ben_j_c
Active member
Our family has been growing, so this summer was planned to be the last with our Grandby slide in on a Crew cab F-250 long bed 4x4.
We were originally going to be camping most of the summer, but since social distancing is impossible with toddlers, we have decided to accelerate our custom overlanding rig build. We like the builds done by the Everlanders and Turtle V, and are largely using those as inspiration, however none of those were designed to haul the family, just a couple (and maybe a dog)!
We bought a 1999 F-550 Crew Cab XLT with a Buckstop SRW conversion and aluminum flat bed late in 2019 for this project (daughter for scale).
Then we bought six SIP insulated panels off craigslist. They are 79 x 218 x 2.5 inches each! Both sides are smooth gel coat finished, tan on one side and white on the other, fully waterproof (no need for paint). They ~2 inches have a fire retardant, structural urethane foam core, then a laminated a ¼” layer of Nida-Core Honeycomb on each side, then a layer of 17 oz. Woven Roving laminated with Vinyl-Ester Resin, followed by a 1 1/2 oz. layer of mat for a hide-out veil, then a smooth, shiny 15 mil. Coating of Gel Coat on each side. Each panel has a R-15 insulation rating. The downside to these panels is the outer 2.5 inches are plywood to allow for the mounting techniques of the original maker. I plan to cut all of this plywood out in our build, making the panels 5 inches shorter in x and y dimensions.
My plans say I only need 5 panels, so the sixth is for when I eventually cut something incorrectly...
We then removed the bed to get started on the frame preparations
The design is very early still, but should look something like this:
As it gets further along I will share some more actual CAD for those who might want to do something similar!
Up next is more CAD work to figure out the exoskeleton design (so many planes!), prepping the frame for paint (POR-15) and replacing the fuel tank with a stainless steel option that does not shed the lining (known issue with these trucks, no evidence of it on this one yet.)
We were originally going to be camping most of the summer, but since social distancing is impossible with toddlers, we have decided to accelerate our custom overlanding rig build. We like the builds done by the Everlanders and Turtle V, and are largely using those as inspiration, however none of those were designed to haul the family, just a couple (and maybe a dog)!
We bought a 1999 F-550 Crew Cab XLT with a Buckstop SRW conversion and aluminum flat bed late in 2019 for this project (daughter for scale).
Then we bought six SIP insulated panels off craigslist. They are 79 x 218 x 2.5 inches each! Both sides are smooth gel coat finished, tan on one side and white on the other, fully waterproof (no need for paint). They ~2 inches have a fire retardant, structural urethane foam core, then a laminated a ¼” layer of Nida-Core Honeycomb on each side, then a layer of 17 oz. Woven Roving laminated with Vinyl-Ester Resin, followed by a 1 1/2 oz. layer of mat for a hide-out veil, then a smooth, shiny 15 mil. Coating of Gel Coat on each side. Each panel has a R-15 insulation rating. The downside to these panels is the outer 2.5 inches are plywood to allow for the mounting techniques of the original maker. I plan to cut all of this plywood out in our build, making the panels 5 inches shorter in x and y dimensions.
My plans say I only need 5 panels, so the sixth is for when I eventually cut something incorrectly...
We then removed the bed to get started on the frame preparations
The design is very early still, but should look something like this:
As it gets further along I will share some more actual CAD for those who might want to do something similar!
Up next is more CAD work to figure out the exoskeleton design (so many planes!), prepping the frame for paint (POR-15) and replacing the fuel tank with a stainless steel option that does not shed the lining (known issue with these trucks, no evidence of it on this one yet.)