Composite + 80/20 Wedge Camper Build

This is something I’ve been mulling around building for a while. Just wasn’t sure if I’d have the required skills and tools to do the job. But I’m really thinking heavily about pulling the trigger and giving it a shot. Might not be as fancy as yours or Ripcord’s since I don’t have access to some of the nice tools you used and might have to cut costs back even more. But I’m really excited about the idea of having my own tent that I built

 

what piano hinge did you use? thats what i'm looking at for more water resistance and an overall cleaner look

 

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/mepages/pianohinge.php

MS20257P5-6 which I bought 3 each (6 foot, 2”x2”) and $20 each. Work great! Was gonna use the stainless door hinge idea but that is low rent.

What you do is cut to length, debur with a file and sandpaper, cut the pin .25” shorter, reinsert and smash the end of the hinge hole a bit on both sides to keep it from migrating. People also sometimes install a small screw on each end to hold the pin in.

One thing I am changing... cut a piece of fabric (I am using black 600D coated poly) the same footprint of the hinge sitting flat. Using some RTV, bond it to one half of the hinge on the outside surface. Use minimal RTV to keep thickness down. Once cured, close the hinge and wrap the fabric around the hinge bonding it to the other side on the flat surfaces (not the moving parts). Clamp/cure. Install with a bit of RTV on frame and door with screws/rivets, etc. That is a waterproof aluminum hinge!

 

Under mounted Water Tank & Seaflo 3GPM Pump
Check this out taco camper people. I gotta get some better pics, but I loved the idea of a small light simple easy reliable quiet water tank/wash off shower hose setup under the truck. Could not find anything on this site I liked. Lots of crazy and heavy complicated tanks.

This one is so awesome. Drop the tailgate, open the door, switch on power (on-demand so builds to pressure quickly and shuts off until you open the flow) pull out the hose and go. About 50% as strong as your house garden hose. Full blast burns through 10 gal in around 4 minutes, basically the rating of the pump. Obviously unless you are fighting a fire this lasts much longer.

I bought the LH side Toyota bed box assy and modified it a bit with a leftover hinge. Cut the fiberglass bed to fit the new LH stow compartment (my free Bedrug carpet kit had the cutout for it, that thing is also pretty kick azz). Side note: The bed and stow box is the itchiest fiberglass I ever seen. Wear a hazmat suit if you cut or drill it! Lol

Made the tank from a 6” schedule 40 pvc pipe, I think it was about 43” long, routered CNC leftover 1/2” starboard flanged caps attached with screws (about 6 per side) and sealant, a bunch of pipe fittings, rubber heater hose for the fill and pex hose with a Seaflo pump. That all goes to a wash down coiled hose in the LH compartment. Has a QD hose connection on the blue hose (added later) to plug into my propane shower heater or just the garden sprayer. 4.5 gal capacity in the pipe tank (plenty if used sparingly) with a fill hose in the RH compartment that I hook up to a garden hose to fill or add capacity with my 6 gal blue jug that sits on the tailgate (gravity flows as needed to the lower tank). I guess I could take more jugs if I needed beaucoup water for a trip. The vent hose goes up to the top of the bed with a little foam filter on the end behind the cab (the highest gravity fill point obviously) for equilibrium.

Light when empty and works great! The switch is in there and has a red guard that makes sure the switch turns off when you close the door. Don’t forget to add some sort of baffles to keep water slosh noise down (oops).

In my stock setup, it is not hanging too low. You will trash all sorts of more important things before a rock takes out that tank. Coated with rubber undercoating because the white is ugly. Hangs with pipe band clamps to my modified running board brackets (welded a bit of metal and a bonded piece or cork to pad the pipe). The pump mounts to an aluminum plate/angles above the spare and the safety wire you see is because I don’t trust the rubber mounts to last forever.

 

if you could grab a few pictures of this so i could see what you're talking about that'd be awesome!

 

Will do but may be a bit. Will not forget.

 

no problem take your time. i can visualize it mostly and i get what you are saying, just want to see it to really lock it in. your camper looks great thanks for your help

 

@Taco Camper, thanks for putting up your build log. It has been an invaluable resource.

For the space-frame to bed-rail attachment: Did you drill and tap the frame's tubing or just the weld nut plate?

Did you use 1/8th inch steel for the weld-nuts in addition to the square brackets?

 

If you’re looking for a way to attach your camper you can use the method in the layer posts of the diy camper thread. Use leftover 1.5” tube cut diagonally and welded to the frame then using clamps that go in the utility track in the bed

 

I saw the ways people attach racks and whatever to the bed. The Toyota T slot rails were easy and one way but so was the tonneau cover mount holes I discovered when I popped off/replaced the factory bed caps. I excitedly looked them over and evaluated the bolt loading compared to the T slot rails. The T slot rail did not look like a good idea at first (in my opinion) for mounting something like a camper so heavily in shear and cantilevered out in the front (greatest load at the aft bolts, of which there was one on the left, one on the right at the back of those rails). I was not sure I wanted to do that. I have since changed my mind on this and think that either tonneau bolt setup like I did or T slot mounting is fine (unless somebody has heard about racks/campers breaking the Toyota rail?) I will probably make new brackets at some point that pick up and adapt to the T slot rails (Toyota utility rail) for a little weld/waterjet project.

Yes. What I did was weld two 3/16-18 weld nuts to the back side of a 1/8 cold rolled steel plate with a couple 5/16” holes in them, I think it is about 1x3” and weld that assembly into about 3/4” clearance holes cut with a unibit into the space frame. So no, nothing tapped. The frame is too thin.

You can also see I did not use the front/center (7th) one I welded in. Overkill.

I clamped the frame down snugly to the truck and match-drilled the mounting holes using a similar 1/8 plate, I think it was 3” or 4” square with 4 holes in it, a bit slotted vertically. I have a little cork spacer in here now that I am swapping out for something more dense like plastic. I’ll find pics of building this tomorrow. I liked this design as it minimized the opportunity for bracket cracking and critically loaded the bolts in shear (plus it is a simple design) rather than a fabricated/bent up bracket that was untested. Note that when you buy those metric bolts for the bed tonneau connection (if you choose this route) buy grade 8.8 min. to make sure you are not getting cheap junk. Those will likely exceed the strength of my stainless 3/16-18 cap bolts on the frame and made this design safer (to my comfort level). I want the camper to come off only after the third roll in a rollover.

My thought was also not to weld a “bracket” onto the space frame, just have the nuts/reinforcing plate there, bolted as shown to accept whatever adapter in case I wanted to change something (or actually, if I screwed something up). But will be making brackets that bolt to my frame and then attach to the accessory rail in case I sell it as the bed rail height may vary (mine are beefy 1/2” plastic). Another nice thing is if I take the camper off it sits flat on the ground, not on the welded brackets hanging down. I also thought about hanging the camper from the ceiling of my garage when I was not using it and didn’t want to hit my head on sharp brackets on the space frame.

 

Photos of how I built/attached the space frame to the bed using flat steel plates 1/8” cold rolled steel (for little parts like this I like cold vs. hot because it is a little more nice to work with, cleaner, little better quality/strength/finish and small nicely precut pieces are at Industrial Metal Supply), weld nuts (3/16-18), cap bolts and the factory tonneau cover mounting holes that are threaded for M6 bolts. Correction to above: I used M6 grade 10.9 for the lower bolts.

 

@bfaris1, I do remember seeing that now that you mention it. I'll do some digging in the main thread later for some inspiration.

@Taco Camper, I appreciate the thought that you put into your build. It has been a long time since my statics and mechanics of materials courses, so I hadn't put much thought into the bending and shear stresses in the brackets.

I'm going to go ahead and copy your use of the welded on plates with weld nuts. Now I have to decide if I want to cut a chunk out of the stock bedside covers or if I just want to mount to the accessory rail. Either way, I'll position the plates such that I can go with either option.

 

More random pics I found.

 

Waterproofing the doors
I meant to do this when I built the camper but didn’t have time. See below. I used some black 600D coated poly cloth, similar to the red material from the tent. Attached with RTV to the hinges, frame and doors.

Considered rubber, like cutting a bike tube, etc. but the clamp up of the screws and rivets would cause the hinge to bow. The cloth is thin and low compressibility and looks like it will work good.

This is a good option IMO and the aluminum hinges are plenty beefy and help keep weight down.

 

very cool.

What size Clecos are you using? I need to pick up a set to use on this build

 

The Yard Store is great (eBay another option). Look for surplus tools on that site. Bought many high dollar tools (sold with lots of cosmetic/body wear) but rebuilt and work very well.

The gold ones are 3/16”. I have all sorts, wing-nut and spring. I was a little lazy and used both in that pic but either works. Spring, you need a tool, wing you turn by hand and can get much tighter, but are slower and more work. For this project no need for wing-nut (KWN) but wing has a much stronger draw if you ever need it. I recommend this multi-size spring set with the tool that will do 0-.25” draw (K series) but if you need to clamp up more than .25”, note there are other length ranges (KHD series).

https://www.yardstore.com/cleco-fas...ir-capital-temporary-fastener-kit-air-capital

 

Waterproofing the doors - follow up
Finished painting the inside of the doors and hooking up strip lights. After remounting, had a good wash down of the camper and the seals worked nicely,

Pics later.

 

Hey how did you manage the keder rail with the corner brackets on the tent? I’m trying to figure the best way to get a seal/tight fit in the corners

 

Did modifying the shark fin like this have any effect on you navigation, AM/FM, satellite radio?

 

The lower ones are cut at 45 deg with carefully sanded edges (remove anything sharp & round it). They fit right to the corner right above a 4 hole corner inner bracket. So on the bottom frame there is an external 4.5” and internal 3” high bracket. I think there is a pic in here someplace.

You are probably asking about the roof. With the max metal on top, you need the inner bracket to hold it together I imagine but it takes up what like 3” of the corner where you want to mount the tent rails. Not sure. I don’t have any inner brackets on the roof, just the outer corner bracket. Mr roof is quite a bit different, a super stiff composite sandwich panel and fits snug into the frame slot so bracket not necessary. The rails are mounted flat to the roof panel with potted inserts. Mr rails are mounted in this position (testing it out with some thin wood) all the way around the camper (below) shown in the closed position.

But maybe just mount them common to the roof corner brackets (on top of them)?