2000 F250 7.3L "Trucktor" build

[janders]

We bought this truck in 2015 after buying 10 acres of forest on an island in the Puget Sound. We used this truck to pull stumps, haul logs, and clear brush. Before we bought our Kubota, this F250 was our tractor. Hence the name "Trucktor". Fast forward 5 years later and we're living in the house. The construction phase is done (well... mostly done) so we no longer need the truck for hauling and yarding and skidding. Trucktor is now officially in her recreational years.

We did a three week trip last December through Death Valley and Mojave National Preserve. I built a janky bed platform a few years back and we threw a queen size mattress back there and slept in the back. It was awesome but had all kinds of shortcomings. So we're going to fix those shortcomings.

We really like having a queen size bed in the back of the truck because we just leave our bed setup for the whole trip. As soon as the truck is in park, our camp is setup. We often camp with some friends of ours in a Jeep with a bad-ass home built trailer with an RTT on top. We spend a lot less time setting up and tearing down camp then they do. (Which is good cause they smoke us on the trail.)

It's a pretty stock F250 at the moment. So for this build, we're gonna make the back of the truck more comfortable and the rest of the truck a bit more capable. We're not out to build a rock crawler. And for many of our trips, we'll do a 1,000 miles of freeway to get to the cool spots so we have to strike a balance of on-road and off-road driving.

 

[janders]

Warn Locking Hubs

Our automagic 4WD vacuum system ******** the bed on our Death Valley trip so it's manual locking hubs for us. Except. The driver's side locking hub literally fell out of the wheel on a camping trip up to Mt. Rainier. The only thing that kept it on the truck was the lugnuts cap. The hub wouldn't reinstall so we pulled it off. This is the only time I've ever done a trail fix that used a bread bag. We taped over the hub so it wouldn't fill with crap. We ordered real locking hubs from Warn.

Everyone says installing Warn locking hubs is easy, but it's actually easier than that. It was no thing to get these hubs on. They are a colossal improvement over the Ford OEM hubs.

 

[janders]

Go Rhino Side Steps

We had the factory side steps on and it's only a matter of time before we ripped them off on a trail. I did some research on F250 sliders but a few things I read said frame attached sliders on a truck this heavy can actually bend the frame. Don't know if that's true. At some point I might have custom sliders made but nobody seems to make actual sliders.

But my wife is 5'3" on a tall day so she needs some help getting in. I bought this side steps from Go Rhino. They attach to the rocker panel so they don't offer much in the way of protection but they also don't lose me any clearance and give my wife a step so she doesn't have to boulder her way into the truck every time.

 

[janders]

Snugtop Outback Canopy

Our canopy leaked like a sieve. We smashed our heads every time we climbed in or out of bed. The tailgate was pretty manky. The previous owner hauled a fifth wheel with this truck but wasn't great about remembering to lower the tailgate when disconnecting the pin box so it was also more of a parabola shape than straight. Since the canopy will be our shelter, we decided to drop some coin. I liked the canopies that got rid of the tailgate. I really liked the 60/40 ambulance doors of the Snugtop Outback so we pulled the trigger. Pretty happy with the fit and finish.

For anyone who's sleeping in the back of their truck, know that these kinds of canopies are so much easier to get in and out of. With a normal canopy, you have to either crawl over the raised tailgate to get into bed, or leave it down, crawl into bed and then turn around and pull the tailgate up. I'm 6'2" so the tailgate gymnastics was wearing me down. Love these doors.

 

[janders]

Bed platform design

Next up is the bed platform in the back. I built one a few years back and made it high enough that our Action Packer boxes fit underneath. Which they did and that was great for storage but it was high enough the sleeping in the bed felt like a coffin. And the space under the bed was really hard to use. We used to carry a hoe on every trip just to retrieve stuff from all the way under the bed.

The new platform will be 4" lower and have two drawers. In the interest of saving sheet goods and saving money on drawer slides, I kept the drawers to 48". We also bought a 20 gallon water tank that we're installing under the bed behind the drawers. But that still left us with some room for a couple top-access lockers just forward of the drawers and aft of the water tank. We can use these for deep storage like tire plug kits, chains, jumper cables, spares etc.

The design:

The interior of the platform cabinet:

Underneath:

Get all the pieces are parts cut and prepped:

 

[janders]

Progress on the bed build

I'm using 3/4" shop-grade birch ply. This stuff is pretty cheap - $55/sheet - and really light but the A surface is really nice. These sheets aren't cabinet grade so they have some twists and wiggles to them. As I assemble the carcass, I have to convince the sheets to straighten out.

I use a track saw to break down sheet goods. I can't be arsed to put an 8' sheet of ply through the table saw.

For all the plywood joints, I'm using 1 1/4" pocket screws, glue and 3" end-grain screws. This carcass is going to hold ~600lbs of gear, supplies and water and is going to live in a paint can shaker for weeks at a time. Pocket screws and glue are really strong for a joint in tension. The end grain screws are hella strong for shear forces and helpful (I think) for racking forces.

First coat of poly on.

Dry fit with our queen size camping mattress. Fits great and the lower profile is a perfect amount of headroom. I can finally sit upright in bed so it no longer feels like a coffin back there.

Next up is the drawers. Pretty stoked to get those going.

 

[ITTOG]

Looks like a great start. Subscribing.

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk

 

[Marine]

Love the topper. That's my next upgrade.

 

[janders]

Love the topper. That's my next upgrade.

I can't even tell you how much better life is with those ambulance doors off the back than a traditional tailgate and swing up topper door. So much easier getting in and out. I'm really digging the Snugtop Outback.

 

[pigsammy]

Nice looking project! I really like the doors for ease of access as well.
You'll like the drawers also. I laughed about the hoe. Growing up, our truck always had at least one stick with a hook of some type attached for retrieval duties from the front of the camper shell. You're really gonna like the side doors, too.

 

[janders]

Wrapped up the bed platform and drawers

I built both drawers out of a single sheet of 5/8th AC ply which was a mistake. The AC ply sat in my plywood cart for a few months and was twisted and cupped in two dimensions. It took a decent amount of wrestling the cuts into square(ish). I kept the drawers to 48" deep so I could them both out of a single sheet of ply. Also drawer slides longer than 48" are eye-wateringly expensive.

I routed dadoes into the drawer walls every six inches so we can use drawer dividers to organize stuff in the drawers.

I installed the drawers using 40" offbrand locking drawer slides from Amazon. So far, they've been good. Interested to see how they hold up to dust.

Since we got rid of our tailgate, we find that we need a quick table like we used to use the tailgate for. Roadside lunches, quick repairs, etc. So we built one into one of the drawers out of some extra ply and soft close cabinet hinges I had left over from another cabinet project.

I made drawer fronts out of some left over rough cut Doug fir from trees we dropped and milled on our property.

I added D-rings to the corners to secure the platform to tie-downs in the bed so the whole thing doesn't go walkabout on some more rambunctious trails. I used aluminum angle iron backing plates behind the D-rings to engage two different sheets in case something serious happens like a rollover.

My wife put the last drawer pull on and we're calling it good to go.

Here's the deep storage lockers under the mattress forward of the drawers. I keep recovery gear, chains, tire kit, bottle jack and other stuff I rarely need to but always take.