‘93 F-350 utility bed w/FWC Camper

[Paul B.]

I’m trying to gather up the photos. They’re a little jumbled right now I got some different sources I’m pulling them from. The thread not be coherent for a little while. Hope you can see what I’m doing.

 

[Paul B.]

 

[Paul B.]

Many of my pictures. After they upload. It tells me the files too large. I know this isn't very coherent but maybe you're getting the idea.

Expo Portal says “oops, we encountered a problem”. Can’t seemingly upload everyday images from the gallery in my android phone.

 

[Paul B.]

 

[Paul B.]

 

[raintoy]

Lovin it, tell us more!

 

[Paul B.]

Lovin it, tell us more!

The project really came out great. It meets or exceeds all expectations that we ever had. Me and my wife and two kids we can load up 20 gallons of propane, 40 gallons of gas, 20 gallons of fresh water, four large ice chests, and all the stuff we need to spend a week in the desert for the four of us. And the truck isn't even weighed down at all. With all that stuff on, it's tipping around 10,000 lbs. The camper rolls over the washboard roads and climbs over minor and major obstacles. Weight distribution, due to pure luck not any calculations of mine, came out perfect. It can roll down the highway at 80 miles an hour not feel unstable at all.

The one unavoidable issue with the 460 gas motor. It gets 7 miles to the gallon. On the highway? 7 mpg, around town? 7 mpg, off-road? 7 mpg. Hell, with the a/c on? It gets 7 mpg. I squeaked 8 mpg out of it one time by when it was somewhat unladen, going downhill from Mojave to West LA. Barely squeaked out 8 mpg. I know there's some things I can do to get that down. Like drive slower. But it's a 250 mile run from our house to saline Valley. If you drive real slow it can take ten hours. I try to cut that down to six. I thought about some type of a faring situation in front of the two spare tires on the roof. But don't know if that's going to do what we want. And know it's not going to be cheap.

 

[Hillbilly Heaven]

Are the 2 spares touching? Leaving a gap between them may help. Their shape already help deflect air around camper. Someone may say the exposed tread will cause air resistance. If you think that may be true, then a simple sheetmetal wrap will solve that problem.

Biggest thing I see is the corners of the overhang behind the cab. Those present a flat surface to the air. Some type of simple fairing blending from the cab to the side of the camper will fix that. It will reduce frontal area the air sees.

 

[Paul B.]

Are the 2 spares touching? Leaving a gap between them may help. Their shape already help deflect air around camper. Someone may say the exposed tread will cause air resistance. If you think that may be true, then a simple sheetmetal wrap will solve that problem.

Biggest thing I see is the corners of the overhang behind the cab. Those present a flat surface to the air. Some type of simple fairing blending from the cab to the side of the camper will fix that. It will reduce frontal area the air sees.

The spares don't touch now, but when we upgrade to full size spares, they just well might. Was thinking about a custom fit piece of smooth canvas laced to the roof rack, or buttoned/snapped down. Like a bra on a sports car. Whaddya think?

 

[Hillbilly Heaven]

As long as it is tight as a banjo string and doesn't flap then it should be ok.

 

[BajaSurfRig]

Any idea who manufactured the utility bed? I have always wanted to do this and can't seem to find one that has low enough side walls/ boxes on it. Your rig is a rad set up by the way!

 

[pappawheely]

The project really came out great. It meets or exceeds all expectations that we ever had. Me and my wife and two kids we can load up 20 gallons of propane, 40 gallons of gas, 20 gallons of fresh water, four large ice chests, and all the stuff we need to spend a week in the desert for the four of us. And the truck isn't even weighed down at all. With all that stuff on, it's tipping around 10,000 lbs. The camper rolls over the washboard roads and climbs over minor and major obstacles. Weight distribution, due to pure luck not any calculations of mine, came out perfect. It can roll down the highway at 80 miles an hour not feel unstable at all.

The one unavoidable issue with the 460 gas motor. It gets 7 miles to the gallon. On the highway? 7 mpg, around town? 7 mpg, off-road? 7 mpg. Hell, with the a/c on? It gets 7 mpg. I squeaked 8 mpg out of it one time by when it was somewhat unladen, going downhill from Mojave to West LA. Barely squeaked out 8 mpg. I know there's some things I can do to get that down. Like drive slower. But it's a 250 mile run from our house to saline Valley. If you drive real slow it can take ten hours. I try to cut that down to six. I thought about some type of a faring situation in front of the two spare tires on the roof. But don't know if that's going to do what we want. And know it's not going to be cheap.

Paul, The truck looks great! Nice work! Hillbilly nailed it by pointing out the flat surface on the front wall of the camper causing a lot of wind resistance. Another thing that I see is the roof rack sticking out past the wind shield. The air is flowing up the glass and then getting caught under the shelf. It probably causes a lot of disturbance of the air flow over the truck. Not much you can do about it other than trying some kind of wind deflector on the hood that would direct the air over the roof. ****EDIT, Now I see you moved that back. I was looking at an earlier shot.

 

[Hillbilly Heaven]

One of those contoured hood deflectors might help with that. Not one of the straight up bug catchers, but one that follow the curves of the hood with a curve on the back edge.

 

[Hillbilly Heaven]

https://www.autoventshade.com/all-products/?year_id=3241&make_name=3445&model_name=3619

 

[Paul B.]

Any idea who manufactured the utility bed? I have always wanted to do this and can't seem to find one that has low enough side walls/ boxes on it. Your rig is a rad set up by the way!

That was one of the keys to getting it right. That utility bed came off of a 1973 F-250. Can't remember the manufacturer, but it was made in Southern California. In reality it's kind of a low-end type of a utility bed. There are some of them around, but it did take a while to find the right one. Need one that doesn't have trays on the top. I also liked that older one because it had the piano type hinges on the doors. As opposed to the newer models just have a hinge on top and hinge on bottom. I have utility beds for work, if you clip either one of those top or bottom hinges, the door will fall off. (My daily driver is a utility bed. One time somebody sideswiped it while it was parked on the street, and tore that hinge off, the door was laying on the ground when I got there.) I figured I didn't want the utility bed door to fall right off if I sideswiped a rock out in the desert.

You can see from that one picture that we cut the utility bed up to get the '88 FWC Keystone to fit in. It was fairly simple, we cut it to the exact proportion of the camper and then flip the pieces over, put the right one on the left side, put the left one on the right side. Welded it back up with a few extra supports. Utility bed bolted to the frame like normal and the camper bolted through the utility bed to the frame, thing is very solid. I don't if have any you been out on the Saline Valley Road. We've taken it back and forth up there about five times now nothing is rattling loose. I played with the idea of putting spring bolts on it, but I don't think it needs it. Those FWC camper seem to hold together pretty good. Stan from FWC said he thought you could just bolt the camper to the frame and it would be fine. If I see signs of wear someday I may put springs on the bolts, but for right now we've just got the number 8 heavy-duty bolts on there.

We did lose some space inside the tool boxes. But the thing came out really sleek it matched up and it fit the 88 camper nicely.