Mounting a truck camper on a chassis truck.

I put tool boxes under my wings so it held the camper along with a thick rubber matt under it and the fast guns to the rub rails.

zb39 wrote:
I did one on a Ram 5500, Used a CM 9.5 steel flatbed, worked great.

I think I saw a steel CM bed set up for camper haulin that had a set of sweet angled guides to center the camper side to side on the bed. Looked like they were a CM accessory?

I did one on a Ram 5500, Used a CM 9.5 steel flatbed, worked great.

I think if you look really closely that 1160 won't fit on the Knapheide bed. I never found any full size camper that would fit on any standard utility body without modification. I would guess, if nothing else, the little angled wing walls on the camper would interfere with the outsides of the utility body. Even if they don't and the body slides between the camper wall and the wing wall you won't be able to get the rear utility body door open.
Then, what do you do about tie downs?

The biggest issue I found which made me decide to mount a pickup style wing type camper on a flat bed vs a utility body was dealing with the tie downs.

I chose an Aluma flat bed (about 350 lbs) and tie down to the rub rails with short fast guns.

I have boxes that sit on the bed under the wings to provide storage in the space that is lost on pickup boxes.

The only thing better would be a full flatbed style detachable camper body with straight walls vs the zig zag wings.

These setups are not as handsome as a sleek fleetside pickup or a nice custom utility style bed full of doors for people you don't know to approve of, but I pretty much don't give a *RA about that.

They are very useful and leave more travel $ in the kitty.



*RA - Rat's Ass - n. - western Canadian trade token of low value.

NRALIFR wrote:
That still sounds like there was a length difference between the rear axle and the back of the cab. Do you recall what the wheelbase and model year that was? ........

No, I don't remember wheelbase. Truck was 2006 model.
The pickup originally had 10' utility bed. The UB due to high floor and high sides made my set over 13' high and that was not acceptable.
So here is the picture of the set with Dodge bed on it. I placed the camper about 18" behind front of the bed due the rear bumper modifications.
The much stiffer C&C suspension hold the 6500 lb of camper weight with COG at least a foot behind the axle just fine.
Bear in mind, I welded bumper on the same level with floor, so it was supporting camper floor.
Can write a book about the questions I was ask ... like "how do you call Ford with Dodge bed? Fordog? "


Click For Full-Size Image.

Thanks so very much to you all! I had been looking at a Knapheide, low profile, utility bed, 60CA. It comes in at 9' length. The camper is an Eagle Cap 1160, and it is long and extends past the bed and hangs down. The low profile sides are 20", which is just 1" higher than my regular truck bed side rails. What I was worried about was if the camper was moved back the extra foot, it would be moving the COG back as much, and that might just be too far back? I'm really liking your suggestions of a flat bed, onto which storage boxes could be attached! Cheaper by a LONG shot!

Most pick-ups have a Cab to Axle (CA) of about 56" to maybe 58". Cab and Chassis trucks have standard CA of 60", 84", and then on up. The one you likely want for a truck camper is the 60" CA. This means that you will need a 9' body to put on the truck. Most TC are flat on the bottom. Some do drop down past the rear of a standard truck bed. My Fleetwood 11X was flat for 8' 5" then dropped down. I had an 8' 8" flatbed; I put 2 pressure treated 2x4s at the front of the bed with some rubber on them to act as a stop and keep the camper just right on the flat bed.
If you're going for a really big camper, 11' or 12', and it's flat on the bottom you may want to look into getting an 84" CA which will take an 11' flat bed. I suspect it would ride really nice with the axle set back further. However, you may have problems with the camper drain valves.
You can't use a typical stock utility body as very few campers will fit in one without modifications. A flatbed is the way to go. You can bolt on above and below bed storage boxes to fit your situation. I had 4 fold up rings installed in the flatbed on my truck. I used these to attach the tie-downs too. It worked great for 7 years over thousands of miles and multiple states.
Classy Chassis makes a custom aluminum truck camper bed; last time I priced one they were about $15,000. You can get an aluminum flatbed for maybe $6,000. If you have enough payload capacity (and with a class 5 truck you should) you can use a steel flatbed which are usually less expensive. After you get the camper on there you can put any storage boxes where they will fit.
The nice think about a C&C truck is the rear axle is usually only 93" wide so you can use a 93" wide bed. This will allow more jack clearance on the camper than a 96" wide pick-up dually bed.

That still sounds like there was a length difference between the rear axle and the back of the cab. Do you recall what the wheelbase and model year that was?

I also remember on some of the older chassis cabs the frame rails being longer behind the rear axle, and it was usually handled by cutting off the extra length when a pickup bed was added.

The numbers I stated were from Ford’s website, and for the current model year. If you didn’t include the extra length the bumper adds on the pickups, they would be nearly identical.

:):)

NRALIFR wrote:
On a chassis cab truck, the relationship of the rear axle to the end of the truck frame is about the same as it is on a pickup. The distance between the rear axle and back of the cab is what changes as the chassis cab wheelbase changes. ....

Not per my experience with F350 C&C. I eventually put standard bed on it, but even I mounted it rear wheels close to touching wheel wells, I still ended with 5" gap between bed and cabin.
Than chassis frame was sticking past the bed in the rear, so I had to cut slots in the bed for it and weld bumper directly on top of the frame.
Bear in mind C&C have fuel tanks behind rear axle.
Funny project when you have time to kill, but I would not do it again.