know that I could justify spending $7,000 to get some storage boxes.

805gregg I've thought about a good looking service bed. I am finding that the biggest issue is the height of the sidewalls vary a lot. I am supposing you have to find one with that has a side wall height near that of the normal bed.

805gregg wrote:
Flat beds are above the tires, where regular beds put the camper between the tires, so with a flat bed your center of gravity will be about 1' higher, how about a service bed

I've been looking at doing this with a new CM built flatbed model SK that has the boxes (2) on each side built right into it. My measurements indicate an 8" rise in camper from a stock pick up box. I'm still undecided if the $4500 price plus the $1000 install costs are worth it.

ridinpreacher wrote:
What are pros / cons of considering a nice flat bed dually; the flat beds that have the tool boxes mounted underneath the bed look like they could be very user friendly.

This was on here about a a week ago. You might have missed it.

Very cool looking one.

Flat Bed Truck Camper

I have a F450 Crew Cab Ford with a custom made Aluminum flatbed with diamond plate boxes under the bed and on top of the bed. I have a 990 Arctic Fox slide in camper installed and the rig works great

805gregg wrote:
Flat beds are above the tires, where regular beds put the camper between the tires, so with a flat bed your center of gravity will be about 1' higher, how about a service bed

I put a CM RD model flatbed on my truck about 3 weeks ago, it raised the bed height 4.75 inches

My camper had 2x`s under it to clear fifth wheel rails , which I removed , so my camper was raised 3.75 inches, cabover is now 6.5 inches over the cab

You want to look at beds with cut front corners for sure so you can flip the dually swing outs into the void
If you get a headache rack it will move the camper back also, mine moved back 3.5 inches, COG is still way in front of my axle

I mounted underbody boxes under the bed and thought I had measured everything carefully , but found the jacks when in where in the way of opening them, had to change from Reico Titan EZ swings to regular swing outs to move the jacks forward in the stowed position, so the boxes would open

The bed I bought was a real deal , 1200.00 ,it was new old stock they wanted to get rid of. It had the built on hitch removed ,it would have had to be modified to use a longer that 18" extention anyway ,that worked better for me so I can use a superhitch and an extention

I`m in the process of mounting(removable) underbody type alum boxes on the bed now , 17" deep x 18" high, I`ll have more storage space than I`ll ever need, that's a plus but all the boxes have cost me about 1700.00

Also figure the cost of some stakesides in if you want to use the flatbed to haul anything like a regular truck bed

I had to change turnbuckle types since they attach to the flatbed now and are shorter

I gained about 450 lbs with the flatbed alone , not a big issue for me, the campers not that huge, and I`m way under axle and tire ratings

An aluminum bed would have been lighter but cost many time more than what I spent , and I would have had to keep the torklift tie downs I sold , because alum bed wouldn`t have been solid enough to tie the camper to

Another plus was the flatbed had a gooseneck hitch built into it, I also made a lower mount for my fifthwheel hitch , and now there are no bed rails to worry about hitting with a fifth

I cant get a solid answer from our CHP here in CA about stopping at truck scales , but I was told when the camper is on I`m exempt

In CA a flatbed means your not a pickup truck anymore and if your GVW is over 10000 lbs you may need a CA # and pay motor carrier road tax instead of weight fees like a pickup, but there are tons of flatbed running around here and I hope they will leave me alone, I haven't been pulled over in 10 years, and Im close to moving to Nevada anyway

Also if you change, and your bed ,tailgate, and bumper are in good shape you can sell them and recoup some of the costs

ridinpreacher wrote:
805gregg I've thought about a good looking service bed. I am finding that the biggest issue is the height of the sidewalls vary a lot. I am supposing you have to find one with that has a side wall height near that of the normal bed.

You need to look more. There are a number of people that have successfully mounted their Truck Campers on service body trucks with full height (40") cabinets with full depth (20"), such as myself.

By using the search engine here and checking out Truck Camper Magazine you will find different posts and articles on just that.

Flat Bed campers are really popular, more in some places than others. the C.O.G. can be an issue that can be addressed and corrected fairly simply, if that is the direction you would like to go. The easiest, of course, is use the truck bed that came with your truck, or in my case didn't.

b

Sparky87k5 wrote:
I've been looking at doing this with a new CM built flatbed model SK that has the boxes (2) on each side built right into it. My measurements indicate an 8" rise in camper from a stock pick up box. I'm still undecided if the $4500 price plus the $1000 install costs are worth it.

Have any of you looked at upgrading the capacity of these flat bed receivers? I'm afraid that with an extension, something like this would not work for a 7000+ lb trailer. I really need the capacity of a Torklift SuperHitch.

FWIW there is a whole section in TC university at the beginning of this forum devoted to TC's on a flatbed .

Before I added a lift hoist to my flatbed to make it dump there was only 2" more height than a pickup bed . The hoist and subframe added 4-1/2" to that .

My flatbed does not have an integral bumper and built in boxes , they are all separate . The receiver and bumper are bolted directly to the frame and can be made as strong as the truck can handle .