2019 F350 4x4 custom HPI flatbed/AT Atlas topper
- Thread starter mk216v
- Start date
mog
Kodiak Buckaroo
You have 75 more horsepower than my wimpy V10, so even less of an issue for you
It has 6'6" interior width, so even possible for east-west sleeping. But that translates into a non-so-trail-ready- 96" overall width.
When you are at HPI make sure to have them take you to the Pavati building, it is amazing! And if you need help understanding the Southern Oregon dialect or local customs, let me know.
rruff
Explorer
Hoping to be under 8k lbs fully loaded... with way less stuff than most people carry. It weighs ~5.7k lbs stock.
It's a camper I'm building myself with foam and fiberglass (wet lay up), that mounts to the frame. Not a pop-up. It sits ~40" above the cab, but it's faceted (top is 38" wide), and the cabover is tapered and rounded. The roof tapers down 10" in the back also. 80" wide, with a 120" floor length.
mk216v
Der Chef der Fahrzeuge
Dogs had a tough time snapping a pic of me while they both were in "service body kennel" testing. Plus, a picture of me slithering through the pass-thru hole would break forum rules of overlanding pron.
mk216v
Der Chef der Fahrzeuge
Ah, good to know.
Yeah, Magic Mike has already nixed 96'W rigs (like ambo's loooong ago) due to my love of trails.
Pavati building; added to my HPI notes list.
I've been down in that neck of the woods quite a few times, but I'll take any recommendations thank you. (Should I download the newest Google Translate app?
)Nice! Mine weighs 6350lbs with full fuel, just me in it (3850lbs F, 2500lbs R).
Cool, looking forward to seeing it! (I just saw a newer Sprinter cab/chassis with a multi-faceted Airstream trailer nicely grafted onto it).
Korey H
Well-known member
Sweet Kodiak! I was just going to call on Mog(KODIAK1) to look here, but he's already arrived, so he can also advise on anything specific to your rig.
For my cab-topper pass-thru, picture the rear window of my truck as it is, like this;
Now, have a windshield company nicely remove that glass if they can (keep it for future), and instead of the glass, have an aluminum panel in its place (panel bonded to truck cab). This panel would have a crawl-thru hole cut in it. Currently I'm thinking of having AT just cut their standard cab-slider-window hole in the topper(advantage is that long term, if I sell the topper, then the new owner could just put a standard cab slider window in, making the topper more mainstream and less full custom), and then on the truck cab side we'll cut the same size hole. Now, this standard cab slider window is only about 14.5"H x 50"W, which is pretty narrow height. Thankfully I'm slim and yesterday I already tested (via CAD--cardboard aided design) if I could fit thru this pass-thru hole, and I can. So, this pass-thru will provide HVAC from the truck cab to the dogs in the topper, as well as give us an emergency truck cab access should we ever need it. There will be a bellow between truck cab and topper.
Pass thru hole (remember, no actual glass window) will be this sized footprint;
Does that make sense?
The far more comfortable-sized pass-thru would be to also cut a hole in the lower forward part of topper, and lower rear of truck cab, but since we have a factory Ford 3 person seat arrangement in the truck (middle seat is its own unit, where the seat back folds down and acts as an armrest and center console---we will be having this re-upholstered in gray S211 scheel-mann leatherette to match our front seats), so it's not like we could easily walk thru from topper to truck cab, due to this middle seat/console being in the way. Plus, have to shave some costs somewhere, and having Mario at AT cut a standard cab slider window hole in the topper is quick and easy, vs a totally custom pass-thru hole (which he'll do as well, but for more $).
Thank you much for the response and info. Your approach makes a lot of sense and think we’ll go that direction as well though may cut down into the body if I can find an option for four seats across that can fold. Happen to have a bellow source?
We’re excited to get going on the conversion.
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mog
Kodiak Buckaroo
I guess I am 'special' as I have not had my 101.5" width (front fender flares) vetoed ... yet. But then again, I get to have 100 gallons of fuel, like 'real' trucks have.
Yes, once you are out of 'Portland' you will need it. Don't worry it is in the newest version of Google Translate.
Portland as seen by Southern Oregonians
mog
Kodiak Buckaroo
I don't know if they will match your interior, but I bought Volvo XC-90 rear seats for my MB1017 which are quite nice with integral seatbelts. They are three-across-seating (all separate), with the center being a narrower seat that converts quite neatly into a child seat if necessary. They fold completely flat. So perhaps two sets? They are very cheap, I got mine for $200 for the 3-seat-set via eBay. If you would like photos or measurements, let me know as I still have my XC-90 auto.
Korey H
Well-known member
That’d be super helpful and all separate work especially since I need four. Thank you. Was just digging through your previous posts and listings.
Any other Kodiak / topkick tips much appreciated. Waiting for a call back from 1st attack on tires wheels while still considering cowpigs.
Assembling my order list!
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mog
Kodiak Buckaroo
Warning - Kodiak thread drift, but might apply to the small F350s
Cowpigs wheels are a screaming deal. If I did not already have 6 Alcoa super singles, I'd be eyeballing those pretty darn hard.
Sure thing. Do you need four 'adult' seats in the back, or would two 'adult' and two of the 'convertible' narrower center seats work? I ask because the guy that bought my MB1017 has no need for the center seat I included with the truck (they are going in as the front seats so the 1017 will finally have seatbelts) so I could probably get you that seat for the cost of shipping? That way you would only need one set.
Cowpigs wheels are a screaming deal. If I did not already have 6 Alcoa super singles, I'd be eyeballing those pretty darn hard.
Korey H
Well-known member
mk216v
Der Chef der Fahrzeuge
Certainly!
My fabricator said just the other day he has an idea for the bellow, but I haven't been able to speak to him further about it yet. Will share if/when appropriate as long as there are no trade secrets.
No off topic, military beadlocks and MPT81's are certainly welcome here for us all to ogle at.
mog
Kodiak Buckaroo
How did it go at Highway Products?
I have not read about a rash of bank robberies in Oregon, so it must have gone OK?
mk216v
Der Chef der Fahrzeuge
Sorry for the delay. Working crazy hours, dealing with wildfires and people/animal evacuations as you know. Even HPI has the South Obenchain fire very close to them.
Glad I made the trip to HPI when I did as I can't even get there now due to hwy closures from all the fires.Did you check California news for robberies? Cali isn't that far you know. ;-)
Ok, update...had an excellent meeting at HPI; my sales guy, sales mgr, lead estimator. They graciously spent about an hour with me, lots of drawings/schematics, list of ideas/questions. They can/willing to do lots of custom stuff; L-track on the interior vs E-track, interior access from cargo area to the compartment boxes, shower drain hole in the rear of cargo floor, etc. The outcome was that their standard aluminum service body will not work well to mate up to the AT topper, reason being is that the OAL of the topper for 8' bed is 99.5", yet their service body OAL is 110". So, we have almost a foot of gap. IF I wasn't doing a crawl-thru I could have them custom make a space between back of cab and body/topper for a spare tire, "tunnel" cargo box. But that won't work for us. Ok so what about the ~12" gap at the back of the setup vs front? Well, how to fill in the gap.
Long story short, since there's actually lots of engineering that goes into hanging the 6 compartments off the sides for the service body, the amount of engineering it'd take their team to re-engineer a service body for my dimensional needs is far greater than going back to a custom flatbed/compartments setup. A flatbed/boxes vs service body will help provide an improved departure angle, so this is certainly welcomed.
So, coming out of the meeting, I was trying to think about how to retain an interior/exterior fridge setup, as this was our plan with the service body (have our 50L Nat'l Luna fridge/freezer slide-out/drop-down from a compartment box using an MSA side drop slide, yet also have interior access to get into the fridge in the case of inclement weather. This proved to be challenging. So after thinking about a clean sheet design, the proposed plan will be a much simpler, more overlandy standard of placing the f/f in the pass rear corner of cargo area, in its own "cabinet box"(most likely aluminum) where the box doubles as part of a north-south interior seat/storage. For exterior access/camping (75% of our trips), the f/f will slide out over the custom HPI tailgate on a Tembo Tusk fridge slide w/ cutting board (https://www.equipt1.com/collections...tembo-tusk-fridge-slide?variant=7431427063871); can't do a drop slide as the tailgate is in the way. Will need to just get a step stool to reach into the fridge as the cargo floor will be 11" higher than stock F350 (+4" for tires, +2" for susp, + 7" for flatbed cargo floor channels). For interior access/inclement weather/4season camping (25% of our trips), the lid of the seat will hinge up and allow access to the f/f.
In LR, we'll get a larger porta potti and spec the compartment box to allow the potti to be on a drawer slide and slide into the cargo area when needed. When not needed, slide it back in to the compartment where it's housed. Note; HPI says the engineering cost for them to design slides and such is pretty dang expensive, so best to find a commercially available slide and add it in yourself.
All in all, the only custom-dimension compartment/box will be the one in LR for the potti. So, HPI engineering the dimensions for "custom" flatbed/boxes shouldn't take that much time and thus shouldn't be too costly. They'll just maximize the compartment dimensions for the inset frame rails of the chassis-cab.
Current status; still waiting to hear from my HPI sales guy regarding the rear bumper question. While HPI can make custom bumpers off their service bodies and flatbeds,
they haven't done any tire swing outs, so the engineering cost to develop such would be $$$. Originally I wanted to have Buckstop (still waiting to hear from my sales guy there after weeks--companies are slammed with inquiries/sales!) custom make a version of this swing out bumper (https://www.buckstopinc.com/reunel-towing-rear-1341.html) after HPI makes the flatbed/boxes, so that everything looks like it was designed together. But then I remembered my fabricator MG's custom Exp-One '15+ Chevy dual rear swing out bumper he did for his E350 Cummins van (https://www.sportsmobileforum.com/forums/f22/buckstop-bumper-dual-swing-out-26059-3.html#post277802), and how they not only have a tire swing out on driver side, but also available mount for 4 Rotopax 4gal which I already have (= 56gal fuel capacity overall). So, waiting to hear from HPI if they need me to get this custom mounted to my F350, then I bring them my truck for their engineers to measure/design the flatbed/boxes based on where this rear bumper starts. I'm assuming they'll say yes, this is preferred...but bumper is 12-14wks out which would mean that HPI can't start building the flatbed/boxes for about 3mos, which only gives them about 3mos to complete the flatbed/boxes before the AT Atlas arrives in ~April, which is barely enough time for HPI; https://www.expeditiononestore.com/...stem-for-1999-to-2016-model-years-_p_723.html
Meanwhile, before HPI work is completed, I'm planning on getting a list of mods taken care of on the truck. Doing everything we can while the truck sits idle before HPI/AT.
I also can't remember if I already posted above, but Carli needs me to wait on the susp order until the flatbed/boxes/topper/etc is all on the rear end, in order to get an accurate rear axle weight, so they can properly spec the rear leaf springs and damper valving. While it's difficult to wait, I certainly appreciate that and agree it's the correct way to build the premier susp.
Thanks for tuning in all. More to come over the next 7mos or so.
PS--I remembered what Pavati was when I got to HPI. Aaron took me on a tour, although no pictures allowed. WOWWWW, $200-300k aluminum wakeboard/surf boats. Radical and impressive.
PPS--thread title changed back to flatbed from service body.
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mog
Kodiak Buckaroo
So with the switch from the service body to the flatbed with custom boxes, is the 'Dortal' (Dogs+Portal=Dortal) still going to be between the cab rear window and Atlas topper? Are you just building a front wall for the flatbed/custom boxes out of a sheet of aluminum or something fancier? And how about the rear access door(s)? Liftgate/tailgate, liftgate/ half barn doors, or full height barn or single door?
Did you see this F250/350 rear swing-out bumper for sale on the portal at $400?
Did you see this F250/350 rear swing-out bumper for sale on the portal at $400?
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