Truck camper payload question?
I have a truck camper payload question. If this is the wrong forum, I apologize in advance. I also posted this in the truck forum. We recently put a deposit down on a flatbed Northstar Escape Pod ...
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PS: Another thing you might want to consider, is going to a local dealer, or finding someone selling a very similar truck. Check it out and test drive it to a truck stop and get it weighed, empty. Just make sure it is a diesel crew cab. That weight will help you guestimate the weight of the one you are considering. Harder to find a perfect match for an older truck like that to test weigh....but I do bet that someone on the forum has something nearly identical that knows their empty weight.
Just keep in mind the weight of a flatbed if you convert. Even with aluminum, you might gain 500 pounds of weight depending. Well over that for steel I would guess. I did seriously consider putting a wooden flatbed on my old 2500 because I desperately wanted a flatbed, but had zero extra capacity (negative really) on that truck with that camper. But even a wooden bed would have been heavier (substantially) that the "pretty" sheet metal bed it came with and we knew we wanted a bigger camper someday in the future. 6 years, 75K miles and well over 400 nights in our new truck/camper (us alone, not counting the 32K miles and 11 months in C/S America and we couldn't be more pleased with it.)
Just keep in mind the weight of a flatbed if you convert. Even with aluminum, you might gain 500 pounds of weight depending. Well over that for steel I would guess. I did seriously consider putting a wooden flatbed on my old 2500 because I desperately wanted a flatbed, but had zero extra capacity (negative really) on that truck with that camper. But even a wooden bed would have been heavier (substantially) that the "pretty" sheet metal bed it came with and we knew we wanted a bigger camper someday in the future. 6 years, 75K miles and well over 400 nights in our new truck/camper (us alone, not counting the 32K miles and 11 months in C/S America and we couldn't be more pleased with it.)
