C5500 TopKick 4x4 Crew Cab Build

[NeverEnough]

In my opinion .....

Both are excellent points and I agree. It's always refreshing to have "normal" portion sizes served at restaurants when traveling outside the US. Small wonder our nation is so fat. Every time I think my build is too big I look at my neighbor's triple axle toy hauler 5th wheel- and he doesn't have kids!

I would add that our "throw it away" mentality doesn't help. The overwhelming majority of RVs built in the US are targeted towards a well-researched market. It's a high-volume, low-margin industry that anticipates very limited use of the actual product. As a result, the component providers' incentive is to produce the cheapest possible solution that can get the job done, i.e. a cooktop. Their customer is the OEM- not the consumer. Even though there are plenty of consumers in the US that appreciate higher quality components, the OEMs are not convinced enough customers will be willing to pay more. Only a handful of small OEMs concern themselves with a quality vehicle capable of heavy use, and they tend to source many components from the maritime industry or overseas sources, where long-term use is integral to design and engineering criteria.

As energy becomes more expensive and resources more restricted in the US, as it already is in other markets like Europe, I think we'll see things change. In the mean time, I'm glad I could get my hands on my Spinflo and SMEV!

I'm out of town again, but was able to drop off 2 120" acme screws and an bunch of other fun little components at my buddy's machine shop before leaving. With any luck, I'll have my combination nerf bars/slide-out rams ready to test when I get home next week.

 

[NeverEnough]

You might want to look at this too: http://www.hepvo.com/

I came across it during a search and thought it was pretty clever.

Same guys. And they're happy to answer questions on the phone as well. Very passionate about their products.

 

[Ford Prefect]

I would add that our "throw it away" mentality doesn't help.

I completely agree. One day when I was there a Pepsi truck with a dumpster labeled with huge Pepsi graphics rolled up next to me at the dump, and dumped one of the largest roll-off dumpers available, and it was plum full of Pepsi, Gatorade, and other products. Nothing at all wrong with them, but they were past their dates for "best by" and so they through them away. Why couldn't they donate them to a shelter or something? It was shocking the things I saw there. (and no I did not take one out of the nasty slim they landed in to drink.)

yeah, sorry to rant a bit, it is just sad who poorly these things are made, and with the intent of tossing them away in a few years.

 

[x banana boy]

I completely agree. One day when I was there a Pepsi truck with a dumpster labeled with huge Pepsi graphics rolled up next to me at the dump, and dumped one of the largest roll-off dumpers available, and it was plum full of Pepsi, Gatorade, and other products. Nothing at all wrong with them, but they were past their dates for "best by" and so they through them away. Why couldn't they donate them to a shelter or something? It was shocking the things I saw there. (and no I did not take one out of the nasty slim they landed in to drink.)

yeah, sorry to rant a bit, it is just sad who poorly these things are made, and with the intent of tossing them away in a few years.

Companies won't donate the old (usually) cause they can get sued if something happens to the reciprocant. It is cheaper to dump it as opposed to getting sued. That is the US for you.

 

[womacje]

Never,
Great build! I love the intelligent no compromise research! I am truly jealous of the skills and design prototyping that is happening, too much fun.

Guys,
Good opinions, maybe not the right location, but good opinions none the less. To toss in my 2 cents: this deplorable behavior won't change till every purchase is preceded with an understanding of who the company is that you are choosing to support and spending the extra coin for an ethically responsible company.
hi-jack off.

 

[pods8]

Never,
Guys,
Good opinions, maybe not the right location, but good opinions none the less. To toss in my 2 cents: this deplorable behavior won't change till every purchase is preceded with an understanding of who the company is that you are choosing to support and spending the extra coin for an ethically responsible company.
hi-jack off.

Hard to blame the companies when ************ Americans are the ones that are sue crazy. They're just covering their ********. Blame the lawyers and the lack of control over frivolous lawsuits. Once that is fixed you can start looking at the companies if they still do this stuff. No company WANTS to throw stuff away because if the could donate it then they could write it off...

 

[NeverEnough]

Never,
Great build! I love the intelligent no compromise research! I am truly jealous of the skills and design prototyping that is happening, too much fun.

Thanks. I wish there were'nt any compromises. At this stage it's almost always a compromise!

And enough with the lawyer talk. I spend enough on that crap already without having to be reminded of it while doing something that's supposed to be fun! Back to the build!

Both the fab shop and the machine shop are behind schedule, but both have promised to have their parts for the slide-room rams finished up by tomorrow morning. The higher-precision machining work is being done at my friend's gun factory. They make these:

I got to shoot one a few weeks ago. Pretty amazing firearm, though I don't have enough experience or knowledge to know. They have a pile of CNC machines that can do incredible things to blocks of aluminum and steel.

Meanwhile, back at D&A, Jose has been busy building the inner and outer slide tubes for the rams.

The two outer tubes have 5 "U" brackets to mount onto matching angle brackets that will be bolted to the upper outside corners of the camper body. There's also a galvanized SuperStrut track welded to the inside of each outer tube that support the rollers for the solar panel assembly that moves back with the slide room.

A coupling has been fab'd up and welded into each to mate with the Reico-Titan 5K motors.

The motor in each ram turns a 118" ACME screw threaded through a 18" chassis with two low-friction nuts. The chassis assembly also has roller bearings to reduce friction as the inner tube telescopes. Speaking of compromises, these rams are blazing example. My hope was to keep the camper body as composite as possible, but I simply lost my patience trying to come up with a more elegant way of supporting the cantilevered room during deployment. But since I'm under budget on weight, I figured what the hell, why not add some beef? And it will allow me to mount a hoist off the back, which will be a nice addition to the master plan.

My hope is to post some photos tomorrow of the the whole thing put together.

 

[NeverEnough]

It's been a while...

Busy summer, always is...... so it's been a while since an update. Vacations and other priorities have forced some progress interruptions. Our summer has been very short in Park City this year, so we've had to squeeze in some fun before the snow flies again.

Water is still everywhere, including a lot of the backcountry roads we ride.

One of my sons helping out on a SAR operation in the Uinta Mountains.

We had to descend Oweep Creek Canyon, and got to see this amazing waterfall, which is one of the biggest in Utah, but also the most inaccessible.

The trailer is just about wrapped up and we've taken her on a shakedown trips already. Here she is up on her jacks behind the shop:

I've been very pleased with the design and performance thus far. The trailer tows great, has excellent ground clearance and manuverability on dirt roads, and is amazingly quiet at camp. The PV setup is awesome. It's been great to be in camp for 5 days with plenty of electric power and no need to turn on a generator.

The jacks work great, and it's easy to lift the body off of the flat bed after releasing the four retention latches.

The jacks have also come in handy for leveling the rig for various construction tasks (and will obviously make changing tires a snap!)

The rig needed to be perfectly level when I put down the expoxy/paint chip floor coatings. I've got the same finish on my garage and decided to try the same thing in the trailer. It's worked out great so far. The dark lines are CoreTrax cargo system tracks recessed into the floor. The panels in front hide all the "guts" and use Southco marine "pop out" knobs for easy access.

The black water tank is on the left, then the fresh water tank. The center section has a double compartment that slides out on wheels holding 2 220ah AGM batteries and the Xantrex inverter. There's also a spacious storage compartment on the right.

This is the Point of Use 2.5 gallon hot water heater, which just squeezes in under the amperage limits of the inverter. Works great.

The camper is also moving along, although we've got a bit of a "stealth" phase going on with the slid-out mechanisms. Photos to come soon. There's been a fair amount of innovation and invention going on which has been both fun and frustrating (and expensive). I'll do my best to get more photos posted of the whole build soon- kid's go back to school next week, so we're squeezing in as much play time as possible!

 

[Ford Prefect]

Very nice!

I just took my new bike out and went up American Fork Canyon yesterday. It was a blast! I really loved to get out there, so I can fully see why you and your family might have been doing more of that than posting up here!

Of course I did have one accident up there... I put the bike back on the trailer, and cinched it down so hard that I put the kick stand right through the floor of my trailer! BUT if that is the worst that happens...

Feel free to post up some more moto photos for us! Not to mention an idea of how to get to that waterfall please...

Cheers

 

[Deleted member 9101]

A m a z i n g ! ! !

 

[URY914]

It doen't look as if you have provided a walk or crawl space to get from the cab of the truck back to the living area. Did you give this any thought? I think it would be a great advantage.

 

[NeverEnough]

It doen't look as if you have provided a walk or crawl space to get from the cab of the truck back to the living area. Did you give this any thought? I think it would be a great advantage.

It'll be there. I just didn't want to cut the holes and make the doors until I had to, especially since I've been using the truck so much during the build. The crawl-through will measure 24" wide by 40" tall. Since the camper can be detached from the truck, a door/hatch is required both on the camper and truck cab. I've decided on using a simple "plug" style hatch on the cab and a more traditional side-hinge, in-swing on the camper. I've toyed with using a custom "air donut" for the seal instead of the more common accordion rubber seal setup. I imagine I'll have to make that decision soon.

 

[NeverEnough]

Very nice!

I just took my new bike out and went up American Fork Canyon yesterday. It was a blast! I really loved to get out there, so I can fully see why you and your family might have been doing more of that than posting up here!

Of course I did have one accident up there... I put the bike back on the trailer, and cinched it down so hard that I put the kick stand right through the floor of my trailer! BUT if that is the worst that happens...

Feel free to post up some more moto photos for us! Not to mention an idea of how to get to that waterfall please...

Cheers

I've tried to find a reference to the falls and can't dig anything up. I'm sure a few hunters know of the location, but doubt many others have seen them. My team's exit assignment was to sweep Oweep Creek from the headwaters to the confluence with Lake Fork Creek. The falls are about a 1/2 mile upstream of the confluence, and the approach requires some ropecraft skills. I can send you my GPS track if you want to check them out.

And take it easy with the tie-downs!!!!:Wow1:

 

[NeverEnough]

Flame test

We had to braze a different fitting onto our Spinflo range this morning, so I decided to do an impromptu flame test on our Aerogel insulation to see if it would work as a fire blanket while we did the work.

The documentation claims it won't catch fire, and it doesn't. Pretty amazing stuff. Despite being completely blackened on one side, the other side showed only slight discoloration, even after being exposed to the torch for 30 seconds.:Wow1:

 

[NeverEnough]

The tempo on my project has definitely slowed due to other priorities at my brother's shop. But things are getting done everyday nonetheless.

There's been a lot of testing and tweeking of the slide-out room assembly and associated mechanisms. It's just about ready for prime time. I had to whip out my soldering iron and do some laps to Radio Shack to build some smarts into the system. Here's the first functional prototype:

It's a sensor array that talks to an actuator at the rear of the slide mechanism:

Since the slide out room has a travel stroke of 100" and could weigh almost a ton when fully loaded, some dynamic adjustment was needed to account for flex in the system components to keep it moving smoothly and reduce stress/wear on the assembly. The sensors are triggered by lasers when the room gets off-kilter and tell the actuator/s what to do to adjust. It works pretty slick, and, considering the time and expense that's gone into stuff like this, it's one of several designs/mechanisms that I've filed for patent protection on.

With the slide-out room working as desired, it was time to fab up the solar panel array, which follows the slide-out to open up the roof space an observation deck. I started with 2x2x.25" aluminum angle.

Then added the SunPower extrusions that hold the panels.

PCB bearings are mounted on the sides and slide in unistrut track welded onto the nerf bar/actuators on the roof.

There's also a set of wheels that support the center strut (hence the plywood sheet protecting the roof until I glue on the permanent .25" wear guard). You can see how the whole thing moves back with the room as it deploys.

Here's a bad shot of three of the six panels being dry fit onto the assembly. The whole thing weighs about 200lbs. (with panels).

Got to run to a wedding, but I'll try my best to do more frequent updates!