Has anyone built a pickup slide in camper?

[urban5]

I recently finished the teardrop, which I plan on using for Jeeping and hunting purposes. It sleeps three, and we have 6 if we all go camping.

So I have been contemplating building a slide in cab over camper too put in the pickup, and tow the teardop behind the truck. Wife and I get the pickup camper and the kids would get the tear. Any design ideas or experience?

I have a short bed, crew cab Dodge Ram 1500. I recently looked at a Jasper camper that took advantage of the huge cab by putting a queen sized bed over it. BUT the price was toooooooo high for me.

[steve smoot]

Have you seen the truck camper plans from Glen-L marine. They have been selling boat plans and camper plans for 50 years.

[Tumbleweed_Tex]

So I have been contemplating building a slide in cab over camper too put in the pickup...

Funny...I had the same idea only yesterday. I really like the floorplan and profile of this camper...and it doesn't look that difficult to build.

http://www.six-pac.com/camper_t100s.htm

Um...does a slide in cab-over camper qualify as a TTT?

[KevinR]

this site has a lot of homebuilt pickup campers. Bunch of hardcore 4x4 drivers, but helpful and friendly. This site is a bit more laid back.

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/

[urban5]

Yea I have seen the Glen L camper designs, and though they are nice, they seem a bit heavy. I am thinking of a poptop sort of like Four Wheel campers. Six pax makes some nice ones but at 1500 lbs I am thinking it is a bit heavy also.

[Laredo]

Get the Glen-L plan you like and make some substitutions:

where they call for 2x lumber use aluminum angle
where they call for heavy plywood use a SIP of luan / foamcore insulboard / luan

it's similar to what teardrop engineers do

[urban5]

That type of construction sounds fine until you consider the cantilever weight of the cab over. It will take some thinking, but I think a hard sided popup could fit the bill. The hard sides could be built with the aluminum sandwich construction, same as the top. Then everything below the cantilever could be the typical construction.

I think I just need to take a good hard look at what forms the aluminum readily comes in.

[droid_ca]

are you meaning aluminium tubing within the walls of your camper to help fight the cantilevering weight causeI know they say that triangular framing is the strongest type (hence its use in roll cages) so couldn't you use some of that into your design and cover with whatever only would know it was there

[Laredo]

There was, a few months ago on craigslist, a popup overhead someone had converted to hardsided.

I've seen a few of the fold-downs for sale with shot canvas, and wondered how hard that would be to fix. Seems to me that if you wanted to, you could create panels to slide into the channels where the canvas goes ... maybe take some Filon and styrofoam insulating board and make a sandwich, with the ends wrapped in flashing material pinched down tight to fit into the tracks?

[bve]

There is a build taking place in the 'Non-Traditional' forum right now.
http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=45020

[urban5]

I am going to check out that build here in a minute which may make my point mute

The tubing support in the camper itself is important, but so is the strength of the tube actually used. Imagine balancing a pencil on a cube, if you press on one side of the pencil it falls over. If you tie off one side of the pencil to the table that is under it, and press on the other side of the pencil you are now trying to lift the weight of the table. If the string doesn't break then the pencil surely will. The key seems to be figuring the weight (MAX) that will be on the cabover section, plus the weight of the cabover section. That will be the weight the tube would need to support, both in rigidity (so it will not bend), and sheer (so it will not sheer off at the transition point from main camper body to cab over). Then again I am probably over thinking this

I am liking the idea of aluminum framing though, its just finding what I need with out driving to Canada or something.

[urban5]

Ok just check out the build in the link above, and while it is a very nice build, and he has some great ideas, it is not a cab over. (Which going back to the title of my thread, I didn't mention the cab over either.) I would like to have a queen sized cab over on mine.

The build in the link does have a very well made box but if you were to add the cabover part to his design it probably would not handle it. I do like the Glen L designs, but they are all for beds that are at least 8', and mine is the 6.5'....... I am thinking I will need to pull out sketch up and build some mock models. to test/

[droid_ca]

what about front supports for using while parked or if its an older vehicle have them go into the bumper

just my 2cents

[Cliffmeister2000]

Check this one out.

Carbon Fiber Camper

[urban5]

what about front supports for using while parked or if its an older vehicle have them go into the bumper

just my 2cents

Nah I couldn't live with supports it needs to look as good as the truck it's on. And not to keen on drilling into the bumpers of my truck.