2006 Ford F550 - Globe Trekker Composite Cabover Build

[danneskjold]

Hopefully this build thread goes a little bit better than my last (and by that I mean keep it up to date). I’ve been around the fancy car camping scene for a few years. Spent a few months living out of a Tacoma with a pop up camper, then “graduated” to an F150 and FWC and spent a couple of years living out of that before COVID hit.



After that I bought an 04 Ford F450 4x4 ambulance in 2020 and built that out and spent a lot of time traveling and living (temporarily) out of that but it was always just too heavy (that aluminum box is HEAVY) and didn’t offer the space I needed for my wife to travel, and work, with me for extended periods of time.



As we started to outgrow the ambulance we talked about what we wanted next. I was pretty firm on wanting it to be a domestic medium duty truck chassis like an F550 or 5500. It might not be as capable off-road as a Unimog, or maybe an LMTV, but they’re so common and ubiquitous you will never have problems finding parts or a shop to work on them and the lower frame rails (compared to an LMTV or Unimog) allowed for a cabover and thus more space.

I tend to like Fords so we shopped around a bit on new F550’s and they’re just too expensive. $65k for one a gasser with a work truck interior, and another $10k for diesel and $10k for a nice leather interior made it all just too much money for us to swallow. If we wanted a diesel engine I was pretty firm on wanting one with a warranty because of all of the DEF issues, and 2012+ used F550 really aren’t much cheaper than new ones and it’s impossible to find them with a bare frame.

My 04 F450 was a 6.0, and I will acknowledge it’s not the best motor ever made but it’s pretty well understood at this point and it’s so common it’s easy to get parts and a shop to work on it. I had a couple of criteria I was looking for in an F550:

• 4x4 - Duh
  05-07 - Improved motor, but more importantly coil sprung front end with wide track front axle and a killer turning radius
• Crew Cab - regular cab is very much a life style decision and it just doesn’t fit my life any more.
• Power Locks/Power Windows - I have an 07 F350 with manual locks and windows it’s and it’s a pain in the ass. And swapping in the power stuff is also a pain, so just wanted to get one with it from factory. This is actually harder to find than you might think as most customers just wanted the cheapest truck possible.
• No dump bed or anything hydraulic on the rear - Finding a bare frame used F550 is pretty much impossible, but since I knew I would need to pull off whatever was on the back I wanted it to be as easy as possible.

I ended up finding this 2006 F550 on Facebook Marketplace. It had everything I wanted in addition to dual alternators, aftermarket metal console, head studs (what most people call bulletproofing), and a coolant filter amongst some other modifications. Paid $11k for it which was pretty cheap.



Now - when it came to camper I had a couple primary options.

Commercially made slide in camper on a flatbed with toolboxes along the side - Had something similar on my F150. It works, it’s probably the cheapest option but then you are pretty much subjected to RV grade components at every turn.

The more appealing to me option was a composite camper. Total Composites seemed to be the most popular option but I was not a huge fan. I think the actual product is great but the amount of hidden costs and fluctuating shipping fees made it unattractive to me. Additionally, the fact that they were all made in China turned me off and I didn't love the builder options.

I saw Globe Trekker for the first time at Northwest Overland Rally and talked to the owners wife for a good chunk of time. I loved the fact that their extrusions used to assembly the panels had integrated 80/20 extrusion into them for easy attaching of accessories, I think the panels themselves are superior to the TC ones (but I don’t think they are VASTLY better either, I think the TC stuff is great) and the fact that they are a local company (I’m in Central Oregon and they are in Portland area) with USA made panels kind of sealed the deal. I also love that their pricing is super transparent - it’s all posted on the website and short of credit card fees if you use that or final destination shipping if you can’t pick them up.

So, anyways I placed a deposit on a 14 foot foot box (12 foot + 2 foot departure angle) box with a king size cabover and their subframe.

 

[sn_85]

Now - when it came to camper I had a couple primary options.

Commercially made slide in camper on a flatbed with toolboxes along the side - Had something similar on my F150. It works, it’s probably the cheapest option but then you are pretty much subjected to RV grade components at every turn.

The more appealing to me option was a composite camper. Total Composites seemed to be the most popular option but I was not a huge fan. I think the actual product is great but the amount of hidden costs and fluctuating shipping fees made it unattractive to me. Additionally, the fact that they were all made in China turned me off. The final nail in the coffin was talking to OAT at Overland Expo PNW.

I saw Globe Trekker for the first time at Northwest Overland Rally and talked to the owners wife for a good chunk of time. I loved the fact that their extrusions used to assembly the panels had integrated 80/20 extrusion into them for easy attaching of accessories, I think the panels themselves are superior to the TC ones (but I don’t think they are VASTLY better either, I think the TC stuff is great) and the fact that they are a local company (I’m in Central Oregon and they are in Portland area) with USA made panels kind of sealed the deal. I also love that their pricing is super transparent - it’s all posted on the website and short of credit card fees if you use that or final destination shipping if you can’t pick them up.

So, anyways I placed a deposit on a 14 foot foot box (12 foot + 2 foot departure angle) box with a king size cabover and their subframe.

Just curious and you don't have to answer if it's not PC (not trying to stir up anything here) but what happened when you talked to OAT that was the final nail in the coffin?

 

[Atlas4Life]

Hopefully this build thread goes a little bit better than my last (and by that I mean keep it up to date). I’ve been around the fancy car camping scene for a few years. Spent a few months living out of a Tacoma with a pop up camper, then “graduated” to an F150 and FWC and spent a couple of years living out of that before COVID hit.

View attachment 780523View attachment 780524

After that I bought an 04 Ford F450 4x4 ambulance in 2020 and built that out and spent a lot of time traveling and living (temporarily) out of that but it was always just too heavy (that aluminum box is HEAVY) and didn’t offer the space I needed for my wife to travel, and work, with me for extended periods of time.

View attachment 780525

As we started to outgrow the ambulance we talked about what we wanted next. I was pretty firm on wanting it to be a domestic medium duty truck chassis like an F550 or 5500. It might not be as capable off-road as a Unimog, or maybe an LMTV, but they’re so common and ubiquitous you will never have problems finding parts or a shop to work on them and the lower frame rails (compared to an LMTV or Unimog) allowed for a cabover and thus more space.

I tend to like Fords so we shopped around a bit on new F550’s and they’re just too expensive. $65k for one a gasser with a work truck interior, and another $10k for diesel and $10k for a nice leather interior made it all just too much money for us to swallow. If we wanted a diesel engine I was pretty firm on wanting one with a warranty because of all of the DEF issues, and 2012+ used F550 really aren’t much cheaper than new ones and it’s impossible to find them with a bare frame.

My 04 F450 was a 6.0, and I will acknowledge it’s not the best motor ever made but it’s pretty well understood at this point and it’s so common it’s easy to get parts and a shop to work on it. I had a couple of criteria I was looking for in an F550:

• 4x4 - Duh
  05-07 - Improved motor, but more importantly coil sprung front end with wide track front axle and a killer turning radius
• Crew Cab - regular cab is very much a life style decision and it just doesn’t fit my life any more.
• Power Locks/Power Windows - I have an 07 F350 with manual locks and windows it’s and it’s a pain in the ass. And swapping in the power stuff is also a pain, so just wanted to get one with it from factory. This is actually harder to find than you might think as most customers just wanted the cheapest truck possible.
• No dump bed or anything hydraulic on the rear - Finding a bare frame used F550 is pretty much impossible, but since I knew I would need to pull off whatever was on the back I wanted it to be as easy as possible.

I ended up finding this 2006 F550 on Facebook Marketplace. It had everything I wanted in addition to dual alternators, aftermarket metal console, head studs (what most people call bulletproofing), and a coolant filter amongst some other modifications. Paid $11k for it which was pretty cheap.

View attachment 780526View attachment 780527

Now - when it came to camper I had a couple primary options.

Commercially made slide in camper on a flatbed with toolboxes along the side - Had something similar on my F150. It works, it’s probably the cheapest option but then you are pretty much subjected to RV grade components at every turn.

The more appealing to me option was a composite camper. Total Composites seemed to be the most popular option but I was not a huge fan. I think the actual product is great but the amount of hidden costs and fluctuating shipping fees made it unattractive to me. Additionally, the fact that they were all made in China turned me off. The final nail in the coffin was talking to OAT at Overland Expo PNW.

I saw Globe Trekker for the first time at Northwest Overland Rally and talked to the owners wife for a good chunk of time. I loved the fact that their extrusions used to assembly the panels had integrated 80/20 extrusion into them for easy attaching of accessories, I think the panels themselves are superior to the TC ones (but I don’t think they are VASTLY better either, I think the TC stuff is great) and the fact that they are a local company (I’m in Central Oregon and they are in Portland area) with USA made panels kind of sealed the deal. I also love that their pricing is super transparent - it’s all posted on the website and short of credit card fees if you use that or final destination shipping if you can’t pick them up.

So, anyways I placed a deposit on a 14 foot foot box (12 foot + 2 foot departure angle) box with a king size cabover and their subframe.

Congrats on your purchase. I received my kit from Globe Trekker (20’ with departure angle) in March. It arrived on time and without any last minute “extras” as promised. So far So good, it goes together as it should and seems very solid. Let me know if you want to discuss real world assembly without a big shop or crew of helpers.

 

[danneskjold]

Just curious and you don't have to answer if it's not PC (not trying to stir up anything here) but what happened when you talked to OAT that was the final nail in the coffin?

My impression of him was that he was fairly arrogant and condescending from when I spoke to him at Expo. It was also very warm out, and from having worked trade shows in the past you are pretty over it by about hour 2 so that could absolutely have something to do with it. I will say that I think OAT does good work, and I have never heard a complaint about their craftsmanship. For what it's worth Quade actually messaged me about this and I said the same thing to him. That was just *my* experience and I am sure other people have had their own experiences. If I was going to give him a bundle of cash to make me a camper I don't have any doubt I would get something high quality in return.

Congrats on your purchase. I received my kit from Globe Trekker (20’ with departure angle) in March. It arrived on time and without any last minute “extras” as promised. So far So good, it goes together as it should and seems very solid. Let me know if you want to discuss real world assembly without a big shop or crew of helpers.

Thanks! My kit should arrive on Monday. There has been a fair amount of date shifting, but ultimately we are like 1 week off of their stated lead time (and no extra charges) so pretty good I think. I am actually having it assembled at a shop locally, I'm not super thrilled about it but ultimately I don't have the space or people to do it myself and they will do a better job than me anyways I think. What is your camper on? Got any photos?

 

[danneskjold]

ETA for the camper panels being ready for pickup was 5/26 (actual date should be 6/5) which was roughly a month from when I started so I didn't have a ton of time to get the truck ready for the subframe and camper.

There's a decent amount of stuff that needs to be done before the camper gets mounted, or is a lot easier if it's just the frame so I knew I had a fair bit of work in front of me.

Step one was getting the truck checked over, and the flatbed removed. The truck ran and drove okay, but it wasn't making the injector pressure it should have been and I was getting really crappy MPG. The previous owner had replaced the IPR, so I figured it wasn't that, and had also ordered a new PCM module to hopefully fix the issue. Got the new PCM in, which of course didn't fix the issue. If you check the photo you will notice that the previous owner was using Group 24 batteries as cranking batteries (not large enough), and that weird red power cable going from the PCM to the battery negative - definitely not ideal haha.



So I took it to a diesel shop in town I trust and they diagnosed a bad IPR and in the middle of talking to them about the truck they offered to remove the flatbed in exchange for keeping it. The toolboxes on the flatbed were nice and definitely worth some money, but I also needed it off so took them up on the offer. When I drove down to pick the truck up they told me the flatbed was so heavy it was lifting the wheels on their forklift. Also check out that IPR they pulled out! Absolutely fried.



I knew at this point the next things I needed to do were recoat the frame, and thoroughly clean and sound deaden the interior. Apparently I didn't take any photos of the frame, just video, but I basically power washed the frame a few times and took and angle grinder to any nasty rust portions then just spray painted the frame with primer then rustoleum. I went back and forth, and talked to a bunch of people about POR15 and the results seemed hit or miss (some said awesome, some said it peeled off) so opted to just use spray paint. There was an absolute ton of caked on mud and dirt in just about every single crevice. You can get an idea from the photo below - keep in mind the first couple power washes were done at a commercial place not my driveway (my neighbors love me).



Sometime in all of this I had been poking around on Craigslist and Marketplace looking for 10 lug super single wheels. Buckstop (located about 20 minutes from me) wanted $1200/per with a "12 week leadtime" (which in my experience with them is usually 20ish), so they were obviously out. I liked the idea of MRAP wheels, but the company in Canada no longer makes the adapter plates for them so that wasn't an easy solution either. Thankfully, I found this set of 5x DBL wheels in Northern California. Paid a bit more than I wanted, and had to kill a day driving down to pick them up but still saved a ton of money over buying new. I am new to the whole two-piece wheel so we will see how well I like them - I see pros and cons to each but my local Les Schwab will mount/dismount my Buckstop wheels and MPT81s on the ambulance for like $10/per so kind of bummed I won't be able to use them again.

Picture is from driving back with them. My 07 F350 gave me a check engine light for my EGR being clogged on the way home so that is awesome.

 

[danneskjold]

Something I am going to try to do at the end of each major phase of the build is weigh the truck. It's amazing how quickly stuff starts to add up, and I think it's important to have an idea of what each component weighs. This weight is basically completely stock - almost 9k lbs with full tanks leaves about 8500 lbs in payload left (17,500 GVWR). Should be plenty! I am estimating camper and subframe to weigh 3-4000.



One of the nice things about these old Super Duties is the amount of space there is to cut in the fender. I see a lot of the modern trucks are getting 4-6 inch lifts and aftermarket fenders put on them to fit the 41s, but these 99-07 trucks can fit them fine on stock suspension with a healthy amount of cutting. I had to cut quite a bit more off than is in this photo, but as of now it turns and drives fine without much rubbing. I think ideally I will settle on a 1 inch lift to just get a bit more clearance but I only want to buy suspension once so it will wait until the truck is more fully built and with a better idea of final weights.



Started to pull cab apart, and in this case removed the rear bench. The backseat of these crew cabs is pretty cavernous - and the plan is to turn part of it into a small office for my wife so she can work from the road (and do Zoom meetings from somewhere that's not the camper). The other side will be a dog platform/storage, and then the middle will be a pass through to the camper.



Next we pulled out the front seats and the console as well. The plastic floor was pretty dirty, so we pulled that as well and powerwashed it (no photos of that). After having a few trucks with plastic floors I don't think I would ever want to go back to carpet again! You can see a bunch of random wires as well. My "favorite" game I have been playing is "factory or not" on the wires and pulling out everything that's not factory so I can run my own wires "correctly" (or at least to my standards). There was some random crap like speaker wire as power wire.


After the floor was out we proceeded to attempt some sound deadening. I will be the first to admit I don't know what I am doing, but I know people who do and this what they recommended. First layer is "constrained layer dampening" (CLD) aka Dynamat (or in this case Amazon special). The main point of this, as I understand it is to reduce vibrations and only 20-25% of the surface area needs to be covered. In my case we did 100% coverage because we could, but I also figured it would help insulate the cab thermally.



Then we did closed cell foam (CCF), and this is supposed to be 100% coverage as far as I understand it. This is a decoupler and essentially interrupts the travel of sound waves.



The next layer is called "mass loaded vinyl" and is what actually going to sound proof your truck by actually preventing the transmission of sound waves. It's really heavy, dense stuff, and I bought about 10x more than I needed (oops).



Finally, I also did this to the roof but skipped the MLV layer as it would be too difficult to keep it adhered to the roof. You can see the start of my tan interior swap here as well.





For anyone interested, this is the guide I used: https://trailtacoma.com/2020/11/07/...text=If you want to go,good is doing it right.

 

[Atlas4Life]

My impression of him was that he was fairly arrogant and condescending from when I spoke to him at Expo. It was also very warm out, and from having worked trade shows in the past you are pretty over it by about hour 2 so that could absolutely have something to do with it. I will say that I think OAT does good work, and I have never heard a complaint about their craftsmanship. For what it's worth Quade actually messaged me about this and I said the same thing to him. That was just *my* experience and I am sure other people have had their own experiences. If I was going to give him a bundle of cash to make me a camper I don't have any doubt I would get something high quality in return.



Thanks! My kit should arrive on Monday. There has been a fair amount of date shifting, but ultimately we are like 1 week off of their stated lead time (and no extra charges) so pretty good I think. I am actually having it assembled at a shop locally, I'm not super thrilled about it but ultimately I don't have the space or people to do it myself and they will do a better job than me anyways I think. What is your camper on? Got any photos?

Understood, space is always an issue. I rented a storage area for assembly. The habitat will eventually go on an 4x4 International 4800. I was able to install the pass through this weekend so the truck can now go to paint while I continue to work on the habitat. I’m not very good at keeping up with progress pictures. That’s the bosses job.

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

Looking great man!

I look forward to following along

 

[danneskjold]

I've been pretty bad about posting updates.

Camper panels arrived to the shop in Bend, OR on June 5th - about a week behind their quoted ETA so not bad at all!

Camper was supposed to take "2-3 weeks" to assemble...ended up taking 6. There was a variety of reasons for that, and I don't know all of them - but ultimately I am satisfied. Given some of the problems I am also 100% happy I went with a builder as opposed to renting space and trying to do it myself.

I’ll also caveat..I’m a paying customer who paid full price. I don’t “owe” anyone anything and some of my experiences will no doubt ruffle some feathers.


The good:

• Subframe is VERY well made. The pivots are really nice, welds look good, and it was both galvanized and powdercoated. Cost has gone up a bit, I think I paid around $7k and I think it was well worth the money. We decided we needed some additional bracketry (my fault for not ordering in the beginning), and GT thankfully shipped them that day.
• The panels themselves appear to be very high quality. Total Composites has a video on the internet showing some of the "US made" panels they sourced and whoever GT is having build panels for them is MUCH higher quality than the panels in TC video. There were no gaps between the wire chase/studs and foam and also no wood.
  Extrusions are really nice. Nice anodizing, beefy, and the integrated glue pockets and thermal break are genius.
• Communication has been great and they’ve been ready to answer any questions.

The understandable/predictable:

• GT included like 1/4 of the sikaflex the builder needed to assemble the whole thing. According to them they went a bit overboard on the sika, but I think I would order another box to be on the safe side if I was to do it again. The Sikaflex they use is the elastic kind which is harder to source, so keep that in mind.

The frustrating:

• Ordered a Motorcraft door with my kit, and a month into the waiting process enquired about an ETA. Apparently Motorcraft stuff is 4 months out, yet the panels are 2 months - that's not GTs fault but I wish they had just been up front about that from the beginning. Turns out they are actually closer to the 6 months out - needless to say I swapped to an Arctic Tern door which also took awhile to come in. In my opinion they just need to keep a stock of the doors on hand as I don’t think most customers are willing to have a hole in their box for 2 months while they wait on a door.
• One of the extrusion pieces arrived slightly bent. This was impossible to notice unless you really looked at it, or went to install it - thankfully, I just drove 3 hours to their facility in Portland and swapped it out. That being said, if I had this kit shipped out of the region I don't know what I would have done - and of course this was a 12 foot piece not a short piece.
• All of the hardware for the subframe is stainless with a torque spec of 35/ft lbs. This is completely outside of my wheelhouse, but I think Grade 8 would have the preferred for this application but I am happy to be corrected.
• A few of the panels arrived pretty scratched up. I think they had been sitting around their warehouse for awhile and got moved around a bit - not a huge deal as I am going to make scratches of my own but kind of annoying.
• Their pass through kit isn't designed for pickup chassis, but for vehicle like an FMTV. Their available sizes are 24x24 (too small), and 24x36 - except 36 is too tall for a pickup cab (24x30 would be ideal). I only found out about this after talking to another builder, and wish they had been upfront about this.

The bad:

• The floor panel wire chase/studs that secure the whole camper to the subframe were out of spec. They are supposed to be 24 inches apart, but one in the middle was an inch or so off and that of course threw everything after it off. GT offered to swap out the floor piece, but we didn't have time and my builder engineered a fix (I believe GT paid for their labor on this).
• The cabover portion of the side panels was also cut wrong (I can verify this) requiring them to recut the cabover higher. Of course this was after the panels were already mounted to the floor, so my builder had to suit up (cutting fiberglass sucks) and cut something 6 feet off the ground and perpendicular to the ground. I believe GT also paid for their time on this, and I have to credit my builder for going to bat on this and not passing the costs of GT's mistake onto the customer.
• Because of the cabover portion of the panel had to be recut (the nose was now too short, but the front wall fit), it meant that roof and cabover angle extrusions had to be shimmed by 1/4 inch. It was still within contact with the glue pockets so not a huge deal in the end but pretty annoying.
• And finally, according to my builder the ceiling itself was not square. GT kept repeating that "everything has a 1/8 inch tolerance," but I am not sure if that means 1/8 inch every foot or over the whole panel. Regardless, each panel is cut by hand on a track saw so I am not sure that statement is actually true - and given the issues I had with my camper it clearly isn't lol.
• And perhaps what I am most annoyed with, their pass through kit arrived incomplete. They told me it was missing a "trim piece" which doesn't sound like a huge deal - but that trim piece is actually the part that goes on the front of the camper and secures the rubber gasket to the camper - so not really a trim piece. Over 2.5 months after the panels arrived I still don't have it, and have been told a constant string of "1-2 weeks" for going on 6 weeks now. I have been told they were having issues with vendors (I believe them), but it's pretty frustrating to have a giant hole in my truck and camper and not being able to work on stuff at the bulkhead has seriously started to impact my productivity. As of this writing I have been told the pass through piece is finished and I will receive it Friday.

Am I happy with the box and kit? Yes, all of the issues aside. I would still recommend it, but I would also press them on exact timelines of every additional component or just not order any (I wish I had just made my own pass through).

I don’t think marketing it as a DIY kit is particularly fair, and I can also see why TC only sells through their assemblers now.

 

[danneskjold]

The most annoying thing about the build delays was that we had made plans (or lack there of) to be home so that we would be able to work on the camper…that ended up not being ready. July 4th was a big one as my wife works a 9-5, and actually had a three day weekend.

I also rapidly started to run out of room in my garage so when we got the camper home finally was able to move a bunch of the bulky stuff out of the garage finally.

Some bulky stuff I was able to drop off at the builder and have them put in the box for us - I appreciated not having to wrestle a washing machine/dryer and fridge through the entry door!



I think the first day I got the camper back I moved the solar panels to the roof. They aren’t exactly 4x8, but they aren’t far off - Silfab 490W panels, and there are 4 of them on the roof (and 2 left in the garage unfortunately).

In the photo the panels are just placed, not secured in any way. But you can see the extrusion on the roof, I found out that a 3/8 carriage bolt fits perfectly in the extrusion so I am mounting the panels to angle aluminum, and then the aluminum is fastened to the roof with the carriage bolts.

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

Looking great!

All your issues seems about on par with my experience with TC.

Odd choice of door placement, now only option is removable stairs that need to be stowed. For my old lazy ass, that got really old really quick.

I have no feedback on the Subframe hardware, that is quite bizarre... Can it be replaced or swapped out easily?

 

[spearomax]

Great stuff - I had a very similar thought process with truck and camper. Ended up with a 2007 F550 but had a local builder (sage outfitter) weld an aluminum frame camper. Currently building it out - i should start a thread. Looking forward to seeing your progress, too!

 

[Darwin]

Now that you have had it a while. What is your impression of the camper, but also the subframe? It seems like there a lot of different methods and philosophies when it comes to a torsion free subframe.