97 F150 and 78 Bethany Pickupper

[bruue1]

I've been wondering how to sleep a family of four and still be able to pull my trailer for over a year. I am budget minded, spent a lot of time on this page as a guest looking at different home builds. I was always keeping a lookout for a Bethany Pickupper, most of the ones I saw on craigslist were in horrible shape, after a year I came across this one, canvas was like brand new someone had rebuilt some of the bottom box, it came with the original bill of sale and owner's manuals.

So a 78 pickupper is too wide to fit in a modern pick up bed, either I cut the gussets our of the back of my bed right by the tailgate or I narrow the camper a little bit. I'm averagely handy at best, and am working on a nickel dime budget, still I got a 4x4 that will sleep the four of us comfortable not, has a water storage, furnace, sink, ice box. Here's the picks of getting it to fit in my 97 f150 6.5' pick up bed.

Well I'm trying to upload pics but unfortunately the uploads are failed. All I really did was narrow up the storage boxes that hang above the wheel wells by about three inches on each side, it came out pretty nice. I'll try to post some picks, these campers are pretty cool. I saw my first pickupper on this site almost two years ago

 

[LuckyDan]

I hope to see your pictures. I used to work with a gentleman that had one he brought with him from Wis. I thought it was a pretty neat camper. I looked for one but the Pickupper is pretty rare this far out west. Congratulations on your find. Unfortunately a lot of "good" older campers go unused due to the tailgate width. I have a simular issue with my FWC. Someday I'll need a newer truck and unless tailgate widths widen again I'll be forced to modify the camper or go looking for another.

 

[bruue1]

I hope to see your pictures. I used to work with a gentleman that had one he brought with him from Wis. I thought it was a pretty neat camper. I looked for one but the Pickupper is pretty rare this far out west. Congratulations on your find. Unfortunately a lot of "good" older campers go unused due to the tailgate width. I have a simular issue with my FWC. Someday I'll need a newer truck and unless tailgate widths widen again I'll be forced to modify the camper or go looking for another.

Thanks for your reply, I'll get the pics up sometime this week. My photos are just too big, I need to shrink the file size. Soon as I have some time I'll get it figured out. It is a neat camper, I was happy to find it. I'm excited about having something to post on this forum...

 

[escadventure]

Might be a good time to remove the bed and install a flatbed.

 

[bruue1]

Might be a good time to remove the bed and install a flatbed.

Believe me I've thought about a flat bed, even just mounting a popup camper on the frame of the truck. Or just building up off the frame of the truck whatever I want. Thing is I like a pick up box, and that sounds like a lot of work. A few 2x4s and some osb makes a pretty functional flatbed out of any pick up truck, as long as your not carrying anything too heavy, I only got half ton springs. Ultimately I'd like to have a long box, crew cab superduty diesel 4x4, but that's probably a few years down the road for me, if I can ever justify the purchase. While I'm dreaming I'd probably buy one from Sterling too lots of bells and whistles

Here are the first ten pictures of how to narrow a 78 bethany for a new pick up bed, all told it only took a couple hours, I'll post the rest of the pics on the next post. When its sitting in my truck I have almost $900 and a few hours into the camper and materials.

 

[bruue1]

In these ones you can see I ended up with a little storage box under each bed about half as deep as the original ones were, in the front the metal turned out about as good as it was, I did spray the whole corner area with rubber sealer just to be sure, it all came back together nice and tight, fit in the truck well. It weighs about 800bs, truck is squatting a little, still has 6 inches between the frame and the bumper stops, now we got a four wheel drive camper that will pull our atv trailer, or whatever else. The wife and I were talking, we think this might call for some new tires on the truck, maybe some big aggressive treads. Last picture is my by and I testing out the heater overnight last weekend in Minnesota. Got down below 20 outside, we were nice and warm inside. Slept good all night. Can't wait for this spring, we'll probably start out with a tour of Minnesota state parks, they are well kept and very beautiful.

I have other ideas and would love input, I want a propane shower to hang off the back, a portable solar system with a bank that charges off the alternator, 120 and the panels is there a charge regulator that will monitor all three? Do I have to run the meters and switches all separate? I want a good fridge that runs on 12volt, not a cooler, actual fridge,

My first project will be building a pulley system with a winch that will hook up to all four corners of this thing and pull it right up off of my truck hanging it from the ceiling of my pole barn so it will be easy to install. I'll also be installing some monorail and trolleys on the ceiling of my polebarn beside it. I'll post pics of these things this winter as they come along assuming I can get aorund to them. Thanks for reading. Thanks for all of your posts too, I find everything I read on this site motivational, one thing I know is I am going to learn how to weld aluminum, you guys showed me that's possible.

 

[bruue1]

One more note, it would be hard to get this thing to fit in a new 8' box, the back is way to wide for the newer tailgates, luckily it all hangs on my tailgate with the 6.5' box, I'm not sure it would have been worth cutting it up enough to get it to fit in an 8 foot box.

 

[LuckyDan]

Good looking Bethany. Thanks for the pictures. There are threads on here concerning solar set ups, or go over to Wander The West they have a whole section devoted to solar. It's the virtual hang out for the Four Wheel Camper Cult, but they do have some good info for campers in general. I saw a guy once while fishing that had an on demand propane shower bolted to his camper. Camper H2O pump fed it and he tapped it to his on board propane. Gave a very nice outdoor shower. Also went through a lot of water according to him. It looked a lot like the one on the link below:

http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/h...mpaignId=T9A&gclid=CLaf_fGr47oCFeQ1QgodoVcANA

Enjoy your new pop up....

 

[Prybry]

Welcome to the exclusive Bethany Pickupper club!

Hey! someone else has discovered the cool factor of the Bethany Pickupper!
There are a few of us on this forum...

The secret to fitting these old campers into modern pickups is the short box... I've got mine mounted the same way on my Dodge Power Wagon... the widest part of the camper is hanging out on the tailgate.

There is a lot of modification possiblities with these campers... I've replaced my power converter an built a custom power control panel, I've plumbed mine with 12v water pump and new faucet, I use a pin mounted table which joins the front galley counter in a "T" shape. Lot's of stuff planned too...
Here are a couple of my threads...
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/14615-My-latest-project/page3?highlight=bethany
http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...weather-camping-trip?highlight=winter+camping

I'm taking mine up to Grand Marais for some winter camping this weekend..!

I look forward to seeing your mods progress...

Great find and good luck..!

 

[Prospector Sam]

M

One more note, it would be hard to get this thing to fit in a new 8' box, the back is way to wide for the newer tailgates, luckily it all hangs on my tailgate with the 6.5' box, I'm not sure it would have been worth cutting it up enough to get it to fit in an 8 foot box.

My 2013 F 250 has a 6.5’ box. Mine should fit on the tailgate. How did you secure it in the truck bed?

 

[bruue1]

Hello prospector, I got between the side walls of the camper and the sides of the truck bed then I just rigged up hooks on the camper and strapped to the anchors in the corners of the truck bed. Something like that, it washers ago.

Are you going looking for gold? Prospecting? That sounds like fun