Wedge Campers & Assorted Oddities

This is definitely the reason I don't intend to drive the camper like I stole it. The Drifter looks up to the abuse, but that frame...
Yeah the early days of pinning it and finding that unexpected whoop section are definitely over for me.

**drinks BLM road beer and hits gas pedal**

 

Probably pretty good......

I’m installing my kB voodoo bed rails soon with

 

why is the silicon needed? the weight?

 

If i had a suspension like that i'd be doing a lot of things differently haha. I just wonder about loading down with all the expo stuff and having the camper (GFC or Drifter) come over and hit the cab.

 

Got it. I'm just about to put the kbvoodoo rails on, it's definitely going to be a bit closer to the cab than the original design of the campers. I'm all for the low profile if she holds together!

 

The campers I've seen are plenty strong to avoid a cab over impact. With the drifter, the truck bed will break before the camper does.

With the roll over impact, my guess is it was a combination of everything. The extent of damage was on the driver side, you can see where the Drifter took the full weight of the truck and bulged the lower section of the roof. In the moment when all the weight was on the cab section, the bed must have flexed until the rear mounting bracket broke and let the camper have enough movement free of the bed to cause the impact.

In short, as long as the camper is clamped to the bed, over hang impact should not be an issue.

 

still see your bed flexing at 0:18 tho. are you planning on getting the rear c channel boxed and cross-braced eventually?

 

it really depends on what you plan on doing. most folks running long travel so they can send it at pismo are boxing their rears and crossbracing. it's just the nature of the build for LT folks.

If you're just driving on forest fire roads and don't plan on jumping anything, you're fine as is. when you start doing something that necessitates reinforcement, it's kinda a given that you reinforce lest you risk something else breaking. the other thing too is running larger tires and regearing, but probably will want to upgrade to a ford 9 or a dana 60 in the rear as well to handle the additional strain.

 

I’ve never had an issue with the cabover hitting the roof on any of my setups. The flatbed setup had the longest cabover, although the flatbed was a lot stiffer.

The frame obviously flexes torsionally, like in the video Jason posted. And the clearance is increased at the sides of the overhang. I checked the campers that went to Mojave, and I didn’t see any contact.

Brian’s truck contacted the cabover because of the rollover. It looks like the weight of the truck landed on the cabover. That is obviously different than some frame flex.

 

Wait, which flex are we talking about?

1
2


If it’s 1, obviously with variables, but assuming the camper doesn’t flex at the overhang like the Drifter, if the overhang impacts the cab it’s a lot of flex and I would be really concerned about the frame moving that much in that direction.

If it’s 2, then it really depends on how low the overhang is. Even a short overhang can impact if it’s low enough to the roof. The variable here is how much stiffness the camper adds to the bed itself. You can see in the Tundra video that the bed is designed to flex too. The stiffness does a few things like reduce some of that flex at the expense of sharing that force with the camper and the mounting points.

I can only comment on the Drifter, so someone can chime in about other campers in this thread, but the way our panels are mounted together we took this into account so bed flex doesn’t cause panels or hardware to carry the forces the wrong way.

 

Imagine a Summit on a Regular Cab..

 

I didn’t take it like it was directed at us, just keeping the conversation going. There’s a lot to these campers than meets the eye. Just givng the perspective of the Drifter and how we addressed those issues. Each camper is made different so it leads to a good discussion.

 

Or the sleeping area just hangs over the bed area more...

 

While looking at the AT Summit with its enormous cabover, I would be more concerned about my truckbed getting teared apart.
Assuming the bed platform is stored all up front with mattress and bedding, that makes one hell of a leverage while offroading.

 

And don't forget the lateral movement of that weight on a turn, as the bed is prone to "twerk" apart from the cab. I'm curious of the impact on the overall center of gravity of the truck with it up that far. Reminds me of being late to class and trying to run with a back pack... you gotta hold that thing down or it throws you from side to side.

 

i was talking about 2 because it looked like torsional rotation. torsional rotation is due to the c channel frame and also lacking sufficient crossbracing. like looking at alex's build, his frame bracing is

 

One interesting thing to note after having the habitat for 19 months is how much weight w/ a rear swing out it is on the end of the bed. looking between the cab and the bed it looks like it's bowing up in the middle.

i reckon folks who end up loading up their gear more towards the center are probably going to have less issues than folks who put their fridge at the end of the bed.

 

Good to know. I do keep my fridge behind the drivers seat, to keep weight above the axel and my bed open. Knowing all the additional weight I'll be adding to the bumper, I'll definitely need to minimize gear in the rear part of the bed.

Fortunately, I have to stay modular so no option on permanent cabinetry for me... which i guess will save weight. I currently use two long Plano cases, but they take up floor space, so I need to look into keeping both stacked against the cab if possible. Maybe ratchet straps...

Keeping gear under the bed overhang would definitely keep the weight in the ideal spot, and also keep the living space open too (as compared to a pathway down the middle).

 

$50 for a one day walk around pass! I'd rather go to a good concert.