gbopp wrote:
What's the difference between a truck chassis and a van chassis?
As was said, primarily it's the relationship of the engine, seating, and front axle relative to each other. On a truck chassis, the engine is in front of the dashboard and the seats are relatively low in the frame (and the floor often isn't flat around them, thanks to the driveshaft etc. running under them). On a van chassis, the engine is partly underneath the dashboard and the seats are mounted higher up, so the floor is flat and can be continued back along the chassis flat and level. Most class C motorhomes do still have a step up from the cab area, though, to provide additional underfloor space for tanks and storage space, so the floor isn't entirely flat from the cab back.
In terms of engines, frames, axles, transmissions, suspension systems, and that sort of thing, they can be approximately comparable, though rarely identical. Current Ford truck chassis are more advanced than their van chassis in many regards, particularly with the front axle design which is rather long in the tooth for the van chassis. The trucks also tend to have newer engines and transmissions and such like.
You can build a truck on a van chassis easily; smallish box trucks based on the E series chassis, for instance, are not all that rare.
