Short camper in a long bed

[wvabeer]

I have wondered if there is any problems putting a short bed camper in a long bed.

[wvabeer]

I see they don't look as bad as I thought. My next truck will be a long bed and I was hoping to use my short camper. I can see the advantage of it too.

[T3PAIR]

Here's what mine looks like. Went from short box srw f350 to drw long box. It works fine like this.

[woodhog]

We also shove our camper to the back. It easily solves the TC problem
of not enough storage, a lovely place for rough items, we carry all the
jacks, sledge hammer, chairs, bucket, jumper cables and other tools we use on the road back there.

This is a long bed truck and a long bed camper, as long as the
COG is good, you can shove them back a few feet.








You will love the storage capability.

[ryoung]

You need to consider the specific location of the camper COG and the longitudinal limits that are listed for the trucks COG. This is the only way to answer the question. Considering what I did with my last camper, I really don't see a problem.

I had a 9ft 6in Lance 915 set 10 inches back in my long bed dually. I mounted an across the bed 30 gallon aux diesel tank in that 10 inch space. The COG of the camper was still well within the limits listed for the truck. And the total weight of truck with loaded camper and full fuel tanks was 400 lbs below the GVWR. No suspension mods were needed.



ryoung

[SoCalDesertRid1]

That looks like a good solution 🙂

[Sheepdog_Captai]

When we bought our Adventurer 80GS in 2011 we were told by the dealer that it would fit on our long box pickup. During loading we found that small bump outs at the rear of the camper kept the camper from sliding into the long box all the way (the bump outs hit the wheel wells). That model camper is currently marketed as being for short box trucks only.

We really liked the camper and made it work for us. I built a 'stop' in the truck box that the camper slides up to and use the resulting space between the camper and front of the box for storage. When the camper is not on the truck I can easily remove the 'stop' to haul 4x8 sheets of plywood or drywall. Even with the camper sitting back in the box the COG is still in front of the rear axle.

[burningman]

But if you compare a short bed style 8.5 camper sitting almost two feet back from the cab and a long bed style 8.5 that's slid all the way in, my "opinion" is correct. COG is definitely worse.
The setup will work, it just is what it is.

Most long bed pickups do have slightly more rear overhang, but it's not much issue. On the Ram pictured in this thread it's only 2".

[Bedlam]

d3500ram wrote:

burningman wrote:
Depends on the camper. If it's got rear overhang and you can't slide it all the way forward, then you have a really screwy center of gravity.
Looks horrible too.
...

Not true on the stated COG opinion. COG from bumper to ear axle is the same regardless of short bed or long bed. The rear half of the truck bed is the same length whether short or long. The difference is the cab to axle measurement between SB and LB. The CG of the camper will be the same when sitting on either bed.

As to how it looks, well that is subjective. I am doing the SB camper on a LB truck... that extra space is welcome for storage and for my generator:





I built a simple frame to place between the front of the camper and the truck bulkhead. It is custom fit to keep my generator in place.

X2

My short bed TC even works on a 9' flatbed deck and CG is right over the axles.

[billtex]

Frank...that is sweet. Our next rig will be LB truck with our SB camper.

P.s.; you missed a great 4th! Weather was beautiful....

[SoCalDesertRid1]

I think the cabover looks better, since it's not sticking out so far over the hood, as it would be if the camper were loaded all the way forward. I never liked the look of the north/south bed cabovers on any truck with a cab size shorter than a full crew cab.

[mike_kellie]

Looks like it's easier to fuel up! A lot of truck/camper combinations have the tie-down (only Tork Lift?) blocking the access. The cab-over part still looks to scale.

[SoCalDesertRid1]

On some makes/models/years of pickups, the short bed and long bed do have the same distance from bumper to rear axle. All the bed length difference is between the cab and rear axle.

However, on some makes/models/years, both the cab to axle distance, as well as the axle to bumper distance, are shorter on short beds, versus long beds. This circumstance will change the COG point by a small amount, if the camper is loaded forward to the same point in relation to the bumper of both trucks.

[dave17352]

I did it with no problems. I agree it looks a little funny bUT works just fine.

[d3500ram]

burningman wrote:
Depends on the camper. If it's got rear overhang and you can't slide it all the way forward, then you have a really screwy center of gravity.
Looks horrible too.
...

Not true on the stated COG opinion. COG from bumper to ear axle is the same regardless of short bed or long bed. The rear half of the truck bed is the same length whether short or long. The difference is the cab to axle measurement between SB and LB. The CG of the camper will be the same when sitting on either bed.

As to how it looks, well that is subjective. I am doing the SB camper on a LB truck... that extra space is welcome for storage and for my generator:





I built a simple frame to place between the front of the camper and the truck bulkhead. It is custom fit to keep my generator in place.