1 Bored Clerk's Garage Built Camper

CLERK,

Fantastic build! I think I just read 60 pages. There was no way I was going to start reading before the build started. Sorry.

Good luck with the sewing. Soft goods are expensive and don't ever meet your needs exactly.

I have a couple questions Sir.

How do you like the ATLAS 46 tool roll?

And do you have an idea of your weight? I saw it asked once, but I may have missed your answer.

 

Thanks!

The Atlas 46 is fine. It's not like it's a "use it everyday" kind of object for me. It's easy to move around and my tools don't rattle or fall out so I guess that's all I could ever need it to do. I know that's not a glowing report or anything but, from me, it gets the highest praise a product like this can get: I don't notice I have it.

The empty camper was estimated to be just under 500lbs but it's hard to tell when you don't actually weigh anything. I haven't had the truck scaled. The only scale I know of near me was recently closed to public use. It used to just be open 24/7 and anyone could just drive up and get a number. Not anymore. Once I go through my re-vamp this year, I'll make it a point to find a scale and find out. I'm curious. I know it's weighty but it could be so much worse.

 

Its insane, so there i was on interstate tonight and i saw a sweet taco with a diy camper. I point it out to my wife and we both said coool! I get home, and I see this thread! What are the odds? What a great build, btw!

 

Haha! That's awesome! A very chance encounter as I so rarely drive that way, especially at night. Heck, I barely drive at all recently unless I'm going on a trip.

 

Pretty big day today!




Pulled the camper off the flatbed and mounted it on the trailer. Temporarily of course. But now I can really dive into all the mods I want to do!

The truck looks totally badass like this. Flatbed, grey steelies and roof rack. I haven't driven it yet without the camper but it's going to be a rocket ship by comparison!

 

How did you move the camper to the trailer?

Forklift? Engine hoist? Drunk friends?...

 

Good question. I borrowed my friends very long and very flat driveway and rented a pair of those janky looking tripod, hand crank camper jacks. They look super sketchy but worked very well. I didn't take any photos because it's kind of a precarious operation and we just wanted to wrap it up so I could return the jacks that same day. I'll try to capture the process better when I put the camper back on the truck

 

Probably a good thing you didn't get pictures... LOL

I assume now you are going to remove the flatbed, and re-mount the camper to the truck's frame?

 

Yeah, ditch the flatbed and build a small subframe that the camper will mount to using the same body mounts I currently mount the camper on. Lose a good chunk of weight and get the camper a few inches lower. Wins all the way around

 

Did you weigh the truck before disassembly? Gonna go weigh the trailer and camper then weigh the empty trailer later?

 

It's an issue of finding a public scale. And that I don't care.

I'll see about getting the whole rig weighed when I put it all back together.

 

And just like that...




No camper mounts! Now I need to get this thing to a quarter car wash and give it the cleaning of it's life. It's grimy.

 

Getting Sunday off to a start
I didn't like the way the AluCab awning strap mounted so I made this little number. This should slide into the end of the last awning arm. Then I'll through drill and put a bolt through to capture it all. This gives me a nice place to use a strap and caribiner to hold the awning open. At least in theory. I haven't test fit it yet.


I pulled out the padded walls from the front wall of the camper.

Began the process of pulling the front window. The inner trim ring is already removed. Then you work your way around the outside with a putty knife to separate the foam seal tape.

Then pop the window out!

And clean all of the adhesive residue off with your favorite adhesive remover. It's 3M for me.


I'll clean up this window and get it on craigslist. I have several other things to list as well.

Next step is to sand the paint off and get down to bare fiberglass around the window opening, cut a filler panel, epoxy in place and glass over it all. That's my goal for today. I don't expect to get any farther. Depending on the time, I may wait to glass over it all until a later date. I don't like glassing just before dark when it gets this cold at night and has as much condensation as I've been seeing. Off to go spend money on epoxy!

I would sand now but I have a hard rule for making noise outside: not before 9am on Saturday and 10am on Sunday. I try to be a halfway decent neighbor.

 

That's it for me.


Exterior sanded. That marine paint with the "performance enhancer" additive is pretty tough! This took a lot longer than I thought it would.


I don't know what dufus thought this much industrial grade adhesive backed velcro was necessary to hole up two lightweight panels. This was the stickiest, messiest, craptastic adhesive removal job I've ever done. I will be using much less of this for the new panels.


And there it is. All sanded up and ready for a patch panel. But, I'm pretty over the whole thing for the day so I'm not going to do the patch panel for a few days. I've got a project for work that I'm building in my garage for a couple of days so I need to keep my space clean and focused on that.


We'll see how long this holds. Where I live gets pretty windy...I don't have high hopes. I'll be lucky if this isn't the neighborhood litter box or a raccoon birthing suite by morning.

 

Well, that happened.



@lostM3 was buying and I was selling. Perfect timing and perfect weather.

 

It looks so naked without a bed.

 

And filthy! This gives me a chance to clean up and install my new gas tank overfill valve!!!

 

I did the 34gal LRA tank swap. Still very pleased with that mod.

Your intentions are to mount the camper box right on the frame of the truck, correct?

 

Love the tank...hate the overfill valve. It has ONE job and it doesn't do it. The new one is supposed to be good. Fingers crossed on that.

I'll be designing and building a subframe. I was using my flatbed as a subframe so I might as well make a smaller and lighter subframe.

 

Agree on that LRA overfill valve! I put a perko one way valve in line (had to modify the fill tube) and it works great! Gas pumps stop nothing spills out.